by Mark L. Stinson

---

One or two times in a man’s life he will encounter circumstances that make him stop and think, “I must be completely and utterly mad!” There are a certain unfortunate few that are chosen by God or gods to encounter such circumstances numerous times in their span of years. For the strong among them comes a knowledge and understanding of the world as few men will ever know it. A clear picture of the way things really are unfolds before them, and other lesser men call them prophets, poets, geniuses, visionaries, or in darker ages, “of the devil himself.” Our asylums and sanitariums are filled with those whom men condemn for seeing the truth...those that refuse to ignore the hidden shadow within whose cold dark embrace men live and dream.

The following tale is one in a collection of events that has made my knowledge of that which is hidden stronger, while weakening my faith in the false world mankind has chosen to believe in. A solemn pledge among all those involved has kept this story silent for all these many years. But now I alone remain alive to tell the tale, and find my need to share what happened to be greater than any pledge to those who are now dead.

I had set out from my Uncle Hobart’s farm house on the edge of the Ozark woods in the early afternoon hoping to enjoy a long walk through the rugged forested foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The spring rains had become less frequent and the scorching humid heat of the Missouri summer had not yet come to full bloom. These seasonal conditions had come together to make every plant the greenest and fullest it would be during the entire year.

My two week visit to my country uncle’s farm house had been spent mostly with my cousins, deriving pleasure from the two things that they most cherished - guns and the young women in the nearby town of Crafton. My cousins and I had spent long hours in those lush Ozark woods hunting squirrels, rabbits, birds, and about anything else that moved, but I had not spent a single moment alone simply enjoying the untamed beauty contained within the confines of the forest. I was due to travel back East the next morning by train, so that afternoon was my last opportunity to simply wander and explore without distraction.

Planning on a fairly short outing, I brought water and a few apples from a tree in my uncle’s small orchard. It was natural to begin on the trail upon which my cousins had taken me hunting, but even before I was out of sight of the farm, I was tempted by side trails I had not noticed during our earlier hunting trips. I wondered whose trails these were and where would they take me? A young man’s curiosity and unyielding drive for adventure often overcome his faculty of reason, and that fateful day I was seduced by those dim Ozark woods and the secrets I imagined they held.

Walking on the thin tenuous trails through the lush underbrush, I looked up in amazement at those ancient oaks and pondered just how old they might be. Being in those leaf-shadowed groves and valleys, winding my way along and choosing new paths where and when they presented themselves, I felt like I was in the blessed Garden of Eden. What better way to spend the last day of an already amazing visit with my Midwestern relatives? I was Adam surveying the primordial forest of a grizzled and timeworn mountain chain. Yes, extensive briars ripped at my clothing, pushy mosquitoes ate of my flesh, large spindly spider webs occasionally brushed and stuck against my face, jagged beds of rocks and boulders threatened to topple me, and the twisted hanging tree boughs blocked and shadowed my path, but they were my briars, my mosquitoes, my spiders, my rocks, and my trees - they were God’s gift to me and I was determined to enjoy the inherent hardship of encountering them. This was the general direction of my wandering thoughts as I traveled those wondrous dark paths.

My daydream was broken by a sudden jarring realization that I was completely and hopelessly lost! At first I attempted to retrace my steps, but the paths were winding and where they met I could gather no recollection of which way I had come. I walked about in somewhat of a daze, looking for anything that might guide me in the direction of Uncle Hobart’s farm by way of its familiarity or uniqueness. No such landmark appeared and after an hour or so of pointless wandering about, I sat down on an old barkless fallen log in order to rest and despair over my situation.

The wooded shadows had begun to get longer and darker, and soon I would be absorbed into the sooty black of a moonless night. I had consumed my water and apples long before and had not thought to bring matches, a flashlight, nor even a jacket to break the dew. It was only then that I began to recall the stories my Uncle Hobart had told his sons and me about those old Ozark mountains and the forest that shrouded them in green and shadow. There was the smelly old hag named Mum Twig who had poisoned her own children with arsenic-laced pies, and who stirred about her isolated cabin baking plump juicy desserts to entice lost children to ugly convulsing ends. Deeper in the forest was an ancient stand of oaks called Blood Grove where in a fit of jealous passion an Indian brave had sliced to death his young wayward bride. The tall ageless oaks of that grove had developed an insatiable taste for human blood which to this day they satisfy from the veins and arteries of anyone foolish enough to come within reach of their rough grasping boughs. There were spiders the size of cats that built webs so sticky and strong that my Uncle Hobart swore he had come across a thirteen-point buck caught in one, encased in webbing, and sucked half dry of its vital fluids. There were several tales of insane homicidal old men who had taken to the deep woods to hide from the law, and each tale would end with my Uncle pointing behind one of my cousins or me and yelling, “There’s Crazy Jake now!!!” or “Run! It’s murderin’ Luke Fink!!!” at which point we would all jump and scream. There were also tales of quicksand, scalp-collecting Indians, ghosts of Civil War soldiers who didn’t know the war was over, inbred cannibalistic hillbillies, and of course the Missouri Monster, or “MoMo” as Uncle Hobart liked to call him. This last creature was a local incarnation of the Big-Foot legend, and Uncle Hobart relished telling MoMo story after MoMo story. He would always finish these stories with the following words spoken in a low hushed fashion, “I’ve never met up with him, and I hope I never do.”

Back in the safety of my uncle’s farm, the stories and tales had been nothing more than spine-chilling entertainment, with a thrill born of atmospheric storytelling and a roaming imagination. But sitting lost on a fallen log in the middle of the shadow strewn setting of those strange backwards tales, I was ashamed to feel a sense of fear and apprehension seize at me. My breath became short, my heart was thumping, my lip and brow beaded with sweat, and I kept looking over one shoulder and then the next. Is it possible to resist a bite of one of Mum Twig’s delicious poison pies? Did the oaks of Blood Grove drain their victims’ blood upon the ground and drink with their roots or did they feast upon their victims’ blood through some crude mouth-like orifice? How many soft little eggs would the gargantuan mother spider place inside her still-living human catch, and would you still be alive when the babies hatched and began to nibble and gnaw their way from the inside out? These questions and others plagued me and I realized through all the panic that I should get up, choose a decisive course, and attempt to find my way back to Uncle Hobart’s farm as quickly as possible. The green leafy paradise that had inspired so much awe in me during the daylight hours was now disappearing with the advancement of dusk. The depth of shadow suggested to me the true nature of those forested hills. I stood not in Eden, but a place much older than quaint Christian tales of the Serpent and the Fall of Man. Soon the pitch of night would completely swallow me, and I would be at the mercy of whatever dark secrets these wood held.

Unable to even see the crooked paths that had delivered me into the murky heart of this tangled wilderness, I guessed at a direction of travel which might bring me to the safety of my Uncle Hobart’s farm . Along this route I traveled, groping my way through a sightless world of brushwood, vines, and thicket. I could feel the sting of my sweat running into the cuts and gashes the thick undergrowth inflicted upon my bare arms and face. Occasionally I brushed against one of the aged oaks and wondered at the strange creaking sounds which came from its swaying boughs. Had I just avoided its pointed grasping limbs and splintered sucking orifice, or were the tree limbs laboring under the weight of some titan bulbous-bodied spider herding me into its webbed lair? In a panic I began to trot and then dash through the foliage, ripping through briars, tripping over fallen logs, and all the while unsure if I was even going in the right direction.

Soon I saw a dim glow outlining the trees and bushes ahead of me, and the broken strains of melodious whistling were borne to me on the moist summer wind. Was I hearing one of the enchanting lullabies Mum Twig sang to draw lost children to her and her deadly pies or was murderin’ Luke Fink whistling a happy tune into the blue bug-eyed face of a freshly strangled victim? I hid behind a gnarled hedge and tried to control my trembling and gasping. The whistled tune became louder and I could see that the source of the light was moving through the forest in my direction.

From between two trees not far from where I hid came an old man with a dog limping along at his side. By the light of his lantern I saw that he wore stained torn overalls and heavy boots, and had a double-barreled shotgun slung across the crook of his right arm. When the man had reached a spot not more than thirty feet from me, the mangy fur on his lame dog’s neck and back stood up on end and he began to bark and growl in my direction. The rusty shotgun seemed to spring to the old man’s shoulder and he pointed it this way and that into the surrounding woods yelling, “Come out into the open ya ol’ demon, give a man one good shot at ya! I ain’t afraid.”

Fearful that the old stranger might begin firing into the brush at random, I called out from my hiding place, “Don’t shoot! I’m lost...I’m not armed...don’t shoot.” With that I slowly stood with my arms above my head and a very nervous strained smile upon my face. The shotgun spun in my direction, but the old man did not fire. I managed to struggle some words out. “If this is your land I didn’t mean to trespass. I’m Edwin Hobart’s nephew and I’m trying to find my way out of these woods.”

“Yer stupid to be in this place at night.” The old man lowered the shotgun and kicked at his still growling cur to shut him up. “An’ I’m just as stupid. It’s dangerous out her at night, son. Things ain’t fit fer the the light o’ day crawl up out of their hidey-holes and come huntin’ fer anything that moves.”

I lowered my hands. “Why are you out here then?” I couldn’t remember whether any of Uncle Hobart’s stories about Crazy Jake ever included a shotgun slaying, and I shivered a bit.

“I was huntin’ fer some dinner. I hadn’t had meat in a few weeks and...well, I wandered a bit far lookin’ fer a bird or a squirrel I could bring down with ol’ Jenny here.” The old man affectionately patted the timeworn shotgun he had returned to the crook of his right arm. “Don’t matter anyhow. What matters is me and you hightailin’ it back to my cabin before...before something bad happens.” While I should have been pleased at the old man’s offer of shelter, I found myself desperately seeking an excuse to get away from him and continue making my own way home. His squinty eyes stared at me from deep within his thin wrinkled face, and his mouth twisted into a large toothless grin. “Believe me son, I know these here woods. Our best chance is if we stick together.”

To this day I don’t know whether it was Uncle Hobart’s tales of homicidal maniacs and hillbilly cannibals, or just the strange manner of the old man himself, but there was no possible way I was going to “hightail” it anywhere with this stranger in the woods. I ran from the circle of lantern light yelling something like, “No thank you very much!” and kept running until I could only see the barest hint of the lantern’s glow behind me. And still I ran.

There was a silence as I fled, for the rush of wind in my ears drowned out the snapping twigs and the rustling leaves. Then in the distance I heard the old man’s scream. I will never forget the utter desperation and fear that marked his seemingly bold words. “I see yer eyes ol’ demon, come to drag me inta yer hidey-hole have ya! Come and get me.” By the sound of it, the battle was short. The terrified screams of the old toothless farmer and the tortured yelping of his diseased tired mutt were punctuated by one roaring blast from ol’ Jenny that reverberated off tree and rock for miles. With startling quickness it was over, and I was left alone in the quiet still darkness wondering when the old man’s “demon” would come for me.

I know what you are thinking, dear reader. “Run, run, run!” But in the indoor warmth and comfort you enjoy while exploring this tale, you forget my circumstance. Surrounded by an unfamiliar dark wood, miles from the sanctuary of my Uncle Hobart’s farm, I was alone in the trees with some dark monster that plagued man and beast alike. Oh, yes, I could have fled that night, but how far would I have gotten?

Slowly and deliberately I made my way back the way I had come, back towards the battle. Groping blindly, jumping at every small sound and movement of shadow, the only thing that kept me moving forward was the thought of the old man’s lantern and the one remaining shotgun shell in ol’ Jenny. A faint red glow came into view and I followed it steadily until I came upon the dimly lit scene of carnage. Thick red blood had splashed across the lantern’s face, casting an eerie scarlet light about the small clearing. A fragile wisp of white smoke writhed from one of ol’ Jenny’s barrels, and just a few feet away the lame old cur was heaped in a twisted pile that glistened with red moistness. Dark blood was splattered on the surrounding ground and the leaves of the encroaching underbrush. Besides some tattered pieces of cloth that appeared to be from his overalls, nothing of the farmer remained.

I suppressed my rising nausea, and moved forward to claim the shotgun and its one remaining shell. Ol’ Jenny was wet where I gripped her, and it took every effort of will not to throw her down and flee. With a soft hopeless growl, the old dog let me know that there was still a flickering of life in its mortally wounded body. A few merciful blows from the butt of ol’ Jenny set that poor fellow free from the living hell that was his broken frame. I was saving the last good shotgun shell for the fiend.

I wiped the lantern clean, and the brighter white glow revealed a path of broken-down brush, weeds and blood. The farmer had been dragged away by this man-stalking horror he had so feared, and clearly for some unholy purpose. Gone were my childish fears of Mum Twig, bloody oaks, and homicidal old hillbillies. This was real and deadly. This was some monster, some dark beast of the Missouri woods.

Over the years I have had much time to examine my motivations for following that fateful path of flattened grass and spilt blood. I never regretted the act of trying to follow this struggle between man and dark nature to its very end. I simply could not leave the farmer to die alone in the woods. Not those woods. What I do regret is all that I lost that murderous night in those dark ancient mountains. Forever shredded was that comforting shroud of ignorance, carefully crafted by man to conceal a hidden world of madness and pain.

I moved along the path slowly at first, increasing my speed in congress with my accelerating pulse. I partially hooded the lantern so that only a spot of light shone before me as a guide. The crimson trail was easy to follow, and follow it I did for minutes that seemed like hours. The night was exceptionally quiet and the sounds of my own footsteps assaulted me from below. I clutched ol’ Jenny tight, my finger curled around the venerable trigger. What chance did I stand against this thing? But, the farmer had tried to help me, and in those days I was an honorable soul and felt the need to return his favor. And count as no small factor my burning curiosity to see this horror through.

Eventually the vegetation began to thin, and I caught a hint of musk, similar to the smell of wet fur, floating on the still night air. I stopped and listened, completely hooding my borrowed lantern so that no light would betray my location. At first I heard nothing, but then as my heart slowed a bit and my nerves calmed, I became aware of a faint crunching sound, interrupted occasionally by a loud slurping and gulping. My eyes began to penetrate the heavy veil of darkness and with ol’ Jenny pointing the way I edged my way forward. The wet rending and gnawing sounds grew louder and then about twenty feet before me I perceived a hulking figure visible only in silhouette.

I got down on one knee, and with the shotgun’s trigger half drawn back, I let spill forth from the lantern all possible light. The scene revealed to me was so terribly vile as to be unreachable by the art of descriptive prose. Scores of nights since then I have awoke screaming, sweaty and inconsolable, with that fiend’s feast still burning in my mind’s eye. Huddled over the farmer’s half-butchered body was a tremendous stooped-over mockery of both man and ape. Matted black and brown fur hung in stringy clumps from its hideously large muscular frame, while over-long arms and hands gripped the old man at his neck and thigh. From the farmer’s belly the creature lifted its gore soaked simian face and blinked into the white fire of my lantern. It’s unholy supper intruded upon, the beast issued a territorial snarl from its thick black lips, and then dipped its head to continue its foul gluttony. I could take no more, and closing my eyes in disgust and fear, I let ol’ Jenny cry out with a resounding roar. I opened my eyes in time to see the fiend clutching at its stomach, stumbling and scampering backwards, dragging the farmer by one leg towards a large cavernous hole in the ground at the center of the clearing.

Sobbing uncontrollably, I ran a few steps forward pointing the empty shotgun at the wounded abomination before me. The creature let go of the farmer’s leg and swinging its long arms wildly over its head it rose to its full height, bellowing a foul cry of frustration. Amazingly, I stood my ground, and the beast turned and leaped downwards into the large hole, letting loose one long wailing scream that echoed up out of the dank evil darkness for what seemed like minutes.

The farmer’s body moved! I ran forward and fell to my knees by his side, cradling his bloodied head in my hands. He stared at me with one glazed-over yellow eye and whispered, “Its MoMo, boy...look in my right pocket. Then run, boy, just run....” I dug into the farmer’s right pocket and found two more shells for ol’ Jenny. “I said run, boy...where there’s one...there’s more....” The shotgun reloaded, I stood and walked toward the cave’s entrance. I wasn't going to leave the farmer there to be eaten. No way.

The black mouth of the hole stretched about fifteen feet across and small trails extended out from it into the woods in every direction. I stood just feet from the lip of the abyss and looked down into the utter darkness. A cool musky breeze issued up from below and I began to tremble and sweat. I looked back at the farmer’s crushed, torn body. I would not leave him here to be fed upon.

Then I heard it. The fiend’s wailing cry began echoing up from below again, carried on the moist putrid air rushing from the yawning fissure. As if in answer, a second foul scream arose from below, and then another. Within the space of seconds a depraved chorus of torment and hunger arose from the depths and I realized the farmer was right. There were more...many more.

I hurried back to the farmer’s side and prepared to lift him.

“No, boy...hear...them? Just run.”

“I’m not going to leave you here for them...to...to....”

“What’s yer...name...boy?”

“Lewis Prather.”

The old man seemed to smile. “...Edwin Hobart’s nephew, eh? I’m dead, Lewis. Just run...tell Hobart...he’ll know what to do. His farm’s that way...’bout two miles. You just run.” The farmer pointed a gnarled bloody finger to his left.

I sat there staring into that old man’s withered face. I did not want to leave him there for food, but he was right. He was not long for this earth, and he was too heavy for me to carry any sort of distance. I listened to the raging harmony bellowing up from below, growing louder and closer every moment I wavered. I knew then what to do.

With some effort I propped the old farmer against a tree facing the “hidey-hole,” and pressed his faithful ol’ Jenny into his hands. “I’ll run old man. But you and your gun have to buy me some time. Do you understand me?”

The old man’s eye rolled back into focus. “Thank you, boy...tell Hobart what I done fer ya...you tell him....”

I turned and I ran the way the old farmer had pointed. A minute later I heard a shotgun blast, followed several long minutes later by a second. I didn’t think, I simply ran and ran...

I am afraid that the rest of this tale was acted out by others now dead, and that I can simply relate what was told to me by them. I was found late at night stumbling half-mad in the woods near my Uncle’s farm by a search party from the town of Crafton. When I had not returned from my afternoon walk, Uncle Hobart had gathered all the able-bodied men he knew to search for me. From my delirious ramblings, my Uncle gathered what had happened, and he believed me! The next morning a party of ten men loyal to my uncle went into those woods, found the rank cave, and blew it shut with five cases of stump dynamite. No sign of the farmer or his gun were found.

A solemn pledge among all those involved has kept this story silent all these many years. But now I alone remain alive to tell the tale, and find my need to share what happened to be greater than any pledge to those who are now dead. For you see, I never visited my Uncle’s farm again. And my Uncle’s family and their friends never frequented those woods again for any purpose. Why, you ask? After all, the dirty little hole was blown shut wasn’t it?

Well, the reader forgets a key element of the tale. That moist putrid air rushing from the gaping wound in the earth suggests at least one other entrance, does it not? Where there’s one, there’s more.

---

THE END