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Beware the call of the Drenston Horror. --- I took my time driving to Drenston. The dull buzz of my old 82’ Ford Mustang was slightly out of tune with the synth run of Tainted Love. My hands tightened around the steering wheel, travelling the curving side road of Lake Avenue. Lost in the thick forests on either side of me, my thoughts wandered with the winding road in front of me. The approaching sunset drenched the sky with auburn and mahogany. “It’s bad luck I tell you,” the portly woman at the service counter of the lone gas station warned me. Her skin was pale and sun-damaged, heavy bags clung to her eyes. What once was probably bright blond hair had since faded into a dull, brittle gray. If I had to guess, she must have been in at least her sixties by this point. She handed my ID back, pausing for a moment to look at my violet and gold SUNY sweater. “That time again?” She pushed a pack of Marlboro Reds to me. “Well, just remember to keep your ID in your pocket,” she said sadly. I tipped her twenty bucks. Mid-October was always beautiful upstate. My mom used to love going to the cabin around now. She’d take the weekend off and rent us a minivan that we would fill to the brim with games, food, and camping equipment. It was always a pain in the ass to get my dad to come along, but my mom used to promise to keep a flask of Jameson in the glove compartment. We’d go out to the cabin next to Lake Nagawaukee and spend the days exploring and the nights watching the stars. Dad would always point out four random stars and tell me that with was some made-up constellation. When I was eight, he told me that the three stars of Orion’s belt and one from his shoulder made up the Pikachu constellation. Mom cried when we sold the cabin. Many of the trees had already lost most of their leaves. Others were shades of orange, red and brown. Exit 103, Drenston Forest, was coming up soon. I reached into my pant pocket, pulling out my license, checking it was still there. Even if I lost it, I was still okay. I had taken the effort to sow a patch with my name and address into my hood. The Mustang sputtered as I pulled into a camping lot. The dirt lot was covered with overgrowth and tangling vines. Unsurprising. Outside of the tourists that visited to fulfil their macabre curiosities, the locals made sure to keep a wide berth. I opened the back door, pulling out my backpack before slamming the door shut. The locks were old, so force was needed to keep the door closed. Not that it mattered much. A rickety wooden sign stood at the end of the lot signaling the start of a new trail. The Millard Fillmore Memorial Trail. It took me a bit to remember which unpopular president he was. You weren’t supposed to choose your trail, even if I would have preferred there to be a Martin Van Buren Memorial Trail. Still, an unknown president seemed fitting for me. Like the lot, the trail was overgrown with vines and covered in a thick blanket of dead leaves. The trees around me were dead and brittle. I scowled as I looked at my possibilities. None of these were sturdy enough. They were too sparse, ready for the oncoming winter. Was it haughty to demand something more imposing like a maple? Subconsciously, I patted the ID in my pocket once more. The plastic outline was reassuring. Still, I had my hoodie and my student ID was in my backpack. It kind of felt like travelling on a plane; though, I think the TSA would require more identification. Should I have brought my birth certificate? I always felt the most peaceful walking alone. It reminded of the path home I took during elementary school. It was a two mile walk, but I could always take a shortcut through the park. In the winter I used to wish I could take the 3 bus like the other kids in my neighborhood. Andrew was the worst though. He was a foot taller and would always throw things at the back of my head when I used to sit up at the front. The bus driver, Terry, wouldn’t care. She used to have this big bag of lollipops that she’d keep next to her feet for her route. Rumor had it she kept weed in there too. Dad thought I was doing extra afterschool studies. It was getting night by this point. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a yellow and black torchlight. Mom had gotten it as part of one of those all-in-one toolkits. For some reason, she thought I’d need one in my dorm as if the maintenance staff didn’t exist. I clicked it on and kept walking forward. I was never afraid of the dark, even as a kid. Mom was ecstatic when I got into SUNY. By the time I got my letter, it was already mid-April. Apparently I was on the waitlist for the waitlist. Dad on the other hand… He was an aerospace engineer, designed satellites for NASA, and graduated top of his class from Ann Arbor. I didn’t talk to him much after New Year’s. Over the hour and a half of walking, I took two breaks. The first was for a smoke and the second was to quickly scarf down a granola bar. My stomach was in knots, so any more would probably just come up