Haunted MTL Original – Demon Tree – Chris Saunders
“Demon Tree” by Chris Saunders
It had been years since Taylor had done this walk, and boy was he starting to feel it. He must have covered five or six miles so far, following the narrow, winding path leading from Wood Forge up into the sprawling, picturesque hills flanking the tiny village. Right now, the path was skirting an impenetrable-looking forest thick with lush vegetation.
What a way to blow the cobwebs off and get some exercise. Apart from a solitary dog walker an hour earlier, he hadn’t seen another soul all day. The path wasn’t exactly made for cars or bicycles, and was so over grown in places it was difficult to even walk on. Even so, it felt good to be out in the sunshine, doing something active. He spent far too much time cooped up in the office. It wasn’t healthy.
He just wished he’d brought something to drink. A cold beer would be spectacular right now. Though if he’d carried it with him all this way it would no longer be cold, obviously. Unless he’d carried a refrigerator too.
Then he remembered something. Wasn’t there a pub somewhere around here? Perched high on the mountain, just over the brow? One of those old, traditional country places with whitewashed walls, picnic tables outside and a horseshoe above the door. It was called the Halfway House. Logic suggested because it got its name because it was situated half way between two villages, but a more romantic idea would be that because it was so high up, it was half way to heaven. That in itself was ironic, because when he was a kid he and his friends used to try to frighten each other with tales of devil worshippers who, it was rumoured, used to come up to these mountains to perform their satanic rituals away from prying eyes.
The sun blazed down on to the bare skin of his forearms, and he felt his calves tighten more with each step. He’d worn loose-fitting knee-length shorts and an old pair of trainers for comfort, but had neglected to put on any socks. Now he regretted it. His blisters had burst long ago to expose the raw, reddened skin beneath, and his feet were now wet with a mixture of pus, sweat and blood, which only made his trainers rub more.
He could just turn back and go back home, of course. But he was too stubborn for that. He’d come this far, and persuaded himself that a cold beer or two was the goal. He’d push on for another mile or so and reassess things then. He wasn’t too proud to find the nearest main road and call himself an Uber.
There was a rickety wooden sign ahead, standing on the side of the trail. When Taylor drew near, he saw that it was pointing at a right angle marking a public footpath leading off the main trail and disappearing into the thick forest. Except it wasn’t much of a footpath. It was so neglected that it was barely even visible beyond the first few feet. The forest looked wild and intimidating, in complete contrast to the wide open spaces the mountain afforded. It would be easy to get lost in there, but he assumed the footpath would be marked.
He stopped to catch his breath. It was decision time.
Should he stay on the main path? Or take his chances on the shortcut?
Shortcut to where? That was the all-important question.
It had to lead somewhere. Every path did. And he’d been treading this one for hours without so much as a glimpse of a country pub. Or even a shop. How much worse could this new option be?
If things got out of hand he could always retrace his steps.
That settled it. With half his brain still arguing the toss, Taylor found himself venturing off the main path into the forest. Within moments, the atmosphere changed. He felt cocooned, and was incredibly glad to get out of the sun. This path was steeper, and a lot harder on the legs, but he was still under the impression that he was making good ground.
Deeper and deeper into the forest he went, sometimes using the trunks of conveniently-placed trees or overhanging branches to help haul himself along, the wood blessedly cool to the touch. Occasionally, a small animal would rustle in the undergrowth causing him to stop in his tracks, but he never saw so much of a glimpse.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself bursting out of the forest and back into the sunshine, right in front of the Halfway House. Its doors would be wide open, and the inviting smell of brewed hops and barley would carry over on the breeze. There would be newspapers inside, and ham rolls, and the TV would be set to one of the sports channels. Bliss.
The reality, however, was very different. The forest was becoming more and more dense, the light finding it increasingly hard to penetrate the canopy. All around him, shadows slithered and squirmed. Taylor stopped for a moment to get his bearings, breathing hard. He looked down at his feet for the path.
It was gone.
How the fuck did that happen?
He glanced behind him, hoping to see some remnant.
There was nothing.
What should he do?
He swallowed hard as a knot of panic began to squirm in his chest. Then he forced out a chuckle which, in the oppressive surroundings, sounded more like a death rattle. The noise seemed to hang in the air far longer than it should have, causing Taylor to look around anxiously.
Something was terribly amiss.
Then he noticed the smell. Sickly and thick, it seemed to swirl around him. Something nearby was dead and rotting. Probably one of those small furry animals that populated the undergrowth; a field mouse or a vole, maybe.
No, judging by the stench, it was something bigger than that. A rabbit or a squirrel? Maybe even a fox or a sheep?
Taylor’s mind flashed back to the time when a group of kids at his primary school had stumbled across the body of a homeless man who’d sought shelter in the grounds over the summer holidays and ended up dying there. By the time the body was discovered it was a putrefying mess, and probably smelled a lot like this.
He knew he should just carry on walking. Nothing good could come from standing around in the middle of a dark forest looking for an animal carcass. There would be germs and bacteria and all sorts kicking around.
What if it wasn’t an animal carcass?
What if it was the body of another homeless person?
One thing Taylor could do without was stumbling across a fucking corpse on his afternoon walk.
But he didn’t know which way to go. Which way was out. The forest wasn’t exactly huge. Assuming he went in a straight line, if he walked in any direction long enough he was certain to emerge in an hour or two. He just didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon trudging through dense vegetation.
But that stink!
That was when he saw it. Right in front of him. How he hadn’t spotted it earlier was a mystery. It just kind of blended in with the leaves and foliage.
It was an animal carcass, impaled on a sharp branch just below eye level. It looked like a squirrel, and it had obviously been there a while. A few days, maybe. Its blood-stained fur was balding in patches, and the skin had been peeled back to expose desiccated flesh and a tiny white rib cage. Tiny flies swarmed around it in clouds.
As Taylor leaned closer, top lip curling in disgust, he noticed movement. Beneath the flap of skin, a handful of tiny, pale maggots squirmed merrily.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” he said aloud, putting a hand over his mouth and backing away.
Then he stopped, and a deep frown creased his face. Something troubled him. Something above and beyond finding a dead animal crawling with maggots impaled on a tree branch.
How did it get there?
It surely didn’t put itself in that position, and no other animal could have done it, predator or otherwise. It was unnatural. That meant, only another person could have carried out the deed. Which, in turn, begged the question, ‘Why?’
Kids messing around, maybe. Though they would have to be a pretty sick bunch to think killing small, defenceless animals and impaling them on trees was a fun thing to do.
As Taylor tossed things around in his head, something else caught his eye. Markings on the tree trunk, just underneath the sharpened branch. A series of intricate shapes and symbols carved into the bark. They made no sense to Taylor, but were immaculately done. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time and effort here.
Could there be some correlation between the carvings and the dead animal?
Who was he trying to fool? Of course there was. It was far too much of a coincidence otherwise. Then, another piece of the jigsaw slipped into place.
The devil worshippers.
Maybe it wasn’t just a rumour.
Taylor’s heart was now thudding in his chest so strongly he could hear it, and beads of sweat were running freely down his face.
What the fuck had he stumbled across?
It was almost a surprise when he realized he didn’t care. It wasn’t his business, nor his problem.
With a dismissive snort, he made to walk off. As he moved he happened to glance above him, and what he saw rooted him to the spot.
It was a pair of eyes.
Partially obscured, they blazed red, glaring down at him from above.
It had to be some kind of optical illusion. A of trick of the light.
Didn’t it?
A chilly, light breeze rustled the leaves around him bringing goose bumps out on the exposed skin of his arms and legs and an unnatural hush fell over the forest. The atmosphere felt somehow oppressive, almost as if he were trapped underground.
There was a man, or some kind of creature up a tree looking at him.
Could it be possible?
It had to be possible, it was happening.
It was happening right now.
Taylor shifted his position slightly, trying to create more of an angle that would enable him to see exactly what he was faced with. The man thing didn’t move, but no matter what he did, Taylor couldn’t seem to connect the dots. Whatever he was looking at remained hidden.
His senses heightened, he became aware of a foreign sound. A sound so low that had he been walking, it would easily have been obscured by his footfalls. It was the sound of air being drawn in, and then slowly expelled.
Breathing.
It was fucking breathing.
This revelation was enough for Taylor and, eyes still glued to the glowing red orbs, he started backing away. He no longer cared which direction he should go in; he just wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
For a fraction of a second, the pair of eyes disappeared. There was the whoosh of displaced air, and suddenly the creature was standing before him.
The unnatural eyes weren’t the worst of it.
The thing towered over him, standing at least seven feet tall. It looked like a giant moth/human hybrid, complete with a huge set of demonic, leathery wings folded behind it. It was covered head to foot in grey or black fur, which had thinned in places to reveal skin so dry it looked more like scales.
It was certainly more monster than it was man. Despite the pointed horns on each side of its head, it’s wickedly elongated face was its most human feature. The oversized red eyes still blazed, above a long, conical nose and a black-lipped mouth from which an enormous set of sharpened fangs glistening with saliva protruded.
Confronted with such a horror, Taylor’s legs gave out and he slumped to his knees as if praying to some kind of monstrous deity. He was now directly in line with the thing’s sinewy bare legs, the ripped and torn parchment-like skin studded with those coarse black hairs. Something almost disembodied flicked the air, as if tasting it. Then, the appendage lingered, snake-like.
It was a tail. A fucking tail.
Most terrifyingly of all, Taylor realized that the joint of the creature’s knee was all wrong. It was bending the wrong way, and was reminiscent of a goat standing on its hind legs right down to the hooves where its feet should be.
Hooves.
No. It wasn’t possible.
As he scrambled away on his hind quarters, Taylor thought of the strange markings etched into the tree, the dead animal that, come to think of it, looked like it had been sacrificed, the myriad stories of devil worshippers at work on these mountains, and how all these things fit together.
They’d conjured something up. Some kind of entity. Something demonic and inhuman, yet irrefutably alive.
And here.
In one smooth motion, Taylor leapt to his feet, turned away from the looming creature, and charged through the masses of undergrowth and vegetation. He tried to take the path of least resistance, but moving at speed made it impossible. It was all he could do to avoid running headlong into a tree and knocking himself unconscious.
Roots and vines seemed to grip his feet as if trying to trip him up, and within moments both of his legs were lacerated and bleeding, cut to ribbons by the thorn bushes he trampled through.
But he couldn’t stop. The creature was right behind him. Close. He could hear the noise it made as it crashed through the forest in pursuit. Taylor had no idea what it would do if it caught up with him, but those fangs provided a clue. He had to get away. Far away.
A white-hot flash stung his cheek as he felt the wrath of a stray branch. Taylor screamed aloud in an explosion of pain, fury and frustration. He wanted to look behind him to see how far behind the creature was, but fear prevented him. He imagined turning to see it reaching out a long, clawed hand and gripping his neck. That would be the end.
He was convinced he could hear its ragged breath as it drew ever nearer, eating up the ground between them on its muscular goat’s legs.
Finding his way blocked by a sprawling oak too wide to easily get around, Taylor stopped abruptly then set off again in another direction, praying the manoeuvre wouldn’t prove too costly.
On and on he went, the forest around him blurring into a collage of greens and browns. More than once he tripped and stumbled, just managing to right himself before crashing to the ground.
His breathing was coming in harsh gasps, every exhalation accompanied by a mournful whimper. He was how hopelessly lost, and had reduced his objective to simply surviving, a task made even more difficult in the face of a torrent of vile, defeatist thoughts which pervaded his mind.
If he died here, how long would it be before his body was discovered?
And by the time the demon-thing and the litany of wildlife finished with him, would there be enough left to bury?
A seemingly solid wall of green stood in front of him. There was no circumnavigating it. Something told Taylor he needed to smash right through it to have any chance of getting away unscathed. He put his head down, raised one arm to shield his face, and took a running leap. He was airborne.
There was resistance. Branches and thorns grasped at him like despairing hands and he was sure he felt the creature claw his trailing leg. From just behind him came a chilling, inhuman howl. Something like the cry of a wolf, but throaty and monotone. It was a sound borne of pure frustration.
Then Taylor hit the ground with a thud, and rolled onto his side. He looked skywards and, rather than a canopy of leaves, was surprised to see clouds moving lazily across a blue sky.
He had escaped.
Instinctively, he looked back at the forest, half expecting the creature to follow him out. If it came for him now, it would be over fast. He was too cut up and exhausted to run any more.
But something told him it wouldn’t come. Not now. This wasn’t its domain. It belonged in the permanent twilight world of the forest, not out here in the open air.
Looking around, Taylor realised that he was but a few yards away from a road. Not a mere path, an actual road. Not a hundred yards away he could make out the whitewashed walls of a building set against the mountainous backdrop and instinctively knew it was the Halfway House. Stumbling across it this way was almost serendipitous.
As he rose gingerly to his feet, he brushed himself off and inspected his wounds. His arms and lower legs were covered in scratches and bruises, and his face still stung from its collision with the low-hanging branch, but the injuries would heal. What would perhaps take longer to recover was his mind. He knew it would never allow him to forget the sight of the creature. It would probably haunt his subconscious for the rest of his life.
He knew right now the creature was just beyond the tree line, watching. He could feel its eyes on him. Extending his right arm Taylor flipped his middle finger, then turned and head toward the pub.
THE END
Christian Saunders, who writes fiction as C.M. Saunders, is a freelance journalist and editor from South Wales. His work has appeared in over 80 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide including The Literary Hatchet, Feverish Fiction, Fantastic Horror, Flash Bang Mysteries, Morpheus Tales and Crimson Streets, and he has held desk positions at several leading UK magazines ranging from Staff Writer to Associate Editor. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the latest release being a collection of short fiction entitled X: Omnibus.
What if ours weren’t the only reality? What if the past paths converged, if those moments that led to our current circumstances got tangled together with their alternates and we found ourselves caught up in the threads?
Marla returned home after the funeral and wake. She drew the key in the lock and opened the door slowly, the looming dread of coming back to an empty house finally sinking in. Everyone else had gone home with their loved ones. They had all said, “goodbye,” and moved along.
Her daughter Misty and son-in-law Joel had caught a flight to Springfield so he could be at work the next day for the big meeting. Her brother Darcy was on his way back to Montreal. Emmett and Ruth were at home next door, probably washing dishes from the big meal they had helped to provide afterward, seeing as their kitchen light was on. Marla remembered there being food but couldn’t recall what exactly as she hadn’t felt like eating. Sandwiches probably… she’d have to thank them later.
Marla had felt supported up until she turned the key in the lock after the services, but then the realization sank deep in her throat like acid reflux, hanging heavy on her heart – everyone else had other lives to return to except for her. She sighed and stepped through the threshold onto the outdated beige linoleum tile and the braided rag rug that stretched across it. She closed the door behind herself and sighed again. She wiped her shoes reflexively on the mat before just kicking them off to land in a haphazard heap in the entryway.
The still silence of the house enveloped her, its oppressive emptiness palpable – she could feel it on her skin, taste it on her tongue. It was bitter. She sighed and walked purposefully to the living room, the large rust-orange sofa waiting to greet her. She flopped into its empty embrace, dropping her purse at her side as she did so.
A familiar, husky voice greeted her from deeper within the large, empty house. “Where have you been?”
Marla looked up and glanced around. Her husband Frank was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a bowl. Marla gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her clutched appendage took on a life of its own, slowly relinquishing itself of her gaping jaw and extending a first finger to point at the specter.
“Frank?” she spoke hesitantly.
