 When I was growing up, every Christmas we would go out hunting for a tree. The perfect one, just the right size to put up in our living room. It was always an excursion. Going out into the countryside crammed into the snow covered car in our winter wear. My mom and dad, my brother Noel and I, the four of us were an unstoppable team. Heading out into the white wilderness to find that one ideal specimen to hack down and drag home with us so that we could decorate it in tinsel and cover it with ornaments, lights, and all the works. Every year it was our tradition. Until one year it wasn't anymore. Dad passed away a couple years back and with all this pandemic business it doesn't look like we'll be doing much as a family this Christmas for the first time I can remember. It was with this feeling of melancholy and neglected nostalgia in mind that I hopped into my car on a whim and drove out into the snow covered countryside to find a Christmas tree. The whole thing was a bit out of the ordinary for me, but I was feeling stir crazy sitting in my apartment. I had just been quarantined for a week due to an exposure at work and had finally gotten back the negative test results and subsequent all clear to venture outdoors again. After days of uber eats, watching reruns, and old Christmas movies, I could finally leave my house. I couldn't remember where the place was that we had gone to as kids, so I just drove around until I found a farm with a sign out front. It took a couple hours, but I liked that lost feeling. That sense of misdirection that none of us experience anymore since we all have GPS and cell phones. I had turned my phone off and put it in my glove box, vowing not to use it for the trip. Instead just wondering until I finally found that sign I was looking for. Christmas trees, it read, $40 each. Bring your own saw. Perfect, I thought, just like the old days. I pulled into the frozen gravel lot and parked. It was getting a bit late in the day, so the few people in the parking lot were already tying trees to the rifts of their cars or throwing them in the backs of pickup trucks. Better hurry, said a man in a final shirt in overalls as I got out of my car. Gets dark early nowadays, don't want to be stuck out there after the sun goes down. Gets cold quick in these parts. I was immediately struck by his intimidating height. Being six foot five myself, I don't often run into someone taller than me. He looked down at me and I thought he had to be above seven feet tall. His skin was stretched hot over prominent cheekbones and he appeared emaciated and malnourished. Thanks, I said. I haven't done this since I was a kid. Hopefully I still remember how to work a hacksaw. He looked at me crooked for a second, then smiled in a slightly creepy way. His teeth were yellow and nicotine stained. His eyes looked yellow as well. His skin rough and covered in sores. You never forget how to use a hacksaw. It's like riding a bike. But remember what I said about the darkness and the cold? You from around here? Yeah, more or less. Why? He watched me for another second, chewing a wad of something sticky and brown in his mouth as he did. Just make sure you're back at your car by sundown. Lots of animals out and not much to eat this time of year. What kinds of animals? All kinds. Wolves, coyotes, other things too. I assumed he was the unstable owner of the place and guessed by his comments that he was slightly insane. One of his eyes was looking at me and the other was staring off into the distance. The parking lot was soon abandoned as all the other cars seemed to leave at the same time as I prepared to go out. Trudging through the snow, bundled up with my hacksaw in hand, I proceeded into the forest of Christmas trees and he stood and watched me go. Near the parking lot, the trees were all too large to fit in my living room. It took a while to get into the decent ones and I found a lot of the best specimens had been taken. This one had a hole the size of a basketball in the boughs. That one was already starting to turn brown and looked sick. Too small, too large, too skinny, too tall, too fat, wouldn't fit. Before I knew it, I realized I was having trouble seeing where I was going. The sun had been subtly setting behind my back. I tripped over something and fell in the snow. When I got up, my gloves were damp and I realized my feet were starting to feel numb. It was suddenly getting very cold. Okay, I thought to myself, just pick one and get out of here. All of the trees looked sick and dying, I realized now. They were missing large sections and none of them looked suitable for use. I settled on a random one after another couple minutes and quickly hacked it down with a saw. By the time I was done, it was pretty much completely dark outside. I thought again about the man's warning to return to my car before it got dark and started to get nervous and wonder why he had been so insistent. Perhaps there are wolves, a voice in my mind said, or bears. Maybe there are when to go. Why did I have to think about that? As I walked through the knee deep snow, dragging the sick looking tree behind me, I remembered what I'd read about them. Wendigoes were a creature first mentioned in Canadian First Nations folklore and I'd once done a project on them for school. I discovered through my research that a Wendigo is an evil malevolent spirit. It's fueled by greed and loves the cold. It prefers its victims hungry like those found in remote regions during winter months. It possesses people and causes Wendigo psychosis, a condition diagnosed by psychiatrists. Symptoms