Post by TheWalkinDude on Jul 31, 2009 10:42:26 GMT
this story is still a bit of a work in progress but i thought i'd post it so i can see where i need to update this story. generally i'm happy with it but i have had mixed views from the people who have read it so far. they're my mates though so i would like all your oppinions on it!!
The Woods Near Caudwell
By Ian Latham
The woods near Caudwell are a large area of forestry that covers most of the Cumbernauld area. It is a few miles in each direction and covers most of the outskirts of the Cumbernauld area as well as a large majority of the inhabited areas.
Caudwell is a little village area that is actually part of the Cumbernauld Township. Though the people of Caudwell would tell you differently, they would tell you that they wouldn’t have any truck with that rough lot, bunch of wasters and junkies the lot of them. But regardless of this statement they are, in actual fact, a part of Cumbernauld.
Cumbernauld is considered one of the most depressing areas to live in all of Scotland. Some people have actually described the town as a desert with windows, and it is a very accurate description, mostly because there is nothing there. Since it was built on land that is mostly forest there are a lot of back roads and paths that lead mostly to small farmlands or derelict and abandoned buildings or to nowhere at all.
The area near Caudwell is next to the Cumbernauld Village, the Cumbernauld Fields and the Cumbernauld Cottage Theatre. The dual carriageway runs right through the middle of the town and goes up past the village, if you look to the north while driving you can see the small village of Caudwell. But a glance is all you’ll really get due to the density of said woodland.
If your walking to Caudwell its about a mile from the Cumbernauld Cottage Theatre, you take the road the runs past the fields until you reach a set of stairs. At the bottom you come to a path that leads you towards the Village and eventually breaks off to another path into the woods. Eventually you’ll come to a fork in the road, the right hand path takes you up towards the fields and the left takes you to Caudwell.
Caudwell, as officially described in the North Lanarkshire guide, is a quaint little area that one really must see if visiting Cumbernauld, with loads of shops, a few housing areas, a school and a park. That’s about all there is to see in Caudwell but if you like old-style streets and buildings you could spend all of five minutes before the vintage architecture became too much for you. But if you ask a resident of the Cumbernauld village they’ll tell you that Caudwell is “Full of weirdo’s”.
What they won’t tell you about is all the strange things that happen there.
For example, in 1975 a workingman, every day Joe type chap returned home after a hard day on the job to find his wife lying in the garden in a state of catatonia. His two children, two boys of the ages nine and eleven, were nowhere to be found. The ensuing search turned up nothing and it was thought that some child molester had grabbed them from the back garden and they were never seen again.
This, however, is not true.
No one can really tell you what happened to the kids, but the night before they disappeared Johnny, the eldest of the two, said he had seen strange flashing lights in the woods behind the house. Of course no one believed him and dismissed it as typical childish imaginings. However if you look closely at the police report you’ll see that they were last seen going into the woods near their house, the woods were in fact right at the end of their garden, and that at the moment they disappeared there had been strange howling noises coming from the woods.
Now I don’t mean to postulate that werewolves took the kids, but it does make you think.
No one knows what the mother saw.
But I digress; the point being is that every little town has its own stories about strange goings on their home turf.
You just have to know what to listen for.
This particular account takes place on a cold night in October. It was about seven O’clock and the night was well getting underway. The sun had just about set and on the path from the Cottage Theatre was a young man by the name of Oscar McKane. Now Oscar here is a student at Cumbernauld College. He’s studying computing, has a steady relationship with his high school sweetheart and has not one care in the world. Tonight he’s going to die, but at this point he doesn’t know it yet.
Oscar had just left the theatre pub after a few rounds of beer with his mates and had decided that a nice stroll home is in order. So he had taken the path that I mentioned earlier as it was the quickest yet most scenic rout home.
As Oscar walked past the last street light in civilisation and into the woods he began to whistle a little tune, since he’s tone deaf no one would be able to tell you what it was.
About fifteen minutes later Oscar began to feel that something wasn’t quite right; he stopped for a moment and looked back the way he had come. As night had shouldered its way into the scene it had become increasingly gloomy so it made it difficult to see what, if anything, he was looking for. Sure there were streetlamps in here as well but they were old, weak and barely penetrated dark. They lit just enough to see where the path was but that was about it.
Oscar stood this way for a few more minutes, glancing back and forth before it dawned on him. He had been walking for sometime and he had yet to come to the fork in the road that would take him home. He slid back his sleeve and examined his watch. The radium hands glowed sickly green, indicating that it was just past seven fifteen. Being that he had been walking the best part of twenty-five minutes in total since leaving the pub and he should have come to the division in the path. But in both directions it was only gloomy woods stretching on for infinity.
Since he wasn’t a very imaginative young fellow Oscar didn’t rattle easy. But this was slightly disconcerting; not knowing which way was the right way to go. He hated walking except when he was drunk and hated being lost even more. Oscar wondered if maybe he had taken the wrong path back at the start. He doubted it but the only way to tell for sure would be to go back the way he had came and retrace his steps. So he turned and walked back along the path that should take him back to the dual carriageway.
