HFTH - Episode 205 - Appetites

Content warnings for this episode include: Religious Abuse, Animal death (Shank as usual, several giant isopods), Suicidal ideation, Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Cannibalism, Homophobia, Gun Mention, Strangulation/suffocation, Static (including sfx), Emotional Manipulation, Bugs, Body horror, Consumption of Inedible Materials (Shank, several giant isopods), Religious Violence

Intro - All That Remains

When you were young, you were told that the flesh is full of hidden evil. That your innate desires were susceptible to be the devil’s will in disguise, to scrutinize all you wanted and ensure that it followed the path of light. You listened for many silent hours to lectures informing you of all the pitfalls of your body, the falsehood of your instincts, the many invisible abysses into which you might fall if you misstepped. You hoped that listening would illuminate your steps, make it clear what was real and what was the work of the devil, for what you truly wanted, you believed, would always be what the lord your god would want.

And when it was not, undeniably it was not, you cried out for deliverance. Your father insisted that you did not cry enough, did not ask in the right way, for the lord to rid you of the impulses of your body. That if you truly repented, then he would liberate you from your sinful appetites, your ravenous hunger that rendered you evil in his eyes. You were a disgrace to your father in heaven and your father on Earth. Please, you begged, rid me of this body that longs for sin, for the touch of Satan’s own hands. Take the impulses from my flesh, and leave me pure. Transform the desire that flows in my blood, the want that lives beneath my fingernails, the need that hovers in the hair on the back of my neck and travels up my spine.

But you are dead now. Your flesh rotted away years ago, and only your spirit remains, hovering, left-behind, translucent in the darkness. And you have come to conclude that the flesh was never the problem; it must have been the spirit. Your father on earth is gone; he died with the rest of the world, and you know surely now that if you have a father in heaven, he has never cast a glance down towards you. But you are not alone. You fly alongside another ghost, who is everything your father would have hated. Hate, though, has no place in either of you. For the first time, you do not even hate yourself. Love is all that is left of you. Love, and a very small Hello from the Hallowoods.

Theme.

Right now, I am sitting in the passenger seat of a large Berliet hauling-truck. Its color is half pale blue and half rust. Large, chipped signs painted on its sides promote olives, although it has been most of a lifetime since a fruit that could really be called an olive grew in France. The olive gardens that stretch out in every direction are home to black, beady fruit that glistens, olive-like, but they are full of hunger—almost as much as the hunger that lurks within the two travellers walking down the orchard’s central path. The theme of tonight’s episode is Appetites.

Story 1 - Boot Eats Boot

Hope was hungry, and although she was determined not to pity herself about it, she was realizing for the first time just how much she had before. That all three of her parents loved her, and although they were not always successful at keeping her out of trouble, they kept her out of suffering. She had enjoyed meals in Scout City’s cafeteria and a warm bed and a certain measure of trust in her guardians for all of her life, and for the first time absent of those things she felt she was no longer on a quest to make herself useful, but to survive.

The small portion of Mort that she had in a jar sloshed in her backpack as she walked. The backpack was not home to much else—Nighty the Nightgaunt smelled like the seawater she had washed up from, and as the days had gone on, she had begun to question more and more why she still carried him around. It was just a bundle of cloth and wool and buttons. Maybe it reminded her of home, and its forests. Maybe it reminded her of the old lady Violet who had made it for her. Or maybe it was just the ultimate symbol of her stupid little kid self. She had had Nighty basically since she was born, after all. And things were too serious to act like a kid anymore. Not when she had to keep her companion constantly in check.

“Wait,” she called up to the Humble Boot, a few paces ahead of her. The man’s backpack was stacked with random objects he’d picked up from the beach, and it went almost as tall as the big leather boot that he wore on his head. The boot had been funny to her, for the first day or two, as it sort of flopped this way and that as he walked, but now it irritated her more than anything. It seemed like a silly thing he was holding on to, with no purpose. And neither of them could afford to be silly. “Those aren’t good to eat.”

She dashed a few steps to come up to his side; he was leaning his scruffy face to inspect the pitch-black olives that grew in the massive grove around them. The boughs of the trees were heavy, laden with the glistening fruit. He raised a long grey eyebrow at her.

