The Fiend of Inkom

Mysteries hidden throughout the deep forests of North America are as dark and dangerous as those that lurk within the minds of men. Be wary of these perils, for there are potent and powerful magics that reside deep in the woodlands of the West. Horrible beasts and ancient spells still linger in this land and cast terrible effects on the people around it. Trust in our neighbors may be the only way to counter the evil that sneaks out of the abyss. Most days begin, happen, and finish like nearly every other day; some days are different. Some days are more extraordinary than other days. Some days you might consider to be strange days. On that day, when the bizarre drifts into your life, will you choose to help your neighbor? Today we examine the strange days of Peter and Katie Heck, a young married couple on the brink of a prosperous and joyful future together.

“I got my test results,” Peter said as he walked into the kitchen. It was a beautiful day in early October. The sun was shining in through the windows overlooking Fort Collins, Colorado. Katie looked up from her laptop; she wore a quizzical expression brimming with anticipation. “I passed,” Peter said with a smirk and bounced his eyebrows.

“Great job,” Katie went back to staring at her screen and said without looking up, “should we celebrate? Since I’m A.B.D. and I know you have some sick days…” She trailed off. Peter went to the coffee maker and popped a pod of dark roast into the machine.

“Should we go to Pocatello; hit up the old stomping grounds?” He asked.

“That’s like an eight-hour drive.”

“Or we could fly, and we can get an Airbnb. Make it a thing. Drink for a few days, and then go backpacking for a few days to detox. I could use a day or two to look for a new job. I don’t want to work at BPS forever and now that I passed my test…” he paused then jolted with inspiration, “Oh! We can climb up Booneville Peak again. I’ll even ask you to marry me all over again.” Peter, once again, bounced his eyebrows up and down and gave a toothy grin.

“My lovable idiot,” she stated dryly and rolled her eyes. “That all sounds fun, dumb and romantic. I’ll shoot my adviser an email and get someone to cover my classes. The kids are taking a test anyway, so it won’t be a big deal.” Kate finished the email, shared a kiss with Peter, and started texting some people from her cohort. It was still early on Saturday, so they decided to hit the road and reserve an Airbnb on the way. Inkom was only a twenty-minute drive to Pocatello, and it was closer to Booneville Peak; furthermore, the Airbnb was cheaper, and, since they had both forgotten it was homecoming at Idaho State all the Airbnb’s in Pocatello had already been rented. The couple enjoyed being spontaneous. They felt as though it kept them feeling young, and, more importantly, relevant on social media. Their marriage was even quite sudden. Though they were both studying to be engineers, they had met on a school sponsored backpacking trip up Booneville Peak. They bonded so deeply and felt so much passion from one another on the trip that they decided to get married three months later. Everyone told them they were being too hasty; yet, appearing happily married ever since, Peter and Katie seemingly proved their friends wrong.

It was a beautiful drive through South Wyoming into South Eastern Idaho. The deciduous trees had begun to change color, the sky was vast and blue with a few straggling clouds lounging about, and the sun glowed with a comforting warmth. Peter and Katie laughed and reminisced about their college years until the conversation drifted onto the topic of ex-lovers. There was yelling for a time and then silence. Eventually they both had to use the restroom, so they pulled over and ate at a McDonalds. Their silence was broken when a kid, much to the chagrin of his father, started yelling about his poop in the bathroom. They laughed and apologized to each other, attributing their anger to merely being hungry. Peter put on their favorite podcast about murder mysteries. They listened to several episodes on serial killers: H.H. Holmes, Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein and Andrei Chikatilo. By the time they were finishing the episode on Andrei, the Red Ripper of Rostov, who sexually assaulted, mutilated, and murdered over fifty women and children, they arrived in Inkom at their Airbnb on Roscoe street near the Sinclair.

“The owner said they just left the key under one of those fake rocks, he also suggested we hike around the Booneville Peak! Though he defiantly stared at my tits for way too long…” Katie said as he shut the car door, grabbed her bag, and walked to the front door to open it. The house was simple. There was a small foyer that led into a hallway to the dinner room on one side of the stair case, and the living room that opened into the kitchen, which also led into the dinner room on the other side of the staircase. Upstairs there was a master bath and two bedrooms. Katie, examining the door to the basement, stated “The owner said he had some, like, large, complex art project in the basement that involves welding or something. I don’t know… But he said we don’t have access to the basement, but we can use whatever else. I mean the place looks pretty clean, and the kitchen has some stuff in it. We could cook if we wanted,” said as she walked around the staircase, through the dinning room and back into the kitchen for further examination. “It’s late and I’m tired from the drive. Let’s go pick up something easy like mac and cheese, some beers, and hang here for the evening and go drink in Pocatello tomorrow. Plus, we can start a new-potential-jobs list for you!” Peter pursed his lips, nodded in agreement, and gave a double thumbs up.

