The Valley of Headless Men

When my friend, Guy, first suggested a hunting trip to Nahanni National Park, I thought he was joking. Sure, we’d camped in some remote places, but this would be extreme – even for us. Besides, it’s nicknamed the ‘Valley of Headless Men’ for a reason. Supposedly, multiple visitors have died there over the years, some of them (as you may have guessed) found without heads. Conspiracy theorists claimed it was a ghost, a monster, or a demon. I assumed it was probably a Grizzly. Boring, I know, but those real-world creatures are plenty scary enough. I sure as hell didn’t want to come face-to-face with one.

Guy persisted. He was a very determined man – compelling, too. I finally gave in and said, “What the hell, let's do it!” It’s a decision I regret every day.

But, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. So soon, Guy, our mutual friend Paul, and I all crowded together on a small plane, sitting next to a group of Australian tourists. Soon, we soared toward Canada’s Northwest Territories - a place I imagined to be a desolate, frozen wasteland.

I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful it was. The white, rushing waters of the Nahanni River flowed between dolomite peaks so sharp and angular that they looked like knives against the bright blue sky. At times, the mighty river carved out valleys full of bright magenta fireweed; at other times, it plunged from lava-scarred limestone cliffs. As our plane landed near a calmer stretch of water, I sat, lost in awe. I’d never seen anything like it.

I wanted to stay on the shores, taking in the magnificent views, but, alas, Paul tapped me on the shoulder, impatience etched into every line of his face. “Come on, Hugo. Clock’s ticking. We need to get our camp ready before nightfall.”

Ha! Nightfall! It was summer! We could easily expect 18-20 hours of daylight!

Yet when Paul shot me a ‘get moving, asshole’ look, I decided to keep my thoughts to myself. Paul was a good guy, but he loved a schedule more than his own wife. The best course of action with him was to bite my tongue, make camp, and get next to a campfire with a beer in his hand. That would chill him out.

“Where’s our guide?” I asked, looking over at two scuffed-up wood canoes and a set of camping supplies covered in blue tarps. Obviously, someone had been out here preparing for us. I couldn’t imagine Guy would be dumb enough to send us out here without a guide.

Turns out, I overestimated my friend.

“Come on, old man!” Guy hollered, though he was firmly middle-aged himself.

You know when every fibre of your body yells that something is a horrible idea, that you should turn back, but the call of adventure screams louder?

Well, that’s how I found myself paddling down the rushing Nahanni River with my two best friends. We must have looked like an odd bunch to the Aussies. They all looked the same: blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tanned, and in their early twenties. From what I gather, the two men were cousins, and the girl was the sister of one of them – never did figure out which one.

Meanwhile, I was a man in my sixties with white scruff, a beer belly, and a fading Quebecois accent; Guy was tall, lean as a sapling, and more French Canadian than I’d ever been; and Paul was a short, aggressively Anglo mouse of a man with big, round glasses. Quite a trio.

Yet we were all tourists in this strange land. All six of us had experienced the wilderness before (albeit in different hemispheres), and we were filled with excitement and confidence. Our canoes rocked as cold waves came up to kiss us, accompanied by a soundtrack of Guy’s favourite sacres and swear words from the front of our canoe.

We hit a calmer stretch again, and I watched as a moose approached the riverbank for a drink. He was huge! If we shot him, he would feed us for the whole year! Paul interrupted my daydreams of tender moose meat. “Hey,” he said, “Did anyone else see the guy on the shore?” He sounded perplexed, as if he doubted his own eyes. I caught a glimpse of him whipping his glasses behind me.
I looked around. I hadn’t seen a damn thing but water and wildlife, but Guy nodded. “Strange man in a suit? Oui! I saw him.”

“Strange place to be wearing a suit, eh?” Paul replied, looking relieved that someone else could corroborate his eyes. For a moment, he probably thought he’d lost his mind.

“Yes! Fucking city people!” Guy replied.
I had to laugh at that. We’d all come from Toronto. Sure, we took remote trips, but we weren’t exactly Voyagers portaging the wilds for a living.