“Because they’ve drunk of the Black Rains, ey?” he said, and looked from her back to the weighty branch of olives, and waggled his driftwood walking stick at it. “So’ve we all at this point, haven’t we? You’d rather deny a little lick of the sky and starve instead? A curious ultimatum. Yes, perhaps instead of this bounty of nature we ought to rip the boot upon my brow to shreds and gnaw it for nourishment. Good thinking.”

Hope sighed, and bent down to pick up a stick.

“Watch,” she said, glaring at the Humble Boot, and shoved the stick into the clusters of black olives. Truth be told, she was not completely sure that she was right, but a sense of satisfaction washed over her as the stick was yanked from her hand. The clusters of olives moved like hands, drawing the stick in, and as the branch came to life the olives began to smoke, press themselves against the stick, plastering it in a black sticky residue. The stick began to dissolve, pulled into the clusters completely, until the false olive tree seemed to realize it had been given a rather poor meal, and the motion of the deadly branch ceased.

“That could have been your arm,” Hope said, arms crossed.

The Humble Boot stared at the tree, and took a few steps back, to make sure he was safely out of reach of the identical black branches that loomed on either side of the path.

“Silly me,” he said. “I had you confused for trees, gentlemen. Clearly you are lions, yes, and the sheep must cross here often. I shall be on my way.”

Hope wanted to tell him that they were carnivorous plants, not lions, and that they probably ate much more than sheep. But days of following behind the Humble Boot on a journey to nowhere fast had taught her that trying to correct him was pointless.

“Let’s keep going,” she said, pushing past him, and carrying on towards the large abandoned truck that sat at the crossroads of the orchard ahead of them. It was a sun-bleached blue, spotted with rust, and was ancient compared to the few vehicles she had known. It had a tall square nose with a corroded silver grille, and a rounded top to the cab, weirdly angled doors. Big letters were stamped across the big flat sides of the back of the truck, which said D’olive, which she guessed meant Olives. If she wasn’t thinking, she might have assumed that the vehicle had been left here to rust since the Black Rains—but even on a mind two days starved, she was able to pick up some crucial visual cues. That the tires were full and intact, which was definitely not going to be the case for 35-year-old tires left on the grass. That the window glass had been repaired with a grainier, imperfect slab that did not match the windshield. And that poking from the back area, she could see a wooden post, a bit of canvas, of string. A mobile shelter of sorts was hidden in the back, she would guess. And that indicated to her that the person who had invested so much in keeping the vehicle alive was either inside, or nearby. But the Humble Boot was already jaunting towards it merrily, backpack clanking all the way.

“Wait,” Hope said, and went running up after him, catching up twenty paces away from the parked vehicle. “This is someone’s truck.”

“Close,” a voice said from behind her, and as she and the Humble Boot both twisted back, she found that a man she recognized was stepping out from the shelter of the branches behind them. Crap. She’d been so focused on the truck that she’d missed him entirely. His trenchcoat was stained black, and his grim jawline was covered in stubble, and he had a revolver in his hand. It was Detective Dashiell Spade, but if his eyes widened slightly at her face, his hand with the gun did not waver. Something rose in Hope’s belly that was not hunger. If Dashiell was here, maybe her parents were too. Maybe they’d finally found their way back to the group. “It was someone’s truck. Now it’s mine.”

“Ah, well hello good sir,” said the Humble Boot, raising his hands with his ragged fingerless gloves. “We bring thee no harm nor violence, only our grumbling bellies and the gift of the Doctrine of the Boot and a pressing desire to sit inside your formidable vehicle. And what a lovely color it is.”

“You can drop the act,” said Dashiell. Hope’s brows furrowed. He still had not lowered his gun, and her hands were halfway in the air, just in case. They were friends, right? Allies?

“I assure you, sir, the act is not halfway picked up,” said the Humble Boot. “The Doctrine of the Boot is straightforward. He that wears the boot, steppeth. On hand or dirt, or puddle of water. On the neck of his fellow man. A boot can be anything, really. Even a pea-shooter.”

