I met the Rikki family

I grew up near Helsinki. On the international stage, Finland might as well be one big forest, but we have the same ebb and flow of countryside and big cities as everywhere else. I’ve always been more of a city kind of man, but I’ve idolized those with a more practical, close-to-nature kind of upbringing. I think you’ve all met people like that; those who grew up in an area where self-reliance and confidence go hand-in-hand. Sure, country people might not know the best place to get a rental car, or where to get a cheap beer on a Saturday night, but they can make a log cabin with hand-twined rope and a can-do attitude.

Back in 2017, I was working with a documentary crew. We were scouting locations for an upcoming shoot about people living in rural Finland, particularly in the outskirts of the Kainuu region. I was working with a guide named Erkki; a stick-like man with round apple-like cheeks and a never-ending smile. He could be telling you the most dreadful things and never lose his endless grin. We were gonna go location to location, do some test footage, and then return to base. From there, we would settle on the overall narrative and set out for some proper filming.

But for the time being, it was just me and Erkki on the road, grasping at straws.

 

It was an exciting time in my life. I was planning to propose to my then-girlfriend Hanna at the final shoot of the documentary. It was months off, but not so long that it felt daunting. Just enough time for me to make an event of it. But that was the future, this was now – and Erkki had some bad news to share.

We were planning on doing a segment about the Silent People of the Kainuu region, so that part was scheduled for next month. But we needed something more personal; something about the people who really breathed life into the region. Erkki had an idea to follow a man he knew that lived as a sort of hermit, but that fell through at the last minute. So we needed a new idea at short notice.

Erkki suggested something crazy. He’d heard about a family called the Rikkis. These were an almost mythical family which had only been seen in passing. There was no address, and no way to contact them. Erkki could swear they were out there, but he wasn’t sure how to reach them. If we could find them, they’d be exactly the kind of people we were looking for.

 

It was the end of winter, so the weather was all over the place. We were following an eastbound road, but it’d started to snow out of nowhere. Maybe it was the final push before spring, but we suddenly had snow reaching up to our knees. We were on a dirt road, and it was getting harder and harder to see where we ought to turn. Erkki stopped to check his GPS, and minutes later, we were stuck.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. It was bad, sure, but we had supplies and a satellite phone. We’d be fine, but it was one hell of an inconvenience. As Erkki checked his gear, I looked out the window; only to see something unexpected.

There were three people standing by the treeline. Two men, one woman, all dressed in white wool clothes. At first they looked snow-covered, but it dawned on me that they all just had very bright hair; almost platinum blonde.

 

“Is that them?” I asked.

Erkki leaned over, then nodded at me with that ever-present smile.

“Looks like ‘em,” he said. “I heard they got white hair.”

They just stood there, looking at us from the treeline. Arms hanging loosely at their sides. One of the men, the taller one, adjusted his backpack. It looked heavy.

“Should we go say hello?” I asked.

“I don’t think they get a lot of visitors,” he said. “Some people don’t think they’re real.”

“They look real to me.”

I raised my hand and waved at them. One of them raised their hand back and looked at it. I don’t think he understood the gesture.

 

Erkki and I got out of the car and walked up to them. It hadn’t dawned on me just how tall they were. They were all in their early 20’s, with the woman being slightly younger. They all had this long white-ish hair and pale skin. Me and were red from the cold, but the Rikki family was white as ice. Not to mention, they were gorgeous. Not a single flaw in their features.

Erkki extended a hand in greeting, but they misinterpreted it as him reaching for something. They just gave him a curious look and collectively stepped back.

“Sorry,” I said. “We didn’t mean to be rude.”

Erkki nodded and kept his hand out. Then he tapped himself on the chest.

“I’m Erkki,” he said. “What’s your names?”

The three of them just looked at us like we were aliens. The tallest one mimicked Erkki’s movement and tapped himself on the chest.

“Erkki,” the man said.

“No no, this is Erkki,” I said, pointing to my guide. “What’s your name?”

