Hey everyone. I’ve been busy gearing up with travel for my newish job and getting things in order. I don’t quite have my audio situation fixed, but should soon. The good news: I finished most of the next chapter while on a long plane ride back home.
As always, please let me know your thoughts. As a reminder to my new subscribers, you are my “test readers” before the story becomes permanent. Enjoy!
-KC
NOW:
Floss stood at the edge of the Barbwire Woods, almost too amped up to breathe. He felt so nauseous and scared that his knees knocked together in a frightful rhythm. Floss was fearful for a good reason: he was about to enter the most dangerous part of the woods, the area the urban legends warned against exploring.
He stood at the place where the otherworldly, bizarre beings had emerged. He was still uncertain whether he could trust his memory of the monster that resembled a licorice-leech-man hybrid. The creature had leaped over Floss and his best friend Rayburn while fleeing from a nimble man dressed entirely in black, who wore a fencing mask and an oversized backpack.
Perhaps the absurdity of the event made it all the more horrifying.
Yet, beyond all logic, Floss felt an irresistible pull to discover more about someone who might capture monsters for a living.
When he was younger, Floss’ mother would read him fables and fantasy stories every night. He always wanted to know not so much about the heroes but was possessed by an almost fanaticism to learn everything about the monsters.
Where did they live? Why did they do the terrible things they did? Were they just misunderstood? Where did they come from in the first place?
So he decided that’s what he wanted to do with his life—crazy as it was. He’d hunt monsters or seek explanations for the things that didn’t quite make sense.
But how to begin doing such a thing? That was always the question. And perhaps even more troublesome, Floss had never been brave enough to explore the scarier places where monsters likely lived.
Until now.
After several false starts and more than a few nicks and scrapes, Floss took a few deep breaths and plunged into the Barbwire Woods.
As soon as Floss stepped into the heart of the woods, he felt an unexpected shock of extreme cold which added to his already shaky nerves.
It was as if the world had been put on “pause” by some magical remote control. Every living thing was silent and motionless as if paralyzed by the piercing chill.
As he ventured deeper into the forest, the only sounds that could be heard were occasional “crrrriiiicks” coming from hesitant branches. The branches seemed to be pleading with Floss to help free them from their horrible plight of being forced to sway in the breeze, putting them at risk of shattering into pieces.
Floss pitied the trees as the intense cold made it feel like his own blood might freeze.
A good thing he had borrowed his PawPaw’s machete from the old tool shed, as every type of foul weed with points and barbs grew thick and unchecked in these properly named woods. And there was a thin layer of ice on everything, including the ground.
Crunch, crunch, crunch! Chink, chink, chink!
His excruciatingly loud footsteps, heavy breathing, and violent machete swings alerted anything with ears within two miles of his ponderous, clumsy approach through the frozen vegetation.
At the very least, he hoped that his visiting the woods would at least aid him in protecting and educating his younger brother Joe to help him overcome his fears.
The little boy had also witnessed the strange sight of the masked man capturing a monster and stuffing it in a backpack from his bedroom window. The fact the monster sounded like it had been slurped up by something carnivorous lurking inside the cheerful man’s mysterious bag further unraveled his little brother.
Two months had passed since that day, and Joe could barely function. He screamed whenever the front door opened, and had an absolute meltdown anytime anyone tried to make him go outside.
When a bird accidentally flew into their window like stupid birds do, Joe went nuclear meltdown for a day.
Whenever Floss had to take his brother anywhere, he found himself in a wrestling match. But instead of trying to pin Joe down, Floss had to carry him outside in a hold that wouldn't hurt him, all while Joe let out the loudest screams known to mankind. It was a scene straight out of a comedy, but for Floss, it was no laughing matter. It was his least favorite activity in the world.
Their neighbors’ faces were always at their windows watching their house. Talk about reality dramas. Floss even noticed some of their neighbors recording them with their phones as if they were journalists filming a suspected group of terrorists.
The doctors called Joe’s sudden onset behavior agoraphobia, the fear of going outside. Floss doubted that. He wondered what a healthy fear of the monsters outside was called.
Fed up and concerned, Floss had hung cardboard over his brother’s window for one, to keep the prying eyes away, but mainly to calm Joe down. It worked okay enough. Joe now spent all of his time in his room because it was the only room where the monsters searching for him couldn’t see him to snatch him up, according to Joe.
So Floss decided his fear was secondary to getting peace for his brother. He didn’t bother calling Burn. Rayburn huffing and puffing with his glasses all fogged up would have been a disaster. Plus, with a growing sense of dread, Floss began to realize that he might not return.