He hadn’t gotten very far though when Oscar heard what could only be described as a clicking sound; he stopped and listened, straining his ears against the sounds of the woods at night.
Tak-tak-tak-tak.
It was a very familiar sound, like someone rapping their fingernails on a hard surface.
Tak-tak-tak-tak.
There was also another sound accompanying this one. It sounded like heavy breathing or panting, like the breathing of a dog or something, but he was sure there were no wild animals in the woods. The coming of humans had scared off most creatures that would have dwelt in the forests. But all the same it was slightly worrying.
As the sound grew louder Oscar could discern that it was coming from behind him. He turned and squinted into the gloom, fine beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. Every sense in his body was screaming that this wasn’t right, that he should get the hell out of here but sheer curiosity had rooted him to the spot.
Two shapes were approaching and he could just make out that they were quite low to the ground and had that shambling gate that most animals have. As they drew closer the panting sound seemed to echo all around him, he could make out the bodies of two dogs before they disappeared into the darkness between the streetlights then reappear again in the next pool of light.
Oscar breathed a sigh of relief; if there were dogs here then surely their owner wouldn’t be far behind. When they had drawn near to him they stopped and sat back on their haunches, eyeing him with doggy indifference that only cats can outdo. They were both German shepherds, or at least looked like German shepherds. Though slightly scruffy looking they didn’t appear to pose any kind of threat.
“Hey there guys,” said Oscar “What you two doing out here eh?”
He leaned forwards and put his hands on his knees; he was still slightly inebriated from the beer and felt quite jovial.
The dogs continued to eye him with that same indifference, which was rather un-doglike. Usually a domestic dog would wag its tale or something; at least in effort to see if the person addressing them had anything they could eat. These two seemed to be rather more interested in him than anything he may have to offer.
“You two out for a nice walk, then?” Oscar asked.
It was at this point that the dogs started growling. It was a low throaty sound that raised the hairs on the back of Oscar’s neck; he wasn’t one to tangle with any angry animal.
“Um… ok then. I’ll just be off then.”
He started walking slowly backwards away from the dogs as they sat and watched. That low growling hanging in the air. The dogs stood up and growled louder, causing Oscar to stop. He knew better than to turn his back on anything that was angry. They would see this as a sign of weakness and cause them to attack, so Oscar stood eyeing each dog carefully. If they moved he would run and climb a tree, at least if he was out of the two dogs reach they might get bored and go away… at least he hoped.
One of the dogs began barking, its voice seemed strange and very unlike the type of dog it at least appeared to be. It was low and seemed to echo on an on, penetrating every pore in Oscars body. He was frozen still in panic; sweat seemed to pour out of every part of his body, making his skin feel slick and clammy.
“Easy now, pooch.” He said “Maybe I’ve got something tasty for you.”
Oscar began rifling through his pockets while the two dogs barked at him. He only stopped when they started whining, a sick and twisted mewling sound that raked the senses like slap to the face.
There gums had been drawn back in a fearsome grimace, but now they seemed to be being pulled back by unseen fingers and the dogs were shaking their heads back and forth. But this didn’t seem like the normal throes of agony, this looked more like they were having some kind of seizure, their heads twisting and shaking like something out of a fever dream.
There was a ripping sound as the dog’s lips split and tore back from their muzzles, revealing red bone. Blood poured from their injured snouts and their tongues lolled from their mouths, becoming long, bloody ropes of muscle that dragged along the ground, writhing like long, pink snakes. Their eyes began to bulge and eventually burst, spilling horrible black fluid filled with squirming things that seemed to grow into long black tentacles. Their paws seemed to inflate until long black talons burst from under the skin into hideous, gut ripping claws.
Oscar’s eyes widened with fear when they began to shamble towards him, all the while making that horrible mewling sound. He turned on his heels and ran, knowing fine well that he was probably going to be ripped to pieces by these horrible monstrosities.
He heard them give chase so he pumped his knees harder, feeling his heart jackhammer inside his chest and fire scorch his lungs as he drew panicked breaths. Then after about five minutes of this all the noise stopped. Oscar chanced a look over his shoulder and saw…
Nothing.
The path was empty save for the trees. There was nothing that even said that anything, other than him, had even been there. No blood or horrible black ichor.
Nothing.
At.
All.
“Oh, thank you Jesus!” he exclaimed breathlessly, falling to his knees. Tears of relief were streaming down his face. Oscar began patting his pockets looking for a tissue when a hand fell on his shoulder. He let out a terrified yelp of surprise and jumped about a mile. Then he noticed that the hand was that of a little old man.
“You ok, son?” he asked. He looked about sixty and had a big raincoat on. A bonnet was perched atop his head like some kind of Burberry parrot and a big grey beard obscured most of his lower face.
Oscar began to chuckle to himself.
“Yeah,” he said “Yeah I am thanks. I just…” Oscar stopped himself before he went on babbling about monster dogs, he was sure the old man didn’t want to hear about any nonsense like that, hell even Oscar would have shook his head from any lunatic that had told him something like that. He sure as hell wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself.