There was no response. One by one they just mimicked the movement, pointing at themselves, then at us, repeating Erkki’s name.

 

When it was clear that we were misunderstanding one another, the tension eased. We all laughed a little. As we did, they made this unusual noise. It was mixed with their laughter, and it got louder the more they smiled. It went a little something like ‘ree-kicki-kee”, over and over. The namesake of their family, I figured.

The shorter man tapped Erkki on the shoulder and pointed into the woods, as if asking us to follow. We grabbed our gear, made a note on Erkki’s GPS, and followed them. All the while, none of them talked; They just made the occasional noise. The two men tapped one another on the chest, saying ‘Erkki’, and laughed about it. The woman seemed less enthused.

We followed them for about an hour. Every direction looked the same in the snow, but they never once hesitated; they knew these woods by heart. They were so quiet and comfortable, not once slipping or stumbling. Me and Erkki, on the other hand, were barely keeping up.

 

The Rikki family had two log cabins deep in the woods. It looked so lived-in, with pelts covering the doors, and little wind chimes made from calmly rocking animal bones. The cabins were on a slope leading down to a thin creek, all covered in pine trees. There was also a small shed, which looked more like a large box. The taller man swung his arm out, as if in greeting, and waved us along.

Stepping inside the main cabin was like walking into another world. These people must have lived there for decades. Every inch of their cabins had some sort of carving, or decoration. They had tools covering the walls, and their own mattresses made from straw and blankets. The cabins were bigger than they looked, as they’d been dug a bit downward into the slope. An old rowboat hung overhead, leaning against the linseed oil-covered supports.

We were offered a foul-smelling drink poured from a metal canister. They served it in what looked like repurposed tuna cans. They poured themselves a shot too. The woman declined with a little groaning noise.

Erkki gave me a “when in Rome” kind of look, and we downed it.

 

It was all very friendly. We showed them some of our equipment and tried to explain, but they just looked at us with confused smiles. They didn’t understand what they were looking at, and giving things names seemed to confuse them. It’s like they didn’t understand the concept of a name. The only thing even resembling a word that they could say was that ever-present ree-kicki-kee kind of noise they made when excited.

One of them offered us some dry fish. Out of habit, I thanked him. In response, he held the fish up, and said ‘thank you’ right back. I laughed a little and held the fish up, trying to get him to repeat the word ‘fish’, but there was clearly some misunderstanding. After about half an hour of back-and-forth, I’d accidentally taught him that ‘fish’ and ‘thank you’ was the same thing. The two men kept repeating it over and over, and gleefully shared it with the young woman.

I got the impression that these people weren’t stupid, or damaged in any way. They just had a vastly different view of things, and they didn’t speak any language in common with us. Maybe not a language at all. Their view of the world was something completely different from ours, and I couldn’t imagine what went on in their heads. They were exceptional people to feature in our documentary.

While Erkki tried to show them some pictures from his phone, I decided to get a better look around the other cabin.

 

There were a couple of oddities, as expected. There were notches on the door for tracking a child’s height. I figured that these people had grown up here – never really interacting with those from the outside. It was unheard of, but not impossible. Hell, I had an uncle who lived in North Karelia who I’d only seen once in my whole life; some of these people just wanted to be left alone.

But there were things I couldn’t explain too. For example, they had a whole wall covered in metal zippers. I figured they were used for repairs, but I couldn’t see why they’d store them like that. They were hung in a strange pattern; groups of three by three, as in a grid of nine. I counted 26 in total. The longest wall in the cabin was covered in animal pelts of different varieties; I had a hard time identifying them.

The Rikki woman entered the cabin after a while. She walked right past me without a word and stepped up to an old mirror. She opened a small case containing a couple of silver chains and some bright red lipstick. She carefully put it on, as if making herself pretty. It was something eerie about it; watching this almost feral woman do something I’d seen my girlfriend do in the bathroom mirror.

