The Windigo of Frigheim IX
-- a speculative fiction by Emily Chesley

..page 4..

The travel was brutal. Leila was from solid Irish stock and had the force of personality to endure the hardships of the voyage. Benjorn managed the cold with stoic manliness, as his descent was Norwegian. Though they were impressive psychodynamicists, the Fetish twins, Jigg and Jugg, were of a frail build, and found the going hard. Bogo Fudgemar, the diplomat from the purple-lipped planet, suffered terribly in his ill-conceived pixie gown. (Leila had scrounged some enviro-suit scraps for him to wrap around his stick-like legs, but it was not enough.) Jeremy came from a long line of British twits, and claimed to "quite enjoy the bracing wind and brisk air."

That night as they crowded around their lone thermal generator, the creature returned. Benjorn was on watch, and he managed to snap off a couple of shots at the creature, which drove it off. It was a pattern that would be repeated, night after night on the long march over the frozen landscape.

The unrelenting cold slowly sucked the life out of them as the days dragged into a week, and then two weeks. Benjorn was constantly amazed by the resilience of Leila and her patience in the face of the other's constant complaints.

The creature dogged them all the way, just keeping out of range of the pistol, until the biatomic charge was depleted in one, and then finally, the other. By then, the doughty and delectable sub-commander had led them through a low chain of mountains, where they sheltered in a cave overlooking frozen steppes. It was a nervous group of space-farers that set up their watch before trying to sleep.

It was Bogo Fudgemar, the nether-diplomat extra-ordinaire, who was guarding the others when the creature returned. His tremendous capability for duplicity and decadence aside, Bogo could not find a way to deceive or debauch the creature. Within minutes of its attack, Bogo was beheaded, and all that remained of his pixie costume were a few snatches of pink chiffon, floating in the icy chaos of the cave like flecks of blood on the snow. It was Jugg Fetish who was next to suffer at the beastly intrusion - the creature was upon him!

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