text: It had been a harsh winter and it was dragging on longer than any in living memory. The people of Ardenne Valley had spent the best part of four months hiding out in their scattered wooden lofts with every chimney pouring out smoke night and day as fireplaces worked over time to keep their masters warm. Towards the centre of town Mr Cotten’s General Store was beginning to run low of supplies, the thick winter snow had blocked off the mountain pass that was the lifeline of the village. Usually when cut off from outside supplies the village men would band together and head off in great hunting parties coming back with deer, rabbit or even moose for the townsfolk to share. However the depth of this winter’s chill and the shortness of its days made the hunt fraught with danger. No man dared venture far enough from the warmth of his fire to effectively hunt lest he find himself stuck out in the deathly cold. As this seemingly endless freeze continued a sense of fear and paranoia started to grip the town. Rumours began to circulate that the village had been cursed by some sort of evil, or that the sins of the people had somehow angered god to move against them. Already the local constabulary had been forced to deal with allegations of food-theft amongst some of the new settlers who occupied the outskirts of the town. One particular incident had started over a misplaced can of peas and ended with two men spending the night locked in the cells after one had tried to slice the other with a can-opener and the second had responded by smashing a large frozen potato into the first man’s head. The people living in the outskirts of Village Ardenne had always been a bit crazier than those who lived in the towns original heart, but never before had there been so much drunkenness and needless violence. At first the village children were excited to see such thick snowfall, they embraced the opportunity to have long snow fights, make snow angels, go sledding and build elaborate snow forts. But alas as the months pressed on the lack of sunshine, long hours in doors and the constant cold had taken it’s toll. By this point in the winter most of the children had grown irritable at being cooped up all the time and were adding to the worries of their already stressed parents. Some of the older village kids had taken to a new and troubling hobby. They would sneak out after dark and build elaborate and frightening snow creatures outside the windows of younger children. This lead the youngsters to wake in fright breaking the nights silence with piercing screams and terrified crying. Sometime around the end of the fourth winter month, a strange phenomenon began to appear throughout the valley. Village folk everywhere kept coming in reporting sightings of a huge dark creature with glowing red eyes seen at the edges of the forest that surround the town. The first sightings had been called in by Tom Greer, a young lumberjack who worked to produce firewood for the town. Tom had been stacking the last of the days wood into the back of his cart when he had heart a noise in the distance behind him, spinning around he caught a glimpse of the huge dark creature fading back into the forest. The sight put Tom’s hair on end, he quickly leapt up onto his cart and whipped his donkey into motion, moving with great speed back to the heart of the town. The second sighting had occurred only two days after Toms. This time it had been a young mother by the name of Maria, she had been making her way through the township towards Mr Cotten’s General Store on a Friday evening. Maria had taken the long way to the store skirting the edge of the forest so as to avoid any drunken men who might be making trouble near the Woodsman’s Tavern when she heard a deep rumbling sound off to her right, turning she saw a terrifyingly large shadow with glowing red eyes at it’s centre about two hundred meters in to the forest. She had screamed and rushed toward the centre of town being found by a group of men drinking at the Woodsman’s Tavern. The group of men, full of Dutch courage, had banded together with hunting rifles and wood axes and headed out in the direction of the sighting. After an hour long search the men turned up nothing and returned to the warmth of the tavern and the joy of their beers. With these terrifying sightings occurring every day or two and the townsfolk already on edge, the village paranoia reached fever pitch. A group of village women began a neighbourhood watch to help take care of each other. Within three days of the groups creation it had accused twelve separate people to the constabulary on unlikely charges of witchcraft and devil worship. As things started to look as though they might spiral out of control the village council decided to hold a meeting at the old church just across from Mr Cotten’s store. Every man and his dog showed to this meeting, the village elderly had been first to arrive taking seats towards the front of the hall, the men and women of central Ardenne arrived second filling the centre of the hall with the new settlers arriving last and standing in a tight area towards the rear. Chief Constable Higgard, a tall chubby man with a quickly receding hairline and red-tinged cheeks, began the meeting “Thank you all for your attendance, as we all know, things in our sleepy town have been tense of late. This winter has left many of us with little food and less patience. Firstly we would like to call on all of you to try to keep your calm and show each other a little empathy during this trying time. Secondly it is my duty to inform you that the Woodsman’s Tavern will be suspending operations until such time as the situation in our township has returned to normal.” This was met with a large amount of booing from the men of central Ardenne who had used drinking and the Woodsman’s Tavern as an escape from their worries and their tense home-life situations. Higgard shouted at the group to be silent and continued, “Furthermore we would also ask that the Ardenne Neighbourhood Watch be disbanded, as it has achieved nothing but increased paranoia and a break down in trust within our small community.” This news was met with sneers from the women of the village with one of the groups leaders, Ms Agatha Partridge accusing Constable Higgard of being worried they were doing too well and that he might lose his job. Higgard had expected this type of comment and tried his best not to let it affect him. “Finally” Higgard continued, “the question of this forest monster. We have had a long string of reports over the last few weeks of some sort of large beast with glowing red eyes stalking around the skirts of our humble town. I have personally heard many of these eye-witness reports and they do not appear to be the paranoid delusions of a few scared souls but instead they seem to me to be real sightings of what is very likely a grave threat to the great people of this village!” The hall was filled with a collective gasp of fear. While many of them had heard of these monster sightings many thought of them as false imaginings brought on by long winter stress. But now with these words from Constable Higgard the people of the village were filled with a new, potent fear. “What must we do?” yelled one of the new