“Look,” he said instead “I’m sorry I screamed at you. I just had a nasty fright that’s all.” Oscar indicated the path. “I’m a bit lost and I thought I heard some noises back there.”
The old man eyed him sympathetically. “That’s ok son, I’ve had a share of frights in my time.”
The old mans smile, to Oscar, seemed a little false. Like he might have meant to scare Oscar after all, maybe they were even his dogs. But those… things were nowhere to be seen.
“Where you headed?” asked the old man after a brief pause.
“Caudwell.”
“Oh, Caudwell. I know that place well.” The old mans smile broadened, Oscar began to feel a bit nervous of this geezer. Something wasn’t quite right with him, his eyes seemed to twinkle in the light with some kind of mischievous intent.
“Yeah, bit of a dive if you ask me.” Said Oscar “But hey its home. Listen, you wouldn’t know which way I’m supposed to go to get there do you?” Oscar had to try hard to keep the pleading out of his voice.
“Oh, yes of course. You’ll be wanting to stop by Molly’s, wont you?”
For a few moments Oscar was too stunned to speak, the old mans smile widened so much he looked as if the top of his head might fall off.
“How did y—” he began, but his words were choked off by that horrible mewling sound that heralded those monster dogs. He spun round expecting them to be shambling towards him but there was nothing there, only the sounds reverberated around him and the old man.
“Do you hear that?” Oscar said.
“That’s just the howlers,” Whispered the old man, his voice sounding thin and raspy. “They get’s a bit anxious when they haven’t been fed.” Now the old mans breath was hissing in an out like he was having an asthma attack and giving his voice a horrible phlegmy quality.
Oscar stood stock still while his mind replayed that last sentence.
“The howlers?”
“You should have taken the other road,” hissed the old man “You're off the map son. Here There Be Dragons…”
The old mans hand clamped itself in a bone-cracking grip on Oscar’s wrist, but it wasn’t so much as a hand anymore. It was a horrible bony claw, the skin was cracked and broken and looked long dead. Blackened bone poked through several of its fingertips.
Oscar’s breath hitched in and out in rasping gasps as he was turned to face the old man. But now the old man was rotten and dry, like a long desiccated corpse left in the desert to rot. His gums where gone revealing little black stumps of teeth like decaying tombstones poking out its jaw at jaunty angles. What was left of the old mans beard hung in tattered rats tails about his face and his eyes where gone, jellified and running down his cheeks after years of decomposition.
“Dragons!” it hissed and opened its mouth wide. There was a retching sound and black fluid jetted from its mouth like some kind of putrid vomit. It splashed the ground and the creature’s rotten trousers; lumps rolled about the pool of ichor and unfolded themselves into malformed spiders that started climbing up the creature’s legs, covering the tattered remains of its clothes.
“Dragons, my boy!” it burbled, spewing more of that horrible muck onto the ground. It was still maintained the death grip on Oscar’s wrist but he was far too terrified to move.
It is remarkable, though, on how many levels the human brain works. While Oscar was standing there gawping at the creature as it moved closer for god knew what purpose, his subconscious took control of his body. Knowing that he ought to be struggling for freedom and aimed a hard kick at the creature’s leg.
Everything that happened after that point happened in slow motion. Oscar’s kick hit the creature in what would have been its knee; there was a sickening crack as the creature’s leg broke in half like a lump of dry wood. It fell sideways, releasing Oscar from its grip and landing heavily in the spreading pool of its own black sick where the spiders began crawling over its face and eat its rotten flesh.
Then it began to laugh.
It was the horrible screeching laughter of the mad and Oscar clamped his hands over his ears. He was sure he would simply go insane if it didn’t stop, so he took to his heels and ran in the other direction, followed all the while by that insane and horrible laughter.
It really is hard to tell how long you have been running when the pituitary gland is pumping gallons of adrenaline into your blood stream. A quick jog might seem like hours when, in actual fact, it had only been minutes. Especially when you have had the kind of night that Oscar was having right now.
Pursued by that horrible laughter he ran through the dark woods, the street lamps did little to liven his spirits as they didn’t seem to light the dark as to colour it. But now that he was on high alert for monster dogs and zombies and extremely sober, he began to notice things. Like the trees, for example, looked dead and rotten, not the mid autumn early winter kind of dead but thousands of year’s dead. And there was a smell that he couldn’t really place but reminded him of long spoiled meat on a hot day.
All this wasn’t doing him any good as he was panicking and scared, very nearly, out of his mind. But if he was to get out of this he needed to think, so he made himself slow to a walk and eventually he stopped. He drew in some deep breaths to try and slow his heart rate down and alleviate the stitch in his side.
Ok he thought I’m ok and now I need to think about getting the f*ck out of here.
He noticed at this moment that there was a signpost right next to him, though he would have sworn that it wasn’t there a moment ago. It read:
<There’s No Place Like Home – Here There Be Dragons>
The direction he was facing pointed home and the other way was dragons. But after spending as much time as he had running from hideous aberrations he wasn’t going to bank all his money that the signpost was accurate. It could be another elaborate trick to lead him into the claws of some other horrible creature. But since he had no intentions of going the other direction he decided that he was going to chance it. Oscar took a look at his watch but it was useless, the hands were all spinning in different directions so it was impossible to tell what time it was.
