Wendigo (Stephen King)

The Wendigo is a major antagonist in Stephen King's novels and one of the main antagonists of the Stephen King universe, alongside Pennywise and the Crimson King. It is the overarching antagonist of Pet Sematary and the main antagonist of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It is a primal demon that terrorized the Algonquians, the Micmacs and other Native American tribes, as well as cursed the Pet Sematary.
As described by the legendary author Stephen King from the novel, this ancient ghoulish demon is a grotesque, laughing god, a face with up-tilted, yellowish-gray, gleaming eyes, mouth drawn down in a rictus, lower lip turned out, blackish-brown, worn down teeth, ram's horns for ears, black pulsing veins in the lips, flared nostrils expelling white vapors, a long, pointed, dirty-yellow, scaled and peeling tongue, with a white worm underneath it.
==Origin==
The Wendigo might be linked with the three Moirae, because of its ties with Death. The Wendigo prematurely cuts the thread which binds humans to life, so it might be linked with Atropos. The Wendigo inhabited the entire Northern Hemisphere of North America, around Canada, and had supreme dominion over every creature and every organism in its domain.
Sometime in its life, the Wendigo encountered the Micmac Burial Ground in Maine, in the place which would eventually become Ludlow. The Micmac Burial Ground lain not too far through the woods from a pet cemetery which was used by the town's future children. The Wendigo then cursed the Micmac Burial Ground and the curse's consequences were that any corpse that was laid in the ground becomes reanimated within a day, but was a cannibal. After they saw that danger, the Micmacs abandoned Ludlow and resettled elsewhere.
===Pet Sematary===
Throughout the white settlement of Ludlow, the Wendigo lurked behind the scenes and manipulated events in the town just as Pennywise and André Linoge' manipulated events in the towns of Derry and Little Tall Island, respectively. The Wendigo reanimated whatever animal was laid in the newly-rediscovered Micmac Burial Ground, such as bulls, cats, and dogs. It reanimated the dog of Jud Crandall, a native to the town, and his father, who knew of the cemetery, warned Jud against future excursions. Once reanimated from death, the "resurrected" corpses showed more aggression than usual and frequently attacked strangers. They lived for roughly ten years after being brought back to life and then died again.
During World War II, however, the burial ground's pull became stronger, when a man named Timmy Baterman was killed in Italy and was shipped back to be buried. Timmy's dad buried him in the Micmac Cemetery and felt the pull. Timmy was reanimated and came back to his father's house, but was possessed by the Wendigo. That did not escape attention, and a group of townspeople, including an adult Jud, came back to Timmy's house and demanded his dad to undo the evil that he had unleashed. Tim's father refused to notice anything unusual, although he was physically ill. Tim, who was still possessed by the Wendigo, gave away dark secrets about the men who came to speak to his father, which scared the men senseless and they then left. However, that night, Tim's father shot his son, doused the house in flames, and then shot himself. The doctor thought that Tim had been dead for weeks because of how decomposed his body was.
Once the Creed family moved to Ludlow, Louis Creed's daughter, Ellie, lost her cat, Winston Church, on the highway. An older Jud then took Louis to the Micmac Burial Ground and persuaded Louis to bury Church. Church was subsequently reanimated and came back to Louis' House the next day. Church was more aggressive than usual as he was possessed by the Wendigo: Church took only raw meat, hissed at its owners, and smelled terrible.
Shortly afterward, Louis' infant son, Gage, was killed on the highway when he was mowed down by a lorry. Louis went mad and, despite Jud's protests, took Gage up from his grave, carried him through the woods to the Micmac Cemetery, and narrowly avoided the Wendigo on the way, whose presence he actually saw. The Wendigo let Louis pass unimpeded, as it knew what he was about to do. Louis then buried Gage and the next morning, Gage was reanimated. Gage, possessed by the Wendigo, killed Jud and Louis' wife, Rachel, and then came for Louis. But Louis was quick: he killed the possessed Church, and then the possessed Gage. The Wendigo, bereft of a human body, bided its time in the woods as it waited for another victim. Louis then happened to drag Rachel through the trees to the Micmac Cemetery - one of Louis' friends tried to follow, but was scared off by the Wendigo's laugh.
The Wendigo then reanimated Rachel Creed's body, walked back to Louis' house, and killed him that night, which completed its vengeance against the townspeople.
===The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon===
A young teen girl named Trish McFarland stumbled off her route in the woods while she hiked with her family. She got increasingly lost and had numerous breakdowns. The Wendigo then took advantage of that, pursued her, and intended her to be its next victim. During the course of her journey, the Wendigo left grisly omens through the woods, such as mutilated deer. Three supernatural messengers came to Trish in the woods, such as the Subaudible, (her family's view of God) another messenger in the form of her science teacher, and a prophet of the God of the Lost, which was the Wendigo. The Wendigo's Prophet said that resisting the pull of the Wendigo was useless and that the Wendigo was irresistible: All who resisted, were met with death. Trish denied ending up as food and persisted in trying to escape the forest. Eventually, through sheer will, Trish found a way out, and ended up on a motorway through the woods, but was accosted by the God of the Lost; the Wendigo, in the form of a grizzly bear, which then attacked her. Trish threw her walkman at it, but the Wendigo was shot at briefly by a hunter and retreated after it saw that it had met its match. Trish was then subsequently rescued while the Wendigo remained in the woods and waited for more victims.
===2019 Pet Sematary Remake===
In the remake, the Wendigo is once again the source of dark forces that haunt the cemetery. True to its portrayal in the book, the Wendigo has a powerful presence over Pet Sematary, so much that its existence was explicitly documented in the accounts pertaining the said burial ground.
Other than resurrecting the deceased who buried at Pet Sematary, the Wendigo briefly made its presence known to a grief-stricken Louis Creed as he is carrying the exhumed body of his 9-year-old daughter beyond the ruins of the Pet Sematary to the ancient resurrection grounds that lie deeper in the woods. As he passes through Little God Swamp, the mist closes around the Wendigo's towering form before it disappears. Though, Creed is able to see the glimpse of it and is unsure with what he just saw, which is exactly how it plays out in the novel.
==Gallery==
Wendigo Stalking Louis.png|The Wendigo in the 2019 Pet Sematary remake