Speaker 1: I always brought two drinks up the tower crane with me,
one thrmos for coffee and a bottle for the strongest stuff.
I kept it tucked deep in my rocksack, half wrapped
in an old flannel to keep it from clinking. I
sipped it slowly, just enough to keep the shake out
of my hands as the moon rose, and up there
above the trees, no one could see. The shakes had
gotten worse since I came out here. I wasn't proud
of it. Would ye sit up in a steel box
one hundred and forty meters off the ground with nothing
but wind and birds for company? Eventually you'd need something
to pass the time, I had a book. My daughter
erely gave me on my lap, a stiff little paper
back called Field Guide to North American Cryptids in bright
red lettering. It was clearly a kid's book. She'd handed
it to me during my last visit back in Trurow
and said who was to keep me company? I laughed
and told her she was nuts, but she just rolled
her eyes and said, you'll read it when you're bored.
She was right. When I first opened it, there was
a yellow, sticky note in her handwriting stuck on the
front page. It read, don't get eatn Dad, You're too
grumpy for that. Her mom doesn't let me see her much,
not since the hearing. Last year. I missed a couple
of pickups while working out west and couldn't get back
in time, and she used that to file for full custody.
She's not wrong to want's stability for Ellie. I get that,
but I'm trying, I really am. I take these jobs
so I can pay what I owe for child support
and legal payments, and maybe show the court that I'm
not some dead beat and a hard hat. The best
paying ones mean coming all the way out here and
sleeping in a trailer six nights a week. But it's
worth it if I can pick Elly up with something
new in the back seat and take a for ice
cream without checking my balance first. The past few nights
had been colder than expected. I pulled a bottle from
my pack and took a swig. The whiskey did the
trick and settled in warm under my ribs. We were
ahead of schedule. I leaned back, thumbed the edge of
the book, and looked out the glass. The radio mumbled
in and out, tie in that corner. Where's that extra
bracket gone? Rob? Check the clearance by tower three? Same
odd stuff. I didn't listen to most of it. I
only kept my ear open for anything meant for me.
Then a new voice cut in, Hang on, there's something
down by the tree line. Another voice crackled back, what
do you mean? I sat up, frowning. Lights near the
equipment trailers were still on, stretching long shadows into the brush.
It could have been a moose, maybe a black bear,
but the voices on the radio didn't sound calm. Movement
by tower floor, you guys seeing that? Then came static, geez,
what is that? It cut off, panic bled through. There's
something out there, something's moving. Markabull back now, I said, pulp.
I stood so fast the buck slipped off my lap
and hit the floor. I leaned over the control's fingers,
smudging the glass, breath fogging the inside. I wiped it
with my sleeve and squinted hard. Too far to see faces,
but I saw movement. People were running. One figure took
off past the prefab stack. Then something else broke out
of the dark behind him, low to the ground fast
it tackled him, Limbs flying I couldn't see much, but
the thing looked nothing like the workers. Someone else came
running into help. The thing intercepted, lifted the guy clean
off his feet, and slammed him into the floodlight tower.
It collapsed with a clang, smashed into the fuel cage.
Then there was fire, bright and fast. Flames jumped from
tarp to tire, tired to trailer. The crew scattered, the
thing followed. It tore through the camp, and even from
a pie I could tell it wasn't just chasing, it
was hunting. More screams crackled over the radio. One was
just the name over and over. Another came through, crying
for help. Then a wet, cracking noise and silence. Then
I saw it stop, just for a second. The thing
was crouched near the last standing fuel drum, half lit
by the flames, and it lit it up elbow joins
too high. There were no clothes or gear I could
make out. It looked like it had huge antlers. It
stayed low, almost coiled, but when the fire crept closer,
it reared upright, took one step back, and crawled forward
again on all fours. As the fire surrounded my tower,
the thing backed up to my ladders and was so
far below me I couldn't see it anymore. I stepped
back from the glass, heart pounding, then move to the
rear door, the one that covered the ladder access. I
flipped the lock and pushed it open. A crack there
way way down the steel spine of the tower. It
was something moving. He climbed slow but steady, hooking each
limb over wrung after rung. Smoke hit me in the face.