The next day they went to their favorite bar from undergrad in Pocatello. The place was lined with Americana and various winter sports paraphernalia. They didn’t recognize the bar tender, or the clientele, but their nostalgia over-powered their feelings of foreignness and they ordered some drinks. They laughed and made some friends they would soon forget due as rounds of shots kept being poured until it was time to close the bar. Despite a hungover morning, Peter and Katie excitedly returned the next night. Since the homecoming crowd had left, the bar was much tamer and, as the night dragged on, Peter and Katie found themselves trapped in conversation with an old local man named Gathe. After regaling the couple with his glorious tales of drinking in his youth, the red-faced old man  became serious and he asked, “So, have ya heard of the missing backpackers around Booneville Peak? They are young liberal couples like yourselves.”

“Oh, do go on,” Katie sneered sardonically.

Gathe wagged his finger, and hiccupped through his words, “You ought to take this more seriously! *hic* There’s old dark magic up ‘round those peaks. A fiend lives up there. The Russkies call it a Leshy. It’s a giant beast with the body of a massive deer with a spine that pokes out of its back fur and a head  like the body of a man covered in limbs, which it’ll use for snatchin’ up kids,” he paused, burped and gargled into his fist, “…or hikers! Let’s get another round!” he shouted. This made Peter and Katie visibly uncomfortable. The bartender, Brett, who Peter and Katie had met the previous night, walked over to address a drunk old-man.

“Alright Gathey, that’s enough for tonight bud. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll get you your first round.” Old man Gathe made a few more awkward comments about how lucky Peter was with a “gal like that,” before stumbling off his stool and shuffling to the door in a huff. “Sorry about him. He’s a harmless old drunk.”

“Have there actually been missing hikers?” Kate inquired.

“Actually, he wasn’t lying about that. Over the past couple years, there’s been like four or five couples that have gone missing while backpacking around. A few around Boonville, one at Snow Peak and around at Haystack I think.”

“They are just missing? How haven’t we heard of this?” Katie said concerned.

Brett explained, “Yea, it’s a bummer. All the students have made up rumors about,” Brett used air quotes, “a ‘Leshy.’ It’s just some stupid myth the Russian Studies students came up with that got a piece in the school news paper and then they had theme parties and then the whole school was in on it using it to scare the freshman. Besides a Leshy is like some giant that roams Russian forests. I have no idea where he came up with that description, probably some movie he watched. That guy literally watches movies and stumbles his way to this bar every day. He lives on welfare or disability or something. Oh but, these people are going missing cause they get drunk at altitude while they are hiking and get lost like a bunch of morons. Sorry, it’s all kinda morbid. You guys want another round? It’s on me.”

“We’ve hiked all those trails before, we’ll be fine, and yea sure man, dealer’s choice! Oh, and thank you.” Peter, hoping to reassure Kate and salvage what was left of the evening, chimed in awkwardly. Peter and Kate closed down the bar again and a had a few rounds after close with Brett. Both Peter and Katie left feeling confident about their hiking skills after swapping backpacking stories with Brett. They took the only taxi still in service back to their Airbnb on Roscoe street and tipped well though made sure to blog about it later. Katie made a joke about how only liberals know how to tip well and they both laughed about their encounter with old man Gathe. They packed up their backpacks for a four-day hike: two days up and two days back. They had matching packs and both enjoyed being precise in their packing. Peter remarked about how they use to carry way too much gear. Kate agreed, and they laughed drunkenly into the night. They awoke the next morning to pack the car.

“Wow, we actually did a good job packing the backpacks for how drunk we were last night.” Kate remarked as she checked over the gear and loaded it into the car.

“Want some water?” Peter offered a large Nalgene to Kate.

“Oh god yes.” She took a few giant gulps, “uh-oh,” and puked next to the car in the grass.

“Are you alright?”

“Yea, no. I needed that big time. I feel a lot better.”

Peter shook his head, “I wish I could do that. If I barf in the morning, I’m done for the day. I’m glad we aren’t drinking for the next couple days. I need to clear out. That was fun, but I think I’m almost too old for that shit.” Katie put her fingers in air quotes and mouthed the word “almost.” Peter walked around behind Kate and grabbed her sides, “besides if the Leshy creeps up on us we will be good and sober to take it out!”