include cravings for human flesh. Those who are possessed want to eat people. For every person the creature kills and consumes, its gaunt and skinny frame grows taller, thus never feeling satisfied. It is towering in its height, thin and human like, but motivated only by greed and an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Wendigo tend to appear in the winter when food is scarce. They love the cold. They are drawn in by starvation and ice cold freezing despair. My stomach rumbled with hunger. Snap out of it, I told myself. I thought I heard something, footsteps in the snow behind me. I stopped walking and turned around quickly to look. No one. I began to walk again. The darkness was nearly total, but my eyes had adjusted enough not to trip as I trudged along through the deep snow, dragging the tree by its trunk. That was when I heard the sound again, footsteps, closer this time, movement of another person walking in the snow. I turned around and the sound stopped, but I had been sure that time someone was following me. Hello. I looked around, scanning the shadows in the direction where I had heard the noise. Is someone there? No one. Hesitantly, I turned around and began to march again. My thighs now numb from the cold. My toes had gone from a wet and frozen pins and needles sensation I associated with childhood tobogganing excursions to now suddenly feeling painful and dead. The temperature had plunged rapidly. I hadn't checked the forecast, but this seemed unnatural. It felt like it was minus 30 degrees Celsius. My breath plummed out in the air in front of me and my hands began to shake involuntarily. Suddenly my teeth were chattering and I was having trouble walking. My legs not wanting to move. The sound was coming behind me again, much closer now. I turned around and this time it didn't stop. It didn't try to hide. The thing coming at me looked very much like the man from the parking lot, but he was no longer human. Maybe he never was in the first place. His plaid shirt was torn and it looked like he'd grown taller than before and was now pushing eight feet. Jaundiced eyes full of hate and hunger stared at me as he raced towards me, his long legs making him move quickly in the snow. For a moment, I was frozen there in more ways than one. It felt like the closer he got, the colder it was. And if anything propelled me to escape from him, it was that. I didn't want to feel that freezing dread for one second longer. It felt like death. My heart racing. I dropped the tree and ran. The fear I felt as I raced through the snow was indescribable. Have you ever been so afraid that your body doesn't feel real anymore? Your muscle memory doing everything for you, telling your body to run and you don't even have time to think. You just run. The problem is when there's an eight foot tall Wendigo chasing after you and they're obviously hungry and fast as hell. That's when it doesn't matter how quick you can run because you're still gonna die. I heard him gaining on me and I knew if I looked back, I would die. Just that brief momentary lack of focus would be enough to cause my demise. My heart skipped a beat as I felt it swipe at my clothing and nearly grab a hold of me and I realized I would never get away by running like I was. I could hear its breath behind me very close, breathing heavily as I ran. Headlights flashed suddenly, illuminating me and I heard the Wendigo scream and duck away. The parking lot was to my left I realized I'd reached it just as the creature was about to grab hold of me. It would have still, if not for this one random person pulling into the parking lot. I heard the Wendigo running off back into the trees clearly terrified of the light. My heart hammering, I walked towards the parking lot. I wanted to thank whoever was in the car since they'd saved me. Even if it hadn't been intentional, it had happened. Interestingly, the car looked familiar. I realized as I walked over to it. My older brother Noel rolled down his window and the expression on his face revealed a total lack of surprise or any other emotion. Noel, you saved me, man. Thank you. There was something chasing me out there in the woods. A Wendigo? He asked. Yeah, how'd you know? And how did you know I was out here? Mom told me you went looking for a tree and there's only a couple places you can go these days. I get worried about you. Don't you remember what dad always told us? The memory started to flood back to me. I'd forgotten that my father had warned us over and over again. No wonder the advice from the man in the parking lot had seemed so familiar. Never go hunting for Christmas trees. After dark, I said. But what does that have to do with Wendigo's? Man, think about it. Those guys love the cold, right? And they love when people are hungry. What are the two things you always remember feeling when we went looking for Christmas trees as kids? My stomach rumbled again louder this time. Why had I skipped dinner before coming out here? Point taken, my whole body is completely frozen solid, totally numb. And I'm starving. Follow me, he said. I'll drive to the nearest burger place and we'll get a bite to eat and get you warmed up. I got into my car with one last parting glance at the woods. Yellow eyes gleamed from the darkness. Maybe I'll get the veggie burger for a while. Hey everyone, make sure to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the story. And make sure to check out the author's Amazon page. Jordan is a really talented writer and there's a link in the description below. I hope you have a great night and thanks for listening.