It was thick and full of heat. I doubled back, coughing,
my eyes watered, and slammed the door shut. My hands
slipped on the latch and I locked it again. I
wiped my mouth and searched the cabin. Strapped to the
side panel was a fire extinguisher, one of the heavy
steel canisters dented at the top. I thought, if I
could get a clean hit from this height, it might
cave the things sculling. The fire would die down eventually,
or help would come. I could wait it out climb down.
Once the smoke, I snapped the clips and pulled it loose,
cracked the hatch again and leaned out. I lined up
with where it was on the right side, aimed for
that spot and dropped it. I snapped the hat shot,
stopping the smoke from pouring in, and watched through the
glass as the red cylinder fell briefly before it ricocheted
off one of the support bars and spun once in
the air. Then it clattered like a coin down a
drain and tumbled somewhere out of sight. Near the bottom.
The creature was frozen, one long limb hugged on the
ladder rail, the other hanging loose at its side. I
could see its head tilt slowly until it was looking
up its face if you could call it, that was bone.
From the collar, I could tell it had no skin,
no muscle. The shape was too long and narrow to
be anything human, and it appeared more like a deer skull,
but longer with black sockets. I couldn't see from here.
The antlers weren't wide like a buck. They clawed back,
thin and spun like charred branches. Even with the smoke
and distance between us, I knew it had only just
noticed me. I stumbled back, my shoulder cracked into the wall.
I searched the cabin for anything heavy, like my rocksack,
the radio box, even the goddamn swivel chair if I
could get it loose, but there was nothing here that
would hold against something like that. My hands shook as
I snatched the radio and clicked the receiver, already backing
toward the front window. Anyone copy, I swallowed hard. This
is Marcus up in Taiwan? Is anyone there? Only static
came back. It was a slow clicking of his. I
tried again, anyone alive down there? Someone answer me? Someone? No,
something is climbing the goddamn tower. I turned and looked
down again, hoping, just hoping for some movement, some sign
of life among the smoking flames, but there was nothing.
Then Kyl came to mind. Three days ago, we'd been
eating the lunch out behind the trailer, sitting on the
edge of a pilot stack, with our boots in the dirt.
He was younger than me by decades, with fresh boots
and fresh gloves, and still called the foreman sir, like
it was his first camp. He nudged me with his
elbow while I was halfway through a sandwich. You ever
see teeth in the saw? Before he asked, I glanced
at him like an animal's, shook his head and pulled
a crumpled napkin out of his jacket pocket. Hesitant, he
unwrapped it and held it out. Inside was a yellow tooth.
It was sharpened one end. Christ Man, I said that real.
He nodded. Finded by the west tree line under some roots.
Kept this one. Figured no one would believe me otherwise.
I took a closer look. Looks human, That's what I thought.
There are a bunch of them in the same spot.
You report it, yeah, he said, radioed it in as
soon as we uncovered the first view. They told me
it was probably old dental waste. Said there used to
be a field hospital up here during the war. That
doesn't explain some of the weird bones I found out here.
I remember squinting past him out toward the tree line.
The company had as clearing a stretch near the back
boundary of the site. Apparently the land had been untouched
the decades. Some investors out east picked it up cheap
and wanted the foundations for condos before ski season. The
last real record was from the fire crew in the seventies,
and even they didn't go far too steep, they said.
We sat quietly for a minute. After that. He wrapped
the tooth back up and slipped it into his jacket again,
looking like he wasn't sure if telling me had been
the right idea. That morning, Ellie called just as I
was ready to sleep. See anything cool today, she asked,
I smiled. You mean besides frostbite and rusted steel? She groaned, No,
like cool, cool animals or anything. This place is full
of wildlife, right, Actually, I said, one of the guys
found some old bones teeth actually out by the tree line.
There was a pause, then a voice got a little sharper. Wait, really,
what kind? I didn't want to spooker. Probably a coyote,
could be a fox. We get a lot of weird
stuff out here, she hummed. That's kind of gross, but
also cool. Can you keep one for me? I'm not
sure your mom would love that. She doesn't have to know.
Just hide it like I do with that frog skull.
We'll see, I laughed. Might be a while before I'm back.
That's okay. Just don't get eaten, all right, wouldn't dream
of it? Good, she said, cheerful again. I promised i'd
call the next morning. Then I stayed sitting there long
after the line went dead. I shake down the ladder again.
The thing had made a lot of progress. It was
maybe a quarter to the way up now. I wiped
my damp hands and my jeans and reached from my pocket,
fingers shaking as I pulled out my phone. One bar,
then none. I held it higher angle toward the window.