immediately afterwards. I felt surprisingly rested the entire time, probably because I was coming off a two hour straight drive. The path in front of me opened up to a wider clearing. The area was more sparsely populated with trees, ones far sturdier. It seemed like the others had the same idea. As I shown my light forward, the reflective paneling off a pair of garish orange Nike reflected it back into my eyes. Taking a moment to let the dots flicker away, I pointed the light up towards the nearest branch. A young man hung from the tree branch. He was dressed in a set of dark-red flannel, a pair of jeans, and a puffy blue vest. The orange shoes didn’t match his outfit at all. He was rather lanky and tall. In fact, a few feet more and he would have touched the ground! Though, that would defeat the purpose. I peered closer checking his hands. They were clenched into a tight fist, colorless and stiffened from necrosis. Somewhat recent. He wore a set of reflective dog tags. I remember I was frustratingly attempting to solve an intro physics problem when Dad called. I never understood rotation mechanics. You had to factor in an inclined plane adding force in one direction, friction acting in the opposite, and the ball rotating at the same time. Never made a lick of sense, even though Dad could probably solve it in his sleep. Dad made it sound like a problem from my homework. Car A is moving forty mile per hour rounds a corner. The ground is wet with rain, reducing the friction. Car B rounds the corner, which is at a ten degree elevation at the same time. That car is moving seventy miles per hour in a forty mile per hour zone. Part a, calculate the impulse as car A hits car B. Part B, calculate the force of impact as Mom’s head slams into the dash. She was driving up for parent’s weekend. Dad still blames me. A good, sturdy maple would be ideal. The girl with brown hair and blond highlights had already claimed a nearby pear. Her passport was in a clear plastic carrier strapped to her wrist. There was an ash available and I would have taken the willow but that sounded far too dramatic. Two months after the funeral I got my academic probation letter. They send it to you in this nice sealed envelope with the Dean’s seal in the top corner. They’re all from the same template. Dear sir and or madam. We regret to inform you that your GPA has fallen below the required level set by the College of Letters and Science. You have been placed on the academic probation list. Your school assistantship has been cancelled and will remain as such until you are able to correct your GPA. You may appeal this ruling. September was terrible. There was a good oak about ten yards ahead of me. Thankfully, no one else had called dibs on it. It was a bit uncomfortably close an old man in a pair of scrubs. Hopefully his employee card wouldn’t be blown off his neck during a storm and onto my tree. Climbing the tree was the easy part. I was always a naturally good climber, and as a kid I was always able to get to the top branch. Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out a long coil of rope. I threw the bag down onto the ground and began to wrap it around the tree branch. It was a bit haphazard, but hopefully it would stick. As I tied the final knot of the noose my hands began to tremble. The flashlight dropped to the ground, flickering on and off as the impact jiggled a battery loose. My breathing began to grow shallow, nagging thoughts pounding at my brain repeatedly. I had practiced damnit! I had made all the preparations and went over it a thousand times in my head. My heart pounded furiously as I gulped down the spit that was gathering my mouth. Fuck it. I threw the noose around my neck furiously. With a hefty tug it tightened around my esophagus. It was already becoming hard to breathe. The needle-like fibers poked and scratched against my skin. I pushed myself off and began to fall. My body jerked back, the knot tightening rapidly against my throat. My vision blurred wildly, focusing to pinpoint pricks as I instinctually began to struggle. I remembered this one time in fifth grade after school. My right-eye was black and running with tears. Andrew had decided on the bus to play his version of punch buggy. Though, his rules said that every time he saw a car, he got to punch me. Mom dabbed some anti-swelling cream onto my eye and gave me a glass of warm milk with saffron. That day I told her I never wanted to go back to school again. She smiled before placing her hands on my shoulders. She used to tell me that even when things looked the roughest there was always a superhero in my head. He was strong, fast and witty. He could take any punch a bad-guy threw and shake it off with a smile. It was just my job to let that superhero out from time to time. I was grateful that knot came lose. As I tumbled to the ground, I breathed in coarse, harsh breaths. The air was cold, stinging my lungs. I clawed at the rope at my neck, grabbing the knot and pulling it loose. Collapsing on my back, the air filled my lungs once again. I