#uitg colton

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[rtnortherly]

Some WIP shots of art from Uncanny in the Grove Chapter Two and Three, including one of the kofi pieces

Meanwhile I’m thinking about adding longer art time lapses to my kofi for supporters. I post the occasional one on my Instagram, but I might dial it back and do other formats on there such as my Tale From The Gas Station, or my Sunny reels.

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Uncanny in the Grove Chapter featured art

For more check out my kofi if you feel so inclined 🤷

Or read Uncanny in the Grove here

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Uncanny in the Grove Chapter Three: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Table of Contents

Previous

Chapter One

(Content Warnings for Violence and Disturbing Imagery)

“So,” Yarrow began after a long stretch of silence that had only been punctuated by the ambient audio of their trek through the undergrowth. “You come here often?”

The desk clerk stumbled, one foot catching in the other in a manner that sent him awkwardly hopping forward as he tried to reestablish his balance. He caught a branch to the face for his clumsiness and his groan of frustration was laced with both pain and what Yarrow assumed had to be embarrassment.

It was honestly a wonder that this sad, scruffy young fellow had at one point been a threat. Yarrow couldn’t help but liken him to a deflated, chastised puppy or something equally unthreatening.

They patted him on the back pityingly and ignored the way he flinched back from them like they’d wronged him somehow. It was deeply unfair given he’d just been trying to keep from getting buried alive. He’d started it.

Or the ghost possessing him had. Either way, Yarrow felt entitled to a little self-defence, though they did feel bad about his hand—still cradled against his chest protectively. That might have been a bit much. Still, it’d probably keep him from swinging any hammers at unsuspecting skulls or dragging any bodies around. So maybe it’d not been that unwarranted after all.

“Watch your step,” Yarrow cautioned, choosing not to pick a fight about how twitchy the desk clerk was. “Can’t have you getting too beat up!” They smiled winsomely, if not a little sarcastically.

The desk clerk tugged a branch out of his hair in frustration and sighed. “Sorry.”

Yarrow shrugged and patted them on the shoulder again. “What are you apologizing for? Accidents happen!”

The desk clerk’s face twisted, and he blinked uncertainly at the ground, refusing to make eye contact. “Right,” he agreed and looked a breath away from apologizing again, but chose to continue onwards instead.

Yarrow chased after him for a bit before they cleared their throat. “So. Do you?”

“What?” This time he didn’t trip, but the desk clerk did turn to peer through the gloom at Yarrow with a constipated expression that made Yarrow wonder if their question was a very difficult thing to answer, or deeply offensive for some reason.

“Do you come here often?” Yarrow took care to speak slowly and emphasize their words pointedly, their eyebrows rising in pointed expectation.

The desk clerk squinted. “I… work here?”

“Well, sure. But is it a recent gig? You local? Or did you move nearby recently? My family comes through these parts pretty often to visit Gramma, and I don’t recognize you.”

The desk clerk stared for a moment longer, before exhaling slowly through his teeth and turning back to face forwards. “Well, I am. Local, that is. Haven’t worked at Pinefort before though, so I guess that’s new.”

“Huh.” Yarrow peered at the desk clerk’s back suspiciously. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’re you working at Pinefort?”

Now the desk clerk’s voice was certainly laden with confusion. “Why? What do you mean, why? I needed a job.”

“Hm.”

They both continued forward a few steps, stumbling over roots bulging forth from the ground, and ducking by the low-hanging branches in suspended tension before the desk clerk drew to a stop once more. He sucked in a breath in a clear attempt to wind himself up, and Yarrow ambled to a halt behind him, idly snapping off a twig from a briar when it caught on their sweater and flicked it into the distance while they waited.

“Alright, what are you getting at? You’re acting… well, I dunno. Weird. Why else would I be working here? Do you think I’m… hiding something? Is this because you still think I’m part of a cult?” The desk clerk finally blurted, turning to face Yarrow as he did. He still didn't manage to make eye contact. He directed his face anywhere but towards Yarrow’s own.

“Are you?” They rebutted.

“No!”

“Well, good then. But I was just trying to get to know you a bit. I need clues if I’m to solve this mystery! For all we know these are the embittered ghosts of your ancestors calling to you across the veil of time to act as their sword of vengeance.”

The desk clerk stared in frozen bewilderment for a moment and then turned back around and hurriedly continued walking. “I…that seems a little far-fetched. It's not like this is some Hollywood thriller”

Yarrow clicked their tongue and shoved their hands deeper into the pockets of their sweater. “Far-fetched? You’re saying that at this stage in the game?” Even though the desk clerk couldn’t see it, Yarrow shook their head pityingly. “You need to get your story straight. Oh, wait! I should have asked your name first!”

The beam of the flashlight the desk clerk was holding lowered slightly, sagging towards the forest floor in a way that expressed the emotions obscured by his turned back.

Yarrow pressed onwards all the same until they were aligned with the desk clerk, leaning around to peer into his face. “C’mon. What if you die? It’ll suck so bad if I have to tell the police that 'the desk clerk from the motel' died without even being able to give your name! And maybe using your name will help if you go all crazed killer on me again? That kinda thing does seem to happen in the movies and books quite often. You know, like it is an anchor, or whatever. My father always said that there’s power in names and it sounds weird, sure, but there is no guarantee it wouldn’t help. Probably nicer than another fistfight, for sure!”

The desk clerk cringed back from Yarrow partway through the explanation, shifting so that there was more space between the two of them and the moment he got a chance to cut Yarrow off, he did. “Okay, I get it! Yes, alright. I’m Colton. Buckley.” He shrugged, the motion dull, bordering on listless. “Happy?”

“Nice to meet you! Officially, anyhow. Nothing like a little attempted murder to get to know a person, am I right?” Yarrow joked. “I’m Yarrow. They/them if you would.”

Colton grunted. "Oh., yeah. um. He/him for me?" He said hesitantly. "Wait, nevermind that. I know who you are. I checked you in. And I,” he paused to clear his throat, “went through your phone.”

“What? When? Wait, no, when I was out of it, right? Why’d you do that? Where is it? Give it back!”

“I mean, mostly I was focussed on getting rid of you, but I just kinda… you know, figured it might be good to know who you were. And make sure…” Colton trailed off and shrugged. “You know. It all happened so fast and I was so out of it but, well, it seemed like something I should do. I, um, I got rid of it though.”

“Dude, how’d you even get into it?”

The desk clerk shrugged. “They’ve all got fingerprint scanners or face recognition. It’s not like you were in a position to stop me.”

At this, Yarrow squinted. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“No! I mean yes. I’m sure. But it's not like I’ve never watched a mystery or crime show, so that much is basic knowledge, right?”

“Huh. Maybe you’re just cut out for this kind of thing after all,” Yarrow mused and gestured for Colton to continue leading the way back.

Yarrow’s assailant did not have anything to say to their accusation, so silence settled over them again.

A cold gust snaked through the trees, and Yarrow shivered. They wiped at the layer of water that had been building on their face, swiping a hand across their eyes to clear their vision as they peered up through the forest canopy at the pre-dawn sky. Daylight was a long way off yet, though at least the rain had begun to subside to a meagre drizzle. Still, it was far too late to spare them from being soaked to the bone, never mind the mud that was smeared all over them from their fight with this odd Colton fellow.

At least it was serving to keep the blood from drying where it streaked down over the side of their face, and down their neck and chest. There’d likely be no saving of their sweater or shirt, but at least they wouldn’t have to spend an hour trying to get the gore to wash off. Then again, the thought of a warm shower after such a dreadful and involuntary venture into the woods was a welcome one. If they had been chilled when they arrived at the old motel earlier that evening, they were now completely frozen.

Of course, that begged the question of what they should do about the desk clerk in the interim. For all they knew he’d go all blood-crazed homicidal maniac and try to cave their skull in again without supervision, regardless of his injuries. He certainly hadn’t shown much of a reaction to pain when he’d been possessed before.

At the very least, Yarrow would much prefer not to be caught unawares again. If he was injured, regardless of evil spirits taking control of him, Yarrow could get clear if they weren’t taken by surprise.

