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“Emily, how’s it wild camping if we have to book the damn island. Come on, help me with the raft.”
“But Patrick, what if we get caught?”
“No one expects us in this part of Poisson Blanc so late in the season. Already threatening to snow. The cowards who camp here with RVs, and surfboards, and smartphones don’t know what nature is. Better set up camp. It’s getting dark.”
“I’ll light a fire, Pat.”
As the sun descended into the west, something was rising.
“What’s that howling, Pat?” They were sitting by the fire roasting fresh trout.
“Don’t know, but it’s getting closer.”
“You said no dangerous animals here.”
“Shouldn’t be. No wolves so…”
From just beyond the circle of firelight, a huge shape slowly emerged from the forest, eyes glowing. It said one word. “Wendigo.” Then amid their shrieks, Patrick and Emily were messily devoured by the cannibal amphibian.
I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use the location provided from Google maps as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is exactly 150.
Today, the Pegman takes us to Poisson-Blanc, Quebec. I looked the place up and this Regional Park offers just about every outdoor activity you can imagine, including being able to reserve small islands for wild camping.
I looked up “wild camping,” and while it has a variety of applications, in it’s purest form, it’s camping with a minimal equipment, no provided facilities (showers, bathrooms, picnic tables and the like), and you shouldn’t have to pay for it.
That was part of my hook, but then I needed to create drama. How many TV shows and movies have depicted young and daring campers encountering some sort of menace in an isolated location?
I remembered the legend of the Wendigo, ironically from an old “Incredible Hulk” comic book which featured the very first appearance of “The Wolverine” (you may know the character better from the “X-Men” and “Wolverine” movies). Anyway, like Big Foot, Wendigo is a legendary creature, but to make it worse, it eats people.
How did this creature go so long undetected? I gave it the feature of being amphibious, and no one is looking for it underwater.
For more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.
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Cannibal Amphibian would be a great band name!
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Maybe you could suggest it to some up and coming musicians.
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If you go down to the woods today, you’ll get eaten by a giant amphibian! Nicely told monster tale, James
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Well, you have to be really alone so no one will sight the Wendigo, but yes. Maybe this critter is responsible for some mysterious disappearances over the years. Thanks, Lynn.
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My pleasure 🙂
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You covered all the bases with your research and story production, James. Are you pleased with your home run?
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Well, within the limit of 150 words anyway, Kelvin. The real chore was researching what would have happened if Europe had never colonized America. There was a good YouTube video that explored the concept, plus a couple of helpful articles suggesting that a Chinese explorer may have visited the American west before Christopher Columbus was even a gleam. The next chapter in my “Key Out of Time” series, which I hope to get online later today, goes into some of the details. I also had to create a bunch of sea monsters so arranged for a collection of oceanic predators to be brought forward in time from 65 million years ago. I don’t know if anyone has ever combined these things before. If you (or anyone) are interested, start with Prologue: Key Out of Time and then click links to the two other chapters currently available. Oh, this is actually the fourth “book” in the series, so there are dozens of previous chapters all that lead up to this crisis for my “time agents”.
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I’d forgotten about the Wendigo. Interesting to have it amphibious. Creepy, too.
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Well, I added the amphibious part to the legend, but you’re right, Alicia. Definitely creepy.
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Yeek, maybe they should have booked ahead. It’s probably some kind of “guard wendigo” 🙂
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The whole point was not booking ahead. 😉
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Dear James,
I’m scratching ‘wild camping’ off my bucket list.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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LOL. I’m sure it’s not all like that, Rochelle. Thanks.
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Cool story and thanks for introducing me to Wendingo! If you want to take another 150 words to talk about that messy devouring part it’s OK with me. 🙂
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These flash fiction challenges come with a hard word count limit, but I trust your imagination will be able to fill in the missing details in the “devouring” part. 😉
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