There was also something catching about the fencing-masked man and his positive “can do” attitude, he was so calm and collected—he could handle himself.
And the truly strange thing: Floss felt like he had to help him wrangle monsters.
Floss was amazed to find that the tangled frozen woods suddenly came to an end, almost as if by accident. His intuition warned him to be cautious and stay just inside the tree line.
Despite the insufferable biting cold weather, he stood in awe of the sight before him. He saw a strange maze that appeared to have been crudely carved out from the forest. The maze consisted of winding paths where the ground and trees had been pulverized and flattened, and no living thing dared to grow there.
Floss sensed nearby sinister energy at work and wondered how it had come to be.
“Whatcha’ doing down there?” said a deep but playful voice, jolting him out of his thoughts.
Floss felt a sudden surge of fear that made his heart leap into his throat, and he wished he could instantly teleport himself out of these dreadful woods. As he looked up, he spotted the mysterious monster-tamer man who was dressed entirely in black, wearing a fencing mask, and lounging on a thick branch as though he were a leopard.
“The feeling pulled you here, right?”
Although Floss could not see his mouth, the man’s enthusiasm was infectious. He spoke with honesty and passion, as if he never stopped smiling.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it? Your heart pulls you one way while your mind screams ‘Go the other way, you moron!’” The man broke off an icicle hanging from a branch overhead. “I knew you understood.”
Floss nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Oh, sir? Ha Ha! Did you hear what he just called us?”
The man surprised Floss, jumping down and landing on his feet without making any sort of sound.
The man captured Floss's hands and shook them heartily, all while still clutching the frigid icicle in a viselike grip. Floss could only stare in bewilderment as his fingers turned numb from the man’s overzealous greeting.
“We’re Lorem—Lorem Ipsum,” the jovial voice said from the depths of the mask looking down at him. “We’re happy you’re here.”
“Lorem Ipsum?”
The fencing mask vigorously nodded.
Floss took a few seconds to digest the name. It sounded made up—fake. Lorem? It even sounded like it could be a girl’s or boy’s name. Yet, he knew that name from somewhere else too, but where?
“Lorem Ipsum is your name, your, uh... real name?”
“It sure is. It’s awesome, right? And what should we call you?”
Floss smiled despite not quite trusting this guy. “Call me Floss.”
Usually, this is when people would tease Floss, grilling him about his unusual name, and would transform into comedians making cheesy jokes like ”Ah, your father must be a dentist, right? Hey, son, don’t forget to... FLOSS—ba-bump-bump-crash!”
Instead, the man once again surprised Floss, this time by pulling out an ancient-looking stopwatch from his pocket and pointing at him with the icicle in his other hand while leaning against his tree.
“Floss, you look kind of fast to us. And we need a good runner. Is your specialty sprinting or distance running?”
“Uh... neither, I guess.”
“Great! We’d like to time you running the maze.”
Floss looked around, thoroughly confused. Us? We? Who else was this Lorem Ipsum constantly addressing?
“Are you good to run right now? Or do you need to stretch?”
“Uh...”
“Great! Just run inside a little way to start, then back to us if you can. Go!”
Floss sprinted inside the maze without thinking. If you can, he remembered Lorem saying.
Floss ran hard until he thought his chest would burst. He never cared for running in circles on the track at school as he found it pointless. Yet, a stranger with an even stranger name had him doing an impromptu maze run in freezing weather. At least there was a goal to a maze: don’t get lost.
Floss wasn’t sure he was doing such a good job of that. He navigated the frozen winding corridors and slipped several times, sliding into the hordes of icy brambles that made up the maze’s surrounding walls, getting pelted by the frosty shrapnel as they snapped off.
Every turn looked exactly the same as the other. With everything being frozen, there wasn’t any distinguishable way to tell one passage from another.
He stopped running to think. Panting, he remembered his mother reading him the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Theseus had used thread so he would be able to find his way back out of the maze. Floss had no thread or anything else and wondered what to use. The ground was too frozen to be able to make and track visible footprints. He suddenly remembered Lorem’s icicle.
There were tons of them hanging from every section of the walls. Floss broke off as many icicles as his already probably frost-bitten hands could carry and began spiking them along familiar pathways.
Much sooner than he thought, he had arrived back to Lorem standing at the crude entrance.
Lorem clapped his gloves together in applause.
“10:35, not too shabby,” Lorem’s voice said warmly, looking down at the stopwatch. “But we need to shave off about half that time to make sure you live through the night. Come on, let’s get you warm and fed and tell you all about the horror coming tonight.”