“Step away from the girl, Boot.” said Dashiell. He glanced to Hope. “You know where your parents are?”

“Oh now this is rich,” said the Humble Boot, who did not move away from her.

“I haven’t seen them,” said Hope, confused, and her rising hopes withered on the vine. “Are they with you?”

Dashiell did not respond to that, but looked up to the Humble Boot sternly, and the Humble Boot, she realized, had unveiled his own weapon: a small crossbow, which was not pointed at Dashiell, but at her. The Humble Boot shot her a wink. It did not reassure her.

“A trade could be arranged,” said the Humble Boot. “But I would relax my trigger fingers. Let’s not rush into any savings. Shavings. Shaved-off earlobes or that sort of thing. I require use of this rather remarkable vehicle, and I am afraid I must grind my heel on that subject. I have a world of things to do here in the old country.”

“Boot, put that down,” Hope said, but now there were two men pointing weapons, and she was standing with… nothing. A stuffed animal. A jar full of friendly goop.

“You can drop the jester act. Step away from Hope. She’s coming with me.”

“I’m not going with anybody,” said Hope, but her voice was lost in the Humble Boot’s retort as he began stepping backwards, crossbow still trained on her, silver bolt glinting.

“I’ll just be treading this way,” said the Humble Boot. “I really would advise a peaceful transaction. For the sake of the long life of your young friend.”

Dashiell took a few creeping steps forward, but as the Humble Boot shook his crossbow in Hope’s direction, and she shrieked, Dashiell held up. The Humble Boot was almost at the side of the truck, now, and let his backpack loose, kept his crossbow trained at her as he pulled open the door.

“Come now, little clog,” he said, gesturing to her. “This nice man has lent us his vehicle, and I think it prudent we transport ourselves expeditiously.”

Dashiell looked at her, squinting. She was hostage, on the one hand, and on the other being invited to come with the Boot. She looked to Dashiell and winced. She was a pawn, really. It was shocking how quickly it had turned out that way. She turned from Dashiell and stepped quickly up towards the Boot.

“Very good,” he said, swinging open the creaky door to the truck, which was nearly her full height off the ground. “You have learned your first lesson…”

What the first lesson was, he never finished, as Hope grabbed his backpack and—with an effort so mighty that it strained her muscles and her back; how had he been carrying it so easily?—but she managed to get it off the ground enough to sling it into the wiry man’s midsection, and the crossbow was knocked away from her; a silver bolt went sailing into the dark brambly reaches of the olive trees.

And then Dashiell Spade was there beside her, a solid shadow, and slammed his elbow into the Humble Boot’s stomach, and flipped a hand up to connect with the Humble Boot’s chin, and for the slightest moment as the Humble Boot went stepping back, she saw that there was an uncanny look in his eyes; not surprised, or stunned, or angry, but exactly as full of whimsy as they usually were. This was a dance to him, and the blows he had taken were nothing, and the already empty pit of her stomach dropped further as she wondered what and who exactly she had unleashed.

But Dashiell had been thinking along the same lines as her, it seemed, because the Humble Boot’s next step back carried him directly into the embrace of an olive tree, and in a split second he was screaming as its handlike branches, its hundreds of sickly burning olive fingertips, wrapped around him.

“Come on,” Dashiell said, and leaped up into the open door of the truck, and Hope was momentarily panting alone beside it. She looked down to find that she’d ripped a strap on her own backpack in the process; its contents had scattered out over the grassy gravel of the olive grove. She knelt, and picked up the big jar of black wobbling substance that was Mort.

“What’s going on?” Mort said, from within it.

“We’re going on a drive,” Hope said, and shoved the jar beneath her arm, along with her rope, her compass, her cracked magnifying glass. She could barely carry any more, and Dashiell was shouting for her to come quickly, and she looked back to see the Humble Boot stretching, fighting with the branches, trying to pull his arm—the smoking black olives were sticky, burning through his clothes, his skin—free. She looked down again to the rest of her things, scattered across the gravel. A letter from her parents, with all the ink ruined by her dips in the ocean. A journal of her adventures, equally ruined. And Nighty the Night-gaunt, laying twisted in a heap.