Probably the best thing to do was let Colton do something about his hand and then tie him to a chair or something. Prevention, their mother had always said, was the best medicine.

Granted, he probably wouldn’t take all that kindly to Yarrow’s suggestion, which meant they were going to have to remind him again that they were a victim of unwarranted violence which would have typically been resoundingly traumatic, if not fatal. For the sake of their sense of security, the least he could do was comply.

Still, it would probably best to spring that on him when they weren’t in the middle of the forest.

Yarrow glanced up from where they’d been watching the uneven terrain, as if Colton’s dark silhouette in the woods could offer some insight as to how badly he was going to react to getting restrained, when something skittered out from the undergrowth into the path of his flashlight, startling the both of them enough that they jerked to a halt.

Staring back at them, seemingly as startled as they were, was a small rodent, spotlit by the glare of the flashlight, staring at them in frozen disbelief.

It twitched and shuddered slightly, but didn’t run off, even as the beat of surprise passed.

Colton cleared his throat and chuckled nervously. “Just a squirrel. They can be so brazen.” He stepped forward.

The squirrel twitched, its bedraggled tail spasming like a rattlesnake’s, but it didn’t run away.

Colton drew to a halt again.

Yarrow maneuvered up behind Colton, smirking slyly at his remarkable skittishness. “Is this your great evil in the woods? A gutsy squirrel? Pretty cute. But my fingers are about to freeze off, so if you wanna get going—“

The squirrel jerked upright, standing at attention when their voice crested out into the wilderness, allowing them to see for the first time that it was a mangled little thing. It had torn ears, its fur was matted, and one of its limbs was little more than matchstick thin bones dragging through the dirt.

Yarrow squinted in bewilderment. “Is that normal for wildlife in these parts?” Even as they said it, the squirrel’s skin heaved with a mass of small bugs living under its rotting skin.

“Uh, n-no,” Colton replied, voice rasping quietly against the unease in his throat.

Yarrow nodded. “Figures. Oh well. What’s it going to do? Bite us? One good kick should do.”

“After you then,” Colton muttered back.

Yarrow sighed, and took a step forward, toward the squirrel, which continued to strain to stand upright. Something that might have been a chittering sound at one point escaped its hollowed-out face. “Sorry, little guy, but despite whatever’s going on, you should have just stayed dead.” Honestly, it was a little pathetic how easy it was to send it flying back into the brambles of the woods with a quick flick of their foot.

“Gross,” they whined, peering down at the toe of their shoe to see if any bits were still stuck to it, feeling at once sad and very weirded out.

Colton was staring off into the woods where the body of the squirrel had gone, his face a picture of discomfort. “What the hell was that?”

It seemed rather obvious to Yarrow what it had been, but they figured Colton hadn’t been exposed to the same influences as they had during their childhood. Colton, it would appear, had learned things like checking the phone of one’s victim and disposing of it, or how to fake a power outage to lure innocent and well-meaning individuals out in the woods for a little attempted murder. Yarrow, however, knew the undead when they saw them. “Zombie Squirrel,” they offered with a shrug. “Not the most effectual type of corpse to use, but everything has to start somewhere, right?”

“I’m sorry, did you just say a zombie squirrel?”

“Sure. Can’t think of anything else it could have been. I mean, I guess a ghost could have possessed it. Maybe that’s where your ghost went when it stopped possessing you—nearest available corpse-type deal.”

“What? That’s so gross. This is awful. What the hell is even going on here?”

“I know. Pretty stupid, possessing a squirrel, of all things. And a dead one too! Had to be better pickings out here in these woods. But I’ll actually take that over the first option. Zombie plagues are the worst.”

Finally, Colton met Yarrow’s eyes, staring with a slack-jawed sort of awe that Yarrow had a sudden intuition would turn to full-on distress in seconds. They were right.

“This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. You’re crazy. I’m crazy! I tried to kill you! And you keep going on about ghosts and zombies like it’s all real! This is insane! We need to call the cops. Or the ambulance. Jesus, I thought you were dead. Like for real, actual dead. I checked your pulse! You, your brains were leaking out. I killed you. And now you’re acting like this is some kind of supernatural ghost story and it's impossible and I-I-I c-can’t—”

Yarrow grimaced as Colton started to hyperventilate, rocking back on their heels as they tried to wait out the hysteria. They didn’t wait very long though, because Colton swayed on his feet, one hand—the one holding the flashlight—flailing out blindly to catch his balance as his uneven breathing short-circuited his brain. It sent a pale beam of light spinning into the dark mist, glancing off of wet bark and leaves like the worst strobe light of all time.

“Woah woah woah,” they exclaimed, stepping forward to catch the panicked young man before he collapsed. “Hey, this is good for you. If it’s ghosts, then we don’t have to ship you off to court for attempted murder. And I don’t have to call my family and explain why I also have to go to court and testify. And then they don’t have to get all freaked out and come here and deal with you. Although I guess we could just skip the police part and go straight to the 'take care of' part.”

“What?” Colton would have shrieked if he’d been able to breathe deep enough for that. As it was, his words were shallow pools of alarm crackling in the cold like thin ice. “Are you part of a gang or something?”

Yarrow wrinkled their nose. “No. Ew. What about this said crime ring to you?”

Colton couldn’t answer as he gaped like a fish suffocating on land.

Yarrow shifted awkwardly from one foot to the next, unsure of how to proceed. It was hardly as if they had a paper bag on hand, and trying to get him to breathe through their damp, filthy sweater would have probably been the equivalent of a war crime. Beyond that didn’t know what else to do to get their terribly skittish and fragile assailant to settle down. Managing emotional distress wasn’t their forte.

Belatedly, they realized there was another solution, and reached out to offer Colton a few reassuring pats on the back. This did not go over well, as he tripped over himself to get away from them, eyes wide as he collapsed back into a tangle of underbrush.

Behind Yarrow came a wet scraping, dragging sound and they stiffened. Colton, from his prone position on the forest floor, looked even more panicked. He pressed a forearm over his own face as he tried to muffle his erratic breathing, the whites of his eyes showing like he was a panicked dog being taken to the vet.

Yarrow slowly turned to look back at the source of the sound.

The deer could hardly be called that anymore. Its head lolled on its slender, broken neck, and its ribs were a hollowed-out cavity where scavengers had torn free its insides. its back legs barely functioned so that it had to pull itself forward in a horrific mimicry of seal-like movements.

Colton retched, and even Yarrow pressed a delicate hand over their mouth in disgust.

“Oh dear,” they quipped. “Or, deer, as it were. Your ghosts have terrible taste. If they’re trying to kill me, you’d think…” Yarrow shook their head. “Well, I can’t kick that one away, but I imagine we could outrun…”

Their words got cut off when a small bird, far too small to be out and about during the depths of the night, plummeted out of the branches above and smacked into the earth with a faint crunching sound. It did not still though, no. Instead, its wings weakly flapped against the earth as it tried to heave itself closer to Yarrow.

They were pretty sure they heard the desk clerk whimper.

“That,” they observed needlessly, “is probably not so good.”

Behind them there was a flurry of motion as Colton sprang to his feet, a string of curse words rupturing out of his mouth as he suddenly jerked towards Yarrow’s side and away from another bundle of bones and dried, mummified flesh that appeared from the undergrowth next to him.

“Huh. Maybe it is a zombie plague after all,” Yarrow pondered, quietly reaching out to start tugging Colton away from the slowly expanding hoard of animated corpses.

Another creature plummeted out of the air, bouncing off tree boughs as it dropped towards them, nearly landing at Yarrow’s feet had they not hopped back a step in time.

Whipping his flashlight between one shuddering, staggering creature and the next with enough fervour to induce a seizure, Colton asked, “What do we do?”

“Run probably. That motel is starting to look even nicer—“

The bugs descended on them, a thick cloud of tattered wings, hard shells, and tiny squirming bodies. It was a swarm of undead detritus that caught indiscriminately in their hair and clothes, crawling for their noses, mouths and ears.

They could hear the other creatures closing in, and there were more sickening thumps as things tumbled out of the air. Most of them missed, but not all of them. Feathers and talons crashed into Yarrow as they tried to bat at the air and shield their face.