So off he went in the directions marked home, keeping his ears alert and his eyes peeled for anything that might be coming after him. It damn well seemed as if something was trying to stop him from escaping and for the first time he wondered about what was really happening here. He remembered the story of those two kids who disappeared. He thought that was just a rumour, but now he wasn’t so sure.
While he was mulling this over in his head he heard something. It wasn’t the same sound as before and sounded more like running feet. But he was sure that… old man thing wouldn’t be chasing him, he was dry as firewood and would break to easy. So Oscar climbed in amongst the branches to wait, he was pretty well hidden here and had a good view of the path.
Eventually the footsteps drew nearer, and from the direction he was heading a large human shaped creature appeared. It was at least eight foot tall and jogging at quite a fast pace. He couldn’t see it very well in the light but it ambled past and took off towards the way marked ‘Dragons’, eventually disappearing from view.
After a few moments the footsteps died down and Oscar dared to move from his hiding place, just to be safe he broke a large branch off one of the trees to use for a weapon. Anything that decided to attack was going to have a serious headache in the morning. Feeling a bit more confident Oscar set off again in the direction of home, swinging the branch back and forth in front of him.
While he was walking Oscar decided to hum a tune to himself, the ringing in his ears from the excess adrenaline was making him edgy. So he hummed a tune that, again, was so out of tune no one could have identified it.
But then there was a screeching sound from back the way he had came, it sounded like something was very, very angry. This was all Oscar really needed to get him moving at a faster pace, so he set off at a jog hoping that whatever was making that hellish noise wasn’t coming back to find him.
He had only been going fast for a few minutes when, from behind him, were popping sounds, and when he looked over his shoulders the street lights were exploding one by one. Something was moving with them, something big.
Oscar decided to go for broke and began to run again, but not flat out. He wanted to save himself for that last moment when he needed the speed. But chancing a look over his shoulder nearly made him do just that. The thing that was chasing him was ahead of the popping streetlights. It was the creature that had shambled past while he was hiding but now he could see it properly.
It was huge, literally standing about eight or nine feet tall. It had arms as long as its body but they didn’t seem to have any bones and moved in whipping like motions, bending and curling like angry snakes and stretching out far longer than would seem possible. Over its face it wore some kind of burlap sack with cross-stitching where the eyes and mouth would be and even the folds seemed to give the impression of eyebrows. It features seemed to be stitched into some kind of twisted smile because one other thing Oscar could tell from glancing over his shoulder.
It was gaining on him.
Oscar very nearly burst into frantic tears until he heard something else, the song of his salvation.
Cars.
Oscar could hear cars in the distance, which meant he was nearly away from this mad place, away from the dogs and the zombies and the dragons. Then just up ahead he could see the opening to the woods, on the other side was the dual carriageway and if he could just make it he should be ok. He didn’t know this for sure but he was dammed well going to test his theory.
Oscar took another glance over his shoulder; the newest monstrosity had gained and was about ten paces behind him. What Oscar had in speed it had in striding distance and there was no way he could outpace it like this.
In a moment of sheer fury at his ordeal Oscar screamed his rage and threw the stick he was carrying over his shoulder.
“f*ck off!” he screamed as the branch sailed across the gap between him and the creature and hit it square in its lanky legs. It screeched in rage and surprise as the branch tripped it and toppled it forwards onto its front. It slammed into the ground with a bone juddering crash. Oscar was so dumbfounded by his luck that he actually stopped and gawped at the fallen monster. It was lying face down and its arms where wriggling back and forth.
He began to back away as it raised its head, the cross stitching smile had turned downwards in a grimace of anger. The sack itself seemed to be showing the creatures emotions, and now it was really pissed off.
As it raised itself up to its knees and began to stand Oscar took off a full speed towards his freedom. It wasn’t far now; only a hundred feet in front of him and the creature bellowed its rage as it tried to give chase again. But it was useless because Oscar was to far ahead for it to catch him now.
“Yes!” Oscar screamed as closed the gap to the real world “Yes! I made it, I f*ckin’ ma—”
But Oscar’s words were choked off; one of the howlers pounced from the bushes and knocked him on his back. He cracked his head on the pavement and world swam in watery colours of grey. Then a snake like arm wrapped around his neck and lifted him into the air and he was face to face with the fiend that had been chasing him. Its cross stitched face was smiling again and Oscar could see every inch of dirt in the fabric. Just behind him cars drove past on the dual carriageway, oblivious to hideous creatures that waited in the dark.
He clawed at the monsters arm as it garrotted him, but it was useless, it had a grip like iron. He gasped for breath and squealed in fear and frustration, beating the fiend’s rope like arm in effort to break free.
The creature regarded him with satisfaction, grunted and tightened its grip and in one swift movement Oscar’s head popped from his shoulders, blood splattered the monsters burlap face, it was smiling again. The howler began pouncing around as blood rained down from Oscar’s ruptured arteries, lapping at the warm sticky mess as it pooled around the larger creatures feet.