Then I, unlike the screen, thumbed nine one one and
hit call. There was a crackle and some words in
between emergency. Hello. My stomach flipped. Yes, yes, I'm here.
My name's Marcus Holt. I'm at a tower site off
range six. But there's something down here. People are dead.
It's coming up the crane. I need help. Location, say again,
your Alberta north of Jasper. It's a lease sight towering stall.
You need to get someone out here. Now there's a
fire and something is climbing. The line fractured. There was
a low pulse of static, then nothing but random words
you repeat, climbing. I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. Yes,
it's climbing. I'm at the top. I'm trapped. You have
to hello. Can you hear me? Hello? I stared at
the screen, and after a few moments of silence, I
hung up and tried again. This time I couldn't hear anything.
I lowered myself onto my chair, let the phone drop
in my lap, and stared at it. My chest was tight.
I couldn't seem to breathe right. My hand trembled as
I reached the bottle again and took a small sip,
and it didn't help much. Everything was shaking now, the glass,
my legs, the whole damn cab felt like it was
trembling under me. I slumped back in the chair, letting
it turn slightly on its swivel. The cab creaked faint
and hollow. I stared past the glass to where the
fire had started, trying to find shapes in the dark.
My boot knocked something and I glanced down the book.
It had landed face down in the corner. The edges
were bent and some pages had fanned open underneath. I
reached down, picked it up slowly, and brushed the cover
off with my sleeve. The page was still dog eared
from earlier. That little yellow sticky note stuck out. I'd
been using it as a bookmark. Don't get eat and dad,
you're too grumpy for that. I ran my thumb across
the handwriting. She'd use one of those thick purple pens.
She liked the ones that always seemed to bleed through
paper and made a note look messy. It hit me
harder than I expected. I thought about the last time
I saw her. She'd asked me to take her skating,
but I didn't have enough gas money. I'd promised the
next time i'd take her up to the big rink
and let her rent the flashy white skates, the ones
that made her look like a figure skater. Now I
didn't know if I get to keep that promise. I
stared down at the book and my eyes blurred. I
wiped them with a heel of my hand, sniffed, and
let the book fully fold open through the tears. I
know the hand drawn illustration rough, like something copied from
an old woodcut. It was tall, thin, crawling on all fours,
with a skull face and sharp antlers are twisted like
burnt branches. I stared at the drawing and my body
ran cold. That skull looked exactly like what I saw
on the ladder. It was in the book with the
page titled the Wendigo. I read the paragraph under the name.
It talked about the creature being born of winter. Starvation
and cannibalism. It could never be full, It only stretched
thinner the more it fed. I traced my finger across
every word it said. It brought the cold with it
and left a rot smell that never faded. My hands tensed.
I remembered we had a stench following us all week.
The first day, I thought maybe someone hid a buried
fuel drum or septic gleek. We even talked about it
over a cigarette. God that stinks. Think we hit a
sewer line, Kyle asked, pulling his collar over his nose.
Hell of a sewer system for the middle of nowhere,
I shot back, But the smell never left. It was
sour and meat, sweet like wet hide and a hot trunk.
No matter where we dug it came with. We never
found a pipe. Now I know why. And the cold, geez,
the cold. I remember checking the weather on my phone
a day before getting here. When I climbed up the
first night, it was supposed to be mild, sweater weather
ten maybe fifteen degrees, a little breeze coming off the ridge.
I left my thick gloves in the trailer and zipped
my coat only halfway By the time I hit the cab.
My fingers were stiff, and I had to rub them
together to grip the throttle. I thought maybe the height
was doing it, or that I was just run down.
But even in the cab, with all that glass trapping
heat from the floodlights, I stayed cold to my bones.
I peeked back down the hatch, nervous. It was closer now.
Its hunger seemed to have fed its speed. The shape
of it came through clearer now, just like the picture.