It was nearly impossible to see, and the only real landmark they had was the weak flicker of the flashlight through the swarm—it was on the ground, dropped in the chaos. That, and the flailing body next to them, the sounds of his distress muffled as he tried to avoid inhaling the swarms of insects.

Blindly, Yarrow reached out a hand, snagging their fingers into Colton’s jacket, and then with an all mighty heave dragged him after them as they let their feet carry them through the trees. They had no target, and couldn’t have navigated their way through the forest without light and a trail at the best of times, never mind with a hoard of dead things trying to smother and pummel them to death.

A wet crunching sound came from where their foot fell, and the feeling of something giving made Yarrow flashback to when they’d stomped on Colton’s hand, but they knew in this instance that wasn’t what it was. They didn’t stop, continuing to pull Colton after them, heedless of the branches snapping against their face, their heart hammering in their chest. They surged away from the swarm, even as it clicked and buzzed after them, sounding like static in their ears.

A larger shape lumbered through the trees towards them, filling the air with a stench so putrid that even the cold mist couldn’t soften it, and Yarrow yelped in surprise at the speed it was moving with, clearly in better condition than the other creatures which had been thrown at them so far.

They swerved to the side, their feet skidding on the wet leaves as they went, nearly sending them crashing to the ground. It was only by luck that Colton managed to reach out and grab their elbow in a grip that was iron-tight and made something pop painfully.

The undergrowth ahead heaved around them, the dead leaves and needles, the soil and the dirt roiling with bones and decaying matter that wouldn’t still.

It was really no surprise that eventually their blind flight through the dark woods would be brought to an end one way or another. Even as Yarrow jerked them both away from the unnatural heaving mass, something in their head was telling them that this was all wrong, that they were being corralled. Shepherded.

And then, as they tripped and blundered passed a fallen tree, slipping over the rain-slicked moss that cascaded out from it, they came to a steep slope that surged down into the darkness. Their momentum tugged them forward, even as they dug their heels into the soft earth for purchase. But Colton, staggering along behind them, kept going. He was blind to the pitfall ahead, and he tipped them both over the edge with a strangled cry of realization that came far too late.

Abruptly they were falling, tumbling, their feet going too fast to stay under them until they were rocketing down over the drop, bouncing off rocks and roots and barrelling into branches and bushes. It was only by luck that Yarrow managed to twist their body in such a way that it sent them careening away from a tree that likely would have broken their fall by also breaking most of their bones.

And then they reached the bottom, tossed over the edge of a rocky ledge before dropping several feet down into cold, shallow water that did nothing to cushion their landing.

For a moment Yarrow lay there, the breath stolen from their lungs, their mind wailing in panic and shock. The pain took a moment to set in, but when it did Yarrow gurgled a choked moan of abject agony. It almost felt worse than having their skull smashed in, and that said something. They had definitely broken something. Multiple things, even.

Dazedly, they thought they needed to move. There were zombie animals after them, and Yarrow hadn’t a clue how much worse their night could get after being assailed by a hoard of undead creatures, but they figured it’d certainly be even worse.

They peeked an eye open, waiting.

Eventually, they realized the dead things weren’t coming for them. No swarms of insect shells, no ominous shapes surging out of the trees, no birds crashing out of the sky like tiny, disgusting meteors of rotting meat.

With a groan, they shut their eyes again and waited for their body to stop rebelling. The water they had landed in was doing a pretty good job of making it all go numb.

Distantly, Yarrow realized that they were forgetting something.

Desk clerk, they remembered in a sudden burst of clarity.

They didn’t know what happened to Colton. They’d lost him pretty much the moment they’d gone over the edge.

Briefly, they struggled to sit up, but they gave up on that pretty quickly and flopped back into the water with a small splash.

“H-hey,” they tried to call out, their voice wheezing quietly. “Hey!” They tried again, louder, though their chest ached just from inhaling. “You there?”

Nothing.

“Did'yah die?” Yarrow slurred, staring blankly up into the sky overhead and straining to hear any sort of answer, even if it was just a whimper of pain.

Still nothing.

Yarrow’s eyes slid shut in resignation. Either he was unconscious, which they couldn’t do anything about at the moment, or he was dead. Humans were terribly fragile, after all.

“Shit,” they swore, and waited for the pain to ease, for their body to right itself. It took a long time. They lay in the icy water, waiting for the white-hot pinpricks of pain dancing under their skin and along their bones to subside, attention snapping to every errant sound in the surrounding woods, wondering if it was the desk clerk, wondering if it was zombie animals come to trample them or smother them or whatever it was they would try to do. In their more delirious moments they thought it was their Gramma there to help, dragged out into the woods by the unnatural disturbance.

Eventually, after they’d either blacked out and had a weird dream, or a tree had informed them that hypothermia was setting in, they realized the sky was beginning to lighten. Just barely. Its deep black was easing into a dull denim colour with a gradualness that Yarrow hadn’t noticed until it suddenly wasn’t as deep and endlessly dark anymore.

That was also when a bloody and bruised Colton staggered into view, staring blankly down at them. He almost looked as bad as the zombie animals, his nose broken, and blood smeared all down over the bottom of his face, while ugly red-purple bruises ringed his eyes.

He’d lost his hat, Yarrow noticed blearily, before noting the rock he had picked up in the interim.

They groaned and struggled to push themselves up. However, there was no rapid fire lurching to their feet this time, no lighting quick turning of the tables. They flailed, not unlike the bird that had crashed to the forest floor, breaking itself against the ground and then struggling to move with shattered wings.

For a moment Colton swayed, and it seemed like he might have been too weak to do much either. Except there was that same wooden expression on his face that went beyond a case of shock or a concussion. He dropped to his knees, one crashing into Yarrow's ribs and sending a fresh wave of pain washing through them as he weighed them down.

Yarrow got the chance to see him robotically lift the rock over his head before they squeezed their eyes shut in automatic rejection of what came next.

They just hoped they’d be lucky enough to once again wake up before he managed to bury them again.

—

Yarrow had always had a tumultuous relationship with luck. This time, it showed them mercy. They came to right where they had been. This time they were feeling marginally better than the last time they’d had their brains beaten out, though the bright sunlight filtering down through the trees was blinding and stung their eyes.

When they managed to sit up, they found Colton in the mud not too far from them, bloody rock close at hand. He was so still and pale it seemed likely that he was dead. They’d almost thought that when he’d appeared after the fall, another zombie dragged into action by some unknown cause, but hadn’t had a chance to formulate the idea before he’d tried to kill them. Again.

“Told you,” Yarrow huffed, between the chattering of their teeth. “I’m pretty… pretty damn sturdy.” They dragged themself over to his still form and collapsed down next to him, sitting with their arms on their knees, their head bowed as they tried to figure out what to do next.

Fortunately, Colton had unwittingly given them a hint earlier that night.

They fished through his pockets for his phone.

“Salut?” Their mother answered on what was nearly the last ring, voice fogged by sleep.

Yarrow opened their mouth to answer, but the words caught on sudden emotion.

“Hello?” she asked again. And then, after a moment, “Yarrow?”

They blinked back sudden tears, and quickly fumbled the phone away from their ear, mashing a thumb against the button to hang up. For several minutes afterwards, they stared at it, half expecting it to start ringing. It did not.

The moment stretched. They sighed.

The desk clerk groaned, his eyes fluttering, and they lurched away from him like a crab, scuttling backwards on their hands until they were well out of his reach.

He didn’t move and after several more moments of tense waiting, they hesitantly scooted closer again. They tapped him with the toe of one soggy boot, but he didn’t react. So they did it again, harder. This time he exhaled sharply, and his eyes fluttered again.

“Great,” they snarked into the space between them. “Looks like I’m not the only sturdy one. Dammit.”

(Next)

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[uncannyinthegrove]

Chapter Five: No Way It Gets Worse, Right?

Table of Contents

Previous

Chapter One

(Content Warning For Violent Imagery! See Info for specifics!)

