The Raven Post

by the Editor

A winding road wove its way through the hills behind the little town of Dunsany. Very few homes lined this particular street, known as Spruce Point Drive; each one sat solitary, pushed far up onto the slope to stay out of traffic’s way—avoiding it was easy, as these residents were mostly recluses anyway, and besides, there wasn’t much traffic to avoid anymore. For the better part of a year, a presence had haunted the lonesome stretch of Spruce Point Drive, shooing away any backwoods drivers to the main highway five miles distant.

Well, Dunsany’s residents called it a “presence.” No one wanted to say “spirit,” though saying anything more rational, like “mountain lion,” didn’t feel quite right. Least of all did anyone want to say “killer,” for that simple acknowledgement, they felt, would give it—whatever it was—too much power.

All anyone knew was this: Every fortnight or so for the last eight months, deer carcasses had been appearing on the side—or sometimes in the middle—of Spruce Point Drive, just a few miles outside of civilization, where the flatness of Dunsany’s gridded streets gave way to the foothills. These carcasses weren’t typical roadkill, though, nor were they what anyone might expect to find after, say, a coyote attack—simply put, the bodies were wrong.

At least, this was how the locals put it: “The bodies, you know, they’re wrong.”

“I heard all their skin had been peeled clean off.” This was Dunsany’s store clerk, Annie Gaskell. She hadn’t seen the bodies herself—”Oh, no, I certainly wouldn’t be caught out that way.”—but in her recounting of the story to the postman, Ernie Hendren, she described it so vividly, Ernie felt as though he’d been there.

“Apparently, all of their teeth are always removed,” Ernie said later on to Judy Bishop, who ran the local hardware store. “I wasn’t there, of course, but with some of the things I see on my route, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.”

“Strange thing for… whatever it is to do,” Judy commented as she stacked the shipments Ernie had brought her beneath the front desk.

“Mighty strange,” Ernie said, absentmindedly shuffling through bills and letters he had already sorted back in his mail truck. “You know, someone should really go out there and check it out—find out what it is.”

“Darn right, someone should,” Phil Norton piped up from the other side of the store, where he was perusing the garden trowels without much conviction. (He’d been listening in, of course, but hadn’t been sure when an appropriate time might be to join the conversation.) “I hear the Wildlife department went out that way a few weeks back, but they haven’t reported anything.”

Judy flinched when Phil first spoke (she had forgotten he was in the store, if she was honest, which she wouldn’t be—not with Phil, of all people), but once she calmed herself, she added in a hush-hush whisper, “Nothing public, that is. My cousin, Cheryl, she works over at the Fish and Wildlife office, and she says no one’s willing to stake out the place at night—not after a highway patrolman spotted something out that way, something in the bushes.” (Worth noting is that, due to the size of the town, the Sheriff’s office and Wildlife service shared a building, and because everyone who worked in the building was somehow related to someone else in Dunsany—due to its size, you see—practically everyone knew everything that went on at the station before old Ken Lambeth, editor of the local paper, could even report on it.)

Phil’s small, beige frame perked up like a rat terrier. “What did he see?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Judy replied, still muttering as if hoping not to be overheard. Ernie, having abandoned his re-sorting of the street’s many bills and letters, leaned forward onto Judy’s desk. “He didn’t ‘see’ anything,” she went on. “He sensed it, something large and, like, hulking almost—that’s what Cheryl said.”

“Did she talk to him? The patrolman?” Ernie asked.

“No, she heard it from one of the 9-1-1 operators who’s engaged to one of the lieutenants over there.”

“My wife told me the deer’s hooves were all… chopped off,” Phil cut in, fingers twitching as if seeking something to do. “Just lopped clean off.”

“You don’t say,” Ernie and Judy remarked in unison.

Phil did say, or rather, his wife had. Though like Annie Gaskell, Ernie Hendren, Judy Bishop, and, for what it’s worth, Ken Lambeth, she hadn’t been there, either.

Neither had Darryl Faberman, though he, unlike all his fellow Dunsany residents, had a mind to change that.

Darryl was slight but tall, graying, bespectacled, and always clad in a knit sweater, not that any of that matters. What does matter (and I don’t mind telling you this early) is that Darryl was a note-taker, to a fault. The notebook he carried with him at all times, an eight-inch by five-inch moleskin, was in pristine condition, specifically because he kept it so; he maintained its texture and soft sheen and delicately creased spine as a dentist might care for their own teeth—professionally and with much zeal. He believed that, at some point, his notes on the clandestine matters of his little town would be valuable, perhaps for a book or a profile in some national publication; perhaps he was right, as it is through his notes I was able to recreate the bits of local color found above. Incidentally, he, too, was roving the back aisles of the hardware store during the trio’s furtive conversation, though unlike Phil, he refrained from make his presence known; as any reporter worth their salt could tell you, you can’t scoop the truth if everyone knows you’re looking for the disher. Such was Darryl’s local legacy. He was a listener—a lurker. A chronicler of local events and attitudes, no matter how trivial they seemed at first (second, or even third) glance.

He didn’t believe in any kind of monster stalking the woods on the outskirts of Dunsany. Had such a thing existed all this time, surely he would have noted as much in his records! But he did believe in a story, and if nothing else, his neighbors’ unending gossip had convinced him that therein a story lay. It was for this reason—and an ever-gnawing desire to prove, once and for all, that his record-keeping, his fixation, was the glue holding his little community together—that one afternoon, he ventured past the town limits down the unlit, winding Spruce Point Drive, notebook in hand, and hunkered down in a brush-covered spot just off the pavement to wait. And to watch. He wasn’t scared of whatever haunted the backroads. He was a bona fide stringer—a journalist, even! Just wait, he thought, just wait until the town reads through my report!

