Author's note: This piece is a combination offering, inspired by prompt images provided by Tina Crossgrove as well as an entry for Labyrinthia Mythweaver and John Watson - Horror Author’s urban legend challenge. It is also a companion piece to my earlier tale set in the same fictional Rhode Island landscape.
The clouds brooded over the wooded banks, which sat in lethargic silence. The air bore the oppressive weight of the dog days, with the promise of tender autumn, stretched in resplendent repose, seeming but a cruel jest. Not even the stoic heron, that solitary haunter of the shallows, was to be found.
Yet Marcus Greene paddled his way forward with grim resolution, undaunted in his quest. Reared as he was in the folkways of his ancestral Moshassuck Valley, he had yet to penetrate this wild section of the river’s winding course. Standing as an arboreal island in the mechanized sea of industrial northern Rhode Island, the forest surrounding him still held the denizens of the region in the grip of elden mystery and imagination.
Well he remembered the old stories, told in the traditional fashion around the fire at Yuletide - especially that of the Boy Scout troop which, in the dawn of the Space Age, had come out from Providence to rough it for the summer and escape the miasmaic urban air. Only two days after settling into their camp in the farthest reaches of the Moshassuck preserve (close to where, it is said, the last of Rhode Island’s once considerable moose population was shot in colonial times), they disappeared without a trace. A search by local, state, and even federal officials of the surrounding area turned up nothing, save for a few discarded backpacks and a trail of footprints, evidently marching in single file, that went cold by a shallow creek bed. With the case considered closed by the powers that be, the surviving families were left to their silent grief and rage, with only superstitious speculation to cling to.
Various explanations for the cause of the “Phantom Troop”, as they were dubbed, lived on down the years, taking on new and fabulous dimensions which each telling: whether round campfires, over drinks at the local tavern, or in the conspiratorial corners of the internet. Some believed that such a complete vanishing act could only be the work of extraterrestrials, while others maintained it was the mark of a serial killer or some strange cult of Luddite survivalists. Yet the oldest of the locals whispered of a more macabre source, one that was known only as the Monstrosity.
Some kind of vengeful guardian of the forest, known since colonial times, it was supposedly responsible for the well publicized swath of gruesome murders and disappearances which occurred in the nearby mill villages around the turn of the century. Disappearances continued down to the present, and sightings of grotesquely proportioned bipeds - with a few captured by the standard grainy and inconclusive video posted to cryptid forums - reported. It was Him, the old timers said, who had driven the members of the troop to either death or madness, gripped by the shattering power of the primal wilds as they stalked the land…
Marcus shook his head, gripping the paddle tighter. While the old lore had an undeniable pull of dark romance, he was here as a scholarly man of Reason. Though he could have easily resorted to the in vogue method of internet sleuthing without having to leave his well appointed library, Marcus was a firm believer in boots on the ground fieldwork. And so he went where blanching bookworms feared to tread…
With a few more swift strokes he was within sight of the weathered boat docks on the right bank, framed by shadowy pines and harboring two other canoes. The cloud cover had darkened, threatening a thunderstorm. Marcus eased his way to the nearest landing, where he swiftly moored his canoe and secured his backpack. Wanting to execute his search before the gathering storm approached, he scampered away from the gloomy base of the sentinel pines towards the trailhead, where next to the yellow blazed marker he saw an adjacent sign which read:
Please Stay on the Trail
For your safety and environmental protection
Casting a cautious glance around for any hikers, Marcus stepped past the sign. It was in this direction where, according to his research, the old scout camp lay, long shunned for its association with the eldritch event. The farther he plunged into the wood line, the more unnerving the utter silence around him became. Here he was, but eight miles from the heart of Providence, yet he felt like a pioneer, plumbing the depths of the forest primeval. He kept his glance straight ahead, knowing that fancy would conjure ominous forms to dance at the edge of his vision…
After what seemed an interminable march, he found it. A circle of rustic cabins, which despite some cracked windows and slightly sagging roofs, stood in surprisingly sturdy condition. Yet it was something else on the edge of the clearing which arrested Marcus’s eye - a rough wicker basket, filled with…
He did his damndest to suppress a gag.
“By God!” he said aloud, simultaneously revolted and awed by the grisly array of intertwined arms, streaked with crimson. From what he could see, it looked as if they had been hacked clean off at the elbow.
He dropped his pack, reaching for his old reliable Kodak instant camera. He wouldn’t be accused of digitally doctoring a find of this magnitude. Bringing it up, he clicked it on -
Only to have it go crashing down to the ground: along with his lower arm.
Collapsing in a swoon, the last thing he heard before oblivion was, in a ragged voice,
“More meat… He will be pleased. Death to the wood ravishers!”
© Conor MacCormack, 2026. All rights reserved.
The Monstrosity will have no wood ravishers in his domain. I like how this one was introduced and weaved on into the legend and then the story. It moved quite nicely. Great work, Conor.
I liked the contrast between Marcus, so confident in reason, and a forest that seems to have no interest in his certainties. The ending comes fast and brutal, just when he thinks he has found the proof he was looking for.