The Hunter in the Pines

Dr. Evelyn Graves had spent her life chasing ghosts—only they weren’t the kind that faded into mist. A cryptozoologist by trade and a hunter by necessity, she tracked creatures whispered about in campfire tales and hushed conversations in dimly lit bars. The Jersey Devil, the Dover Demon, the Bridgewater Triangle’s shadow beasts—she had hunted them all.

But it was Maine that called to her now. Something was tearing through livestock in a remote town near Baxter State Park, leaving behind carcasses that looked less like the result of a wolf attack and more like something out of a horror movie. The wounds weren’t clean. The bodies were shredded, their bones gnawed, their remains scattered as if something had played with its food. The locals whispered about something old, something with ice in its veins. A wendigo, they murmured.

A wendigo is a creature from Algonquian folklore, particularly among Indigenous tribes of the northern United States and Canada. It is often described as a gaunt, emaciated being with elongated limbs, sunken or glowing eyes, and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Some legends say wendigos were once people who, through greed or cannibalism, transformed into monstrous beings cursed to endlessly crave flesh. They are associated with the cold, the wilderness, and the supernatural, sometimes possessing people or whispering to lure victims deeper into the forest.

Evelyn didn’t believe in legends. But she did believe in monsters. And she had the scars to prove it.

The town of Ashwood wasn’t much to look at. One main street, a gas station that still used an analog pump, and a bar that doubled as a post office. The kind of place where strangers were noticed immediately. Evelyn pulled her black Jeep into the gravel lot of McCready’s Bar & Grill, cut the engine, and stepped out. The wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth, but underneath it was something else. Something rotten.

Inside, the place was dimly lit, the kind of bar where the jukebox hadn’t worked in a decade and the floorboards creaked no matter how carefully you stepped. A handful of locals nursed their drinks, their voices dropping as she entered. She was used to that. Dressed in black cargo pants, a leather jacket, and a holster barely concealed beneath it, she wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

The bartender, a burly man with a thick beard and tired eyes, watched her approach.

“You’re not from around here,” he said, wiping a glass with a rag that looked like it had seen better days.

“No,” Evelyn replied. “I heard you’ve been having some trouble.”

His gaze flicked to the others in the bar before settling back on her. “That depends on what kind of trouble you’re talking about.”

“The kind that leaves gutted livestock in the woods.”

Silence. A man at the far end of the bar coughed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. The bartender set the glass down. “You a cop?”

“Not quite.” Evelyn slid a small stack of cash across the counter. “But I do pay for information.”

The bartender eyed the money before pocketing it. “Fifteen dead cattle in the last month. Horses too. Whatever it is, it’s smart. It doesn’t take the easy kills—it hunts. Tracks them for miles before striking.”

Evelyn nodded. “Anyone see it?”

The bartender hesitated. “Old man Harlan says he did. Swears up and down it’s a wendigo.”

Evelyn suppressed an eye roll. “Where can I find him?”

The bartender sighed and gestured toward the window. “Couple miles north, near the treeline. But good luck getting anything useful out of him. He’s half-crazy.”

She had dealt with worse.

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Harlan’s cabin was exactly what she expected—weathered, isolated, and smelling faintly of gun oil and something acrid. The old man himself was sitting on the porch, a shotgun resting across his lap. He watched her approach, his gaze sharp despite his age.

“You the one askin’ about the thing in the woods?” he rasped.

Evelyn stopped at the bottom of the steps. “That depends. You the one who saw it?”

His fingers tightened around the shotgun. “Saw it. Smelled it. Heard it whisper.”

That last part made her pause. “Whisper?”

Harlan’s gaze flickered toward the tree line. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the clearing. “It ain’t just killin’ for food. It’s huntin’ for sport. And it ain’t alone.”

Evelyn’s spine stiffened. That wasn’t in the reports. “How many?”

Harlan shook his head. “Dunno. More than one. I hear ‘em at night, movin’ through the trees. They ain’t natural.”

She had heard variations of this before. But something about the way he said it, the raw fear in his voice, made her uneasy.

“What did it look like?” she asked.

Harlan exhaled slowly. “Tall. Gaunt. Skin stretched too tight over its bones. Eyes that don’t reflect light right. And it moved like it was…wrong.”

She had a sinking feeling she knew exactly what he meant.

“Stay out of the woods, girl,” Harlan warned. “Or you won’t come back.”

Evelyn offered a tight smile.

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The forest was alive with the sounds of night—chirping insects, the distant hoot of an owl, the rustling of unseen creatures. Evelyn moved carefully, rifle slung over her shoulder, a silver-bladed hunting knife strapped to her thigh. The deeper she went, the more the air changed. It was colder here. Too cold for early autumn.

Then she smelled it. The same rotting scent she had caught earlier, but stronger now. More potent. A low, guttural sound drifted through the trees—half growl, half something she didn’t know how to describe.

Evelyn raised her rifle and took a step forward. A branch snapped somewhere to her left. Then another behind her.

Her pulse quickened. She pivoted slowly, scanning the darkness. The wind shifted, and the smell grew worse. Then she saw it—just a glimpse between the trees. A figure, impossibly thin, its skin pale and stretched, its mouth too wide. And those eyes. Black pits that swallowed the moonlight instead of reflecting it.

The wendigo—or whatever Ashwood’s nightmare really was—had found her first.

And it wasn’t alone.