Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

Maybe he’d finished the transcription. Maybe if she went to the bathroom she’d find bristles in the sink, and then he’d be arriving back with cleanshaven cheeks, a bottle of white wine, take-out from the Mediterranean place they’d loved so much that first month after moving in. She would tell him she had news; he would already know. For a moment the image was so clear that Kristine nearly stopped the microwave and put the leftovers back into the fridge.

Instead, she went to the study. The door was wide open again, but the window was shut. Noel hadn’t taken the laptop with him. Kristine hesitated for a moment, then plucked it off the desk and sat down on the hide-a-bed with it. Her hand kneaded the sheets while it booted up. The password screen appeared, and Kristine put in her name, clacked the enter key. The affirmative chime made her almost smile.

The transcription window was already waiting, a block of IPA symbols. Kristine tried to remember the phonetics classes she’d taken; most of the sounds she’d already forgotten. One word seemed to be recurring: She pulled up the next window, and saw that Noel had translated a section into English. At the top it was labeled audio48.mp3 . Kristine clicked back to the sound files and pulled the headphones up over her ears. She started to read.

the wendigo is hunger, and hunger is the wendigo. a man travelled by night. he hunted the herd. the wendigo hunted the man. a man travelled by night and through the wood, and the [blizzard] snow drove him off his trail. the wendigo hunted the man, its arms were the cold and its teeth were the wind. a man had death inside [in stomach]. the cold kills, the hunger kills. hunger is the wendigo. a man lies down in the snow. his body is given to the ice. a man travelled alone. the wendigo came to him with [singing] open mouth. the wendigo has jaws as icicles. the wendigo gives to the man a dark warm heart of human meat. a man can die, or a man can eat. a man travelled by night. he ate the wendigo’s [offering]. the man lives, the hunger stays. hunger is the wendigo. a man travelled by night,

“Krissy?”

She flung upright, all her nerves sparked at once; Noel was inches away and his eyes were black as jet. The laptop crashed to the floor between them, Kristine’s heart hammered in her throat. His face was gaunt, stretched thin, canvas over bones.

“Why did you write that?” Kristine whispered.

“I didn’t,” Noel said. The glass Pyrex pan from the microwave was clutched in his one hand. He held it out between them, arm shaking slightly.

“Bullshit you didn’t. What do you mean? What do you mean you didn’t write it?” Kristine stepped back and felt the cold edge of the hide-a-bed against the bends of her knees. Noel’s pale face was slick with sweat.

“I translated it,” he said, voice wavering. “It was already there. I knew it was there. I just had to find it. Those old men had so many stories.” He held the Pyrex out again, still shaking, and Kristine took it so it wouldn’t fall.

“Why are you doing this?” Kristine demanded. The glass was cold again. “Why are you fucking inventing this?”

“I’m not,” Noel pleaded. “Krissy. Look.”

And she had to. He held up his spidery hand, so much more bone than she remembered it, wrists like doorknobs, and planted his teeth in the webbing between thumb and finger. With a wet tearing sound, he sheared through the flesh. Kristine’s lungs caught, she anticipated the spray of bright red blood, but there was nothing. Something thick and black glistened along the torn skin, and then suddenly the hand was back together again.

“It can’t be me,” Noel said. “I tried.”

“Oh, my God, Noel.”

His face contorted all at once and he lunged, his teeth suddenly canine; Kristine swung the glass dish in the same motion. It slammed against his temple with a thick crack: Noel was reeling off to the side, cursing in French, and Kristine was pushing past him, slamming the door, throwing herself against it. Her breath came in a wail. Noel’s body thumped against the door once, then twice, Kristine shoved back with her shoulders, and then he stopped.

“We’re going to call emergency,” Kristine said, when her heart was beating again. “I’m dialing 911. There’s something, I don’t know, some disease you picked up up there. I know this isn’t you. I know it can’t be you.” She couldn’t keep her voice steady, it slipped away from her between words.

“Oh, fuck,” came Noel’s voice, raw. “Oh, fuck. I drove to the university hospital. That’s where I was. Jacob. You remember Jacob. The med-student. He told me how they keep cadavers. I thought, maybe, I don’t know. I couldn’t get in. They called security.”

“This can’t be real, Noel.”

He went on like he hadn’t heard. “Then I thought, the morgue, maybe. Or, I don’t know.” He gave a broken laugh. “A graveyard. Maybe that. I have to know. I just have to. I’m going to die soon. If I don’t eat, I’m going to die.”

Kristine was muffling a sob in her hand, biting down as hard as she could. “A doctor,” she gasped.

“This can’t be for doctors. When you’re wendigo, you’re wendigo. Until you give in. That was what they said.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.” He stopped. “There are more stories. More transcriptions. Maybe if I keep going, keep looking. I don’t know.”

Kristine didn’t reply. She sat against the door, tears sticky on her cheeks, and waited for hours. Waited for Noel’s breathing to turn regular, shallow but regular, so she was sure he was asleep. She moved the bookcase in front of the study door, groaning and scraping. It was heavy. Her hands came away with deep red welts.

She was up early the next morning, wiping down the kitchen counters and stovetop with Purell so everything gleamed. When she popped the ice cubes out of their tray they skittered off the table and onto the floor. Her hands were shivering as she dropped them one by one into a plastic bag. She set her wedding ring on the counter and dialed her mother.

“Hey, honey, what’s up?”

“Call me my name?” Kristine’s voice came in a sob; she tamped it down.

“What’s wrong, Kristine?”

“It’s nothing,” Kristine said, toying with the ring. “I just remembered, that cousin you had, the farmer. He lost his hand in a thresher. He just wore it on the other finger, right? His wedding ring, I mean. He wore it on the right.”

“That’s right, yes. On the right. I think that might be how they do it in Europe, too.”

“Okay.” Kristine packed more ice around her left ring finger, waiting for the numb. “I was just remembering that.” She went to the counter, to the shiny Cutco knives, another wedding gift. She tried to remember the sharpest one.

“Was that all? I’m half-asleep, honey.”

“When dad died, you said you’d have traded anything, didn’t you?” Kristine asked. “Anyone or anything.” There was a long pause. Kristine looked down at her left hand, thinking of how it cupped when she swam, how the fingers all melded together and bit the water just so. She thought about the small warm thing growing in her belly.

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember exactly what I said.”

“Okay,” Kristine said, turning the stovetop on. “Bye, mom.”

“Bye, honey.”

Kristine held the ice around her finger and stared at the stove element, waiting for it to turn orange.