It was more bone than skin, all joints and angles,
limbs that bend in ways that made me feel sick
just watching. Its spine stuck out like a ridge of knuckles,
and its ribs strained under something thin and gray that
might have once been flesh. Its head would tilt unnaturally
to the side every few wrongs, like it was sniffing
me out. My body went soft all over. My hands
were wet with sweat but still freezing cold. I pictured
the thing making it to the top, but I quickly
got that idea out of my head. I had something
to do. I reached for the book and I frantically
scanned through the pages. Come on, I muttered, come on,
come on. My eyes dropped the next paragraph. My fingers
gripped the page tight, almost tearing it. I was desperate
for anything that might stop it. Folklore varies by region
it read, but many accounts agree the creature has an
aversion to fire, and can be stopped by burning it
to death and or carving out its icy heart. I
blinked reading it twice. I'd watched the tear through those
men like paper, wild and frenzied. But then it stopped,
just for a second, right when the flames roared and
surrounded my crane. It hadn't just turned away, No, it
had recoiled from the heat. And now, looking back, God,
it hadn't been climbing the crane for me. I've had
the sick pull in my gut. The fire had been
closing in fast, licking through the trailers, pushing smoke through
the tree tops, and circling the base of the tower.
It didn't charge straight for the ladder until after the
flames got too close. It had gone up the crane
because it had nowhere else to go. I stood there,
book in one hand, mouth dry, and suddenly wanted to
put my fist through the glass. If I hadn't dropped
the goddamn extinguisher. If I just state quiet, maybe it
would have climbed half way up, then waited it out.
Maybe it would have crawled back down once the flames died.
There was a chance it never would have known I
was up here. I stared down at the hatch door,
my chest rising too fast, my breath catching every time
it hit the back of my throat. I kept looking
for something, anything I could use. The extinguisher was gone,
the radio was useless. The fire outside had started to
smother itself in smoke, but it still burned hot along
the south edge just below. Maybe I could time it,
wait until the thing was close enough, and then shove
something heavy down, knock it off the ladder. It had
fallen a long way, bounce off every steel bar on
the way down. Maybe the fire would finish the job.
But what the hell did I have to use? The
chair wouldn't fit through the hair, and even if it did,
I wasn't strong enough to swing it without the thing
grabbing me first. My rucksack was too soft, and the
tool box was bolted to the floor. I nothing solid enough,
nothing sharp enough, nothing that wouldn't guarantee it tore through
me before I got the chance to lift it. The
truth hit me then, real and raw. There was no
fighting this thing head on. I raised my bottle again,
hands trembling, and took a swig in hopes it would
calm my nerves. But the second the liquor hit my tongue,
I stopped, my jaw clenched. I spat it back into
the bottle and coughed hard. Then stared at the bottle
in my hand. There was still at least half left,
and for the first time I really looked at it.
It was flammable. I held the glass tighter. Could I
would that work? I'd seen molotovs and movies through broken
up riots on the news. I remember seeing tom kits
and balaklavas throwing them at squad cars. It was just alcohol, right,
something strong with a rag and a flame. Was it
that simple to make one? Would it explode? Just burn?
Could I even get it lit fast enough before I
blew up? I pulled a lighter from my pocket. I'd
swiped it from Kyle earlier in the week when he
left it on the trailer step. It had a scratched
up image of a girl in bikini, all glossy lipped,
I hadn't meant to keep it, but it reminded me
of the old lighters from the early two thousands, and
I had lost mine earlier. For the first time since
this all started, a plan began to form. Not a
good one, but it was something okay, I whispered to myself.
I pulled the flannel from my rucksack and dug a
knife from the side pocket off my bag. I hagged
a strip from the tail of it and jammed it
into the mouth of the bottle, pushing it down far
enough to soak up the whiskey. I tilted the bottle,
watching the liquor run down the cloth, watching it darken
and cling. I heard it get closer. Its screaming got
louder and louder as it pulled itself up. I would
have to work quickly. I fumbled with the lighter. My
fingers were too wet and shaky to keep it alight
long enough. I had to rub it on my pants
to get dry enough to catch. Small but steady. The
flame bloomed. Then I turned to the hatch. I flung
it open and leaned out, nearly gagging from the heat
and smoke that rolled back in. I looked down and
saw it very close. It would be up in minutes.
My hands moved before I could think. I held the
lighter to the soaked cloth. The flame caught fast, rushing
up the rag. Come on, I whispered. I raised the bottle,
aimed and through it fell for maybe two seconds. That
was all. Then it exploded against the side of the
creature's skull. The glass shattered and flames surged. The whiskey
caught and ran down its neck and shoulders in rivulets,
clinging to the skin like oil, and the fire soon
followed it. The windyghosts screamed a high gurgling how that
punched up and bounced off My CAB's walls, burst in
my ear drums. I watched, terrified as it slipped, caught
itself again, and clung tight. The fire didn't stop. The
flames crawled over its back, igniting it all over. He
shrieked again, and I held the edge of the hatch
with both hands, knuckles white, praying it would let go.
