PENNY DREADFUL || The Woodsman

Shaw is stumbling through the thickets after dark, palms pressed firmly into the sides of his skull. His boots dredge up the dead undergrowth, his orange-red tie swaying with each paranoid look. Right. Left. Right. Left. His eyes are widened, his pupils shrunken, brows furrowed close enough to crack a nut between them.

“Fuckin’... ha... shut up, haha!” He hisses under his breath, mingling his mutters with unnervingly out-of-place giggles. “I can’t hear you. Nope, nope. If I cover my ears, I can’t fucking hear you.”

He’s desperately clawing his way back to the hamlet of Masméjean, where the trees are sparser. In the Mercoire Forest, the trees are an extremely discourteous crowd, constantly yelling and gossiping and whispering and conspiring. The sedentary fellows have little better to do with their longevity than play peanut gallery.

“You can hear us though, can’t you, Shaw?” The boughs of an oak shake, a few leaves falling like heads off a chopping block. “I’m speaking to you, so why aren’t you listening? Isn’t that right, my friends? What do we want to tell the little boy Wiarborough?”

“Oh, ho ho!” A deep and resonant voice speaks directly into Shaw’s mind, making him scream and shake, his lip quivering. “Shaw, my boy! Don’t you care? As we speak, a traveller is unknowingly stalked by a highwayman! Oh, this highwayman wants the traveller’s money and life. See, see. A knife and a blade, a shovel and spade. A funeral to attend, just round the bend.”

“I don’t care!” Shaw shouts into the open woods, his voice cracking as he falls to his knees. “Please... stop.”

He does care, though. He cares a lot. Even when he was a child brought into his father’s trade, he cared when he heard the trees talk. Cried and retched when he heard the trees wail as he felled them with his axe. Years have passed, and he’s never grown numb to it.

The trees torment him, but he cannot leave as they sustain his livelihood. So, he must listen. Never a moment’s silence, never a moment’s reprieve. They talk and they ramble and chatter incessantly until he has a splitting headache. They take root in his mind as effectively as they do the earth, prying apart his sanity.

Secrets. Confessions. The trees always watch, always listen, always know. They know the forest. They know the evil. The criminal. The dark histories and sins people try to bury under the boscage. They narrate as it happens, or reminisce on it later. And they urge Shaw to act on their behalf.

“S̸͖͆͝h̸͓͇͌̀a̷̘͇͘w̵̻̣̄!̸͇̞̕” A thunderous drum of his name, and Shaw stills, blood trickling down his wrists as he clamps his ears.

Slowly, wobbling, he rises to his feet. Then, he pulls the axe from its holster on his back, gait vertiginous as he ambles forward. Despite his hulking frame, he makes no more noise than the sway of the woods. Yes, like those monoliths, whatever cacophony he makes is contained within. So, he moves, a phantom of a man.

“This way. Come, child.” One tree laughs, beckoning Shaw.

“To the left, to the right. Into the night, child. Yes, yes.” Another’s branches creak, twigs stirring him on. “Keep following this direction.”

“You’re almost there! You’re almost there!” Another barks excitedly, looking forward to the scene.

You’re walking along the road through Mercoire Forest, trying to minimize your presence by shrinking into your cloak. Travelling light, you only packed the necessities before making the journey towards Langogne. Still, you feel the inexplicable urge to drop your burden, speeding along the dirt track.

It was never your intention to be stranded past sundown in the forest, but it took unexpectedly long to make it to Masméjean. Now, every little noise is making you skittish. A wild animal, you think. Or nothing, you hope.

But, as you continue along your way, your legs aching but unwilling to stop, you close your eyes. You listen. It’s dark and nigh impossible to see, but it’s fine to rely on other senses when the need arises. In the darkness, you hear the intense rush of blood through your veins, the roar of your heart like the pit of a waterfall. And, almost inaudibly, a sprig snap.

“Hurry up, Shaw. Hurry hurry hurry. You aren’t going to make it, otherwise.” A tree’s branches cackle from atop the canopy. “C’mon, they’re about to confront.”

Yes, in a tense moment, you lock eyes with a similarly hooded figure in the shrubbery. As mottled moonlight filters through the leafy foliage, it smatters across the straight edge of his blade like a baleful butter.

The highwayman’s eyes flicker in a momentary surprise, and he steps back, caution etched onto his face. Like a predator, most prefer to stalk and hunt stealthily. Without the element of surprise, he’s taken aback. However, he appraises your body and must decide you are incapable of offering any substantial resistance. His mouth splits into a grin.

“I want your money, not your life. Now, are you gonna...” He frowns as he sees you raise your trembling hand, pointing behind him. “What trick is - ?”

The highwayman is bisected. With a single hack of an axe. The axehead passes cleanly through one side of his midriff, goring and mutilating every inch of flesh, bone and muscle in its way. When it emerges on the other, the two halves are falling with a sickening squelch to the forest floor. Blood spatters across the greenery, and jets of thick, gooey red shoot like geysers from his mangled insides.

“Haha! Hah! Chop, chop, chop!” Laughing hysterically, Shaw raises the axe again, slicing it down on the man’s disconnected lower half.

The highwayman is still conscious, and although in an all-consuming shock is somewhat registering what’s happening. Particularly when, laying on the ground, he sees his own thighs, calves and pelvis being made into minced meat. Opening his mouth, his basest instincts bubble up over the paralyzing fear – he screams.

“Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!” Shaw walks over to the man’s upper body, the soles of his boots squelching as he wades through the cascading intestines. “Can’t you all learn to be fucking silent? Huh? Huh!? Fuck!”

He raises his axe above his head, before bringing it down on the man’s left shoulder. Another clunk and his arm is detached, tumbling into the thickets. Another chop, another arm gone. After that, Shaw brings his axe up. Down. Up. Down. “Swing, swing, swing!” With every swing, Shaw’s smile widens.

Eventually, the axe tilts sideways, and Shaw slashes it across the man’s neck. It disconnects like everything else before it with a slimy slosh. The highwayman’s eyes, for a split second, seem to flit towards his final doom. Then, the axe cleaves his head in half.

“Are you happy now?” Shaw mumbles under his breath, turning towards the trees.

They don’t speak back for once, and Shaw gives a heartfelt smile, a small chuckle escaping him. He cradles his axe, placing a kiss on the blood-stained head. Then, after a minute, he notices you as you stand frozen. “Where are you heading? It’s not safe alone in the woods.”