Oscar’s body was never found, but then hardly anything is in the woods near Caudwell.
The End
The Woods Near Caudwell
By Ian Latham
The woods near Caudwell are a large area of forestry that covers most of the Cumbernauld area. It is a few miles in each direction and covers most of the outskirts of the Cumbernauld area as well as a large majority of the inhabited areas.
Caudwell is a little village area that is actually part of the Cumbernauld Township. Though the people of Caudwell would tell you differently, they would tell you that they wouldn’t have any truck with that rough lot, bunch of wasters and junkies the lot of them. But regardless of this statement they are, in actual fact, a part of Cumbernauld.
Cumbernauld is considered one of the most depressing areas to live in all of Scotland. Some people have actually described the town as a desert with windows, and it is a very accurate description, mostly because there is nothing there. Since it was built on land that is mostly forest there are a lot of back roads and paths that lead mostly to small farmlands or derelict and abandoned buildings or to nowhere at all.
The area near Caudwell is next to the Cumbernauld Village, the Cumbernauld Fields and the Cumbernauld Cottage Theatre. The dual carriageway runs right through the middle of the town and goes up past the village, if you look to the north while driving you can see the small village of Caudwell. But a glance is all you’ll really get due to the density of said woodland.
If your walking to Caudwell its about a mile from the Cumbernauld Cottage Theatre, you take the road the runs past the fields until you reach a set of stairs. At the bottom you come to a path that leads you towards the Village and eventually breaks off to another path into the woods. Eventually you’ll come to a fork in the road, the right hand path takes you up towards the fields and the left takes you to Caudwell.
Caudwell, as officially described in the North Lanarkshire guide, is a quaint little area that one really must see if visiting Cumbernauld, with loads of shops, a few housing areas, a school and a park. That’s about all there is to see in Caudwell but if you like old-style streets and buildings you could spend all of five minutes before the vintage architecture became too much for you. But if you ask a resident of the Cumbernauld village they’ll tell you that Caudwell is “Full of weirdo’s”.
What they won’t tell you about is all the strange things that happen there.
For example, in 1975 a workingman, every day Joe type chap returned home after a hard day on the job to find his wife lying in the garden in a state of catatonia. His two children, two boys of the ages nine and eleven, were nowhere to be found. The ensuing search turned up nothing and it was thought that some child molester had grabbed them from the back garden and they were never seen again.
This, however, is not true.
No one can really tell you what happened to the kids, but the night before they disappeared Johnny, the eldest of the two, said he had seen strange flashing lights in the woods behind the house. Of course no one believed him and dismissed it as typical childish imaginings. However if you look closely at the police report you’ll see that they were last seen going into the woods near their house, the woods were in fact right at the end of their garden, and that at the moment they disappeared there had been strange howling noises coming from the woods.
Now I don’t mean to postulate that werewolves took the kids, but it does make you think.
No one knows what the mother saw.
But I digress; the point being is that every little town has its own stories about strange goings on their home turf.
You just have to know what to listen for.
This particular account takes place on a cold night in October. It was about seven O’clock and the night was well getting underway. The sun had just about set and on the path from the Cottage Theatre was a young man by the name of Oscar McKane. Now Oscar here is a student at Cumbernauld College. He’s studying computing, has a steady relationship with his high school sweetheart and has not one care in the world. Tonight he’s going to die, but at this point he doesn’t know it yet.
Oscar had just left the theatre pub after a few rounds of beer with his mates and had decided that a nice stroll home is in order. So he had taken the path that I mentioned earlier as it was the quickest yet most scenic rout home.
As Oscar walked past the last street light in civilisation and into the woods he began to whistle a little tune, since he’s tone deaf no one would be able to tell you what it was.
About fifteen minutes later Oscar began to feel that something wasn’t quite right; he stopped for a moment and looked back the way he had come. As night had shouldered its way into the scene it had become increasingly gloomy so it made it difficult to see what, if anything, he was looking for. Sure there were streetlamps in here as well but they were old, weak and barely penetrated dark. They lit just enough to see where the path was but that was about it.
Oscar stood this way for a few more minutes, glancing back and forth before it dawned on him. He had been walking for sometime and he had yet to come to the fork in the road that would take him home. He slid back his sleeve and examined his watch. The radium hands glowed sickly green, indicating that it was just past seven fifteen. Being that he had been walking the best part of twenty-five minutes in total since leaving the pub and he should have come to the division in the path. But in both directions it was only gloomy woods stretching on for infinity.
Since he wasn’t a very imaginative young fellow Oscar didn’t rattle easy. But this was slightly disconcerting; not knowing which way was the right way to go. He hated walking except when he was drunk and hated being lost even more. Oscar wondered if maybe he had taken the wrong path back at the start. He doubted it but the only way to tell for sure would be to go back the way he had came and retrace his steps. So he turned and walked back along the path that should take him back to the dual carriageway.
He hadn’t gotten very far though when Oscar heard what could only be described as a clicking sound; he stopped and listened, straining his ears against the sounds of the woods at night.