It looked like it might climb through the fire, like
nothing could stop it. For a second, it just hung there,
limbs twitching and every tendon stretched and screaming. One hand
lost this grip first, then the other. The leg slid
off the rail, and then, like something snapping loose in
its mind, it dropped. I watched it for its limbs,
caught the steel on the way down, bouncing, spinning rips,
snapping loud enough to hear through the wind. It cart
wheeled end over end, trailing smoke and sparks, with the
fire still clung to it, until it disappeared out of
sight below. The fire still surrounded the steel of my crane, slower,
now choking itself in its own smoke. I could hear
pops from the tires going off in the equipment yard,
one after another, like dull fire crackers. Then just the wind,
the creak of metal cooling, the low, distant wine of
something allegrical shorting out. I closed the hatch, leaned back
with my head against the cold wall, and let myself shake.
Every inch of me felt wrung out, like I'd been
running a fever for hours, and finally crashed. My hands
smell like burnt cotton and cheap whiskey. My mouth was
dry enough to crack, and somewhere in the back of
my mind was the thought I couldn't push down. That
thing might not be dead. I sat there, trying to
slow my breathing, listening for even the smallest noise, a clang,
a footfall, anything. Nothing came. I don't know how long
I sat like that. It could have been five minutes,
it could have been fifty. Time didn't matter much after
what I just lived through. My thoughts started to drift
again to Elie, don't get eaten, Dad, God, what would
she think if she knew how close I came? Maybe
I'd win some Father of the Year award. The glow
had shifted from violent to tired. A dark smoke column
stretched into the sky like a signal flare. Anyone within
twenty miles would see it. Maybe someone already had a ranger,
another sight. Hell, one of the worker's families might have
called when they didn't check in. Emergency crews had to
be on their way, they had to be. I just
had to wait, just had to stay awake. I pulled
my coat tighter and curled into the corner of the cab,
watching the hatch until my eyes burned. The sky was
beginning to lighten when I heard the first sirens. It
was faint at first, just to rise and fall on
the wind, but enough to jomp me upright. My back
cracked from being hunched too long. I crawled to the
window and pressed my forehead against the cold glass. Flashing
lights cut through the trees below, bouncing off smoke and debris.
A few figures in Hives's jackets moved through the wreckage
with flashlight and radios. I could see a fire crew
trying to smother the remaining flames, and someone pointing toward
the base of the crowd, but none of them locked up.
Once I was sure it was safe, I grabbed the
hatch handle and stared down. The still rungs dropped away
beneath me, some slickid dew and ash. The whole ladder
felt smaller now. The first few rungs were agony, My
knees were jelly. My palms slipped twice, and each time
my froze and clung tight, breathing so fast I felt
like I might pass out. I forced myself to count
ten rungs, pause ten more. When I was maybe halfway down,
one of the responders looked up, Hey, we got someone
on the tower. Voices multiplied. Lights turned upward, suddenly blinding
A paramedic ran to the base, radio in hand, calling
for a backboard. Another firefighter moved beneath me, arms raised,
like you could catch me if I I kept going ten,
then five, then three, and finally boots on solid ground.
The second I touched down, my legs went out. They
caught me before I fell completely, but I hit my
knees anyway, coughing and trembling. I remember someone shouting for oxygen,
a hand on my shoulder, and a warm blanket. But
all I could do was look past them toward the
base of the ladder. It was there, crumbled in the
gravel and steel debris, a blackened body, long, twisted and curled.
The antlers had chatted against the lower bar. One leg
was missing entirely, the flesh a gunwaxy and gray, fused
to the bone. It wasn't moving. It would never move again.
One of the crews stepped into my line of sight,
blocking the thing from view. We didn't know anyone was
still up there, he said, gently, crouching, real lucky. I
shook my head, voice horse, not lock, I said, just fire.
He didn't get it. That was fine. I let them
lift me under the stretcher and wheel me toward the
waiting rig. I got a good look at the damage
the fire had caused, and they loaded me up and
reached into my jacket and felt the edge of the
book still tucked there, and I rubbed the lucky yellow
sticky note between my fingers.