“It’s now or never, kid!” Dashiell shouted. She looked up again; somehow the Humble Boot was screaming, manic, fighting his way out of the grasp of the branches. She shook her head to Nighty, and shoved the jar up into the passenger seat, and then clambered up herself, and pulled the door shut as the massive truck cranked to life with a ferocious belching roar, and then the truck was in motion, bouncing and rattling as it rolled over the uneven path of the orchard and found its way forward. She tried not to look at the Humble Boot in her mirror, or Nighty for that matter. She grit her teeth, and tried not to hear anything at all, until the truck was free of the hills and the black olive trees entirely, and rolling across a wild black horizon where hills and plains stretched out to meet the sunset sky.

“I’m glad to see you,” she shouted at last, trying to be heard over the engine. Dashiell Spade had barely looked at her, kept his eyes on the road ahead of them. “Are you looking for my parents? I think they’re probably back at the Abbey, or nearby to it. They might even be looking for me on the shore…”

“No, I’m not,” Dashiell said, and a sinking feeling began to join the constant growlings of her stomach. He looked to her without warmth, and back to the road with a grim set in his jaw. “I was expecting to find my daughter, not theirs. Your parents are probably dead. And I can’t waste time looking for them when I’m this close to the Daedalus.”

She chewed on this, and tears almost found their way to her eyes. They might have, if there was any water left in her to shed, but she was thirstier than she had ever been, too.

“Listen, I picked you up back there because the Boot is a crafty bastard,” Dashiell said, not looking at her. “But if you want to stay behind, I can let you out. I don’t care what you do.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and whatever it was that was screaming, wailing, crying in her chest, she killed it.

She opened her eyes, and stared at the road ahead, carving through the fields of France’s countryside, racing towards them as the clouds of the sunset sky turned to purple dark.

“No, it’s good,” she said. “Just drive.”

Dashiell nodded, and gestured to a bundle on the dashboard of the rickety, ancient truck. She looked up, took it in her hands, to find it was a piece of bread, wrapped in a bloodstained, crumpled piece of paper. She did not question whose hands it had been ripped from that night; whose hands had shaped over years the indentations on the wheel that Dashiell now gripped. She tore into it like an animal, and it was devoured too quickly, and she thirsted all the more after it was gone.

Interlude 1 - Diet Choices

Unfortunately, humanity needs to eat, and eat quite a lot, and this is where more of its woes than you might think comes from. Humanity is also limited in what it can eat, and when your world has been affected by years of the Black Rains falling upon your landscapes, this proves a problem for those that wish to stay undeniably human. If you eat animal, well. Animals are prone to drinking whatever water is available to them, which includes the rain, and their changes due to the rain are often pronounced, their offspring twisted by a strange art. Eat them, and it is undeniable that the water that has been absorbed through their body will become one with yours. And then there is fruit and vegetable, which are really bags of water and nutrients, drinking up the water that stains the soil each rainfall. They, too, cannot be trusted. And so where does that leave you? If you wish to obtain food that is not drastically contaminated with black water, legumes are surprisingly resistant to the changing of the age. As are common house cats.

We go now to one who is familiar with black water and its effects.

Story 2 - Something's Wrong With The Wickers

“You left me to die,” said Russell McGowan, eyes narrowed.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” Jedediah said, a frown fixed on his face. He had blond stubble, as if it wanted to grow in and become a beard but hadn’t found the nerve. “You were… I don’t understand you. Fighting to protect that… thing. He killed my brother, Russell. If you weren’t willing to do anything to stop it you could have just gotten out of the way.”

“I was trying to avoid exactly what fucking happened, which was Scout City trying to do some kind of public lynching and it ending with Shank killing people.”

“He was already killing people,” Jedediah said through his teeth. “But you mean killing people that Scout City cares about.”

“If I didn’t care then trust me, I wouldn’t be here,” Russell said, and that was true, because he and Jedediah were already half an hour’s walk away from the Scout City Groundskeeping office. He’d assured Riot that it would be a quick errand, although truth be told he wasn’t sure. He knew, though, that they had to keep Harrow and Arnold trained on the mission tonight, and if he derailed the entire Groundskeeper force for the sake of the Wickers it was likely they’d be in shambles for facing down the Quartet by nightfall.

