Short Stories

a wendigo stole my friends skin

I know many people claim to see aliens and monsters and so on. I am here to do the same, so you can believe me or not but my friend is missing and I know this thing has him. My name is Tristan Meadows. I am a 19-year male, with a bit of programming experience. I try to keep fit and work out daily and eat somewhat healthily. I'm pretty tall for my age, but then again I have seen younger people stand at 6 feet tall. I think that's enough about me, my friend is a bit different from me. First, his name is Charles white and is 20 years old. He is maybe 5.6 so I am much taller. He is also a bit heavy set. We met at work and hung out almost all day after playing video games together. 

He lived in a not so safe neighborhood so I ended up asking him if he wanted to be my roommate. Honestly, I don't regret the decision, he always paid on time or even early. The man had the best matters and normally didn't do anything that made me mad. One day though, I wanted to take a break from work after finishing this big project that gave me away too much stress. So I suggested to Charles that we should go on a big hiking trip. He was a bit hesitant as he hadn't done anything like this in a long time. He would finally agree and we took the next week off work and began to get things to do this trip. A few days passed and it was time to go on the trip. We packed everything in my jeep the night before. That morning was great, we sat at the living table and drank coffee as we looked over the map of the land. 

We didn't plan to do anything extreme and simply decided to go to a national park and walk the trails till finding a place to camp for the night then stay a few days and after we head home. With everything planned out and our mugs empty and washed we hopped into the jeep and I drove to the park. The ride over there was normal, nothing too special to mention here. Once we arrived we noticed very few people were there. It would be odd as it's summertime but at the same time with covid going crazy. Everything is not as it used to be. Anyways we got out and began to unpack when a girl ran to her car and seemed to be in a panic. We both went to her to calm her down and see what was going on. She spoke in Spanish which I don't speak at all. She then hopped in her car and sped off. We both were taken back by this a bit but Charles just said:

"Ah, don't worry about it, man. I bet it's just something she saw that spooked her. Could have been a deer or many rabbits humping in brushes making it sound like something was behind her running." 

I chuckled at the comment from Charles which calmed my nerves a bit and we both decided to continue with our trip. I wish we took this as a warning and left. Maybe then Charles wouldn't be missing. I opened the trunk and looked at the 4 bags and the large cooler. I grabbed a backpack holding camping supplies and both our tents while Charles grabbed the last backpack and the cooler. Luckily the cooler had wheels as it was pretty heavy to carry even for the both of us. Once all geared up and ready to go we began to walk into the woods on the cleared gravel path. I felt this odd feeling that we were not alone but I told myself that it was just not being in the woods for so long. We continued down the path for a good hour or two, coming to a small clearing near a small creek. It was a bit off the trail but from the spot, you could see the pathway we took. We started by setting up our tents and placing our supplies into them. This is when Charles then said:

"So now what idea, guy?" 

I shrugged and replied with

"Honestly I'm not sure, we can check out the creek or continue on the path as I'm pretty sure there is a waterfall further down." 

He would nod and think for a moment before saying:

"Okay, a waterfall sounds a lot more interesting than just a creek." 

With that, we began to travel further down the trail. This time we didn't have hundreds of pounds of stuff on us. Charles started a conversation by saying: