That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley

if I had.  He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me up.
    “What’s the meaning of this, boy!” he screamed in my face.  There was fear in his eyes, and that was an emotion you didn’t often see from him. 
    “It’s Joe,” I said through gulps of breath.  “I found him.”
    “Then why didn’t you bring him back?” Tom asked. 
    “He’s sliced up,” I remember saying.  “Skinned like an animal.”
    “Skinned?” Tom whispered.  The anger and excitement had vanished from his voice.  He didn’t know if he should believe me, but he had no doubt he didn’t want to.  “Show me,” he commanded. 
    I led him, reluctantly I might add, back down the path made by my boots in the snow.  It had seemed so far before, and now my fevered mind wanted nothing more than to never reach my destination, yet it came more quickly than seemed possible.  Then we arrived, and the thing I feared most to see met my eyes.  There was no body.  But fortunately, if you can use that word, the once pure white snow was stained a dark crimson red.  Tom stepped forward and knelt down where the red snow began.  He then looked at me. 
    “So the body was here?” he asked. 
    “Yes.”
    “Only a few minutes before?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then, where is it now?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Tom sighed deeply and stood up. 
    “Well,” he said calmly but to no one in particular, “it was definitely here before.  No doubt about that.”  He turned back to me.  “You sure it was Joe?  You sure it wasn’t just an animal?”
    “He wasn’t just lying there.  He was tied up to the tree.  He was tied up liked you’d tan a hide.  He was here, Tom.  He was here, and now he’s gone, and that means somebody took him.  Ain’t no animal done this.”
    “No,” Tom said decisively.  “No animal did it.  And that means we are all in danger here.  Let’s get back to the camp.  With any luck, the others will be there, too.”  He turned and took a couple steps.  Then he stopped.  “Look,” he said, “it’s good enough to tell them that Joe is dead, and someone took his body.  That’s enough.  They don’t need to know how you found him.”
    I nodded my head to show him I understood, and we turned and hurried back to the camp.  Tom was in front, and I noticed that he constantly glanced from side to side as we moved along.  If whatever had taken Joe was around us, he at least wanted to see him coming.  We found Doc Stanley, Andy, and Travis huddled around the fire. 
    “About damn time,” Travis grunted.  Tom ignored him. 
    “Did you find anything?” Andy asked, his voice shaking.  I could only imagine how he was going to react to what he was about to hear. 
    “Joe is dead,” Tom said matter-of-factly.
    “Dead?” Andy stuttered. 
    “Mountain lion?” Doc Travis asked nonchalantly. 
    “No, he was murdered.”  Tom let his pronouncement sink in.  Doc Stanley went pale while Andy looked like he might pass out.  Only Travis kept his cool.  “And his body has been taken.”  Now Andy did fall to his knees.  No one seemed to notice. 
    “Who could have done this?” Doc Stanley asked.  “There were no footprints, no signs of struggle.”
    “The Wendigo,” Andy muttered as he rocked back and forth. 
    “He must have heard something, saw something,” Tom answered.  “He left camp, and somebody got him.  Then, the snow covered his tracks.  It’s as simple as that.  No ghosts.  It’s a man out there, or men.”
    “We should hunt ‘em down and kill ‘em,” Travis spat.  “I got no love for Joe, but he was one of ours.”
    “No!” Andy wailed.  “We gotta get out of here.  No man did this, and we can’t kill what did.  Let’s go.  Let’s go now!”
    Tom waved his hand as if to dismiss him.  “We ain’t going now, and we ain’t going to hunt down who did this.  The day's already burnt up.  We’re going to stay here tonight, and then at first light we start heading back