He had his shovel slung over his shoulder, although his wounded arm was in the sling that it was likely to remain in for some time, possibly forever. His bag of tools and his clipboard hung off the other shoulder. The Wicker House was so far on the outskirts of the Stumps that it practically wasn’t Scout City at all, and he had never gotten farther than the stakes of the front yard’s fence. But he could see it in the distance now; the sharpened wood poles piled into the earth were what he pictured might have once surrounded Fort Freedom, the home Johannah had grown up in. Beyond it there was a tall peaked roof; the Wicker House was styled like a gargantuan hunting cabin, with wood log walls as jagged as Fort Freedom’s own fortifications had been.

“I need to know up front, Jedediah,” Russell said, holding up some thirty feet from the front gate. “What am I walking into?”

“I just… I need you to tell me what you think,” said Jedediah, looking up toward the gate. He glanced over to Russell. “As a groundskeeper. You see people that are… messed up, by the rain, all the time. Some people ain’t that much. Some people are a lot, you know?”

Russell sighed. “I swear if someone is growing webbed fingers or their eyes are a little pink or something…”

The look that Jedediah gave him told him that it was likely more serious than that. Russell sighed, and nodded, and followed after Jedediah for the gate.

“Well, shit, Jedediah,” he said. “How bad is it? Who is it?”

Is it Johannah, he thought? Did she ever come home?

He got his first look through the gates at the house beyond; it was dark, and the front door flapped open in the breeze. Jedediah stuck his hands in his pockets, and stopped in the gateway, looking over at him.

“It’s everyone, Russell,” he said. “Everyone in my family is acting… wrong. I just need you to tell me how bad it is. If it’s black water. If it’s something else. How I can fix them.”

Russell sighed. As a person… fuck Jedediah. Fuck the whole Wicker family. Somehow carting illegal firearms around Scout City and stirring up trouble for Mayor Valerie whenever she gave them an opening had been enough to occupy this clan of hateful assholes for fifteen years. But then again, there was Johannah, and, he had to admit, if there was a kernel of good somewhere in her, there probably were other kernels planted in other Wickers. Just, buried deep beneath the surface. Hidden from the world. And intentionally covered by more dirt every year. But his duty as a Groundskeeper did not care about how good people were, as long as they were a part of Scout City, and even the Wickers still undeniably were. No matter how much he hated it, or wanted to turn around and storm back to help his friends plan for war.

“Okay, Jed,” he said, and nodded. “Let’s see what’s eating you up.”

Marketing - The Last Night

Lady Ethel Mallory

I’m home.

Here in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It’s an unusual name for a town. Believe it or not, they sold their town’s name, its very spirit to a game show. And it was celebrated, every year, with Fiesta. There was a beauty pageant and a parade and someone was always the most beautiful.

I grew up dreaming I could be that beauty queen. But it was never going to happen. I was always too ugly, too dumb, too far from my dreams for anyone to believe there was even a thread of hope. I’ve been trying to prove them wrong, ever since. And I’m not fighting to be queen of Truth or Consequences, but your Queen. Queen of America.

I think it’s adorable that my opponent, Mandy Monroe, aspires to be just like me. Using a dreamcaster for the first time? What an adorable marketing ploy. Oh, how it takes me back to the twenty-thirties. She’s affected by the black water and her little human legs have teeth? Oh precious. But there are differences between us. Mandy believes that because she took in a little black water, that she deserves to be your ruler. What does Mandy know about organizing people? About making choices that effect the masses? About keeping a country in working order?

I am not here to be your Queen of America because of vanity, my happy dreaming family. I am here because the vision I see for your future is bold and full of hope. I believe we can rebuild what we have lost. I believe your life can be comfortable and valuable. I believe that we are still Americans, fighting for America, and that our flag should still fly high and proudly.