stared at the stars in the clear sky above me. The Mario Bros were near the North Star. The snapping of brush caught my attention. I bolted up to my feet and scrambled for the torchlight. The night was black, only illuminated by the waning moon in the sky. My heart began to pound feverishly once more. I hid behind the ash, peering around as the crunching of leaves approached closer. The first recorded instance of the Drenston Horror was in 1723. Francis Stevenson of Albany, New York received a peculiar package in the mail. A large box, a foot taller than her when stood upright, was delivered to her house by a confused postman. There was no name given, and the return address was the Drenston Forest. A tag was attached to the parcel that simply read Matthew Stevenson – A strong oak. Francis’ screams woke the neighbors. I saw the figure approach from the corner of my eye. The dim light made it hard to see, but the tattered dark-brown cloth that covered its body blended into the forest. Its silver sickle reflected the moonlight as it began to walk towards the pear tree girl. My eyes widened as it stopped in front of her before slowly rising in the air to her eye-level. It reached down towards the passport, a withered hand appearing from the mess of rags. As if reading it for a moment, when satisfied, it stuffed the passport into the folds of its robe lowering to the ground once more. Nearby hung a middle-aged woman. She wore a polka-dotted dress, the bright red contrasting the pale, stiff skin. The outlines of varicose veins covered her calves. Once again, the figure ascended to the sky, emaciated hand clawing and grabbing brusquely for any open pocket or container. After a moment, its hand fell to the side. It paused for a moment in front of the unnamed woman. With a clean cut, the sickle cut through the rope. Her body crumpled to the ground on impact, the remnants of the rope trailing behind her. It descended back down the ground, reaching down and grabbing the end. The leaves and twigs on the ground crackled as the woman’s body was dragged behind the robed figure. Stiff as a board, the limbs contorted across the uneven ground. When the postal service started to use scanners, the packages were no longer delivered by hand. Lucas Eick often preferred to take the seaside route home from work. The office was close enough to home, so he enjoyed taking the scenic route back. In the corner of his eye, he saw a bizarre looking chest wash ashore. Naturally curious, if not drawn to it, he investigated further. A gold lock held the chest shut. A single placard in similar gold adorned the front: Mary-Anne Eick – A resolute sapling. The chest was rather small. My breaths grew shallow, gulping down the saliva that was building in my mouth. I covered my nose and mouth with my hands, suppressing the noise. Pressing back against the tree, I forced my body to freeze in place. Unblinkingly, I watched as the figure moved from body to body. The young man’s dog tags were stuffed into a pocket, while the old man’s employee card was lost between folds. Out of sight, as the only light was reflected off the moon, I heard leaves crackling as two more hit the ground. My right leg was growing stiff and uncomfortable. I had locked my knees to keep myself as still as possible. I don’t know if it was the lack of oxygen from earlier, or the veins being constricted but my head began to become dizzy. I struggled to stay upright for the moment, my head beginning to droop forward as I kept an eye on the figure as it walked in front of me. It operated silently and wordlessly, movements mechanical and exact. It knew where to stop in front of each body, knew where each was hanging in the moonlight. It spent no longer than a few minutes with each corpse. Even as the pile of bodies dragged behind it began to grow, they appeared weightless. In a moment of weakness, my body bucked forward. I teetered, as a branch below my feet echoed with a piercing snap! In the dead of night, in a silent forest, the sound was deafening. I closed my eyes, freezing once again, hoping to pass it off as a small animal moving through the forest. I began to count backwards from ten. Mom told me to do that as a kid when I was afraid of monsters at the bottom of the dark stairway to the basement. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four… I cracked open my eyes before three, peering around the tree. The figure had turned towards me, waiting. The space beneath its hood was pitch black, any features masked either by the night or something unnatural. Three, two, one… Turning away, I began to sprint deeper into the woods. I didn’t look backwards, the wind rushing past my ears as I bounded across the forest floor. I stumbled across exposed roots, shambling into a ditch before scrambling back up and sprinting further. My chest began to tighten, the tips of my earlobes becoming hotter. My skin felt tighter, exhaustion quickly setting in. The fight or flight response was running out of steam, probably due to all the adrenaline used earlier. My form became