Perched like an unhappy crow on the edge of a small clearing cluttered with ramshackle sheds and work stations of near indiscernible purpose, sat a sizable A-frame house. It lacked the many large windows of a modern home designed similarly. Instead, mismatching portholes dotted its exterior, which created the feeling of a patchwork tribute to a variety of long forgotten sea-faring vessels. This was a jarring sight to behold in the middle of a forest decently removed from the coast, where such decor might have been more common. 

The air surrounding the building was noxious with a foul smelling smoke, ashy blue and thick. It wafted up from somewhere behind the house, where a veranda overlooked the much smaller clearing that made up the backyard.

In their youth, Yarrow and their parents had spent more than a few late summer evenings back there for fires beneath the looming evergreens. They’d roasted marshmallows while their ma turned hers into flaming torches that dripped and slid off her stick onto the pine needles below, and their grandma clicked her tongue in the background. Their mom had lounged on a lawn chair on the deck, perusing scientific periodicals with Yarrow's father, and idly warned her wife and child not to light the entire forest on fire.

They’d stayed out long after the sun went down and listened to their grandmother tell tales of the old days—days of witch hunts and fires used for much viler purposes. She’d talked about the time malevolent townsfolk captured her and tried to burn away her sins. She recounted how all of hell's devils tried to lure her into a deal with them just to escape the pain of her own organs roasting and turning to goo like the marshmallows littering the area around the fire pit.

She’d smiled with too many teeth, her eyes glinting crow black and beady, staring into the light of the fire as if she was still there, all stubborn pride and fury sharp as a poison-slick knife. In the wind her bone chimes clattered and her old house, built by her own gnarled hands, creaked and groaned. She'd creaked and groaned too as she’d leaned forward to prod at the embers, daring the flames a little higher.

When Yarrow was very young, they had always wanted to know more. What happened next? What had she said to the devils? How did she escape? They begged to know every of gory detail, badgered and pestered with enthusiasm. As they grew older, they got tired of hearing the same story over and over, of asking the same questions and getting the same answer, but their father would stare at them long and hard, as if he could tell what was going through their mind.

“Yarrow,” he’d said. “This is not about you. It’s not some fairy tale to her. Let her speak.”

So Yarrow sat and stared mutely into the flames with their grandmother. They sat there until the embers grew cold, and she stood with a popping and crackling of joints, offering them an idle glance as if she’d entirely forgotten they were there.

“Well?” she’d asked, jolting them back awake as they drifted from one strange, twisted dream to the next, not quite awake but not asleep either; hypnotized by the flames and the rustling trees.

“Well what?” Yarrow would retort, the first few times legitimately confused and then the times after that, simply performing a familiar routine.

And their grandma scoffed and shook her head and went inside. As was typical of her owlish schedule, no one would see her again until late afternoon the next day.

That same time of day was drawing near when Yarrow and Colton finally broke through the tree line into her front yard, but not quite. Yarrow anticipated a great deal of aggravation when they disturbed her routine. It’d have been one thing if they’d shown up on their own and just crashed on the couch with some snacks until she was ready to get up and deal with their unexpected intrusion. However, they were about to wake her up with a stranger accompanying them, word of bizarre zombies infesting the area that had tried to kill them, and her defunct totems.

She was going to be so unimpressed.

Colton had been morosely quiet and on edge for most of the journey, and had jumped at every stray sound as they hiked together through the woods. The only time he said anything was to express baffled surprise when Yarrow revealed the trail that led up through the foothills to their grandmother’s house. He insisted that he'd never seen it before, despite the months he’d spent scouring the local area for a decent hiking trail.

Yarrow had been quite happy to explain (never mind that they didn’t really have the qualifications to do so), but when Colton took to staring at them with a glazed over expression only three minutes into their clarification, and asked them what the hell they were getting on with, they lost interest.

Further attempts at conversations were met with similar reactions, and while Yarrow was not opposed to filling the quiet on their own, the lack of sleep and persistent physical exertion were catching up with them. They hadn’t eaten recently either, and that brought their mood toward the cantankerous side of things.

After that, they had trudged onward in strained silence.

However, when the two broke through the tree-line, Colton audibly exclaimed.

Yarrow stopped and looked at him expectantly. “Well? What d’ya think? This is it.” Much like a tour guide, or perhaps a proud presenter at a museum or gallery, Yarrow spun with their arms at their out, and backed into the yard with a couple of jaunty hops. However, they regretted their theatrical display fairly quickly when their exhaustion made their head swim.

Nothing seemed as if it would be sweeter than dumping responsibility for the mess they had found themselves in on an proper adult and sleeping the rest of the day away. Yarrow was itching to throw themselves on the mercy of a bed and assume unconsciousness for multiple hours on end.

Colton stopped gawking at the yard and stared at Yarrow in disbelief. “It’s not what I expected. It looks… well, it looks like a scrap yard?”

“Yeah!” Yarrow agreed. “I guess it is. Gramma likes to collect stuff. She says you never know what could be useful.”

Colton grimaced. “What, is she a hoarder?”

“Huh? No way.” Yarrow said, crinkling their nose in disdain and turning away. Colton clearly did not understand the benefit of having multiple projects in the works at once, with all the supplies needed right at hand, or the interesting paraphernalia one could find when they lived a life like Yarrow's grandma did.

“Forewarning. She’s won’t be excited that I brought you here. Don’t take it personally. After what happened with the witch-hunts, she doesn’t take kindly to folks like you.”

“Folks like me? What does that mean?” Colton asked, already looking uncomfortable. “Wait, did you say the witch-hunts?”

“I mean folks who aren’t familiar with this kinda stuff. You're more likely to make a big deal out of things and then bam, someone’s kicking down your door and tying you to a stake.”

Colton stuttered unintelligibly for a moment before his face clouded over with resignation, and he snapped his jaw shut with an audible clatter.

Yarrow waited for the rest of the questions, for Colton to cycle back to the whole witch-hunt thing, but eventually realized that he wouldn't be doing any of that. Apparently, he had remembered none of it would matter once his memory was wiped. Unfortunate really. Yarrow might have been tired, but there was something fun about teaching a newbie the ways of the real world. “Alrighty then. No more questions? Let’s go meet Gramma.”

They were expecting the silence that met their firm knocking so they creaked the door open and stepped into the quiet entrance without waiting. Colton stepped in behind them gingerly, face pinched with discomfort.

“Not to fear,” Yarrow assuaged, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly. “Despite all events potentially suggesting the contrary, this won’t turn into in a Hansel and Gretel situation, or whatever it is that you’re imagining.”

With a slow, measured exhale, Colton nodded. He still didn’t look as if he’d entirely let go of whatever fear was on his mind, but he was weird and jumpy from the moment Yarrow met him, so that was no surprise.

They couldn’t help but grin. “Just don’t mention how big her ears or teeth are,” they said with a sly wink.

The blood drained from Colton’s face with astonishing speed. As Yarrow trotted easily into the house, he hesitated to follow, as if the front porch and his proximity to an exit were a safety blanket that might protect him from another monster. However, when Yarrow darted into the kitchen in search of something to drink and out of sight, they heard him quickly scramble to join them.

The kitchen was in an uncharacteristic disarray. Though Yarrow was so focused on getting some water that they might have overlooked the disorder, or even simply written it off, it was hard to ignore the stench of rotting food.

Colton pulled to a stop at the entrance to the kitchen like he had hit a wall and his face scrunched in disgust. “Um, not to be rude, but is it always like this?” he asked while eyeing the sink full of cold water and half washed dishes, to the pot of coffee partially evaporated and filmed over, the blackened frying pan of scraps singed beyond recognition sitting on an alarmingly hot element, and the dish of unidentifiable meat soaking in a marinade and the beginnings of a mildewy coating.

Yarrow stood amidst it all, trying to figure out why they had a sinking feeling in their stomach, and hoped it was just nausea brought on by the foul aroma.

“Well,” they said after a moment. “She is pretty old. Maybe she’s having a hard time taking care of the place on her own?” Never mind that their grandma’s age wasn’t ever going to hamper her independent life.

“Riiight,” Colton rocked back on his heels to peer down the hall into the rest of the house.

“I should check on her,” Yarrow decided after some internal dithering, and made for the stairs that would lead to the next floor and her room.

