Day of the Wendigo

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must be about being snowed in.

Day of the Wendigo

Andrea huddled in the small crawl space under the stairs. Her dad had been gone for more than an hour now. He had said he would be right back and that she was not to be afraid.

Now, alone in the small dark room, she was not afraid. She was terrified.

First came the clouds; dark and low, quickly blocking out the heat and light that should have been flooding the small town on this day in June. The storm began when the last speck of sunlight disappeared from the ground. Snow fell in blankets, quickly piling up in high drifts against the houses on the block.

Andrea had been on her way home from school when the clouds first moved in. She got home moments before snow had begun to fall. That had been more than five hours ago. Now they were stuck in the house. She and her dad didn’t worry too much, didn’t think to hide, saw no reason to fear … until the screams started.

Like the cry of baby in the distance, the sound was uncertain and ill-formed at first. As it grew in volume, so did the ferocity of what they were hearing. It sounded like people screaming the scream of terror beyond imagination. Dad had looked out the window before quickly grabbing Andrea by the hand and heading for the crawl space.

She had heard the front door crash open and the sound of something large, like a bull or an elephant pounding around the house. The smell had hit them like a hammer. They fought to not gag fearing the sound would give them away. Even at the age of twelve, Andrea knew this smell; it was the smell of death.

She cracked the door a little and whispered quietly, “Daddy?”

word count 299