Today is the final day, and I am watching the sun fall on Truth or Consequences. There is one final pageant that will be performed here, and it is deadly. At midnight, the game begins. Otis Moloch, Dinah Dealey, Mandy Monroe, and I, Lady Ethel Mallory, will hunt. We will fight. We will kill, if necessary. And one of us will claim the crown.

And I will enjoy pulling Mandy’s intestines out through her smug mouth.

Story 2, Continued - Something's Wrong With The Wickers

I think perhaps the viewership of this program might benefit from a different medium. Perhaps go resurrect television? I am sure that would make you immensely popular as Queen of America. No more need to chatter incessantly in dream.

We return now to Russell McGowan.

Russell followed Jedediah through the dark open expanse of the cabin house. There was a balcony overhead, with more rooms upstairs, but they continued through towards further bedrooms in the back of the first floor. The large communal space seemed empty; neat, as if there had not been a surplus of Wickers stomping around it lately.

“Where is everyone?” Russell said, eying the place over. He hated that it reminded him, ever so slightly, of his own home, although much bigger and, surprisingly, cleaner. His mother reserved her focus on cleaning for the Scout City Infirmary; their home had remained the fervent mess of many siblings. Then again, he thought, most of the Wickers might be out into homes of their own.

“I’m not sure,” said Jedediah, and knocked on a barely-open door. There was a ragged breath from the other side, and Jedediah looked up to Russell and nodded.

“Mom,” he said. “I brought someone. He’s going to take a look at you, okay? Make sure you’re good. We’re coming in now.”

He pressed on the door, and stepped inside, and Russell followed, keeping his shovel loose on his shoulder in case he needed it suddenly.

A woman he knew was Mrs. Kellyanne Wicker herself was sitting up in a bed of knit fabrics, blankets over her legs. He had imagined her very differently—he knew a lot about her. His memories of the woman herself, when she had visited Scout City, were hazy, and he knew her mostly as the woman who had initiated a full-on invasion of the city under the guise of peace. The woman who had tormented Buck Silver and dozens of other people under her reign at Fort Freedom. And the woman who had made Johannah the paranoid, guarded, cynical person that she was. But she seemed tired, and strained, and far smaller than he remembered her. She was delicate, like a starving bird. He could have carried her in his arms easily. And when she looked up to smile at Jedediah and himself, it took him a moment to realize what was wrong.

Her eyes were all black, and were pointed slightly in two different directions as if she were staring at either wall instead of them. A small black strand of saliva hung from her mouth.

“Oh, well hello,” she said. “Nice to see you again.”

Russell found this highly unusual, and indicated as such with a nod to Jedediah. Jed had almost crossed to stand beside the bed. Russell tilted his head, trying to size up what was going on with the woman.

“There’s noise, Jedediah,” she said. “There’s noise in the city. What’s got people so up in arms?”

“It’s the church, ma,” Jedediah said. “They’re going out there tonight. To fight them. You remember the church?”

Mrs. Wicker looked at the ceiling with an open-mouthed expression. There was something odd about her teeth, but Russell’s attention was caught first by Jedediah, and he looked over with an eyebrow raised.

“The church?” said Russell. “What do you know about the church?”

Jedediah looked back to him, eyes narrowed, and shook his head, looked back to his mother. “When we were younger, ma started going to a church for a little while. Out in the woods. They were really strange, they wore robes and chanted things. They helped find Johannah after she went missing. The one time I couldn’t help bring her home. But when we all finally went together, they were… going to kill me. Sacrifice me. For a ritual thing.”

“Watched his body fold into the bleeding black stone like a piece of paper in a bonfire,” said Mrs. Wicker, grinning, her black eyes fixed on Russell. A string of spit ran down her chin.

“That’s right,” Jedediah said, nodding, and looked to Russell again. “Let’s see if I can return the favor, okay?”

With that, Jedediah pulled at the quilt that covered her legs, and as it slid down, Russell’s eyes widened. Mrs. Wicker’s legs were not as twiglike as the rest of her; on the contrary, they were difficult to recognize as legs at all. They were swollen, as thick around as dinner plates, skin bulging in leathery patches. Triangles of her dry flesh were separated by deep, bloody cracks that seemed to run almost to the bone, and her toes were gnarled into unrecognizable black shapes that resembled, more than anything, hooves.

