The Wendigo

10

The rain had started to fall some ten minutes into his aimless drive. He flicked on the windshield wipers and considered turning the headlights off. But he had no death wish tonight. If anything, it was self-preservation on his mind.

He merged onto the highway and drove without aim for about five miles, then took an exit ramp in a part of town he didn't know and let the road tell him where to go.

He listened to the conversation in his head like road music. He imagined his mother got in touch with Tessa after their call and gave her a full report.

He's so angry with me, his mother would say, I'm just trying to help him. I don't want him to get sick again.

You know how he is, Tessa would say, It's not your fault. He can be... selfish. When he wants to be.

As if summoned by the thought, Clay's phone buzzed. TESSA Calling...

He didn't answer.

I just don't know what to think, Tessa. What am I supposed to do?

You have to do what you think is right.

It took an angry horn blare for Clay to realize he was riding the dividing line. Clay corrected. He shook his head, gritted his teeth, and sucked his teeth in response to his mother and best friend's imagined conversation. The back-and-forth of phony concern made him nauseous.

I was really embarrassed for him the other night. He acted like a child. Kenny must've noticed.

Poor Kenny, his mother would say, You know, I wondered if Clay might be rushing into this, but now I wonder if Kenny knows quite what he's gotten into.

That his mother would take the side of a virtual stranger over her own son's was par for the course. She didn't trust Clay. Neither of them did.

He could be good for Clay. I just don't understand why he has to ruin it.

That's what he does, Tessa. That's what he's always done. He can never be happy. He doesn't want it bad enough.

They were so stupid. So sure of his incompetence that they couldn't see how trapped he was.

The rain was coming down in sheets. Thunder rolled high above. Wind rocked the car. There was no one on the road ahead. A shuttered strip mall and an abandoned chain fast food restaurant were up ahead, lit only by far-off streetlights. Clay pulled into the empty parking lot beside the empty restaurant, turned off his lights, and waited out the rain.

Over a distant hill, the cars that did stream down the high went slow for fear of hydroplaning. The rain had begun to go sideways. The passing headlights were transformed into shimmering orbs of floating light.

His boyfriend was a monster, he reasoned. He had killed and would kill again.

Admitting it to himself, though, he wondered if he could even trust himself. But then again, everything he had been afraid of had become real. Why shouldn't this also be real? He had rushed into loving this man, and told himself his misgivings were just fears of commitment. He believed his mother and Tessa were talking behind his back, and told himself it was paranoia. He wished it was paranoia. He wished it was all paranoia, psychosis, a dream, unreal...

There was no way out of it.

If he told anyone what he believed, even Captain Herkimer, who was already so suspicious, it would be another trip to the hospital. At least the first time he went, he was truly sick. There was a point to the medicine and the pain and the loneliness and the fear, even if it was traumatic, it saved his life. But no amount of medicine could shake him of the truth.