The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Ethan Frost 
by Kathleen McCluskey 

The biting cold and bitter winds of Siberia howled through the barren landscape. In a small weathered cabin a solitary figure sat huddled by a fire. His name is Ethan Frost and this icy tundra is where he calls home. Outside snowflakes danced in the moonlight, the land itself was silent, a formidable adversary. It tested the limits of one’s resolve. He knew that his sanity had slipped a long time ago. Ethan stared into the fire, its flames reflected in his eyes. The lines on his face made eerie shadows as the mournful wind sang its song. The guilt was written all over his face and he sighed loudly. He knew what he had done, he knew what was coming.

As the Siberian winter gripped tighter, so did Ethan’s torment. The weight of his past sins bore down on him like a giant glacier. He knew that his transformation into a Wendigo was drawing near. The nights grow colder, harder, longer as the insurmountable guilt consumes him. The memories of what he had done to his family haunted him.

The first sign of his transformation was his insatiable hunger. He ate fish after fish, never cooking them; relishing in the internal organs. The hunger whispered wicked desires into every recess of his mind. He could feel the curse beginning to take hold.

His body began to change. His once healthy, robust frame was wasted away. His wind burnt skin began to take on a sickly pallor; the color of old snow. His stomach and cheekbones were sunken in creating a macabre silhouette. He became a hollow shell of his former self.

The nights were the worst, the wind would howl and sing to him. It carried a beckoning, chilling presence of the Wendigo spirit calling to him. It urged him to embrace the darkness that he once feared. He knew that his transformation was inevitable, he had convicted himself of it the moment he ate his youngest daughter. He cursed himself into becoming a horrible creature. A fitting curse for a cannibal. He had murdered his entire family with an ax, leaving their corpses in the snow to preserve them.

Ethan knew his inevitable transformation was near, he could feel the icy fingers of the Wendigo gripping his heart and soul. Horns began to grow from his head and his eyes turned from brown to red. He knew that he had become the monster that he feared most. There was no escape from the eternal, frigid hell that he made for himself. He tossed his head back and howled.

Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!