“Stop, I just barfed you jerk!”

“Ok, Ok!” Peter said defensively as he raised his arms in some form of protest, “You’re right, I’m a jerk.”

“It’s not a big deal, don’t get all defensive and butt-hurt like you do. Let’s get going, the parking lot to the trails is only like twenty minutes away,” Katie said as she got in the car. Peter rolled his eyes and got in the driver seat. They reached the lot, parked, and walked up to the ranger’s office to register. A ranger greeted them with blue eyes and a kind face. They got signed up and explained about a few recent mudslides that were uncharacteristic to the area. A few trails had to be moved around, and in doing so they became much more difficult. To avoid the mudslides, parts of the trail climbed nearly three-hundred yards almost straight up and were represented by colorful tags on the trees. The ranger also reminded the couple of the other couples that have gone missing. Peter and Katie had to sign a couple of release forms, show the ranger that they had their own bear box, and then they were good to go.

The hike was arduous. At times they had to climb up near vertical slopes on their hands and knees. Furthermore, it was difficult to follow the make shift trail. Some of the orange ties had fallen off the trees. They did their best to tie them back on when they were able. It took longer than expected to make it to the first camp site. It was dark and raining by the time they set up their tent. It was too wet for a fire, so they just ate some trail mix and apples. They went to sleep tired, wet, and hungry; however, they both remarked that a difficult day was, in a way of its own, quite satisfying.

It rained heavily throughout the night and into the morning. So much so, they had to push the water off the roof of their tent multiple times throughout the night. The lightning and thunder sounded, at times, as if it were right over the top of them. They could feel the shock-waves of the thunder ripple from their ear drums to their toes. Their camp site was on the top of a hill and surrounded by a few tall Limber Pines, so they didn’t have to worry about it flooding or getting hit by lightning. The couple did not sleep well, but, considering how many times they had been caught in the rain at even more inopportune times, neither one of them was discouraged.

The rain had lightened up and they had both had finally fallen asleep. Katie was surprised at how late they had slept into the morning. Beautiful in its own right, the morning was cold, wet, and quiet. She stretched, yawned, and noticed the opening to the tent was slightly unzipped. Upon looking through the opening, she noticed something strange on one of the pines nearby. Leaving the tent and walking over to it, she examined a couple of bundles of twigs that were tied with thin leather straps in the pattern of an ‘X.’ What she hadn’t noticed at first was the white ring of dirt around their camp site. Her mind racing, she figured who ever had done this did it this morning while they slept in, or the painted dirt would have washed away. She looked around and saw more of the twig bundles. They were tied in various designs, pyramids, conical baskets with twigs and flowers inside on every couple of trees circling the couple’s campsite.

“Peter!” She gasped as she backpedaled quickly into the tent. He was unnaturally groggy.

“I don’t feel well,” he said as he sat up in his sleeping bag. Shaking his head, he rubbed his eyes and then rubbing his stomach. He swallowed deeply. “What’s up? What time is it? Why are we up so late? Why do I feel like shit?”

“Get the fuck up, we have to go now. Help me pack up the camp site,” Katie had already begun to pack what she could in her backpack. It took Peter a while, but he finally noticed the strange bundles and white dirt around their camp site. Katie, struggling, began taking down the tent as he walked around astounded at what he saw. Peter, gawking, noticed that East of the campsite was some skull of a deer or a cow tied further up one of the pines. The branches had been removed from where they began near the base of the trunk to where the skull of eventually tied to the tree. Katie stopped breaking down the camp to see what Peter was staring at, “Fuck,” she said under her breath and continued, raising her voice, “Fuckin’ help me and we can talk while we leave!” Peter didn’t say anything and began to help. Adrenaline allowed him to push through his sickness, though they still struggled with breaking down their camp. Their backpacks were a mess, and  began walking in different directions as they left.

“Where are you going?” Inquired Peter, who was walking towards their next planned camp site, further up the mountain.

“Ummm, back to the car. Where do you think you are going?”

“Ummm…” Peter said, mockingly, “Up to the next campsite?”

“What the fuck? Are you kidding me, Peter? People are dying out here and you want to keep going? After this shit?!” She shouted, referencing the white dirt, the twig bundles, and then the bleached skull with her outstretched palms.

“This has probably always been there. We just didn’t notice it last night ‘cause it was dark.”

“This is the type of shit you notice, Peter.”