Floss felt much better now that they had a fire going. Lorem Ipsum declared that they had many expert fire builders among them, from experience with their respective troops—whatever that meant.
Lorem had also given him a coat, gloves, hat, and even a scarf. Floss happily sat beside his new companion on an enormous felled tree, slurping down a hot noodle broth that tasted like chicken noodle soup—his favorite.
“Turkey noodle soup,” Lorem gently chided as if reading his thoughts. “There aren’t many chickens around, but plenty of turkeys cruise along the edge of the woods. Between the lot of us, we know how to hunt, skin, and prepare them.”
Floss frowned, not liking that “us” and “we” talk again.
As Lorem bent down to attend to the fire, Floss examined the mysterious backpack strapped to the man’s shoulders and waist.
Floss was surprised when he suddenly saw a big and intimidating eye staring back at him through a porthole covered with plastic. The eye appeared to be intelligent, yet it didn't look entirely human. It was mostly dark with some colored specks in its pupils, but Floss couldn't get a good enough glimpse of it as it disappeared from view. Nonetheless, one thing was certain—the eye was far from friendly.
Lorem turned away from prodding at the fire, noticing that Floss was captivated by something in his backpack.
“Oh yeah, you’re not ready to meet him—at least, not yet. And you?” he punched the side of his backpack, “you behave in there you cheeky little monkey or we’ll get you good.”
“Is that... the licorice slithery thing you put in there?” Floss asked.
“No, no. That thing’s long gone. The creature spying on you is something else entirely. The monster some would say.”
Like a playful bunny, Lorem sprang up to his feet with a hop and a skip off the ground, surprising Floss yet again with his unpredictable behavior.
“Okay,” he clapped his hands, plucking the long stick off the ground he had used to stoke the fire. (It seemed Lorem was a bit fidgety and always needed an item to occupy his hands).
“We have work to do. Let me tell you what we know about The Lurking Horror. He’s a foul monster, able to control the weather. He uses severe weather as a shield and camouflage. He carved out this labyrinth just a few nights ago. And he’s not far off as he keeps the place unnaturally cold whenever he’s around. When he comes out he’ll—what’s the word?” Lorem tapped his temple with the stick then snapped his fingers, “Oh yeah, thank you. The Lurking Horror will annihilate anything in the maze that can’t move faster than it can, if you hadn’t noticed.” It sounded like Lorem was still smiling behind his mask, but Floss sure wasn’t.
“But what is it, this horror… this Lurking, doing here?” Floss asked.
“Really great question! Because the word is out,” Lorem said.
“What word is that?” Floss asked.
“There is a monster running wild that only preys on other monsters. In response, the Hordes of monsters are sending their most skilled and ruthless hunters to deal with it. That’s why we requested your help. We needed an additional person to capture it, given how fast and difficult it is to even approach it. After all, the Lurking Horor is invisible. Without your help, we would stand no chance.”
“Was the maze it built intentional?” Floss asked Lorem.
“Most definitely,” Lorem nodded, gesturing to the wrecked maze. “He wants to make it difficult to see or find him so he can get to us first. But we have a secret weapon he doesn’t know about.”
“What’s that?”
“You,” Lorem said walloping his back with his unfailing optimism. “Our goal for tonight is to capture that monster to feed ours.”
Floss learned he was to be the bait. And to further freak him out, the monster was invisible.
“It appears like a very fast—what’s a better word to use?—thank you—torrential wind that flings everything around like a tornado.”
“I’m sorry,” Floss offered, wondering why Lorem Ipsum spoke like there was an army—albeit invisible—around “but I’m not really understanding any of this.”
Lorem Ipsum nodded. “A lot of us said the same thing when it was our turn to help. Monsters are scary. And some of the ones rumored to be after us?” For the first time, Lorem appeared to shudder. “This one will be a cupcake compared to what’s coming. But we’ll be ready.”
“How do we stop it?”
“We have a trick play for you to run, Floss,” said Lorem. “Literally.”
Floss shrugged. “What is it?”
“If I tell you, we won’t be able to sell it to the Lurking. It’ll just shred and hurl you into pieces around the maze.”
Floss realized how tired he felt. Tonight was a school night, so his body wanted to sleep the first chance it got. No chance he was about to close his eyes.
A mini tornado of wind swirled through the first part of the maze they kept their eyes on.
“Ah,” Lorem whispered. “We sense it drawing closer. It’s almost time for our special guest.”
Floss froze, expecting chaos to tear its way inside their circle but he heard and saw nothing.
