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Two whole months had passed since that fated night at Blackwood and nobody was any closer to finding the person they once were before those terrifying sequence of events had unfolded.
Ashley was still seeing a therapist three times a week for her new and understandably crippling fear of death. Matt still stayed close enough to Emily so that some part of him was always touching her – he wouldn’t risk having to let her go again. It didn’t annoy Emily as much as it would have done before, especially now that she couldn’t bear to be alone. Chris still clammed up and broke out in a sweat every time he was faced with a decision, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed to those around him. Mike’s hand still went to curl round a gun whenever something startled him – that didn’t take much anymore. Jessica had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and still found it difficult to even leave her house. Sam always froze whenever someone moved a little too fast around her. And Josh… well, the official story was that he was still missing.
He was a sensitive subject in their group. Had it not been for his insane plan, neither of them would have been on the mountain that night. They might never have stepped foot on it again. But looking at it from a more respectable viewpoint, he had been clueless about the Wendigo. How could he have possibly known the true horrors that they shared the mountain with? Josh was severely ill mentally and hadn’t been taking the medication for it. His only game-plan had been to put them through an elaborate and terrifying prank. He just wanted to make them feel as scared and hopeless as his sisters had on the night of their disappearance. The disappearance that they had caused.
His name was a name they tried not to mention. But Sam couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t. There was a void in her life now. A huge, empty, Joshua shaped hole that was evident everywhere she looked, everywhere she went. Every time she closed her eyes, it was his face she saw. It wasn’t the face she would have liked to remember with the smooth skin and the cute smile. It was the crumpled face of defeat that she had seen in the mines, and it would be forever burned into her mind.
Sam had done a good job of holding herself together given the circumstances she’d had to adjust to after. Once they’d left Blackwood and the adrenaline had run out of her system and she was sitting in the police station, she’d realised she couldn’t hear anything from one ear. Emily had mentioned passively that it was bleeding, but everyone was bleeding somewhere, so it hadn’t been a big deal. Not until she was told by a doctor at the hospital they’d been escorted to that she had cochlear damage and would be permanently deaf in her right ear.
Ashley had started therapy sessions in an attempt to work through her own issues, and when she did, she tried to advise Sam to book a couple of sessions of her own to come to grips with why she would never be able to hear properly again, but Sam never did go. What was the point? She refused to go into detail about what had happened at the lodge with anyone anymore. Her story had been told countless times within the few days after. The only thing she kept held onto from that night, from before, the one thing she wouldn’t let drop, was Josh.
In hindsight, maybe that was why Ashley was trying so hard to introduce Sam to her therapist, but instead of a middle-aged stranger having to deal with her problems, it was Mike that dealt with the brunt of Sam’s concern – her denial as she had heard him say to Chris once. Everyone else had given up. As soon as Sam’s face darkened and her eyes became distant, they knew what was coming, and they were always quick to make excuses just to get away from it. Not Mike though. Mike listened to her go round in circles. He watched on helplessly as she tortured herself with Josh’s name and the fresh new memories to go with it that were so raw and achingly painful.
One night, just before the third month mark of their night at the lodge, Mike was visiting Sam, and as usual, he tried to keep the conversation normal and casual, or as close as he could get to that now. He was telling her that he made some more progress with Jessica. They had managed to watch a film together the whole way through and she’d laughed with him! The news pleased Sam greatly, and she wanted to congratulate him for still sticking by Jess and taking the small steps that was needed for her recovery, but as usual, her thoughts drifted… drifted back to the mountain and what lurked in the mines. The mines that they’d left Josh in.
‘He is dead, you know.’
She saw Mike stifle a sigh and throw a glance over his shoulder to double check that the doors were closed. Of course they were. It was a habit they had all subconsciously picked up. Keep the doors closed.
‘We’ve been through this, Sam. Hannah didn’t kill him.’ Mike said firmly, but gently. The tone of his voice was familiar to her now. He was exasperated, she knew this. It didn’t sway her, didn’t change her mind, because he was wrong. He had to be wrong.
‘Not straight away.’
‘You know Hannah died in the explosion.’ Mike began slowly, ‘There was none of them left to go back for him.’
‘Then at least he died with his head still attached to his body.’ Sam replied bitterly. Her jaw clenched and her fingers tightened round the mug of coffee she held as the words left her mouth. God, it hurt to talk about Josh in such a way. But she’d rather that than for one second say out loud what Mike had been trying to convince her of for the past few months.
‘He didn’t die.’ Mike said, ‘You know just as well as I do what’s happened to him. Why do you think they haven’t found him yet? Why the people that go looking don’t come back?’
‘No!’ Sam snarled. One of her hands came down hard on the table with a ringing whap that echoed round the kitchen. The loud, sudden sound made Mike’s fingers twitch towards a gun that wasn’t present on him. When he realised, he winced, but Sam took no notice.
‘You listen to me, Michael Munroe. You will not convince me that Josh became of those… those things… those monsters! Josh. Is. Dead. You hear me? He’s dead! And we were the ones who left him to die. We left him, just like we did with Beth and – ’
Sam cut herself off before the name slipped out. To bring Hannah into comparison would mean facing the facts that maybe history had repeated itself that night. A prank gone wrong. A Washington left to rot in the mines, alone, cold, and so, so hungry…
‘No.’ Sam said again, softer this time. Her clear hazel eyes remained locked on Mike’s brown ones. They were so sympathetic, pleading with her to understand, and not make him say the words out loud. He despised the thought too, maybe more than she did. After all, he had faced a sanitarium full of the creatures that, once upon a time, had been in the exact same situation... as Josh.