 

I was just about to go back to the others when she stopped me. She put her arms around my shoulder, and before I could protest, she leaned in for a kiss. I pulled away.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m spoken for. Sorry.”

She just blinked at me, trying to decipher the noises I made. She looked confused. Then she rolled her eyes and grabbed my hand, going back to the main cabin. There she handed me some more dry fish. Maybe she thought I was hungry.

She didn’t seem very upset about my rejection. And sure, she was beautiful, but I was about to be an engaged man. It felt wrong. Especially from someone I could only barely communicate with.

Erkki and I were given some more dry goods, and we shared some of our food with the Rikkis. I had some crackers and jam, which they spat out with a ree-kicki-kee laugh; they didn’t like the crumbs. We had a couple more drinks, a few more misunderstandings, and as the sun started to set, I saw the young woman leaning over to give Erkki a big kiss with her reddened lips. He didn’t seem to mind at all.

Surprisingly, this just made the family cheer. Maybe it was some kind of welcome ritual. It didn’t seem particularly sexual.

 

By the late evening, we were given a space to sleep on in the second cabin. Erkki and I rolled out our sleeping bags and made ourselves comfortable. My head was spinning a bit, mostly because of that foul drink. You could strip the skin of a boar with that thing. Maybe that’s what it was used for.

Erkki and I settled in for the night, listening to the trees rustle up against the side of the cabin. Little wisps of winter air made it through the cracks in the floor. It wasn’t a comfortable space, but I could see how one could get used to it. Especially if you didn’t know any better.

“We have to film these people,” I whispered into the dark. “They’re… unique.”

“Told you,” Erkki said. “Jackpot.”

“How’d you hear about them?”

“All kinds of rumors,” he murmured. “There’s the usual stuff, like, they’re not recognized by the government. Paperless.”

“What else?”

“Some say they sneak around the farms, stealing eggs and milk. Others blame them for bad harvests.”

 

I could hear him moving in the dark, trying to get comfortable. His speech slurred a little.

“Some say they’re bad luck,” he continued. “That they’ll grab your kids if you stray. That they’ll eat your dogs. That kinda crap.”

“They don’t seem like the type,” I said. “They seem kinda friendly.”

“I’d say,” he chuckled. “The lips on that woman…”

And with that, he drifted off to sleep. It took me a bit longer. I was comfortable enough, but there was something about that noise they kept making that just rubbed me the wrong way. Out of all the noises in the world, why that one?

Ree-kicki-kee. Ree-kicki-kee.

 

We got up early the next day. The Rikkis had already been up for a while, milling about outside. It’d snowed a lot; we couldn’t see the tracks from the night before. I had a rough idea of the direction our car was, but I was getting a bit nervous about finding my way back. Erkki didn’t seem all too worried though, we had a GPS.

The shorter of the two men walked up to me and pulled on my arm, pointing me eastward, down the slope. Now, I say ‘shorter’, but that was only relative to his older brother. He was almost a full head taller than me. It was clear he wanted to show me something. I brought the camera and followed along, asking Erkki to wait for me.

We didn’t walk far. We followed the river for a bit until we got to a flat rock elevation. There was a crack there, which led to a small cave. I’m a bit claustrophobic, but the ease of which the Rikki brother stepped inside calmed my nerves a little.

 

There was a large flat stone wall inside. It was just early enough in the day for the sun to peek through the crack; any later in the afternoon and most of this space would be dark. Maybe that’s why he wanted to show me in the morning.

There was a sort of cave painting there. Not anything spectacular, or even that old, but telling in its own way. Someone had drawn it by hand, leaving prints in the roughly spaced color patches. It took me a while to understand what I was seeing, but once I stepped back, I could understand the whole picture.

On the left, there was a line of women, all dressed in white. Brides, seemingly. All walking out of what looked like an old village. They walked past birch trees and pine, all holding bouquets of flowers. At the end of the line, there were bridal dresses thrown to the side, discarded, and covered in blood. Next to them were bouquets of colorful flowers. But a couple women remained, holding up bouquets of these unusual blue sunflowers; giving them up as an offering. These women were unharmed, and their dresses as beautiful as ever.