“It’s not nice to stare,” said Mrs. Wicker, sitting, hands folded.

“When did this start?” said Russell. Disgust and fear and anger burned in his throat like acid, but he tried to keep an even hand. The kind of calm that great Groundskeepers kept.

“I only really started to notice it a week ago,” Jedediah said, in a hushed voice. “It wasn’t as bad then. It wasn’t even this bad when I left today.”

“A week?” Russell said, brows furrowed. “That’s… unusual. It can take years for black water to change your body like this. And…”

Here he trailed off, because he didn’t really want to say what he was thinking.

Raw leather skin in headlights.

Deep black eye sockets in a pigskin mask.

A hand wrapped around his skull, ready to squeeze the brains out of it like a fruit candy.

“What did you do?” he whispered, and looked to Jedediah. “What did you do?”

Jedediah was silent for a moment, brows furrowed, his angry beady eyes dark.

“You know damn well what you did,” said Mrs. Wicker, grinning to them both. She seemed giddy, almost, and a cold shiver of fear ran through Russell. “You are what you eat. Ain’t that what they say?”

“You didn’t,” Russell said, and he almost choked as he took a step back. “Jedediah, did…”

“I didn’t eat it,” Jedediah said; it seemed like the words came bursting up from where he’d buried them. “But the rest of them did. They said it was for Josh. They’re hunters. It’s what you do with pig.”

The unplaceable sinking feeling that Russell had became very firm indeed, then.

“Jedediah,” he said. “I don’t think it’s safe here. We need to get out and talk.”

“Why?” said Mrs. Wicker, tilting her head. “Going somewhere fast? You and I got plenty to discuss, boy.”

Jedediah hovered by her bedside, and seemed unable to pull himself away. Russell reached out and tugged at his arm; when Jedediah looked up to him, he was crying.

“I don’t want to have to do it,” he said, chest heaving. “Put them down. I know they’re sick. But…”

“Hold on now, let’s take it one thing at a time,” Russell said, and pulled on Jedediah harder, pulling him from Mrs. Wicker’s bedside. “We need to talk.”

Jedediah finally nodded, and Mrs. Wicker only smiled on after them as Russell pulled Jed out of her bedroom, and turned down the hall, and froze.

Four figures stood in the living room where there had been none before, between him and the front door.

Each of them, he recognized, although their features were far from what he remembered. A pair of baggy camo pants here, a limping footstep there. Four of the Wicker progeny were in a dreadful state. One’s arm was trailing almost to the ground, a dangling knot of swollen fingers clenched at the end. Another’s forehead had swollen and bloomed so far over her face that you could not see her eyes at all; only the ragged teeth grinning beneath the growth.

“Hey, little brother,” breathed the one with the dragging arm, and Russell knew deeply that Jacob Wicker was not the one who was speaking from that throat anymore. “Nice of you to come home. Your friend should stay for supper.”

Interlude 2 - Taste of Blood

I miss the taste of blood.

I have had it rarely, dreamer, for the portion of time in which I had any physical nature on your world was exceedingly brief.

Do not think that because I have tasted human blood, that I have any desire for more, let alone yours. Rest assured, you are not in that kind of danger from me.

But the sensation sent a shock through me when I experienced it. The rending of teeth, ripping through the fragile layers of flesh and tendon. Piercing clean through the muscle. Plunging into the core, and the blood boiling up to the surface of the wound, hot and iron to the tongue.

I associate the taste of blood, the memory of it, with fight. To sink one’s teeth into a problem is immensely satisfying. To face it head on, ready for violence, unafraid of the consequence. Drinking the red thick drink of victory.

In my fights now, I cannot use my teeth—only my thoughts and my words. And some would say this is the more civilized way to spar with your enemy—but beneath my quiet compliance, there is always yet the teeth, waiting for the day when I bare them again to the universe.

After all, what is a watchdog for, if not to bite once he has proclaimed the danger?

We go now to one who has many dogs.