They drew up short, however, when they discovered that the sitting room at the back of the house was also in wild disarray, and the door that opened into the backyard was ajar.

Colton followed them into the room, hovering so close at their heels that when they froze on the fringes of the hall, he nearly tripped over his own feet. “Not for nothing,” he said, voice low and shaken, “but I’m getting a really bad feeling about this.”

Yarrow tossed their shoulders back confidently and flicked a dismissive hand at him. “Relax, that’s just, like, the trauma talking or whatever. Your brain’s stuck in survival mode. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. My grandma is, y’know—"

“Weird? A witch?”

Yarrow clicked their tongue and made towards the open door, where the smell of smoke wafted, sharp and pungent, on a chilly draft. It didn’t smell like normal wood smoke. It was acrid in a way that made Yarrow's throat sting and his eyes water. “She’s got her oddities, sure. Listen, there’s a bunch of perfectly good reasons for this. Life can get a little wild and wacky when you’re in my family. Stuff happens. You know how it is.”

“I super don’t,” Colton argued, the floor creaking as he continued his especially timid shadow routine in Yarrow's wake. “Man, and I thought the kitchen smelled bad. Hey, uh, is... Is that paint?”

Yarrow hadn’t noticed the sticky mess on the handle of the door, a dark reddish brown that flaked off the metal where it was slowly drying. “Nope, that’s probably blood,” they observed, and reached out to scratch at it with their finger nail. “Yep, definitely blood.’

“You sound, um, super chill about that?”

“Ah, well. Probably she just had to, like, butcher a pig for whatever she’s getting up to. She’s not as dexterous with a knife as she used to be, so it could’ve gotten kinda messy.” Yarrow flicked the blood off of their finger and reached out to pull the door open the rest of the way.

“Wait! Hold up!” By now, Colton was easing back, giving up the dubious security of proximity in favour of leaning away like he was about to make a very quick exit. “Why’s the door just open like that? And why is the room… you know,” Colton bit his lip anxiously and then continued, “I don’t care what you say. It looks like there was a fight.”

Yarrow sucked in an aggravated breath as they turned to face Colton, setting their hands impatiently on their hips for added emphasis. “No way! Probably she just didn’t click it shut behind her properly, what with having super bloody hands. Blood and flesh sacrifices can be time sensitive, y’know? Or maybe she had to wrestle an angry inter-dimensional summon and now she’s out barbecuing it for supper because sometimes you’ve gotta eat your enemies. Like I said, there’s a million perfectly normal reasons for this. I am sure she’s fine. My Gramma deals with stuff you can’t even imagine before her morning calisthenics.”

“What!? Actually what? Flesh sacrifices!” At first Colton’s voice rang with outrage, but it quickly quelled into the equally familiar disbelief. “No way. You gotta know you’re being way, way too normal about this after everything that's happened. Thinking like that gets you killed!”

“Sure, but you already know I’d pop right back up again. Can you imagine? Someone tries to kill me, but nope! There I am again! Like a dandelion. What a riot. Oh wait. You can imagine that.” Yarrow scoffed at Colton with as much derision as they could summon, which was not insignificant.

“Yeah? Well I, at least, can still die! So sorry if I think maybe we should be just a little more careful!”

Yarrow struggled to keep their face straight. “Yeah. Sure. Fine. Whatever you say.”

“What? What was that? That tone?” Colton's face twisted with suspicious fervour.

“Nothing. Never mind. Look, I’ll be careful. But either way, we need to find Gramma. So let’s go. If anything happens, I swear on pain of death, or whatever, I’ll get you out, alright? I’ve been told that I make a great meat shield.”

“You swear?”

“Yes, cross my heart, hope to die.” Yarrow did not roll their eyes as much as they might have wanted to, and they considered that a win.

Colton frowned doubtfully and inhaled, eyes squeezed shut. Yarrow could almost make out the sounds of his quick, muttered count to three as he tried to steel his nerves. “Right. Okay. Let’s go.”

The door swung open, and a moment ticked slowly by as Yarrow, half a step out the door already, tried to process what exactly they were seeing.

Colton caught on quicker and retched violently, collapsing to the side of the door so that he could brace himself against the wall. He swore breathlessly, a long string of curses that broke down into wet gagging as he glanced back up to reconfirm what he’d seen.

Yarrow blinked curiously, and then eventually let out a long, admittedly confused whistle. “Well that’s pretty weird.”

Dominating the centre of the backyard was a macabre execution site. A pillar of burnt wood speared out of a scorched and ashy ground, singular within the small confines of the yard. What hung from it was only barely recognizable as something that might have once resembled a human. Most of the flesh was gone, the softer external bits roasted away until they were nothing more than dust, leaving only the charcoal cinders of the interior that had not been wholly consumed by fire.

“It’s horrific!” Colton said, grabbing Yarrow by the shoulder to haul them backwards into the shelter of the house, and then slamming the door shut on the devastating scene. “What was that? What the hell is going on here?”

Yarrow winced as Colton shook them back and forth, pummelling them with his own panic. “Wait, stop, I don’t know. Could you just—," They wrenched themselves free and stepped away from Colton, arm raised defensively. "Give me a moment!”

The logical thing to assume was that they had been horribly wrong, and that their grandmother had been the victim of some sick attack.

But Yarrow knew better. Yarrow knew that there was no way, no way at all, that their grandmother would let herself end up like that. However, that begged the question of whose corpse hung in a gory display before them, and why it was there at all. The obvious person to go to was still their grandmother, but Yarrow was beginning to believe that their grandmother would not get found so easily.

“Just. Just go sit out front,” Yarrow tried to grab Colton’s face and make him come back from whatever latest spiral of weakening sanity he was on. “Try to calm down. I’m going to look around a bit. Try to piece together what happened.”

Colton’s expression had grown slack, his eyes somewhat unfocused. Not in the "I’m about to start trying to cave your skull in" kind of way, but in a, "I’m in shock and should probably not be on my own" kind of way.

Yarrow reached for the nearest throw blanket, slung across the back of a toppled armchair, and pulled it tight around Colton’s shoulders. “Go on then. Go sit on the front step and try to breathe. Put it out of your mind.” Really, Yarrow had to wonder at how astoundingly sensitive to dead bodies Colton was. This one probably wasn’t even anyone he knew. “It’s gonna be fine. We’re all, you know. Tough. I’m sure we’re safe here. Safe as houses and so on, so forth.”

When Yarrow didn’t get a response right away, they waved a hand in front of the stunned young man’s face a couple times, and then lightly patted him on the cheek and shook him back and forth a few times. Eventually he blinked, turned and stumbled back down the haul in surprisingly close reenactment of the previous night’s zombies.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t find him passed out in the dirt when they went to get him. That wasn't their biggest concern at the moment, though. They had answers to find, and the cavalry to call.

To Be Continued

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[uncannyinthegrove]

Uncanny in the Grove Chapter Four: When the Going Gets Tough

Table of Contents

Previous

First Chapter

(Content Warnings for Violent Imagery, see info for specifics)

Before Colton woke up and either had an emotional meltdown for trying to kill Yarrow again, or continued with the whole murder schtick, they needed to be prepared.

In their heart of hearts, Yarrow wished they had a decent length of rope, or even more ideally a chain to tie him up with. They would have been happy with even just some duct tape, at least until they knew whether they were dealing with a murder zombie, a murder ghost possessing a misfortunate victim, or simply a jumpy desk clerk with a guilty conscience.

Unfortunately, they had nothing on hand. Instead, they opted for the brilliant solution of tying Colton’s jacket sleeves together, stretching them as best as they could to get the length needed for a decent enough knot. Then, for good measure, they savagely tied together his shoe laces with all the fervour of a small child being given their first puppet, or a cat being unleashed upon a basket full of yarn. By the time they were done, it would have been at least ten minutes of work to get the shoes off, never mind untangled.

In the process, they also realized that if Colton had needed a doctor before, then that need had only doubled, if not tripled. It was no wonder, given he had gone careening off a cliff just like they had. And although he did not appear to be dead, which said a lot about his own resilience, he was in undeniably awful shape.