And on the right side of the image was what looked like a church with a broken cross. The doors were wide open, but there was only darkness inside. At the very front was a woman in white being handed an infant by a long, gray, arm.

“You know what this means?” I asked him.

He just smiled at me.

“Is this you?” I asked, pointing at the child. “Is that you, right here?”

But he said nothing. Just a long exhale, and a faint ree-kicki-kee.

 

I got a couple of pictures of the cave and followed the brother back to the cabins. It was clear that something about their family was beyond the ordinary, but it was hard to piece it together. It dawned on me just how little I knew about these people. How many generations had they been out here? Who was their mother? And where was she? My mind drifted back to that cave painting, and the woman in white presenting a bouquet to an encroaching darkness. Not afraid, but welcoming.

When I came back to the cabins, Erkki was gone.

The woman was brushing her hair and boiling some kind of glue. She didn’t seem at all bothered by me coming back. The older brother was nowhere to be seen. Erkki’s backpack was gone. So was his equipment. It’s like he’d taken it all and just walked out of there, leaving me behind. It didn’t make sense. I confronted the young woman, and despite it being a long shot, I asked her.

“Erkki,” I said. “Where?”

She didn’t understand. As I repeated myself, she put her fingers to her lips, as if asking if I was hungry. I shook my head.

“Erkki!” I repeated.

I tried to show with my hands how tall he was. I made circles around my cheeks and smiled, as if trying to mimic his face. She just looked at me, muttering that same sound as always. Ree-kicki-kee. Ree-kicki-kee.

 

After a couple of hours, the older brother returned. The other two jumped up, yelling excitedly. As they did, the older brother held up something for them to see. I couldn’t see what it was, but it dawned on me as he got closer. It was the zipper from a jacket.

He gave me a pat on the shoulder as he passed me by to put it on the cabin wall. Looking down on my shoulder, I felt something warm.

Blood.

 

They shouted and cheered, ecstatic. Repeating that same noise, over and over and over. As the older brother emerged from the cabin, he walked up to me. I pointed at my shoulder and felt my tongue go dry.

“Erkki?” I asked.

There was no answer. Not a glimpse of recognition. He just smiled and dumped his bloodstained gloves in the snow.

 

I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea where to go, and I didn’t know what to expect. These people lived by a completely different set of rules, and whatever seemed normal to them might be alien to me. I was on their land, living by their law. But I couldn’t wrap my head around it; had they killed Erkki? Why?

They were as hospitable as ever. They shared drinks and food. They made their own stove bread. They let me borrow a pelt to stay warm around the fire. There was no hint of hostility. In fact, later that night, the woman put on that red lipstick again and offered me another kiss. Again, I declined. All three of them seemed almost… disappointed. I apologized, which only seemed to antagonize her. Minutes later, I was handed another dry fish. I forgot – they thought an apology meant something else.

 

For two full days, I lived with the Rikki family like nothing’d happened. I tried to communicate, to get them to guide me back to the car, but the message just didn’t get through. I asked for Erkki’s equipment. The GPS, the satellite phone, anything. And still, they didn’t understand. They housed me, fed me, kept me warm, and tried to include me in their chores.

One afternoon, the brothers came back with a bunch of scrap. A steering wheel, a hubcap, a car seat. They’d made their way back to Erkki’s car and looted it. They didn’t try to hide it. They even handed me a few of the items, tapping on them, as if asking me what they were. I tried to show them the steering wheel and the way you turn it, but they just thought it looked funny. And with every burst of laughter, that noise bubbled up. Ree-kicki-kee. They couldn’t help themselves.

I kept looking over my shoulder. I’d see the older brother watching me curiously. Whenever I saw him wandering around with an axe, or a hammer, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he was looking for an excuse to use it. He’d be all smiles and laughs one moment, but there was always something else hidden deep behind those eyes – an intention. A willingness.