“This is classic you,” Peter stated as he shrugged and shook his head back and forth, “You never finish anything. It’s always the same with you. Why your dissertation isn’t finished. Why you switched from that last program you were in! You never want to finish anything!” Peter had finally raised his voice by the end.

“Fuck you.” Katie turned without looking back and walked back down the trail.

“I have the tent!” Peter shouted back as she continued to walk. “Ughck,” he sighed to himself, and ran down the trail after her after he decided she wasn’t bluffing “Katie! Katie, wait up!” He could see her up the trail, further than he expected, and he ran after her.

Katie increased her pace after she noticed he was trailing her, and it took Peter about to hour to finally catch up to her. “Don’t talk to me,” she stated, coldly. Both angry, they walked for a while longer until they both noticed that they had lost the trail; however, they were both too stubborn to break the silence. Katie finally did and stopped in her tracks saying, “Ok, obviously the rain washed out the trail, and the someone removed all those neon tags. I have an idea of which way the parking lot is, but I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that someone is fucking with us, and probably fucking killing these other couples. And I think we might be fucked.”

“Which way do you think we should walk?” Peter was breathing fairly heavily with his hands on his knees.

“Put your arms above your head. You will quicken your recovery.”

“Oh my god! Shut the fuck up!” Peter immediately started shouting. A group of about a hundred crows flew out of a giant maple tree near them in a clearing. “Why did we even come here? We are gonna get killed by some psycho in the woods!” It took a while of Katie, quietly saying his name over and over again to get his attention in the midst of his yelling. “What?!” He finally shouted.

“Look.” Katie pointed at a small wooden structure underneath the giant maple tree. “We have to get out of here.”

“Wow, what the shit?” And Peter began to walk towards it despite Kate’s efforts to hold him back.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Kate sighed and ran after him. The structure was a small wooden cabin made from various sizes of logs from many different trees. The cabin’s creator clearly was no carpenter, but careful nonetheless. It almost looked like someone with the strength of a man, yet the mild of a child had built this cabin. “You aren’t going to go inside are you?” Katie said, as Peter opened the door. Inside the cabin was simple. It had only one floor. There was a desk with one candle rested atop a pile of wax. A log had been placed as a chair for the desk, and both the chair and the desk were completely covered in intricate, yet child-like cravings. At the back of the small cabin was a door. Peter, taking out his knife set his pack on the floor, proceeded towards the door. Katie, frozen in fear, stood in the doorway of the cabin itself, whispering to Peter, “What are you doing?”

He opened the door and beheld a gruesome totem. It was in the shape of human that hung loosely by its arms from a wooden ‘X’ against the back wall, to which it had been nailed. The figure was made of many small branches and twigs and had the bleached skull of some four-legged mammal. He dropped the knife to the ground when he realized that human fingers and ears were among the kindling that formed the figure. It became apparent that there were more body parts decomposing inside of the figure as a noxious miasma seeped through the room. Grabbing his pack as he ran out of the room, they both ran out of the front door and slammed it shut. He fell to his knees and began dry heaving and weeping.

Peter gathered his composer and walked over to where Katie was squatting. She showed him what she had found in n the mud all around the cabin were large hoof prints. “Do you believe me now?” Katie said with a sense of urgency.

“Believe you about what?”

“That something is fucked up and we are going to get killed,” Katie said making intense eye contract with Peter. “I’m not joking.”

“Fine! Let’s go, you know what I saw? You know why I was puking? There’s fucking body parts in there!”

“I smelled whatever dead animal was in that backroom you opened like a moron! Haven’t you ever watched a horror movie? You don’t open doors!”

“It wasn’t a fucking animal, Katie. There’s a person, or people decomposing in there.”

“That crazy old drunk guy was right. Something ancient and terrifying lives in this wood, and we are its next victims, Katie! We are so fucked…” Peter said as he began to pace back and forth.

“No Peter, there is some fucked up guy out here killing people in his strange little fantasy land!”

“Oh, it’s always a guy isn’t it!”

Katie just stared at Peter and shook her head, “We need to get out of here and tell the police what we found. We might be the only hope to catching this serial killer. Man, or woman.” She threw her hands in the air.

“The police won’t be able to help us, Katie. If this were a serial killer, they would have caught him already. They can’t catch him because it’s a Leshy. A supernatural monster, Kate! It’s some giant creatures with hands for a face that’s going to kill us.”

“How stupid are you?”