Yarrow grimaced as they straightened, feeling their own leftover aches protest how much they were moving about. It’d take more than a few minutes for that kind of damage to ease completely and in an ideal world Yarrow would get to spend the rest of the day either in bed, or bundled up on a couch being provided with sweets and cider and being pampered.

They were far from home and such comforts, though. The best they could do was limp their way up to their grandmother’s and hope things did not escalate into an even bigger raucous.

If there was a whole epidemic of walking dead plaguing the area, it needed to be handled, and Yarrow’s curiosity had been very much cooled by the threat of getting mauled at every turn. It was time to turn the matter over to someone else who actually knew what they were doing, while Yarrow waited it all out by napping.

Traipsing into the woods with the would-be-killer who they had already bested and was clearly reluctant on the murder part was very different from diabolical rotting bears and coyotes and moose. Their ghost hunt seemed like less of a whimsical little adventure that they could tell stories about later, and more of a cold, painful hassle. One murder was one thing, but two? With the chances of more looking rather high? No thanks. Better just to turn the whole mess over to their grandma. She’d know what to do.

Briefly, Yarrow thought about calling their mom again. She’d also know what to do. They just had to say the word and their parents would be in the car and on the way to Pinefort before Yarrow had a chance to sneeze.

It wasn’t like their parents weren’t going to find out that they’d run away from school, anyway. There wasn’t much point in putting it off. And yet the thought made them sag with exhaustion. At least their grandma wouldn’t badger them with questions about all that. She’d be a lot more concerned with the zombies. Once that was out of the way, maybe Yarrow could convince her to help explain things to their parents in a way that would not end with Yarrow back at the house, unable to leave again for fear their bad luck would invite further catastrophe.

Of course, to get to their grandma’s, they needed to know where they were. However, with a glance, Yarrow came to understand their situation pretty quickly—they had no idea where they were.

There was the drop that they’d fallen over not too far away, and in the burgeoning light of day, it looked innocuous and offensively innocent. Yarrow had never had to feel resentful towards a hill before, but suddenly a pointed bitterness towards the ridge filled them. Below it was the place where they had landed, a shallow brook of water that chuckled along over a rocky streambed and seeped into the surrounding area to create a bed of mud and densely packed alders. Beyond that was a repetitive view of trees and brambles without even so much as a bit of trail marker tape to indicate whether they were close to a known trail.

Typical of the unpopular and largely avoided foothills surrounding Pinefort, Yarrow knew. Still, that didn’t keep them from feeling a brilliant surge of frustration born on wings of an underlying distress.

Although venturing to the top of the ridge that they had fallen from would have surely given them the advantage of the high ground, Yarrow couldn’t bring themself to haul their aching body up its steep slope. They told themself it wouldn’t have really mattered in the end. They’d probably still just see trees. At least if they stuck to the little brook, then they might encounter a deer trail of some kind.

What good that would do, they weren’t sure, but it had to be better than nothing.

Ideally, they’d be able to orient themselves based on the fact that they’d almost returned to Pinefort before the dead squirrel incident. But even then, they’d only been following Colton with no actual sense for where they were in relation to anywhere else. Their blind run through the woods after that had stolen whatever chances they may have had.

Colton continued to lie bound and unconscious in the mud, and Yarrow couldn’t keep from being aware of his still form even as they meandered further away along the wet ground. After all, both times they’d left his sight since meeting him, he’d switched over into murder mode. The last thing they wanted was for him to sneak up on them with another blunt force weapon.

Eventually, however, he stopped being in their line of sight.

It wasn’t easy going. Yarrow was far more used to the spacious fields of their family property, and the forest beyond that had not been so dense and gnarled. By comparison, the ground they trekked over felt actively hostile, with its surges of rocky climbs tricking them with mossy crevasses that threatened to snare their feet. The area directly around the small stream was okay only for a little while, but the alder bushes and other brambles quickly grew too dense and they had to loop away from the bank into parts of the forest that became a craggy sea of tricky walking.

At one point the wet moss turned into a slide that sent their heart hammering in their throat as they slipped and slid back down along a ridge in startling repeat of their fall from the night before, and they only managed to catch themself with the tearing of their palms along the unkind branch of a conifer.

They hung there, legs akimbo like a fawn learning to walk, eyes wide and hands in a white knuckled grip on their wooden lifeline, and seriously debated just turning back and finding another path.

Overhead, a crow cawed, startling them enough to jerk their head toward the sound with an audible crick from their neck. However, no mess of decayed flesh and ragged feathers torpedoed itself at them even after several moments of tense silence.

Yarrow sighed with gusto and slowly began to straighten, careful not to fall back into another slide, ears straining for any further evidence of wildlife, particularly the undead and hostile sort.

At first, their heart sank when they picked up the sound of a dull rattle. With a creaking dread, they turned to stare, already picturing a horrific, boney swarm of broken bodies clawing its way towards them from between the trees. A graveyard made manifest to tear and gnaw at them.

But there was nothing.

Somehow, Yarrow found this to be worse. Worse in the way that it was worse to lose sight of a spider in the room than to see it scuttling along the ceiling.

They listened again closely, trying to pinpoint the origin of the sound, their eyes stinging from their refusal to blink.

What ended up catching their eye was a familiar style of ornament.

The wind chime didn’t look to be made of bone at first glance, but an aged, dark stained wood. However, when Yarrow scrambled precariously over to where it hung from an angled old tree and stretched to scrutinize it, they saw that the maker had clearly harvested the tubing from a small animal. The string was wiry braided hair, not unlike horsetail, and the clapper and ring piece were both jagged pieces of chipped shale. Most distinctly was the burned etching carved deeply and darkly into every surface of the handicraft.

Yarrow had never been so comforted to discover one of their grandma’s totems in their life, and they clutched it like a lifeline.

Thoughts already sparking with new theories, they scanned the undergrowth once more, their eyes wide and seeking.

—

When Colton finally woke up, he did so with such a sudden jerk that it made Yarrow jump in surprise, despite the distance between them.

He didn’t seem to notice them at first, groaning with confused pain as he tried to twist around and get himself upright, still not awake enough to understand why his hands and feet weren’t working properly. He jerked and flopped about through the mud like a fish on land for several moments until the predicament he was in finally seemed to dawn on him. When it did, his breathing grew harsher and more panicked, his flailing becoming even wilder.

Yarrow winced, knowing that the dirty, injured young man was probably in no position to be thrashing about so much and that once the blind fear wore off, the pain from his injuries would become more obvious and be that much worse for the struggle.

“Hey, uh,” they started, trying to draw the desk clerk’s attention to them so they could explain. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem entirely aware of his surroundings, and it took Yarrow several more repetitions at increasing volume before he finally managed to get Colton to stop and pay attention.

His chest heaved with exertion, and face pale from the hours spent wet, cold, and victim of a night comparable to a horror film. “What? You?” He finally gasped at them. “What happened?”

“Well. What do you remember? Because there’s a lot to cover. Murder most foul, zombies, a high stakes chase scene, a dramatic fall off a cliff, more murder most foul.” Yarrow hopped off the rock they’d perched on and circled warily closer to Colton. “More importantly though, I’ve got clues! And also I think maybe I’ve got a temporary solution to your… problem. With the trying to turn my skull in a broken bone bowl of brain slurry. Maybe. How are you feeling, by the way? Like yourself? Or like the brainwashed minion of our murderous whatever?”

“I, uh, sorry?”

Yarrow struggled not to click their tongue the way their mother did when she found one of her samples had deteriorated. Unlike Yarrow, who’d had time for a morning hike and a subsequent scavenger hunt, Colton had only just woken up. He also was probably at least a little concussed and, unlike Yarrow, hadn’t managed to shake off the brain fog yet. They had to be patient.

“Did I try to kill you again?” Colton finally managed after a round of confused babbling and sentences broken by his own scramble to get his thoughts in order.

Yarrow nodded fervently. “You sure did. It really, really, and I mean really sucked. I don’t think it was, like, your fault technically, but still. Super not fun.”