sloppy, degenerating into haphazard strides of indistinct length until I tumbled into a full stop. Clutching my head, I breathed in ugly gasps of air. The soles of my feet throbbed, the beating of my heart echoing through my ears again. I was never a good runner. The heavy sound of bodies being dragged across the forest floor broke me out of my haze. I forced myself to my feet once again. I turned my head slowly back once more, dread building. The figure once again stood behind me, as if waiting to see what I would do next. With unsteady steps, I walked backwards, not once breaking eye-contact with the Horror. The ground vanished below my feet, a patch of slippery mud caused me to tumble backwards. The terrain slanted, another ditch exposed as I tumbled and began to gain speed. Head over heels, my back slammed against exposed vines and stone. Each hit sent a jolt of pain up my back, pounding into my head repeatedly. As the ground leveled out, I came to a sudden calamitous stop as my shoulder checked a hard, smooth surface. Dazed, I blinked my eyes open. Noah Green had the lucky (or unlucky) privilege of being one of the few freed slaves that lived in upstate New York. Once a plantation worker, he was traded up the coast until finding refuge in the Anderson Household. A surprisingly kind family, they allowed Noah to work off his debt over the period of six years. With freedom newly earned, he made his way into the world. With few skills outside of carpentry, he attempted to start a small business selling baubles and trinkets out of wood. However, his venture failed, and Noah was left destitute as a dreg of society. Robbed of all possessions, even his name, he heard the call of the Drenston Horror. Fittingly, he chose a green ash. I looked back at the granite object behind me. A square cut tombstone; fine craftsmanship but long since reclaimed by nature. It stood no higher than knee-height. Etched into the stonework was a simple phrase: A willow near the river. As my vision adjusted, I continued to see more and more. In identical rows of twelve lied similar tombstones. Etched in identical fonts were a variety of titles. A pleasant honeylocust. A rotten apple. A broken oak. The sound of crackling leaves caught my attention once more. My head and limbs ached so I simply pushed myself up against the closed tombstone. The figure stood patiently once again, the entwined ropes corpses jumbled together behind it. The brown cloth that covered its body buffeted in the soft wind. Eyes filling with tears, I began to cry and scream at the monster. Too pathetic to finish the deed by myself, I begged for it to just get on with it. Would it finish me quickly? Did it prefer to play with its prey first? The sickle would be the obvious choice, maybe it would rip me limb from limb. As I screamed, the figure remained unmoving and unresponsive. My shouts sputtered into whispers as my dry throat prevented more words from forming. It was the waiting that gnawed at me the most. Whether it was unimpressed or uninterested in the pathetic creature in front of it, the robed figure dragged the chain of bodies to the unmarked tombstone next to me. Using the sickle once more, it untangled the polka-dot wearing woman from mess of ropes. Carefully, it laid her body in a neat line in front of the tome stone. Its brittle, blackened hands carefully placing her hands across her chest. Reaching for its sickle, the Horror knelt in front of the tombstone. The point of the blade cut through the hard stone with ease. An old river birch. One by one, it laid each of the bodies in line. With careful procession, and unerring accuracy it carved the epitaphs into each tombstone. Over the course of what felt like hours, I watched as the figure performed its diligent work. With each word, it paused as if thinking about the ideal moniker. The sky itself was beginning to brighten. The cracks of light signaling dawn in a few hours were beginning to show. As the being finished its work, it returned to face me. Waiting for me to return to my feet, it simply turned and began to walk away. I waited with trepidation before a nagging thought compelled me to follow. Though winding trails and complicated passages, I walked in dead silence behind the Horror. Over the next few hours, the surroundings began to grow denser until I needed to begin to climb and squeeze through the foliage. The being continued forward without impedance. I pushed myself between two birches, before stumbling out onto the open path. The figure waited behind me, looking out towards the break in the tree line at the end of the trail. For a moment I waited, gazing at the Drenston Horror. I turned towards the tree line and stumbled forward along the trail. The canopy grew sparser and sparser before finally breaking completely. As I exited, the bright red finish of my 82’ Ford Mustang. For a moment, I thought about looking back if only just for a moment. As Endless Love played on the radio, I was happy looking forward after all. |
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