I considered running away. To just take what I could and book it. But the same question arose in me; what if I went the wrong way? This was the middle of nowhere, and if I went the wrong way I’d end up in even deeper shit.

So I waited. I kept my head down, stayed quiet, and watched.

 

On the fourth day, the whole family wanted to show me something. They pulled me along.

I think we went north. Past the pines, and past the birch trees. We wandered into a clearing where a sliver of mountain rock poked out; making a large flat area with a slight tilt. At the very peak there was a large patch of blood spatter.

The older brother walked off to the side, where a chainsaw hung from a tree. Beneath it was a large hand-woven basket. My heart stopped when he reached for the chainsaw, but he ended up picking up the basket.

I think they were confused. They didn’t seem to understand why I was nervous. This didn’t seem wrong or unusual to them. The younger brother seemed more interested in the chainsaw, reverently patting it.

“Ree-kicki-kicki-kicki-kee,” he muttered.

The others nodded.

 

I looked back and forth between them. The older brother was collecting something in the basket, while the other two cleaned and worshipped their chainsaw. An older model, probably from the 80’s. The color was sun-tanned and faded. The chain was worn, but as deadly as ever.

Ree-kicki-kee.

That’s what that noise meant. They were imitating someone pull-starting a chainsaw.

 

The older brother was cleaning something up. I looked around, but I didn’t know what was okay to touch and what wasn’t. There was always that feeling of someone on the edge of flipping a switch; turning feral and doing something terrible to me. These people thought what they were showing me was fine and normal; they didn’t understand that it wasn’t.

The older brother picked up a slab of animal-ravaged meat and slapped it into the basket. An arm, I think.

I recognized the color of its jacket.

 

The older brother carried the basket, and I was pushed along by the others. They wanted me to see this. The younger sister even brought my camera along. She must have learned that I associated it with important things, so clearly, this was important to them. She couldn’t really understand what it did, or why I was doing it, but she wanted to share it anyway. I think she genuinely cared. Without her lipstick on, she seemed a lot more relaxed.

We came to an open mire. It was surreal; the snow silenced everything but our breaths. I could see an old building in the distance. Perhaps a church, half-sunk into the ground. The oldest brother, struggling to carry the large basket of remains, went ahead on his own. The rest of us stood back. The sister poked at my camera, pointing at her brother. This was important to her.

I watched through a lens as he wandered off to the building and set the basket down. Moments later, one of the crumbling doors creaked open. I couldn’t see exactly what happened, but seconds later, the basket was gone and the door closed.

 

“Ree-kicki-kee,” the younger brother and sister hollered. “Ree-kicki-kicki-kee!”

The older brother raised his arms in a gesture back to them. They all looked to me, confused as to why I wasn’t cheering. The sister grabbed my arm, lifting it into the air. She nodded at me enthusiastically. Syllable by syllable, she made me say it with them. She made me cheer.

I couldn’t say no. I didn’t know what they’d do if I did. I just followed along, as my stomach turned upside down. Ree-kicki-kee.

 

I think another eight days passed. They showed me how to twine rope and how to light a fire. They took me fishing. The older brother chopped the head off a fish in a swing that was so natural to him that it made me shiver.

They showed me how to make tea from pine needles, and how to collect and dry edible roots. These people were self-sufficient, and they had no trouble sharing that with me. They treated me like one of them, but there was always that tension. That look from the older brother. Those eyes, looking for an excuse.

I can’t describe it as being kept hostage. I could go wherever, and do whatever. Hell, I could get a good stab at one of them if I tried. But there were three of them, and I couldn’t imagine what they’d do once they overpowered me. I thought about hiding a weapon, but I figured they’d notice something missing. They were meticulous about their tools.