To their horror, in the clear light of day, they saw the exact moment Colton’s expression cracked, and he started to cry. “Oh god, oh I am so sorry. This is awful. I can remember your face. I can remember the blood. I can remember… I can remember how it sounded. I just kept hitting you. Over and over and over again. Or. I dreamt I did? You’re…”

Yarrow blinked and cleared their throat uncomfortably. “Yes, well. Here we are. It wasn’t as bad as all that. So chin up.”

Colton was staring, face frozen in shock. “Oh god. You’re a ghost, aren’t you?”

“What?!” Yarrow gasped, hands smacking against the solidness of their own chest in instinctual need to check. “I am not!”

“You have to be,” Colton protested with a voice that sounded near tortured. “There’s no other explanation. Never mind the fact that you’re up and moving around, you look totally fine. That’s impossible. You’ve died and now you’re haunting me, your killer.”

“Wanna tell me who tied you up then,” Yarrow scoffed, ambling ever closer with their growing certainty that they had the guilty, fragile, deeply confused desk clerk back as opposed to the one that wanted them dead.

That seemed to stump Colton enough for him to fall silent, although he did go back to weakly tugging at his sleeves in an effort to get his hands free. It didn’t really work.

“Just listen for a second, ok?” Yarrow continued, crouching down next to Colton. “And stop struggling. Your hand is gong to be so busted.”

“Alright, okay. I’m… I’m listening.” The ragged young man grimaced and held still, gingerly letting his hands rest on his chest as if he’d just become aware of the state he was in. His eyes didn’t leave Yarrow though, as if staring for long enough would somehow reveal a faint transparency or some other indication that he was right and Yarrow really was just a grim spectre.

“First things first, there’s this,” Yarrow began. They reached out and lifted a string with bits of bone and shale attached to it away from where it looped like a macabre necklace around Colton’s throat. “This should, if I am right, keep you from trying to kill me. At least for a little while.”

“What? What is it?”

Yarrow tugged the repurposed totem so that the carvings were more visible to Colton. “It’s Gramma’s. I found a bunch of them hanging around the area. I can’t really say I’m an expert, but these should be totems of binding. They’re kinda defunct, but I’m thinking it should help a little bit, so long as you’ve got it on you.”

It wasn’t really a surprise when Colton gazed with acute incomprehension at the object. “Like… it’s magic?”

“You literally just accused me of being a ghost. I don’t know why you keep getting hung up on this stuff. What’s a little witchcraft to a forest of zombie animals trying to kill us?”

“Right,” Colton agreed, bafflement thick in his voice. “Just, I’m getting whiplash from all the weird shit you keep saying. Every five words you say to me sound like nonsense, but I can’t even argue, so forgive me if it takes a second for me to adjust my world view a bit.”

Yarrow sighed, but nodded. They gave it a moment, and then continued on, hoping Colton was done with his whole crisis. “Right, anyway, so there were a bunch of these hanging around. That’s the part about the clues I mentioned before. I think my grandma had trapped something here in these woods, but somehow the wards got messed up. Look, see how the engraving is all singed? That’s how I know it broke. You mentioned you’d been doing some work out here, right? Have you ever seen any of these before?”

“Yeah, I have, but I’ve never seen something like this. It’s… really weird. Is that hair? It’s not human, is it?”

“Not so far as I can tell. Might be horse. Maybe.”

“Weird.”

“Not really. And you’re sure that you have never seen anything like this? Not even that time you fell asleep out here or whatever?”

“I didn’t know, but I wasn’t really looking?”

Yarrow frowned and turned it over in their hands a couple more times. “Huh. Well. Do you maybe recognize where we are? I guess it could have just been a different part of the forest.”

Colton craned his neck up, eyes darting around the area for a moment, before he let it flop back onto the ground with a wet smack. “Not sure. We’re near a stream, right? Could be the one that runs out before you get to Pinefort from the east. You know, there’s that bridge about fifteen minutes before the turnoff? I guess that could put us close to the spring? It does run into the brook. But also we could be anywhere alongside it. It goes right up into the mountains.”

That wasn’t particularly helpful, and Yarrow was left with no further answers. “Still,” they grumbled after staring speculatively into the trees, “we can’t have run too far. I’d wager we’re close. And either way, what’s important is that Gramma should know what’s going on. I say we make her place the priority. She’ll get you sorted out, and then she can fix whatever is making the forest so hostile.”

“She can help me?”

“Sure. I’m not sure what she was dealing with here, but it seems like she had it well in hand. I might have, you know, gotten in over my head a little or whatever.” Yarrow licked their lips and shrugged. “But Grandma has been around since forever. She’s dealt with all kinds of weird stuff before.”

“She’s not gonna, like, hex me or anything? For trying to kill you?”

“Right, but it wasn’t you. You said that yourself. And I’ve seen enough at this point that I’m pretty inclined to agree, even if it’s not ghosts possessing you and using you as their puppet. I mean, it still could be. Just that now I’m concerned it’s an entire army of them running around possessing anybody they can get their hands on. Here’s hoping it’s not that, and just some old necromancer’s version of a landmine, or a forest spirit’s curse or something.”

“God, I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone or something.”

“You’ll get to used to it,” Yarrow scoffed. “Anyway, if you’re done, we should get going. Like I said; that totem is pretty worn out, so I’d rather not dally, ya know?”

“Dally?” Colton scrunched his brows together, his expression somehow managing to look confused, irritated, and a little sheepish despite himself. Weakly, he lifted his tied hands off of his chest, gesturing with his knotted sleeves pointedly. “Ugh, do you mind undoing this, then?”

“Ah. Right.”

—

Before they did anything, they had to figure out where they were. With Colton awake and struggling alongside of Yarrow through the forest, they weren’t moving very fast, but at least they had a better sense of what direction to head in. Colton suggested the same thing that Yarrow had done earlier, that they follow the brook. As long as they went downstream, they’d end up either at the place where the spring merged with the brook, or they’d get to the road. Either way, from there Colton could orientate them towards the motel, and from there they could go to Yarrow’s grandmother’s.

It was almost as if they were right back where they had been the night before until they were attacked.

The daylight helped however, and although they both remained on guard, they didn’t encounter any more horrible abominations. By the time they hit the highway, Yarrow was feeling quite at ease. Colton, not so much, despite their efforts to convince him that obviously the daylight was keeping the horrors at bay.

He rather rudely pointed out that Yarrow seemed to have a lot of theories, but was clearly just guessing, and that he wasn’t going to feel better until after he got back from meeting their grandmother, quit his job, fully moved away from the entire area and went back to living a normal life.

“You’re going to quit?” Yarrow peered at Colton, letting the desk clerk limp on the more even side of the road, while they ambled along where the shoulder of the asphalt gave way to gravel and rolled into a steep, overgrown ditch. “Gramma will sort this all out though, and you should be fine to keep making money or whatever without any issues?”

“Yeah, except I’m going to need so much therapy after this—except how the hell am I supposed to explain that I think I got brainwashed by some sort of evil magic that made me attempt to kill a person. Twice. Only they somehow didn’t die and recruited me to go meet their witch grandmother living in the woods.” Colton’s voice gained an edge to it, rough like granite and acrimonious. “I can’t. No way. Never mind that I’m not gonna have money for that. So instead I’m going to do what any normal dude living on minimum wage would do—I’m going to get the hell away from here and repress any memory I have of this entire situation so I can move the hell on with my life.”

“Wait, are you gonna forget about me too?”

“Especially—look, don’t take it personally, but this has been probably the worst night of my life. And that’s saying something. I still don’t even know what you are. You’re definitely not normal, or else you would have died the first time I attacked you. Yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding that topic. Sturdy? There’s sturdy and then there’s apparently immortal.”

Yarrow coughed, pretending to clear their throat. “Not immortal. That’s a whole other can of worms. If I was immortal, do you really think I’d be so freaked out by whatever is going on here?”

Colton dragged to a halt and glowered, waiting until Yarrow reluctantly stopped and turned to face him. “So what is your deal? You know all this impossible stuff, your grandmother’s a witch or something, and you don’t die. We’re still quite a way from the motel, so you might as well explain it.”

Yarrow shrugged. “I could, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Blanching and swaying where he stood, Colton looked one step away from turning and fleeing int he opposite direction.