Guy waved the whole incident away. “Its probably just some rich tourist whose guide didn’t tell him how ridiculous he’d look! He doesn’t matter!”
I had to agree; Nahanni was too beautiful for me to dwell on some formally dressed man. So, we paddled on.

We made camp a short walk from the river, on top of a rocky hill shielded by shrubs and towering cliffs. The Aussies worked quickly, laughing amongst themselves. My friends and I were less efficient; our bickering, antics, and aging bones slowed us down.

As the sun sank toward the dolomites, we got a fire going. It was dinner, our time to shine! We got the moose meat from our last hunting trip out of a cooler and seared it on a makeshift grill next to onions sautéing in a pan. Then we kept adding to it: fish we caught fresh from the river, bread dipped in olive oil, a rich soup flavoured with a healthy dose of red wine. I may have left Quebec decades ago, but I was still French Canadian enough to insist on good food. None of that dried camp food shit for me.

The Aussies watched us in awe. Our cooler must have seen like Mary Poppins’ bag to them; we just kept pulling new things out. More wine, beers, whisky, chocolates, even some butter tarts and a few slices of tuxedo cake. Our camping skills may not have impressed them, but our supper certainly did.

The six of us talked, sang, drank, and ate around the fire until our eyelids started to droop. The sun hung onto the sky the whole time, refusing to sink below the horizon. The world went dim, but never fully dark, and for a moment, I tricked myself into thinking the day would never end.

Still, I was the first to call it a night, with my friends joining soon after. The Aussies stayed awake, of course. They could – they were young. They wouldn’t be sore and hungover tomorrow like us old geezers would be.

It took some time to get to sleep. Guy wouldn’t shut up, and Paul moved around like he was in an aerobics class. I needed my Zopiclone to finally drift into slumber. I dreamt of frothing rapids, great waves, towering waterfalls, and that moose.

I woke to the sound of Paul and Guy screaming. Paul’s fingers gripped onto my sleeping bag, nails latching onto my calf. His eyes were wide and wild with terror. Guy was already most of the way out of the tent, kicking frantically at something hidden behind the flap.

I looked around, stunned and frightened. What the hell was going on?

A Grizzly! I thought. A bear must be attacking us!

I could hear the Aussies getting out of their tent. “What the hell?” One screamed, his voice a mix of fear and confusion. “Don’t look at it!” the other young man yelled.

I got my gun, but I couldn’t just fire out into the night, not with the Aussies and Guy out there. I froze, unsure what to do. Then, something yanked Guy the rest of the way out of the tent. There was nothing I could do but watch. Next, it pulled on Paul, starting to drag him out of the safety of our enclosure.

I dropped my weapon and grabbed his arm; for a moment, we locked terrified eyes; then he, too, was gone.

I grabbed my rifle again, taking an extra second to get my hunting knife from behind my pillow – just in case – then, I poked my head out of the tent.

“Don’t look at it!” an Aussie screamed. I could hear them running away from the camp. They were booking it. I wanted to scream at them. Cowards! How could they just leave us?

In retrospect, I’ve realized that they knew what was coming; knew it was already too late to stop it, and all they could do was save themselves. They knew of legends we did not.

I looked over at my friends. What I saw made my hair stand on end. A tall, spindly creature was crouched over Paul and Guy, who were both cut down the middle like gutted fish. Weakly, they pleaded for their lives through laboured breaths as the creature slid a slender hand into each one of them. It pulled them up and together until they were hip-to-hip. Then, the creature started moving, one of my friends covering each side of it, like puppets in a macabre dance move.
“Hey,” I screamed, aiming my gun, “get the fuck away from my friends!”

A loud bang echoed through the cliffs; a bullet tore through the side of the monster’s still exposed face.

It turned, one goat-like eye hanging down by the optic nerve. The left side of its cheek was missing, yet it smiled a twisted, curling smile. It was as if it didn’t even feel the bullet.