All of a sudden, as swift and destructive as a bolt of lightning, the truth broke through the lies Sam had so stubbornly used as a guard to protect herself, and it was as if the world shattered around her, breaking into tiny little splinters of guilt that stabbed her painfully with every breath.
‘No… he isn’t, Michael. He isn’t!’ Sam shook her head as her resolve continued to crumble, ‘He can’t be! It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be right! When we found him down there, he was so scared, and he trusted us to help him. He trusted us, and we just left him there! Fuck, he was so scared, Mike!’
Mike leaned forward in his chair, reaching out to her with his bottom lip clamped between his teeth worriedly. The edge of hysteria in her voice was alarming to her, so she didn’t blame Mike for being so uncertain. This was out of character for her. After everything they’d been through, she had remained steady and collected, but the calm, strong charade was slipping, and the reality of what was happening – what had happened – was now too clear.
Josh was not dead, but he was something much, much worse.
‘It was easier to pretend that she killed him.’ Sam admitted through short, panting breaths, ‘She should have killed him. I’d rather that than – ’
There was no way she would be able to force the words from her lips. To distract herself, she focused on Mike’s face again. She was expecting to see disgust written across his features at what she was saying, or maybe even anger and disappointment. There was nothing there but resignation. Relief.
‘Me too.’ He whispered finally. He was now unable to look at her, ‘Death would have been more peaceful than what he went through.’
A spasm of pain tore through Sam, leaving her breathless. Oh, Josh… her Josh… had he tried to comfort himself with the thought that they would go back for him? Would he have told himself they wouldn’t leave him to the same fate as his sister? That they would swoop in and save him before the curse consumed his entire being? How long had he held onto hope that he would see their faces again before he succumbed to his hunger… before he had taken the first step in becoming one of them?
A loud sob burst from Sam’s lips, which was a surprise not just to Mike, but to herself also. Sam hadn’t cried since they got back, not even when she saw her parents again and her mother had wept into her hair that she loved her. Everything was different now and she was seeing the situation with brand new eyes that weren't clouded with grief-fueled delusions.
‘How could we do that to him?’ she cried, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why didn’t we help him, Mike? Why didn’t we do something?’
There was too much emotion boiling through her to sit and cry quietly. All the fear and the anxiety and the frustration came to an explosive head without any warning, and Sam reacted to it instinctively. She took the mug that was in her hand and she flung it to the side, away from her, as hard as she could. It smashed into one of the bottom cupboards. Coffee splashed up the sides of the smooth wood. Ceramic shards littered the floor tiles.
It was too tempting in her highly sensitised state to snatch Mike’s mug out of his hands and do the same thing again, so to resist the urge, Sam curled herself into a tight ball on the seat and sobbed into her knees as her heart was torn to shreds.
‘Sam, hey! Hey, it’s all right. It’s all right, you’re gonna be fine, okay? It’s gonna be fine.’ Suddenly, Mike was there, out of his seat and by her side, and he was prying her out of the position she was in so that he could pull her into a tight hug. Carefully, he made sure that her head was positioned correctly so that she could still hear him if he was to talk.
‘We didn’t help him…’ Sam locked her arms round Mike’s neck and clung to him in a manner that she would have been embarrassed about if the situation had been any different, ‘We just… we just gave up before we even started…’
‘There was nothing we could have done,’ Mike said, ‘Nobody believed us to check it out quick enough.’
‘Because they thought we killed him.’ Sam squeezed her eyes shut against a fresh onslaught of tears, ‘We should have kept fighting them until they went down there and got him. Maybe if we’d kept pushing it they would have found him earlier and… and maybe…’
‘Don’t torture yourself with how things could have been. It’s only going to make this worse.’ Mike’s tone was sharp, but he gave her a quick squeeze round the middle to make up for it.
They stayed like that for a long time, until Sam’s sobs had subsided and her tears had dried from her cheeks. Even then, it was hard for her to pull away. There was something between them now that wasn’t romantic, or even in the slightest bit sexual, but whatever it was ran deep and it was strong, and that strength was exactly what she needed to help her now. They had survived together; looked death straight in the face and then walked away together. There was no way to come out of something like that without a bond being formed. She had never been so thankful for it than in that very moment.
‘Better now?’ Mike laid a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder.
She nodded, ‘Yeah, a little. I’m uh, I’m sorry you had to see any of that.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve had plenty of practice lately.’ He tried to shrug it off lightly, but his smile was too small and his eyes were too tight. Sam's chest ached again.
‘I’m sorry Jess isn’t the same girl you fell in love with, Mike. That’s obviously gonna take a long time. But… just be thankful you still have her, yeah?’
‘Yeah…’ Mike sighed, and they both went quiet. Sam stared at the remnants of the mug on the floor, trying to concentrate on what her mother would say when she got home and found out there was a mug missing. However, her thoughts failed to stray too far from Josh. He was like a constant mantra in her head, a toxic rhythm that was only making her miserable. The only difference was that, in her minds eye, Josh now looked like the creatures from her nightmares. He was too tall and unnaturally thin, and his skin was sickly white, translucent, and his teeth were jagged, his nails long and sharp…
Bile rose in Sam’s throat. She quickly choked it down, but the image was there now, and there was no dislodging it. Josh was a Wendigo, just like his sister had been before they burnt her to a crisp in a home that had once been so familiar and full of joy for them. Josh was a Wendigo, and once again, it was all their fault.