Lorem guided Floss through the opening of their section of the maze. “We need to be well inside before it arrives,” Lorem said with a hint of urgency in his voice.
He led Floss at a brisk pace through countless twists and turns, keeping a firm grip on his collar.
“Okay, I’m going back to lure” whispered Lorem. “Look for me just before I lead the Lurking Horror to you. Two thumbs up means run away as fast as you can.”
“You’re doing what?” Floss hissed. His throat was suddenly at odds with breathing oxygen. Leading it to him?
Yet, there was that counterintuitive feeling again wiping away the fearful one. He would help fight a monster!
Lorem Ipsum gave an encouraging slap on his back and tore off around the bend.
The wait was the worst feeling Floss had ever experienced. His stomach was turning like a hammock, knotting up in a hurricane.
Floss attempted to relax by stretching, but his muscles remained tense with stress. Floss strained his ears, listening for any warning of the monster. Strangely, it grew quieter than it had been before. Then he realized it was the otherworldly silence that somehow dominated at high volume. No crickets, no occasional deer cracking their way through the woods. Nothing. It was disorientating.
Until—
Cuuck-chuling! Cuuck-chuling!
New layers of ice caked, rapidly spreading along the ground and on anything nearby, including the back of Floss’ jeans.
Lorem came wheeling around the corner with both thumbs up. “GO FLOSS! GIVE HIM A TARGET!” Lorem shouted.
Floss slipped on the fresh ice and took way longer than he liked to get up on his toes at full speed, running through the makeshift maze. Other than the rapidly expanding ice, he couldn’t tell what he running from.
Without seeing the Lurking Horror at first, Floss sensed a huge swelling sensation of doom creep over him, followed by the most overwhelming chill he had ever experienced, like it threatened to freeze all of his insides and then burst. It was such a deep cold that it collided with his body, nearly hurling him into the ground.
When Floss looked back over his shoulder it was as if the darkness of the night was deleting all of the stars in the sky, because a growing shadow lorded over everything.
Spilled ink didn’t move as fast as this thing was devouring the night and gaining on him with every second. Still no sound. Was this even real?
Lorem ran up beside him—enormous backpack and all—matching Floss’ top speed with ease.
“Hey there buddy, we’re having too much fun, right?” Lorem said, nudging him. “Now, when you round this bend, stay tuned. Oh, and a little faster so you don’t get eaten. That’s it!”
With that Lorem sped away in the opposite direction, making Floss almost stop in his tracks at the astonishing speed the weirdo could muster. Could an Olympic distance runner do any better?
As Floss rounded the bend, the monster closed, bringing with it a ferocious, dominating cold.
As Floss exited the curve, he realized with dread the Lurking Horror would overtake him. This couldn’t be the trick, right?
“Juke left, then run down that right aisle. GO!” Lorem had popped out from a side path, right in stride with Floss again.
Floss made a hard right cut, speeding down a long straightaway in the maze that veered off to the side. Lorem kept going straight.
“HHHORM!”
The Lurking attempted to track both of them, its shadow spreading.
“HHHORM!” The Lurking Horror spat in frustration, now very loud behind him and committed to one victim. Winds nipped at his heels, threatening to lift and flip him into the funnel behind him. Floss wanted to retch, but he kept running.
The last time Floss looked back at Lorem, he could swear he saw movement, and the backpack opening on its own.
The all-consuming winds buzzed around him, the stinging ice and sleet cutting into his skin.
Floss saw an opening at the end that would break him free of the maze into the forest. He kept at a full sprint and tore through the woods.
Branches and twigs raked and lashed at his face, arms, and legs. No doubt cuts and scratches were all over him.
It was too late when he looked up and saw a tree branch close-line his chest and slam him to the ground.
The breath was knocked out of him as he was thrown on his back, forced to look up at the stars.
“HHHHHORM!”
Floss heard a loud noise from all around him, as if a strong wind was passing through a tunnel. He recognized it as the ominous voice of the Lurking Horror. The ground shook violently and trees were being destroyed as the Horror approached.
Floss's heart sank as he realized that a new maze had ominously sought him out, like a predator stalking its prey. He felt trapped and helpless, as if the maze had a malevolent will of its own, hungry to consume him.
Like this story?
The best part was the chase through the maze. I liked the tension building up to it, then the jump right into the action. I could 'feel' some of those ice/cold description, especially the initial fast-creep of the ice/frost over Floss.
Hope I'm not crossing a line, but since you said we're your beta readers: "threatening to lift ad flip him into the funnel behind him", I think it should be "and flip".