The Legend of Mr. Snatchum
The Legend of Mr. Snatchum
Chapter 1: The Barbwire Woods Challenge
(Narrated by Kevin Coffey)
Hello all. Welcome new subscribers! I had the day off and this is what I did with it—enjoy!
KC
NOW:
Floss sat at the end of the cul-de-sac, his heart thumping like a drum as he batted a crumpled can back and forth with his best friend Rayburn in an unspoken game. His palms were slick with sweat, and his mind was racing, filled with a sense of dread bordering on panic.
The game was incidental. The real event playing out was a chilling neighborhood dare—be the last to remain by the ominous Barbwire Woods after the sun plunged below the horizon.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
The menacing forest loomed just a few steps away, its ancient trees stretching upwards like bony fingers ready to snatch them up. Floss could feel the hairs on his arms stand on end as they breathed in an unidentified stench of soiled moss or rotting wood that polluted the air. It was as if the very essence of the woods was cursed, and the sinister energy that surrounded them made it seem as if the forest itself was alive and plotting against them.
The sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the light was fading fast. The crisp autumn air took over, making it almost intolerable to remain outside. Each biting gust of wind sounded as if the trees whispered secrets to each other, and the rustling leaves cackled like sinister laughter.
Since he was a child, Floss had sensed the unspeakable evil things lurking in the woods. Floss could feel them like something that wanted to crawl inside him. It was rumored that deep in the tangled overgrowth, there were the ruins of a dilapidated fireplace standing tall in a forgotten field. Despite its wretched state, it was apparently a passage to dark places from which no lost soul returned.
To come across those haunts would result in certain evisceration by the Woods' razor-sharp thorns.
Although it was probably wiser to go inside, Floss stood his ground, determined to face whatever malevolent force lay ahead. So Floss clenched his teeth as the other kids retreated one by one, too spineless to withstand the mounting dread. That, and their flimsy gadgets fizzled out in the Woods' dead zone.
It was always fun to prove to the new kids or relatives visiting, who didn’t believe in the “dead spot,” and then watch them freak out when they experienced it for themselves. Even cars that turned around on their street would often stall in the middle of the cul-de-sac’s curve.
When he was visiting, Floss’ Grandpops would run out on cue, most of the time scaring the soul out of whoever was in the car by slapping the roof of the vehicle and barking out instructions. “In neutral, put it in neutral! Floss, help me push,” and they would get the bewildered driver on their way.
Just like any time they played “the dare,” the other tweens and teens had probably only come out more to laugh at Floss’ silly beliefs than to play. It was always short-lived, as they headed back inside to jump back online to feed their video game and social media addictions.
But Floss wasn’t like them. He could care less about high scores and posting about every little thing he did, fishing for a reaction and fake attention. It made him feel awkward and exposed. His Grandpops said he was “old school,” and an “old soul.”
His peers had other names for him.
Floss made his little brother Joe go inside despite a near meltdown. Only the promise of playing trains with him before bed had settled him down.
As the darkness crept in, the shapes became darker and their shadows stretched out like spilled ink.
Floss expertly sent the crumpled soda can sailing over Rayburn's shoes with the help of a stick and claimed victory with a smile.
“Point,” Floss gloated.
“Man, we weren’t even playing anymore,” Rayburn said.
“We’re always playing,” Floss flashed a sly grin. However, Floss's smile quickly faded as he noticed waving shapes that seemed odd even for the vicious thorny underbrush and spiky trees that gave the woods its brutal namesake.
“How’s it, uh… go again? The story behind these woods?” Rayburn sheepishly asked. He lived a couple of blocks over at the bottom of a steep hill. He might as well be from Mars when it came to knowing the Barbwire Woods.
“Dude about our age used to wander out and show himself, but he’d look different each time, then never came back,” Floss revealed.
“Man, that’s not scary,” Rayburn said, adjusting the glasses on his face. In the dim twilight, Rayburn's eyes widened behind his fogged glasses, giving him the appearance of an overgrown owl.
“You don’t know half the crazy things about these woods,” Floss said, shaking his head. “When I was Joe’s age, the Barbwire Woods’ trees used to tap at my window. Yeah, that’s right. Not only that, they’d knock on the door until I came out!”
“What? Ain’t no tree knock on your door, fool!” Rayburn doubled over, and clapped his hands, laughing hysterically.
“On my mama’s life, I saw a tree do it.”
Rayburn’s face turned serious. Nobody around here joked about their mamas in such a way.
“I know it’s crazy, but a messed-up-looking branch would reach out from the woods and knock and scratch at our door.”
Rayburn eyeballed him as if he might bolt if he kept talking.
“When I opened the door, the branch would be gone, and I saw him standing at the edge of the woods every time.”
“Who’s him?”
“A kid like us, but he looked messed up like something had gotten him or the woods had spit him out. He was all wobbly like a newborn deer and could barely stand. His clothes were all torn, too, and he was covered in something. Looked like snot, but it was black like oil.”
“You lying,” Rayburn waved him off.
“You think I’m tripping, but I swear I’m not.”
“Why, did he say something to you?”
“Yeah. You can help. Every time, too—YOU can help US. Just like that. But he sounded… older, not like a kid at all.”
“Man, that was just some power-tripping park ranger,” Rayburn stood up with a serious expression, saluting Floss. “Only you, Mr. Floss. ONLY you.”
Floss threw his stick at Rayburn. “Don’t talk trash, it’s true.”
“Then what happened to him?”
Floss shrugged. “I don’t know, he might just be—“
“Look, Floss!” Rayburn squeaked as his voice apparently failed him.
Floss looked at where Rayburn’s shaking finger was pointing and nearly lost it.
The woods, once the woods, had seemingly separated from themselves.
Something tall and spindly, resembling a thorny thicket that decided to spring to life and get some exercise, took a couple of cautious steps toward them and then seemed to turn around.
Floss couldn’t tell what was going on. Was the thing looking behind itself?
“You win,” Rayburn said, wheeling to scramble onto his bike.
“Burn? Burn! You crazy? Don’t move!” Floss hissed in a whisper, wrestling Rayburn to the ground.
The thing was definitely looking back, but there was no identifiable head or face, just the motion of a more or less humanoid body pausing to carefully look behind in spastic, paranoid gestures.
It turned to the boys, then full-on charged toward them!
A black oily-looking thing, like a six-foot tall spiked stick of licorice, burst from the woods in an all-out silent sprint.
The licorice beast had multiple tapeworm-like appendages that appeared capable of inflicting severe damage. However, instead of attacking and devouring the boys, the creature effortlessly leaped over them.
Rayburn wheezed and rolled onto his side, his glasses clattering onto the pavement.
Floss couldn’t believe it either—none of it.
“Burn, it’s not coming for us. I think it’s fleeing from something,” Floss whispered.
“W-what would that thing have to run from?” Rayburn stammered, struggling to sit up.
The answer came springing out of the woods, a dark figure also on two legs. With a burst of great speed, the other two-legged thing hurdled over the boys as well, clinically tackling the licorice beast to the ground.
The new being appeared to be an actual human dressed all crazy, in some kind of funky fencing/beekeeper outfit. But this fencing outfit was pitch black, not the traditional white.
The individual also wore a curious oversized thick and padded backpack with a ridiculous amount of straps and latches—also black. There were glowing tubes lining the back of the backpack as well.
Pinned to the ground, the thing’s arms and legs went slack, then coiled and struck at the garbed figure like a nest of agitated serpents.
To the boys’ amazement, the man—for his voice sounded masculine—just laughed like he was about to be tickled and caught or deflected each attack with skill and ease, eventually tying the thing together with its own pliable limbs like a seasoned balloon artist.
The stranger gazed up at the boys, but his face remained hidden behind the eerie fencing mask. “Beautiful, isn’t she? I’m so lucky to see one up close,” the man said through the mesh covering his face with great enthusiasm.
Floss and Rayburn looked at each other, both dumbfounded and disturbed. She? Definitely NOT beautiful was their unspoken mutual answer.
The thing gurgled and a stream of orange-looking nastiness shot up from somewhere, intending to nail the man in the face.
The man ducked and Floss and Rayburn watched with amazement as the ugly liquid arced, folded, and splashed the ground, sizzling, and sparking on the pavement like a short-lived firework.
With a shin-high boot, the man snuffed out the fire, grinding it out with his heel. There was now an ugly, smoking rut in the road a few inches deep.
“The key is to bind the ends of the limbs together,” the man explained. He spoke as though he were demonstrating a basic knot-tying technique, using a simple piece of rope, instead of grappling with slimy, lethal tentacles.
“It’s got a nasty venom similar to acid like you just saw that it can inject into the bloodstream. Paralysis, frothing at the mouth, liquidated organs, probable death in seconds,” he stated cheerfully.
The man rolled the poor creature onto what Floss guessed to be its belly, exposing nasty rows of hooked teeth jutting out from the creature’s stomach. “Take a look at these choppers! No head means its teeth are on the outside of its belly; can you imagine swallowing your prey through your belly button? Incredible! But faster digestion, right?”
Floss looked at Rayburn. Both of their eyes said: is this for real? Floss kept wishing he had drifted off into a nightmare, but he knew hadn’t.
The peculiar man folded the struggling, gurgling creature up with the care one would a nation’s flag and let out a long sigh.
“But there are way too many of these beauties now, so…” The alien beekeeper/fencer shook his head then carefully placed the creature inside his unique backpack and sealed it with thick metal zippers. He secured the connecting zippers with a coded padlock.
Floss and Burn were startled by a muffled, high-pitched scream, which was abruptly cut off by a strange, guttural growl emanating from the backpack. The unsettling sound made their hearts race with fear.
The man stood, slinging the backpack over his shoulders with the casualness of some eccentric professor heading off to teach an outdoor Zoology class. “All right!” The veiled man’s voice perpetually carried an enthusiastic, positive tone like a motivational speaker.
The stranger nodded in the direction of the woods. “There are some pretty amazing monsters in there that make the slippery girl I just handled look like something fit for a petting zoo.”
The strange man stretched his arms and then clapped his gloved hands, his voice sounding serious for a change. “The Barbwire Woods don’t ask for help, they choose the rare beings worthy enough for their mission. Then… Well, then it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?”
Floss froze. Was the man looking at him and talking about him? And a matter of time until what?
“Well lads, have daring heroic lives!”
The stranger spun on his heels—thick hiking boots with wicked spikes embedded in the soles—and disappeared with ease into the strangled snares of the Barbwire Woods.
Floss decided that the stranger had won the dare.
NEXT WEEK: Chapter 2