Tak-tak-tak-tak.
It was a very familiar sound, like someone rapping their fingernails on a hard surface.
Tak-tak-tak-tak.
There was also another sound accompanying this one. It sounded like heavy breathing or panting, like the breathing of a dog or something, but he was sure there were no wild animals in the woods. The coming of humans had scared off most creatures that would have dwelt in the forests. But all the same it was slightly worrying.
As the sound grew louder Oscar could discern that it was coming from behind him. He turned and squinted into the gloom, fine beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. Every sense in his body was screaming that this wasn’t right, that he should get the hell out of here but sheer curiosity had rooted him to the spot.
Two shapes were approaching and he could just make out that they were quite low to the ground and had that shambling gate that most animals have. As they drew closer the panting sound seemed to echo all around him, he could make out the bodies of two dogs before they disappeared into the darkness between the streetlights then reappear again in the next pool of light.
Oscar breathed a sigh of relief; if there were dogs here then surely their owner wouldn’t be far behind. When they had drawn near to him they stopped and sat back on their haunches, eyeing him with doggy indifference that only cats can outdo. They were both German shepherds, or at least looked like German shepherds. Though slightly scruffy looking they didn’t appear to pose any kind of threat.
“Hey there guys,” said Oscar “What you two doing out here eh?”
He leaned forwards and put his hands on his knees; he was still slightly inebriated from the beer and felt quite jovial.
The dogs continued to eye him with that same indifference, which was rather un-doglike. Usually a domestic dog would wag its tale or something; at least in effort to see if the person addressing them had anything they could eat. These two seemed to be rather more interested in him than anything he may have to offer.
“You two out for a nice walk, then?” Oscar asked.
It was at this point that the dogs started growling. It was a low throaty sound that raised the hairs on the back of Oscar’s neck; he wasn’t one to tangle with any angry animal.
“Um… ok then. I’ll just be off then.”
He started walking slowly backwards away from the dogs as they sat and watched. That low growling hanging in the air. The dogs stood up and growled louder, causing Oscar to stop. He knew better than to turn his back on anything that was angry. They would see this as a sign of weakness and cause them to attack, so Oscar stood eyeing each dog carefully. If they moved he would run and climb a tree, at least if he was out of the two dogs reach they might get bored and go away… at least he hoped.
One of the dogs began barking, its voice seemed strange and very unlike the type of dog it at least appeared to be. It was low and seemed to echo on an on, penetrating every pore in Oscars body. He was frozen still in panic; sweat seemed to pour out of every part of his body, making his skin feel slick and clammy.
“Easy now, pooch.” He said “Maybe I’ve got something tasty for you.”
Oscar began rifling through his pockets while the two dogs barked at him. He only stopped when they started whining, a sick and twisted mewling sound that raked the senses like slap to the face.
There gums had been drawn back in a fearsome grimace, but now they seemed to be being pulled back by unseen fingers and the dogs were shaking their heads back and forth. But this didn’t seem like the normal throes of agony, this looked more like they were having some kind of seizure, their heads twisting and shaking like something out of a fever dream.
There was a ripping sound as the dog’s lips split and tore back from their muzzles, revealing red bone. Blood poured from their injured snouts and their tongues lolled from their mouths, becoming long, bloody ropes of muscle that dragged along the ground, writhing like long, pink snakes. Their eyes began to bulge and eventually burst, spilling horrible black fluid filled with squirming things that seemed to grow into long black tentacles. Their paws seemed to inflate until long black talons burst from under the skin into hideous, gut ripping claws.
Oscar’s eyes widened with fear when they began to shamble towards him, all the while making that horrible mewling sound. He turned on his heels and ran, knowing fine well that he was probably going to be ripped to pieces by these horrible monstrosities.
He heard them give chase so he pumped his knees harder, feeling his heart jackhammer inside his chest and fire scorch his lungs as he drew panicked breaths. Then after about five minutes of this all the noise stopped. Oscar chanced a look over his shoulder and saw…
Nothing.
The path was empty save for the trees. There was nothing that even said that anything, other than him, had even been there. No blood or horrible black ichor.
Nothing.
At.
All.
“Oh, thank you Jesus!” he exclaimed breathlessly, falling to his knees. Tears of relief were streaming down his face. Oscar began patting his pockets looking for a tissue when a hand fell on his shoulder. He let out a terrified yelp of surprise and jumped about a mile. Then he noticed that the hand was that of a little old man.
“You ok, son?” he asked. He looked about sixty and had a big raincoat on. A bonnet was perched atop his head like some kind of Burberry parrot and a big grey beard obscured most of his lower face.
Oscar began to chuckle to himself.
“Yeah,” he said “Yeah I am thanks. I just…” Oscar stopped himself before he went on babbling about monster dogs, he was sure the old man didn’t want to hear about any nonsense like that, hell even Oscar would have shook his head from any lunatic that had told him something like that. He sure as hell wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself.
“Look,” he said instead “I’m sorry I screamed at you. I just had a nasty fright that’s all.” Oscar indicated the path. “I’m a bit lost and I thought I heard some noises back there.”
The old man eyed him sympathetically. “That’s ok son, I’ve had a share of frights in my time.”
The old mans smile, to Oscar, seemed a little false. Like he might have meant to scare Oscar after all, maybe they were even his dogs. But those… things were nowhere to be seen.
“Where you headed?” asked the old man after a brief pause.
“Caudwell.”
“Oh, Caudwell. I know that place well.” The old mans smile broadened, Oscar began to feel a bit nervous of this geezer. Something wasn’t quite right with him, his eyes seemed to twinkle in the light with some kind of mischievous intent.
“Yeah, bit of a dive if you ask me.” Said Oscar “But hey its home. Listen, you wouldn’t know which way I’m supposed to go to get there do you?” Oscar had to try hard to keep the pleading out of his voice.
“Oh, yes of course. You’ll be wanting to stop by Molly’s, wont you?”
For a few moments Oscar was too stunned to speak, the old mans smile widened so much he looked as if the top of his head might fall off.
“How did y—” he began, but his words were choked off by that horrible mewling sound that heralded those monster dogs. He spun round expecting them to be shambling towards him but there was nothing there, only the sounds reverberated around him and the old man.
“Do you hear that?” Oscar said.
“That’s just the howlers,” Whispered the old man, his voice sounding thin and raspy. “They get’s a bit anxious when they haven’t been fed.” Now the old mans breath was hissing in an out like he was having an asthma attack and giving his voice a horrible phlegmy quality.
Oscar stood stock still while his mind replayed that last sentence.
“The howlers?”
“You should have taken the other road,” hissed the old man “You're off the map son. Here There Be Dragons…”
The old mans hand clamped itself in a bone-cracking grip on Oscar’s wrist, but it wasn’t so much as a hand anymore. It was a horrible bony claw, the skin was cracked and broken and looked long dead. Blackened bone poked through several of its fingertips.
Oscar’s breath hitched in and out in rasping gasps as he was turned to face the old man. But now the old man was rotten and dry, like a long desiccated corpse left in the desert to rot. His gums where gone revealing little black stumps of teeth like decaying tombstones poking out its jaw at jaunty angles. What was left of the old mans beard hung in tattered rats tails about his face and his eyes where gone, jellified and running down his cheeks after years of decomposition.
“Dragons!” it hissed and opened its mouth wide. There was a retching sound and black fluid jetted from its mouth like some kind of putrid vomit. It splashed the ground and the creature’s rotten trousers; lumps rolled about the pool of ichor and unfolded themselves into malformed spiders that started climbing up the creature’s legs, covering the tattered remains of its clothes.
“Dragons, my boy!” it burbled, spewing more of that horrible muck onto the ground. It was still maintained the death grip on Oscar’s wrist but he was far too terrified to move.
It is remarkable, though, on how many levels the human brain works. While Oscar was standing there gawping at the creature as it moved closer for god knew what purpose, his subconscious took control of his body. Knowing that he ought to be struggling for freedom and aimed a hard kick at the creature’s leg.
Everything that happened after that point happened in slow motion. Oscar’s kick hit the creature in what would have been its knee; there was a sickening crack as the creature’s leg broke in half like a lump of dry wood. It fell sideways, releasing Oscar from its grip and landing heavily in the spreading pool of its own black sick where the spiders began crawling over its face and eat its rotten flesh.
Then it began to laugh.
It was the horrible screeching laughter of the mad and Oscar clamped his hands over his ears. He was sure he would simply go insane if it didn’t stop, so he took to his heels and ran in the other direction, followed all the while by that insane and horrible laughter.
It really is hard to tell how long you have been running when the pituitary gland is pumping gallons of adrenaline into your blood stream. A quick jog might seem like hours when, in actual fact, it had only been minutes. Especially when you have had the kind of night that Oscar was having right now.
Pursued by that horrible laughter he ran through the dark woods, the street lamps did little to liven his spirits as they didn’t seem to light the dark as to colour it. But now that he was on high alert for monster dogs and zombies and extremely sober, he began to notice things. Like the trees, for example, looked dead and rotten, not the mid autumn early winter kind of dead but thousands of year’s dead. And there was a smell that he couldn’t really place but reminded him of long spoiled meat on a hot day.
All this wasn’t doing him any good as he was panicking and scared, very nearly, out of his mind. But if he was to get out of this he needed to think, so he made himself slow to a walk and eventually he stopped. He drew in some deep breaths to try and slow his heart rate down and alleviate the stitch in his side.
Ok he thought I’m ok and now I need to think about getting the f*ck out of here.
He noticed at this moment that there was a signpost right next to him, though he would have sworn that it wasn’t there a moment ago. It read:
<There’s No Place Like Home – Here There Be Dragons>
The direction he was facing pointed home and the other way was dragons. But after spending as much time as he had running from hideous aberrations he wasn’t going to bank all his money that the signpost was accurate. It could be another elaborate trick to lead him into the claws of some other horrible creature. But since he had no intentions of going the other direction he decided that he was going to chance it. Oscar took a look at his watch but it was useless, the hands were all spinning in different directions so it was impossible to tell what time it was.