 

One morning, they woke me up. The younger brother dragged me out of my sleeping bag and pushed me towards my clothes. He stomped his foot, showing me to hurry. I did. There was a strange noise outside. A machine noise. The other siblings were already on their way down the slope, and I had to hurry to catch up.

It didn’t take long for us to reach a field. There was a man there. A man on a snowmobile.

We all just stopped to look at him, and I could tell he’d noticed us too. The siblings just stood there, looking at him. The man waved at us, and I waved back. I was the only one who did.

 

He got off the snowmobile and approached us, taking off his helmet. He said something to me, but it wasn’t in Finnish. Might have been a tourist, or someone from across the eastern border. As he got closer, I noticed the sister picking up something from her pocket. Moments later, she’d put on her red lipstick.

The stranger walked up to us, seemingly asking a question. He pointed back at the snowmobile, shaking his head. I figured he might be lost. The two brothers walked up to him, and the sister faced him head-on. He raised his hand in protest, but when she leaned in for a kiss, he didn’t struggle. She kissed him good. He laughed and asked me a question, but I just shrugged.

The siblings cheered and hollered, repeating that same noise over and over. But as they did, the older brother shuffled behind the stranger. And as nonchalant as severing the head of a trout, he buried a hatchet in the back of the stranger’s skull.

 

“Ree-kicki-kee! Ree-kicki-kee!”

They laughed and cheered. The man bled out in the snow. I could barely fathom what’d happened. The sister wiped the lipstick off as they waved me over. They looked at me expectantly. When I didn’t cheer, their mood seemed to sour. They frowned. The older brother clutched his hatchet a little tighter. He searched my face for something.

Finally, I caved. I joined them. I made that same noise, and they lit right back up in cheers and yells. Ree-kicki-kee. And together, they made me help them carry that man all the way to the clearing in the forest. Past the pines. Past the birch trees. Leaving a trail of blood behind.

 

I can’t go into detail about what they did. I can’t. They fired up the chainsaw, they screamed louder than I’d ever heard them scream. And when that thing roared to life, their chatter turned to screeching.

They mutilated him. Not only cutting into pieces, but making it small enough for wildlife to pick clean. They didn’t care about what was in his pockets. The only memento they kept was the zipper from his jacket. It wasn’t malice, or even practical. It was reverent. They were thankful, if anything. This was a joyous occasion, like kids opening a present.

It’s one thing to see blood. Even a lot of blood. But there’s a point where you see something turn from person, to body, to meat; and that image burns into the back of your eyes like a never-ending cramp.

 

I’d started to put it together. The sister performed a kind of test, or initiation. She made herself pretty and offered a kiss. Except – it wasn’t just a kiss. It was a sign of consent. To the Rikkis, accepting that kiss was to accept your death. You consented to them taking your life. Since I’d never kissed her, I’d never consented. As a result, they treated me with the utmost hospitality. Like I was one of them.

Erkki had kissed her. It’d just been a quick peck on the lips, but it was all it took. So they saw it as consent, waited until morning, and took him into the woods to die.

They just cut the body up and left it there for the forest creatures to enjoy. They didn’t even check the pockets.

But before we left, the sister poked me. She gave me my camera, and she pointed; right at the pile of meat from the stranger. She insisted on it.

This was important.

 

I could barely function for the rest of the day. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. With every smack of my lips I imagined the sound of severed meat. But the Rikkis continued as usual. They cheered, they laughed, they played. They did their chores, and kept their spirits high. If anything, they couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. I was offered a salve, so maybe they thought I was sick. They couldn’t comprehend that what they were doing was out of the ordinary.

When I lay down to sleep that night, that image kept flashing in the back of my mind. I couldn’t differentiate the ringing sound of the chainsaw in my ears from their cackling call. It was all this one nightmarish blend that churned my guts to ice.

I had to leave. I had to.

 

The next day, they took me back there. While they filled up their basket with remains, I swallowed my fears and dug through the man’s pockets. It didn’t take long for me to find the keys to the snowmobile. The Rikkis gave me a curious look, but didn’t seem to mind; meat was meat. As long as I didn’t interrupt, they didn’t care.