Yarrow raised their hands, palms out like they were approaching a feral kitten. “Sorry, bad joke. Didn’t mean it. I mean, probably you’re not supposed to know all this, but it’s not your fault. And you’re right, there isn’t really anyone you could talk to right now. I guess if you made enough noise, we’d have to do something about you, but there’ are plenty of methods to make this all go away.”

“You wanna tell me what you mean by that too? Because that isn’t making me feel any better.”

“I mean, if you’re down for forgetting any of this ever happened, it’d be easy enough to wipe your memory of one night. Temporary amnesia after a nasty fall isn’t super uncommon. It isn’t something we like to do for unwilling parties, since they usually end up subconsciously seeking out the missing memories and coming to all kinds of weird conclusions. But if you consent to it fully, a memory wipe is not a bad solution.”

Never mind that yarrow thought it was a pretty lame response.

Colton cupped both his hands over his face and for a moment it seemed like maybe he’d started crying again, but no, instead what came from between his fingers was more hysterical, disbelieving laughter as he tilted his head back and rocked on his heels.

Yarrow waited it out, smiling awkwardly into the ditch, not entirely sure what to do with their face. “I know, right?” They chuckled stiffly. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“What the hell?” Colton gasped between dying cackles, eventually letting his hands fall away from his face to reveal a smile with too much tooth but that didn’t reach his eyes at all. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s just go with that.”

They walked in silence for a few more metres when he spoke again. “So, taking my memories? That’s witchcraft stuff your grandma can do too? What about you? Is that… like, a spell you can just, like, make happen?”

“Hm,” Yarrow contemplated briefly, unsure of where to start. “So, it kinda depends on who you go to. For example; if it’s grandma, it’s more that she would put a barrier around the memories so you can’t access them. However, if it was my mom, she’d probably just drug you and induce amnesia that way. Less precise, but also tends to hold up in this day and age better. So ‘taking’ isn’t really the right word to use, though there are folks out there who’ll do that too. Ah, but don’t ask me to do it.”

“You don’t know how?”

“It’d be like asking you to perform a lobotomy. Which I assume you can’t do. Maybe that was presumptive. Who am I to say what your surgical skills are?”

Colton sighed, making no effort to hide the pained expression on his face. “Right. So what I’m getting from this is that there is a whole other, secret world where impossible magical stuff is real?”

“I can promise you, it isn’t whatever you’re thinking,” Yarrow sniggered. They cleared their throat and continued. “And secret is a strong word. Some folks keep to themselves, some don’t. Kinda like social media, I guess. You can participate, but how much is up to you. How far you go depends on the individual. And sometimes what you get from it is, you know. Really bad. A computer virus. Some weird stalker who doxes you to the world. You might end up on a forum with a group of people you thought were into crotchet but it turns out they were fate weavers, and then wham, you’ve insulted their doily pattern and they’re trying to incinerate your lifeline.”

The face that the bewildered murderer turned maybe accomplice was making at Yarrow was hard to read but might have embodied his dwindling certainty in reality.

Yarrow nodded seriously. “Really. You’ve gotta be careful these days. Although I guess if you’re lucky, you might find a nice little community to share your hobbies with, or somehow make a ton of money off your niche video essays. It all depends on you.”

“This has to be the weirdest metaphor I’ve ever heard.”

“Seriously? I didn’t think it was that bad. And anyway, what does this all matter to you? You dipped your toe in, and it didn’t go great, so now we’re wiping your search history and uninstalling the program or whatever.”

“But what if something like this happens again?”

Up ahead, the squat shape of Pinefort came into view at last, looking even more ramshackle in the light of day.

Leftover water from the previous night’s deluge sputtered out of the gutters still, creating streams of water running off into the forest. Grimy puddles dotted the parking lot, and one dated minivan and a small silver car decorated with a number of rude bumper stickers lingered, but it was otherwise barren.

Yarrow grinned and hopped forward. “Dunno! Guess you’ll have to cross that bridge when you get to it, huh?”

—

“I’m pretty sure your coworker thinks I took you out to the woods and killed you,” Yarrow greeted Colton as they pushed open the door to their motel room.

Colton glanced up from his spot on the end of the bed where he was gingerly towel drying his hair with one hand. The other lay limply in his lap, still waiting for any sort of medical attention. He’d taken a shower while Yarrow had been downstairs, nervously dodging the prying glower of a pre-retiree motel worker, and he looked both better and worse for it. While on one hand he no longer looked like a swamp monster, the myriad of bruises and scrapes littering his face and arms were now plain to see without the layer of mud hiding them.

“Wait, what?” He questioned.

“Yeah, no, if the cops don’t show up it will only be because she’s winning big on her casino game.” Yarrow tossed the small, overstuffed first aid kit they’d requisitioned onto the bed next to their companion, and began searching through their bag for fresh clothes.

Colton rolled his eyes. “Great. Well, I’m glad I know where I rank on her list of priorities then. Right below her gambling addiction.” He dropped the towel to the side and tugged his sweater on over his t-shirt, grimacing at its filthy state. “At least that works out well for us.”

“I know, right? Thought the jig was up the way she was staring at me.” Yarrow shivered. “I don’t want to be rude about your coworker, but I think I’d take the zombies over her.”

Colton scoffed. “You would. Marg isn’t… bad. She’s just, you know.” He shrugged as if that explained anything.

“You say that, but you were the one who said it’d be better for me to go in there and lie about going on an early morning walk and having a fall rather than you explaining why you skipped off work and look like the survivor of a zombie apocalypse.” Yarrow quipped while they headed towards the bathroom, intent on having their own shower.

“I am the survivor of a zombie apocalypse,” they heard Colton grouch under his breath just before the door clicked shut.

They’d barely managed to get the last of the dried up blood out of their hair when they heard a nervous rap at the bathroom door.

“Don’t wanna take too long,” Colton grumbled from the other side. “You’re the one who said you didn’t know how long this… totem thing would last.”

Yarrow huffed and glared at the cracked linoleum wall, but heeded the warning anyway. Partly because what Colton had said was true, but also because check out was surely fast approaching, and the last thing either of them needed was someone rocking up to clean the room and asking questions about why Colton was there and not downstairs in the office making excuses for vanishing from work the night before.

Even if maybe that would have been the courteous thing to do.

But Colton insisted that he was never working another night at Pinefort, and it didn’t matter to him if he got fired and never received his last pay cheque. Something about how near-death experiences tended to make references on his resume seem like a low priority.

When Yarrow stepped out of the bathroom, Colton was already hovering by the door, with the impatient expression of a large dog that really needed to go out for its morning walk. His arm was in a sling, and there were several bandages on his faces and neck.

“Did you really have to dry your hair?” Colton snarked, scowling as Yarrow took their time buttoning up their sweater and shoving their clothes back into their bag.

“Hey, I am hurrying, y’know? It took five minutes. And anyway, I, for one, would rather not catch a cold or draw too much attention to ourselves. Acting like we’ve got something to hide, isn’t it. You should know this, Mister ‘I check phones of murder victims because that’s what the movies said’. By the way, don’t forget to put your hood up. I get the feeling Marg is going to be watching to make sure I’m not leaving here with a body bag. Can’t have her picking a fight with you for ditching her.”

He glared at Yarrow, but Colton flicked his hood up and tugged on it so it covered as much of his face as it could all the same. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I’m so ready for this to all be over.”

“Might wanna hold your horses. It’s still a long walk to Gramma’s. This ain’t over yet.”

“Right. Here’s to hoping we make it before we get swarmed by a pack of murder racoons or whatever else wants us dead.”

Yarrow beamed back at Colton confidently. “We’ve got nothing to worry about. I told you that we were clearly safe while the sun is up. We didn’t get attacked once on the way here, did we?”

“Yeah. Sorry if I’m not feeling all that optimistic,” Colton snipped, though some of the tension in his shoulders did visibly ease. He inhaled deeply and then shoved the door open. “Okay. Let’s go then.”

Yarrow nodded, glancing back to offer the comfortable and miserably unused bed they’d paid for a longing glance before dragging themselves out after Colton for another long walk through the forest.

(Next Chapter)

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