So off he went in the directions marked home, keeping his ears alert and his eyes peeled for anything that might be coming after him. It damn well seemed as if something was trying to stop him from escaping and for the first time he wondered about what was really happening here. He remembered the story of those two kids who disappeared. He thought that was just a rumour, but now he wasn’t so sure.
While he was mulling this over in his head he heard something. It wasn’t the same sound as before and sounded more like running feet. But he was sure that… old man thing wouldn’t be chasing him, he was dry as firewood and would break to easy. So Oscar climbed in amongst the branches to wait, he was pretty well hidden here and had a good view of the path.
Eventually the footsteps drew nearer, and from the direction he was heading a large human shaped creature appeared. It was at least eight foot tall and jogging at quite a fast pace. He couldn’t see it very well in the light but it ambled past and took off towards the way marked ‘Dragons’, eventually disappearing from view.
After a few moments the footsteps died down and Oscar dared to move from his hiding place, just to be safe he broke a large branch off one of the trees to use for a weapon. Anything that decided to attack was going to have a serious headache in the morning. Feeling a bit more confident Oscar set off again in the direction of home, swinging the branch back and forth in front of him.
While he was walking Oscar decided to hum a tune to himself, the ringing in his ears from the excess adrenaline was making him edgy. So he hummed a tune that, again, was so out of tune no one could have identified it.
But then there was a screeching sound from back the way he had came, it sounded like something was very, very angry. This was all Oscar really needed to get him moving at a faster pace, so he set off at a jog hoping that whatever was making that hellish noise wasn’t coming back to find him.
He had only been going fast for a few minutes when, from behind him, were popping sounds, and when he looked over his shoulders the street lights were exploding one by one. Something was moving with them, something big.
Oscar decided to go for broke and began to run again, but not flat out. He wanted to save himself for that last moment when he needed the speed. But chancing a look over his shoulder nearly made him do just that. The thing that was chasing him was ahead of the popping streetlights. It was the creature that had shambled past while he was hiding but now he could see it properly.
It was huge, literally standing about eight or nine feet tall. It had arms as long as its body but they didn’t seem to have any bones and moved in whipping like motions, bending and curling like angry snakes and stretching out far longer than would seem possible. Over its face it wore some kind of burlap sack with cross-stitching where the eyes and mouth would be and even the folds seemed to give the impression of eyebrows. It features seemed to be stitched into some kind of twisted smile because one other thing Oscar could tell from glancing over his shoulder.
It was gaining on him.
Oscar very nearly burst into frantic tears until he heard something else, the song of his salvation.
Cars.
Oscar could hear cars in the distance, which meant he was nearly away from this mad place, away from the dogs and the zombies and the dragons. Then just up ahead he could see the opening to the woods, on the other side was the dual carriageway and if he could just make it he should be ok. He didn’t know this for sure but he was dammed well going to test his theory.
Oscar took another glance over his shoulder; the newest monstrosity had gained and was about ten paces behind him. What Oscar had in speed it had in striding distance and there was no way he could outpace it like this.
In a moment of sheer fury at his ordeal Oscar screamed his rage and threw the stick he was carrying over his shoulder.
“f*ck off!” he screamed as the branch sailed across the gap between him and the creature and hit it square in its lanky legs. It screeched in rage and surprise as the branch tripped it and toppled it forwards onto its front. It slammed into the ground with a bone juddering crash. Oscar was so dumbfounded by his luck that he actually stopped and gawped at the fallen monster. It was lying face down and its arms where wriggling back and forth.
He began to back away as it raised its head, the cross stitching smile had turned downwards in a grimace of anger. The sack itself seemed to be showing the creatures emotions, and now it was really pissed off.
As it raised itself up to its knees and began to stand Oscar took off a full speed towards his freedom. It wasn’t far now; only a hundred feet in front of him and the creature bellowed its rage as it tried to give chase again. But it was useless because Oscar was to far ahead for it to catch him now.
“Yes!” Oscar screamed as closed the gap to the real world “Yes! I made it, I f*ckin’ ma—”
But Oscar’s words were choked off; one of the howlers pounced from the bushes and knocked him on his back. He cracked his head on the pavement and world swam in watery colours of grey. Then a snake like arm wrapped around his neck and lifted him into the air and he was face to face with the fiend that had been chasing him. Its cross stitched face was smiling again and Oscar could see every inch of dirt in the fabric. Just behind him cars drove past on the dual carriageway, oblivious to hideous creatures that waited in the dark.
He clawed at the monsters arm as it garrotted him, but it was useless, it had a grip like iron. He gasped for breath and squealed in fear and frustration, beating the fiend’s rope like arm in effort to break free.
The creature regarded him with satisfaction, grunted and tightened its grip and in one swift movement Oscar’s head popped from his shoulders, blood splattered the monsters burlap face, it was smiling again. The howler began pouncing around as blood rained down from Oscar’s ruptured arteries, lapping at the warm sticky mess as it pooled around the larger creatures feet.
Oscar’s body was never found, but then hardly anything is in the woods near Caudwell.
The End