“I’ve got more if you want some,” I offered. They recoiled and shook their heads. They’d both lost their appetites when the queer noises started after sunset.
My wristwatch beeped, and I glanced down. It was 7 p.m., a little more than two hours after sundown. The first of the noises started about an hour ago, and I was thankful that I’d already started a camp fire. My biggest fear now was that we wouldn’t have enough wood to keep it going through this long Halloween night.
I first noticed the strange noises long before the two folklore students from Claiborne State. At first, I thought it was a large buck, picking its way through the decayed deadfalls near Kill Devil Hill. The sounds came and went, as the creature likely stopped to listen and sniff the somber air.
Whatever it was, the thing in the Stygian darkness was large. The sound that finally got the attention of the girls was a tremendous, startling crack that had to have been caused by a large limb as it snapped under the weight of the thing’s shambling passage. No doubt the blasphemous thing had seen and smelled our open campfire.
If it was supernatural, I felt we would be safe inside the thin ring of salt we’d put down before dark. If it was something natural, we had the fire and our handguns. If it bleeds, it can be killed.
My senses were on edge in expectation that something was about to happen at any moment. The quaking, trembling women were on the verge of panic, so I acted nonchalant about the situation. I pulled out my smoking pipe and leather tobacco pouch.
The women watched in silence through the woodsmoke as I packed my pipe with tobacco and fired it with my Zippo. It was then I noticed that the woods had grown quiet, as if the trees had inhaled in expectation of something ominous. Just then, a tree cracked loudly near the mirthless, weathered hilltop. Best guess, it was about a football field’s length away to the east, between our camp and my Jeep.
I spun to look over my shoulder, and my headlamp beam was just strong enough to illuminate the barely discernable outline of a pine top as it shook against the night sky. My mind raced as I tried to think of something that could shake a large pine like that. No natural explanation came to mind.
Corwin began to cry softly, and Armitage placed an arm around her friend’s shoulder in a feeble attempt to comfort her. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” Corwin said, sniffing. “Let’s pack our stuff and head back to Claiborne.”
I took a puff on my pipe and exhaled slowly. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. “As long as you stay with me and inside the salt circle, you’ll be okay. It, whatever it is, wants you to come down off the hill.”
Corwin sniffed and collected herself. “It? What is It?” she asked.
I took another long draw off my pipe and shrugged my shoulders. My mind whispered “wendigo,” but my mouth said, “I honestly do not know.” Somewhere, off in the distance, a coyote let loose with a savage, wailing howl that made the hair stand on the back of my neck.
“Listen to them, the children of the night,” I said, remembering my Stoker. “What music they make.”
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