“Yeah,” the man replied, holding the now-dry bowl nestled in the faded blue-and-white-checkered kitchen towel in both hands. “Who else would you expect?”
“But you’re dead,” Marla spat, the words falling limply from her mouth of their own accord.
The 66-year old man looked around confusedly and turned to face Marla, his silver hair sparkling in the light from the kitchen, illuminated from behind like a halo. “What are you talking about? I’m just here washing up after lunch. You were gone so I made myself some soup. Where have you been?”
“No, I just got home from your funeral,” Marla spoke quietly. “You are dead. After the boating accident… You drowned. I went along to the hospital – they pronounced you dead on arrival.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said. “What boating accident?”
“The sailboat… You were going to take me out,” Marla coughed, her brown eyes glossed over with tears.
“We don’t own a sailboat,” Frank said bluntly. “Sure, I’d thought about it – it seems like a cool retirement hobby – but it’s just too expensive. We’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it.”
Marla glanced out the bay window towards the driveway where the small sailboat sat on its trailer, its orange hull reminiscent of the Florida citrus industry, and also of the life jacket Frank should have been wearing when he’d been pulled under. Marla cringed and turned back toward the kitchen. She sighed and spoke again, “But the boat’s out front. The guys at the marina helped to bring it back… after you… drowned.”
Frank had retreated to the kitchen to put away the bowl. Marla followed. She stood in the doorway and studied the man intently. He was unmistakably her husband, there was no denying it even despite her having just witnessed his waxen lifeless body in the coffin at the wake before the burial, though this Frank was a slight bit more overweight than she remembered.
“Well, that’s not possible. Because I’m still here,” Frank grumbled. He turned to face her, his blue eyes edged with worry. “There now, it was probably just a dream. You knew I wanted a boat and your anxiety just formulated the worst-case scenario…”
“See for yourself,” Marla said, her voice lilting with every syllable.
Frank strode into the living room and stared out the bay window. The driveway was vacant save for some bits of Spanish moss strewn over the concrete from the neighboring live oak tree. He turned towards his wife.
“But there’s no boat,” he sighed. “You must have had a bad dream. Did you fall asleep in the car in the garage again?” Concern was written all over his face, deepening every crease and wrinkle. “Is that where you were? The garage?”
Marla glanced again at the boat, plain as day, and turned to face Frank. Her voice grew stubborn. “It’s right here. How can you miss it?” she said, pointing at the orange behemoth.
“Honey, there’s nothing there,” Frank exclaimed, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Marla huffed and strode to the entryway, gathering her shoes from where they waited in their haphazard heap alongside the braided rag run on the worn linoleum floor. She marched out the door as Frank took vigil in its open frame, still staring at her. She stomped out to the boat and slapped her hand on the fiberglass surface with a resounding smack. The boat was warm to the touch, having baked in the Florida sun. She turned back towards the front door.
“See!” she bellowed.
The door stood open, empty. No one was there, watching. Marla sighed again and walked back inside. The vacant house once again enveloped her in its oppressive emptiness. Frank was nowhere to be found.
So I guess it’s goodbye for now. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrick’s Days… though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I don’t know how you managed to find me after all this time. We haven’t been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, you’ve managed to find me every St. Patrick’s Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. It’s a little disconcerting, like I’m starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hut…
Anyway as I’d mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And I’d already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, he’d already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Monty’s crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didn’t want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew they’d want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livin’ the dream. We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick ‘em. It’s like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least it’s not high maintenance women who won’t toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and it doesn’t work like in the movies. I wasn’t bitten, and I generally don’t bite unless provoked. He says technically I’m a wolfwere, to which I just reply “Where?” and smile. Whatever. It’s the little things I guess. I just wish everything didn’t come out as a bark most of the time, though Monty’s gotten pretty good at interpreting… As long as he doesn’t get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livin’ the dream. There aren’t all that many rabbits out here but it’s quiet and the locals don’t seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like he’s gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantry’s stocked it’s no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that already…
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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