They’d see. He’d make sure of it.

The contents of his notebook at the end of this stakeout read as follows:

 

Oct. 9
3:12 p.m.

“I sit huddled off to the side of the much-storied Spruce Point Drive, intent on investigating—nay, exposing!—this so-called ‘beast.’ The following is an initial reading of the present conditions:

“Air: Tepid.
“Wind: A few degrees above chilly; estimated at 7 mph.
“Barometric pressure: Stable.

Editor’s Note: It’s unlikely, given this reading, that Darryl knew what “barometric pressure” meant.

“Sun: Drifting towards the western hills, approx. 47° past high noon.
“Humidity: Low, but rising.
“Scent: Ferns, earth, crisp air.

“No sign of any so-called  ‘monster’ thus far. All readings appear normal.”

*************

Oct. 9
5:37 p.m.

“Over two hours now spent in my solitary bush. Fortunately, I am well-acquainted with matters of survival and outdoorsmanship. Though I have heard much swishing and snapping of branches in the brush surrounding me, there’s no need to fear—forests are rife with small creatures whose movements, when heard out of context, sound disproportionately large. I’m certain whatever sounds I may have heard were some squirrel or small bird fleeing its nesting place.

“Even still, all signs and readings appear normal.”

*************

Oct. 9
7:32 p.m.

“I will admit, my senses while surveilling this area seem heightened by the power of suggestion, specifically that of my neighbors’ extensive (and gruesome) gossip. As expected, all signs remain, of course, normal—though the wind has picked up a bit, which makes me wish I’d brought a thicker coat—so, of course, I have nothing of interest to note as of now. Unfortunately, I must use my trusty flashlight to write, as night is rapidly approaching.”

*************

Oct. 9
8:10 p.m.

“Still nothing to report, as I could have told everyone from the start. I just have one single, insignificant anecdote I’m choosing, at this time, to share. It concerns the continued rustling of the brush around me: At first, it startled me only to the degree that a sharp, sudden scuffling might startle any rational person who wasn’t expecting to hear such a thing; in the last twenty minutes or so, however, I haven’t heard anything at all. It’s as if the forest I’m in is just a theatre set, and someone has switched off the pre-recorded chirping and stirrings of nature.

“I certainly wouldn’t say anything strange is afoot—just that those who live out this way must have powerful imaginations for telling the rest of us all these tall tales.”

*************

Oct. 9
8:20 p.m.

“The wind has picked up some more, but I can’t feel it, per se… I can just hear it, like an awful whispering just outside my ear. Forest winds will do that, you know, sneak up on you…

“Much as I’m committed to catching this… whatever it is, I’m not too proud to say I’ll be glad when this damned business is over and I can go back home.”

*************

Oct. 9
9:01 p.m.

“I’ve just heard the most awful sound, like a screech mixed with a bleating cry. Sounded like an animal dying. If it was another one of those deer, I don’t know… I’ve never heard a deer make a”

*************

Oct. 9
9:06 p.m.

“Apologies for ending my last report so hastily. Just after that horrible screech I mentioned, I started hearing this vile, wet squelching, like meat being… ripped. It lasted a few minutes—maybe the longest few minutes of my life. I stayed stock-still, straining my eyes to see whatever was out there. All I could see—can see, still—was dark, wet leaves, sopping from the day’s rain, and tiny, dark patches of the night sky through the few gaps in the tree cover overhead. Then, even once the squelching was done, there came this long, laborious dragging of something big and heavy.”

Editor’s Note: Darryl’s handwriting gets very shaky from this point forward, but I’ve transcribed his words as best I can.

“The racket it made—whatever it was—as it was dragged into the tree line, snapping branches and crunching over leaves and pushing past bushes, was deafening. I couldn’t even hear myself think. And soon enough, the dragging sound started getting closer, and closer, and CLOSER, until it sounded like it was right next to me—I switched off my light just in time, it seems, for soon after, everything was silent once more.

“Too silent, though… you could have heard a pine needle drop, and I did. Just as before, it’s as if the forest creatures I heard rustling past several hours ago were all cowering in fear in their dens—like they knew better than to make a sound while that… THING is out and about. At least, I think it was them rustling past earlier… Now, though, I can’t be sure.

“But anyway, you see why my last message had to end so abruptly. I will try to provide more regular updates going forward, though I’m increasingly less in the mood for articulating details.”

*************

Oct. 9
10:13 p.m.

“I must write quick, for something is nearby. After another bout of silence, the rustling picked up again, but this time I could no longer fool myself into believing tiny forest creatures were to blame. When I deem it safe, I just may try to leave my hiding place and make my way home. Living in shame is perhaps better than dying alone in the cold and dark.

“—There’s that awful scraping again. I can’t help but think that whatever it is is coming up right behin”

 

This was the last entry Darryl wrote in his moleskin notebook. Several days later, some out-of-towners heading into Dunsany found what was left of Darryl on—or, rather, strewn about—that lonesome stretch of Spruce Point Drive. They reported him to the local authorities as roadkill.

What was still intact was little more than a torso, its arms and legs severed at the wrists and ankles, its surface mostly relieved of skin. The head, the remains of it, was horribly stretched, jaws spread wide, eyes gone. Not until the day after his discovery, when authorities were picking up after him, did they find his notebook. Most of the relevant contents were those which I have already relayed to you, but there was one final entry, undated and written in a scratchy hand with what seemed to be a dirty fingernail, that set Dunsany on greater edge than ever it had been before.

It read, simply,

HE SHOULDNT HAVE USED A FLASHLIGHT

 

End.