“I’ll show you how stupid!” Peter had just noticed that the tracks she saw earlier around the hut lead somewhere. “Look!” He pointed to the tracks that lead in a circle around the cabin and the tree and back up the mountain facing east. They noticed that the tracks also went west past the giant maple tree in the clearing.

“We should follow the tracks. They are decently fresh and probably lead out of here. The path we took is totally washed out.”

Katie, shaking her head, “This seems so stupid, but if I die,” she paused for effect, “it’s your fault, either way we need to stick together or neither of us is making it out of here. We might even have to camp again.” Katie stated and headed West along the tracks. They walked West for some time, following the tracks until the tracks stopped at a more well-established path overlooking a boulder filled gorge. The large hoof prints that they followed made a better trail than the rangers had made after the mudslides. Whatever made these tracks knew these woods well. Peter mused that the only way the trail must have been made by the Leshy, but Katie stayed silent.

They kept walking until it was nearly pitch black. The moon was thin and there was overcast. Neither one of them wanted to turn on their headlamps and potentially draw attention to their location, so they both lay on either side of a large pine whose branches were so large that they created a small shelter around the base of the tree. It rained again that night, but not nearly as hard. Peter swore that he had heard something walking around them, but Katie attributed what he heard to the pattering of rain on their equipment and the tree over them. Wet and distressed, they left the tree as soon as there was light enough to see the path again. The path led them to a different, more worn-down parking lot with an old ranger station standing in shambles. Neither Katie, nor Peter were interested in looking inside. The road that lead to this old ranger station had been consumed by the earth over time; however, they noticed some cellphone towers just past Lower Rock Creek, which had a service road that lead to the towers. It was simple enough to find the way to the parking lot from where they started hiking. Unfortunately, in their hurry to leave, they left without checking back in with the rangers. All their gear and clothes had gotten soaked, so they decided to go back to the Airbnb, change, gather their thoughts into a coherent story, and then go to the police station in Pocatello.

Taking off their wet clothes as they rushed inside the Airbnb. Just as Katie was heading upstairs to the bathroom she noticed plastic covering the walls and floor when terror filled her heart as she heard a sickening crunch followed by a thud. She felt Peter’s warm blood splatter across her cold back and turned around slowly. The man who told her about the location of the key was standing behind the front door when they entered, “You nearly got away from me,” the man spoke in a cold, calculated monotone.

“No!” Katie wailed in grief and horror as Peter lay on the ground, blood pouring out of an ax wound in his skull. The man, wearing a clear raincoat, was standing there with a fireman’s ax in both hands and kicked the door closed behind him. Peter’s blood spatter also partially covered the man. Katie turned to run but slipped in Peter’s blood. She scrambled on the floor. The man calmly continued in an eerie tone, “The plastic makes clean up so much easier.” Katie finally go up and ran into the kitchen, but she had forgotten that the whole house basically loops around the middle staircase. The man came through the Living-room on the other side of the kitchen and met her with the blunt side of the ax as she came careening into the kitchen, still slipping on blood. She was knocked out upon contact and fell to the floor.

Katie, tied to a table in what she assumed was the basement of the house, awoke to that abhorrent monotone, “Oh good, you are awake. I thought I had killed you with that blow. That would have been a disappointment.” There were long pauses in between his sentences. “You’ve been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours.” There was a large blue barrel in the corner which the man was standing over as he fixed the lid to the top. “Sometimes it takes bodies longer than that to decompose in my barrel, depending on what the person ate. Or how healthy they were. Healthier bodies decompose faster actually. It’s mostly just healthy people that come here to hike though. Healthy couples like yourselves. I leave the healthiest ones in the woods. I think you found my collection. It’s a nice collection isn’t it?” The man asked rhetorically while we played with several tools resting on a work bench. Katie wanted to scream, but she was gagged with a wet rag. “We are going to have so much fun.” The man said as he approached her, looming over her with a sterile tool in hand.

The radio was playing in the background, “…Police are still searching for more information on the missing hikers and asking for any pertinent information the public might have. Police are looking for a blue Subaru, Colorado license plate number N14 B576…” One of the co-hosts took over from the news announcement,

“Does Bannock County have its own H.H. Holmes?”

“No, no, It’s the fiend of Bannock county! A mystical beast that roams the mountains picking off random hikers. You know they say that creature is what made Bannock a ghost town back in the day, and now its back!”

“In all seriousness, these hikers are getting lost. People need to take this new backpacking craze more seriously. You’ve got to plan your route and bring a map and a flare gun. I hear they are going to close down the Booneville trails for further investigation this time…