I figured I could find my way back to the snowmobile. I just had to follow the mire going south, and I’d spot it eventually. I just had to go along and break away from the group. Somehow.

We followed the same path, going back to the mire. The smell of the flesh was so pungent I could taste it in my lungs, but I tried to focus on what I had to do. I think they could tell something was off; they were their usual cheerful self, but I couldn’t reciprocate.

As we reached the open field, the older brother grabbed me by the arm. While he carried the basket, he seemed to want me to come along, and bring the camera. He, too, wanted to show something important.

 

We walked up to the old building. It was much larger than I thought. Fading white wood barely held together, windows battered and broken. A patch of stripped wood above the door in the shape of a missing cross. The older brother put down the basket in front of the door and ushered me forward to take a picture. When I raised my camera, he put a hand on my shoulder, as if to say ‘not yet’. So I waited.

The door creaked open. I could hear the others hollering from afar, cheering us on. I stepped closer with my camera raised.

 

A long gray arm stretched out, carefully wrapping its fingers, one by one, around the handle of the basket. What little light made its way inside the building showed me the outlines of countless baskets littering the floor, and something shapeless moving in the dark. It gently pulled the basket in. As it did, the older brother made a strange noise.

I looked back as his expression changed. Something different. Surprise, perhaps. Then I turned back, only to feel the cold touch of gray fingers wrapping around my throat.

I was pulled into the dark.

 

It was so fast. I couldn’t see the walls. It’s like the room opened up into an endless hallway.

There were so many people there. Pale white with almost translucent hair. Their eyes were sunken and dark. There were colorful patches of cloth scattered around the floor, with bits and pieces gnawed to the bone. Some of which were still gnawed on.

Heads slowly turned towards me. Tired, desperate, and starving. Vaguely humanoid, with elongated limps and absurd proportions.

A feeding ground for something inhuman.

 

A sturdy hand grabbed me.

I fell backwards, landing in snow. The older brother had pulled me out. I saw the doors close as the gray hand disappeared. There were no cheers. Nothing. They were just as confused as I was.

I could barely stand. My legs wobbled. I looked over at the other Rikkis and took a deep breath. They were strange, but they had their rules. They didn’t kill indiscriminately. They were feeding others, and they weren’t doing it without a reason. They asked for permission.

But this thing didn’t. The older brother didn’t like that.

 

Grasping the keys to the snowmobile in my pocket, I started walking. The older brother grasped my hand, searching my face with that cold, dead stare. He wasn’t like the rest. He knew something more, I could tell. But even so, he had a code to follow. He wasn’t killing for the fun of it, and he wasn’t going to let me become unwilling meat. For a moment, I could understand why the Rikkis never learned to speak – they didn’t need to. This man could tell me everything he wanted without a word. So he let me go.

The other Rikkis called out to me. There was a sadness to them. They tapped themselves on the chest, mimicking words I’d said before. Things they could only hope to apply.

“Erkki!” the sister called out.

“Thank you! Thank you!” the younger brother repeated.

But I kept walking. I understood, finally, that they weren’t going to stop me. The final sound I heard was the sister, wailing by the treeline, trying to beg me to come back. And the last thing I saw was the older brother turning his back on me.

I left them behind. I got to the snowmobile, and I went west. And I didn’t stop until I was far, far away.

 

It took hours before I saw another person. A car passing on a country road who stopped for me. I told the police everything, but there was nothing they could do. There were no tracks to follow. All they could do was go look, but everything was covered by the trees.

We never finished the documentary. I did end up proposing though, but I could never look at a kiss the same way. It took me some time to warm up to it. I still get shivers from it. To this day, Hanna doesn’t understand why she can’t wear red lipstick.

And I think they’re still out there. Living in their cabin, as a family.

And I don’t think they’ll ever understand why we fear them.

Maybe that’s for the best.