Then, it pulled my friends' heads together into one horrible mess until it was hidden fully inside them. I could see pained tears streaming down both their faces.
I closed my eyes and shielded my face as it ran toward me with alarming speed. I assumed I would soon meet the same fate my friends had. Then, it stopped, turned, and sped off in the other direction, grabbing a hatchet from a woodpile as it fled.

For a moment, I stood there, dumbfounded. Why had it run away?

Then, I heard the Aussies screaming. It had gone after a different target, I realized.

I ran after them as fast as I could, tripping over rocks and stumbling past bushes. My knees and hands throbbed from the beating, my heart pounded, my lungs were raw.

Ahead of me, I could hear the mushy sound of the hatchet coming down into flesh and organs, paired with the crunching of breaking bone.
By the time I got to the scene of the carnage, all I found were the corpses of the two Aussie boys. Their hacked-up bodies were decapitated. The Valley of Headless Men had added two more atrocities to its collection.

Something moved behind me. I didn’t wait to see what or who it was; I didn’t think. Scared shitless, I just shot.

I heard a shriek as something was knocked back into the bushes.

“Fuck!” I cried, suddenly realizing who it was, praying I was wrong.

My heart sank as the last remaining Australian wandered out, pale and gripping her side. Blood gushed through her torn-up stomach.

“Shit! I’m so sorry! Fuck!” I said, but I knew that didn’t change anything. I’d shot her. I’d run up here to try and save the Aussies, and now I’d gravely injured the last surviving one.
She stumbled closer to me, “Don’t look at it.” She said, blood dripping from her mouth. “Don’t look at the monster again.”

She took a few more steps forward, then collapsed.

Something else moved through the bushes, rustling the leaves. I could see Guy’s head poking out from behind a tree.

There was no one else left alive, no remaining reason for caution. I unloaded my gun into the bush. As I fired, I thought of all the time my friends and I had spent together; the days spent canoeing and hunting, the many late nights spent around campfires, I even thought of the Aussie girl dying beside me and the boys torn up on the rocks. So much young life senselessly lost. Two older idiots - my friends - who deserved more time to make fools of themselves. Tears rolled down my face as I pulled the trigger of my rifle until the bullets ran out.

When I looked again, I could see Paul and Guy’s bodies lying lifeless on the ground.

Something was continuing to move, though. I knew it was the monster.

I shut my eyes tight, clutching my hunting knife. I could feel the creature slithering toward me. I waited for death.

To my surprise, it stopped. I could feel its breath on my face, yet it didn’t touch me.
It can’t touch me, I realized. Not until I look at it.

Clearly, I had to look at it twice for it to hurt me. That’s why it wore people like suits. It needed their bodies to do its killing.

The monster waited there, patiently, knowing I would have to open my eyes eventually.

I refused to give it the satisfaction. I felt the handle of the knife, warmed by my palm, and knew what I had to do.

I stabbed into my right eye. There was an explosion of pain paired with a squishing sound, then a dreadful pop. I wanted to open my left eye, to just give up, but there was no way that fucking creature was getting me. So, I pulled the blade out and took a deep breath, gathering my courage. Then, I went after the left eye.

The creature shrieked. Through my pain, I smiled and laughed.

It had lost, and it knew it.

I sat there in the darkness of my own making, listening to the Aussie girl’s laboured breathing. I felt my way back to the tent to make a radio distress call – something I probably should have done ages ago. My friends and I really were a trio of dipshits. Vibrant, wonderful, dipshits.

It took four hours for rescuers to come. Sadly, the Aussie girl only held on for three. Then, she left me in silence, with only nightmares for company.

For weeks, those nightmares followed me everywhere. I saw my friends, the Aussies, the gore – yet I never saw the monster.

That was until three nights ago, at least.

That night, my usual horror-filled dreams ended on the riverbanks, next to a particular calm patch of water. There was a shadow beneath the tiny waves. I knew what it was, but I couldn’t see it – yet.
The next night, its formal bowler hat broke the surface of the water.
It was getting closer.

Soon, his face will emerge, and I will see his goat-like eyes and twisting smile.

Thanks to my handiwork with my knife, I will never look at the monster again, but now I wonder, what happens if I see him in my dreams?