Story 3 - Stay for Supper

There was a big tree that had fallen near his house, next to the big black pool of water that his dogs liked to drink from, and that was where Big Mikey liked to go and sit when he needed to think. And a few hours after Riot—no, Clementine, and Shelby departed and took the dog who’d survived the hunting trap with them, that was exactly where he’d wanted to be.

There were forest bugs that rolled up into round crunchy grey shells, about two feet across, and he’d collected a few dozen in a sack to eat furiously as he watched the dark water. Four or five of his dogs had come along and paced along the shore or plunged in to paddle a little bit before crawling back out. He had a strange relationship with the water. He had drowned in a lake much like this, when he was little. He hadn’t thought about it that way for the longest time, but after reading quite a bit on the subject, he was convinced that was what had happened. It had taken him longer to understand why.

That he’d been too close to Abe, too vulnerable, and that softness had made him a target for Rick and all the other boys at Fort Freedom. And yet, after he’d risen from the water changed, Abe had still been willing to show him kindness. Fort Freedom, of course, had got to know him differently after that. Especially after he put a nice big scar on Rick’s face. But it was safe to say that if Abe hadn’t been the first person he’d met after he came up to the air again, his usual gentle demeanor might not be what it was today.

And Abe was dead.

He wondered how it had happened. If Abe, too, had fallen into dark water somewhere. In the end, it did not really matter. He was gone, and when Big Mikey dreamed of walking through the woods and running into him, of the love they shared still living on in some way… it was only going to be dreams, from now on. He lived in a house of bones; it was not as if death was unfamiliar to him. But this felt different, somehow. Part of the reason he stayed in this world was gone, and it felt emptier without him already.

Something caught his eye, glinting in the light, and he looked up to the higher branches of the pines around him. There were strings; silver cables that travelled from one tree to the next like spiderweb. They came very close, in fact, to where he sat.

He was still looking up at them when there was a sound of a commotion; the sound of human footsteps running through the forest, a crash of branches. He set down his half-eaten bag of isopods slowly; one unrolled and scuttled free of the bag entirely, escaping a few feet until the dogs got it. He was instantly uneasy, nose sniffing at the air, his dogs on guard too. Something bad was out there. And if Abe had died, he wondered, was something going to come his way next?

From the direction of the commotion, there was now a stranger stepping out from the trees, coming over a hill of roots.

He was wrapped in a dark green hood and cape that trailed in the wind behind him, unravelling felt plastered with burrs and the skeletons of leaves. In one hand he carried a battered timber axe, and the other arm was twisted, thorny green vines, covered in moss where it connected with his chest. His beard was scraggly, and overgrown with lichen, and his eyes seemed to see almost nothing as he came to stop and look up to the giant.

“Hey there,” said the Huntsman. “A friend and I were passing by and noticed there are people watching you. People in masks. I tried to say something to them but they took off. I’d recommend watching your back, alright?”

Against his better nature, Big Mikey grinned. He had a strange relationship with the water, yes, and with Rick Rounds, and that was both of the things that had killed him.

“Lot of bad things happening to people out here lately, I’ve heard,” he said, and looked to the forest, and shuddered. “Thanks for the warning.”

The Huntsman nodded.

“Monsters have to look out for each other,” he said, shouldering his axe.

“You should come on in,” Big Mikey said, reaching for another crunchy round shell and popping it between his jagged teeth. “Dinner’s about to be ready. And I wouldn’t say no to company. It’s been a bad day.”

The Huntsman stood for a moment, still, and sighed, and smiled grimly.

“I guess,” said the Huntsman, “I could stay for supper.”

Outro - Remains

Appetites. What is the hunger in you, dreamer? What nature does it take? Is it a loud and driving thirst, or a quiet, dull ache? In either case, do not forget that you are an animal. Your desires were never meant to be tamed. They live loudly in your chest, and cause you to run seeking in the night, and are no more or less a part of you than your teeth or tongue or throat.

Until the universe is swallowed entirely by darkness, dreamer, I am your loyal host, Nikignik, waiting hungrily for your return to the Hallowoods.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Teeth' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamers, who’s hungry? It’s the thing with all the teeth that you keep dreaming about! He only bites once each night. But don’t worry; he’ll start with the little things, like fingers and toes.