CREAAK! Sam's shoe stepped on a loose floorboard. The sound was small, all too loud in the terrifying standoff. The wendigo wheeled around, stalking over on its long, skeletal legs, hissing.

Sam watched with terror as the monstrosity scanned the room with its large, milky-white eyes. Oh god, oh god… please let it be over, oh god.

Just when she thought she couldn't hold her breath a minute longer, Mike had managed to reach the lightbulb and crushed it. The tiny crinkling of glass was enough to distract the wendigo and it spun in his direction at once.

Standing near the door, Chris took the opportunity to bolt outside, having sensed what Mike and Sam had conspired to do with the lodge.

As the wendigo stalked close to Mike, who was trying so hard to be still, Sam was wracked indecision. Oh god, oh god, should I save Mike? But I don't think I can survive another round of staying still… Fuck, he's probably dead anyway!

Panic surged through her as her adrenaline rose to unprecedented levels, and she broke into a mad sprint for the front door. Her lungs burned as she could hear something massive pounding behind, and the terror only made her race faster. Just as she made it through the front door, she caught the light switch with her left hand… and a split second later, an enormous fireball erupted through the cabin, engulfing everything in sight.

Mike crashed down, his body mercifully torched instantaneously, for he had been standing inches from the explosion's epicenter. He twisted in only brief agony as he fell, not even breathe before the inside of his nose and mouth were torched, all the way down to his windpipe and lungs. His last, incoherent thoughts were a stream of mental curses… then Jess… Jess...

Emily fell to her knees, writhing and futilely trying to pat out the flames on her face, before she inhaled a lungful of fire and crashed down, face-first.

"AUGH- !" Ashley began to scream as flames scorched her skin agonizingly and the shockwave knocked her flat on her back. The fire incinerated her entire face as her mouth was contorted in her final scream, and she fell mercifully still.

Hannah the wendigo was flung against the fireplace by the force of the explosion, her demonic features attempting one last confused screech as she died without knowing her assailant.

"AUGHH!" Sam cried out as the shockwave launched her off the porch and blasted her into the snow.

"What… what… fuck… " Chris scrambled up from where he'd been hiding in the snow, now in disbelieving shock as he stared at the burning lodge. "ASHLEY! ASHLEY!" He screamed and tried to run back into the lodge, but Sam, stumbling over, grabbed his arm.

"I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry…" Sam sobbed. "But- but, they're gone now- they're- they're gone…"

Chris stopped and broke down, falling to his knees and sobbing piteously.

As the first rays of dawn broke over the lodge, a Canadian Rangers helicopter cruised over the Washington Lodge on Blackwood Mountain. The pilot, Lieutenant Carol Rawlings, peered out the windshield. "Good heavens," she muttered, looking at the flames billowing out of the lodge as she turned on her radio. "We have visual. The main structure is completely destroyed, over. Hold on… I'm seeing something… It looks like there are survivors. Let's pick 'em up."

Tears in her eyes, Sam watched helplessly as Chris sobbed in mental agony and loss, the two of them barely registering as a fire-red, angry wendigo spirit screeched past them, or when the Canadian Rangers helicopter set down in the snow.