settlers from the back of the hall. “Are our children safe?” “Are we safe?” “What is this beast?” the hall burst into a thousand different fearful questions. Some of the village men began talking of a great hunting party, to go out to the woods and bring down the beast. Mr Howard, the chairman of the local council stood up and raised both hands into the air. This brought silence to the crowd and Mr Howard began to speak “We may not be safe, your children may not be safe. What must we do you ask? Well we must first prepare ourselves, we must move all the people of the village to a central defensible location. This church is likely most suitable. Then we must put together two main parties, one to stay here and defend our children, the other to go out and destroy this beast.” As Mr Howard’s last word rang out into the hall it was met with an immediate roar from the crowd. Men from all over the village were volunteering to head out and hunt for the beast, whilst others began to organise amongst them how best to defend the church building. Over the following two days the village went into a frenzy. Food supplies were gathered and stored, hundreds of beds were set up and all the women and children of the village moved themselves into the church. The men who were to make up the hunting party donned there thickest winter coats and armed themselves with rifles and pistols while those who were to remain behind collected anything that might be used as a weapon, axes, pitchforks even butchers knives. At sun break on the third day after the village meeting everything was set and the hunting party set off. They began by lapping the skirts of the village finding no sign of the creature. The decision was then made to head down towards the first sighting location on the western side of the village. Roughly thirty of the village men met there, rifles in hand they spread out into a long line and began to advance in to the forest. Walking deep into the frozen trees the men began to hear a deep rumbling off in the distance. A little more hesitant at the sound, they continued with there push. The further they pushed the louder and more distinct the rumble became, the deep sound was like the mix between a bears roar and the starting of a trucks engine. As the sound grew the men began to bunch together, none of them wishing to be caught alone when the monster finally appeared. Each man was filled with a mix of fear and determination, each fearing this might be his last day alive but also determined to press on for the safety of their loved ones. The forest sloped slowly upwards with the undergrowth thickening as they moved on towards the hilltop. The group clustered tightly together now as they finally reached the crest of the hill, moving on to the crest they found that a large clearing. A large circle of trees had been ripped from their roots and smashed across the frosty landscape. Just as the men entered the clearing the rumble cut off. It was then that they saw it, a huge black monster about 50 meters from the group. The beast stood around ten feet tall, made up of a thousand thick wriggling black worms and at its centre were two hellish red eyes. Seeing the group as a threat the beast let out a deafening roar and began to rush toward the men. The group of men scattered rushing in all directions, some fled back toward the forest whilst others began to sprint across the open clearing. Constable Higgard took up a position behind a large oak tree and shot off a round from his hunting rifle, he bellowed out to the others “Don’t run you yellow bellied cowards, we must face this creature for the safety of our families!” This put some steel into the hearts of the others and they all began to take up their own firing positions. Tom Greer, who had been sprinting out in the open turned and took a knee letting off a well-aimed shot which pierced into the wriggling mass of worms making up the monsters body. This did not slow the beast but instead turned it’s attention to Tom. With the beast now pressing away from them a group of men who had fled towards the trees took up their own positions and began to rain fire into the back of the beasts. Each shot met it’s mark but each bullet seemed to simply disappear into the mass of worms. The monster let out another roar as it started to turn towards the men in the trees. As it turned Higgard lined up his rifle and took another shot, this time aiming for one of the creatures disgusting red eyes. He missed his mark and his bullet was absorbed into the worms like that of the others. Seeing the constables attempt spread the idea to the others in the band, one yelled out “Aim for the eyes!” Higgard half smiled to himself, glad to see that he was working with men of quality. The horrid worm-monster was disoriented now, surrounded and being peppered with rifle fire from every angle it let out another mighty roar and launched itself towards the trees, aiming for a gap in the hunting groups circle. Seeing that the beast intended to flee Tom sprinted into it’s path sliding into a firing position just meters ahead of the fiend. He let off a shot again aiming for the creatures eyes. From this distance he could not miss and his round landed true. A spray of black blood spewed from the damaged eye and the creature began to convulse. Mr Greer pushed away from the thing taking refuge in the trees. The horrid monster began to shake and the dark worms were flung from it’s body wilting away as they landed upon the hard cold earth. With the disgusting worms melting off the creatures body it’s inner form began to take shape. Tom saw it first, when the last of the worms dropped off, he saw clearly that this was not some unknown hell beast but simply a large bear that had been afflicted in some way. The bear let out one last whimper before dropping to the ground before the band of men. Seeing the creature defeated each of the group of hunters pushed forward forming a loose circle around the dead bear. Higgard spoke first “I don’t know what afflicted this poor beast but I am glad that we were able to release this animal of god from it’s curse.” The other men all nodded knowingly. From there the group dragged the beasts body back to their village. When they arrived back they dropped it’s body at the doors of the church and moved inside to relay their tale to the entire village. Cheers and shouts of joy rang out from the crowd as the men retold each moment of the battle, from Higgard’s first shots and inspiring yells to Toms desperate sprint and well aimed shot that felled the beast. Once the story was told, all the townsfolk moved outside where a great pyre was erected and the bears body was turned to ash so as to prevent the spread of its curse. As the corpse burned and night fell slowly the villagers retreated in to the church where they each found a cosy spot to sleep for the night. The next morning the sun crept up into the sky earlier than it had in months, and with it a wave of warmth not felt since before this horrid ordeal began. Over the following weak the snow began to melt off and village life returned to normal. The Woodsman’s Tavern reopened, the weekly supply convoys from the outside world began to flow through and soon enough springs first flowers began to bloom.