The Beasts of Willow Forest [Chapter I]

The Beasts of Willow Forest

He was named a normal name but only Time knew it. The townsfolk, however, named him "Monster". Maybe it was because of his girth. Wait�"that’s being too modest. It was the left side of his face that was responsible for this name. It was decorated with an oval shaped scar that looped around the corner of his left eye down to his thin bottom lip's curvature.  Some referred his left eye to the Milky Way due to the ridiculous amounts of layers of film that suffocated it. As if some past sin, his own or someone else’s, had not mocked him enough, his left ear lay against his head, devoid of its lower regions.  His Stygian hair remained greasy and unwashed. There were so many rumors as to what happened to him. No one knew the truth other than the fact that when he was a young boy, his parents were killed and he was a surviving victim. Some say it was an attack of muggers, a fire, gruesome torturers… There was no way anyone would ever get him to tell the tale. He was silent. It was like the cause of his dismemberment had cut out his tongue and replaced it with a zipper with a lock and then swallowed the key. 

He only came into town at dusk and when he did, people scattered around like mice would a mouse-trap minefield. Blinds and shutters shut. Doors locked, children even screamed sometimes. The only people who wasn't afraid was Mable, who sold expired, hot milk on the corner of the town and Darwin, who had a leg made of wood due to gambling debts. Monster would walk over to Mable’s run-down booth and drop twenty-five cents down before her. Even though she charged fifty cents for the rotten milk, she never once complained. How anyone would even pay one cent was beyond belief. Darwin was always shouting at him, yelling snide remarks about Monster’s face with a bottle of whiskey spilling out of his filthy, card-holding hand.

One day, a group of no-good good-doers followed Monster back to his one room shack in Willow’s Forest. People say that the clan planned on committing murder that night. The four “brave” men blame the hoot-owls for making too much noise for their cowardice. The truth was they ran like rabbits from a hunting dog because of what they had seen. Monster grabbed a raccoon by its tail and broke its neck with his ungraceful hands. He then took out a knife and started to skin its skin. He then chained the bloody corpse around the infamous willow in Willow Forest. After spying on this, they were scarred and scared. 
     A wild wolf ambushed the tree. For a moment, the men sighed with relief thinking that the beast would be the death of the beast they called Monster. When Monster reached out his hand for the wolf, the creature sat like the domesticated dogs the town’s children owned. Monster snapped his fingers and the wolf began to devour the raccoon’s corpse in seconds. With crimson blood dripping from its chin, he ran back into the forest. Monster unchained his blood stained chains and dragged them back into his shack. This was a perfect time for the men to ambush his home, but they were too haunted.

The next day, Mayor Edwards called a towns meeting. Citizens gathered among the brick walls of the council hall. The wooden deck that was built for the purpose of punishing criminals scattered the four cowardly men. They started to ramble about what they seen, making up lies to cover the truth. They said the owls had alarmed Monster and he had several wolves waiting for human flesh. With their false stories, children started to tremble and shudder. Parents held them tight with rage boiling inside them. There were several different war tactics being discussed. Rory Edwards, Mayor Edwards’s daughter, put her hand up and the village immediately shut their mouths. This was not abnormal. Her beauty could disarm anyone in a twenty mile radius. She was eighteen years old with a body of a twenty-five year old. Luscious curves, luscious curls of blonde hair built like springs. She had the fullest lips that anyone had ever seen. People often accused the sky of being jealous of the blue in her eyes. Not only was she strikingly beautiful, she was rather intelligent. When she started to speak, even the rats that the shop’s trashcans housed stopped hunting. 

She insisted that the people in the town should just let him be.

“The only crime that he is guilty of is people judging his hideous face,” she pleads.

As she tried to persuade the people, Dr. Triburn chirped up scientific reasoning for his murder. He stated that Monster must have been feeding these “wolves” for months in order to gain obedience from such wild creatures. He preached how dangerous it were for the town that there were animals of this type waiting just a mile out for feeding. When Rory tried to speak to imbalance his remark with nonviolent strategies, she was too late. The town began shouting, hooraying and hollering. They were prepared to take the life of Monster.

When the sun began to dusk, Monster marched to Mable’s booth for his usual dosage of clumpy milk. Instead of returning his quarter with a dirty bottle of milk, she placed a revolver on the table. With fear of an attack by Monster, Darwin and the four cowards began to surface from the sides of the shops. Monster just backed up and for the first time in history, he was graceful. He turned around and started to walk his mile back into the forest. This was a perfect time to take out an attack. Monster was outnumbered. There wasn't a trace of wolves now.    

When the men began to chase after him, Rory ran out of her house to stand in front of him as if she was his personal body guard. Soon after, her father begins to shout and plead. She wasn't moving. It was like her feet were concreted into the ground. A person would think that this kind of act of selflessness would ally Rory with Monster but instead, he turned around and grabbed her by the neck with his forearm.

With just the presence of one monstrous man, the men placed their guns back into their holsters. Mayor Edwards started reassuring them to kill him. No one listened. After minutes of holding Rory, Monster threw her over his shoulder like she was a bag of feed. Mayor Edwards began to step off his porch until Monster gave him a look like Medusa: who turns her prey into stone with her very eyes. Rory slammed her fists into balls against his back like a child throwing a temper tantrum would. Her fit had absolutely no effect on him. He was then ungraceful as ever as he dragged her back into the forest of Willows. It was dark now and no one attempted to trail them. The mayor called an emergency town meeting. There they discussed the strategy of returning Rory home. They decided to wait until dawn to ambush his shack.

When the sun began to rise, the twelve volunteers headed after her. After a mile of walking, they finally reached his living quarters. They whispered back and forth relaying the play-by-play of Rory’s rescue. They scattered behind the Willow trees, using them as their camouflage. The five bravest of the volunteers, including Mayor Edwards, surrounded his shack. With the countdown of three on one of the men’s hands, they kicked Monster’s broken down door in. With guns held out, they expected a fight. Their eyes hunted the tiny room. What returned their sight wasn't Rory, instead, hundreds of rotting animal corpses filled their vision and nostrils.

Author's Note

I would like to know what my readers think is going to end up happening after the ambush of Frankenstein's house. I plan on finishing it today but it would be interesting to hear other's thought of the ending.

Reviews

[soliloquy]

I dont think it would be right to have them do this to frankinstein without retribution.....i think they would all quickly be killed by him.....it doesnt make sense to have this gang be able to kill him without his responding to this strongly.

This is expert writing by the way...i think that Rory will survive and be a friend to him....

[Tiffany Kelley]

Really? I thought I was lacking descriptive character. Thank you for reassuring me in my own writing.

So you assume that they will be killed by him? What do you think will happen to Rory?

[soliloquy]

i just updated my comment above...

[Tiffany Kelley]

Ahh such an interesting theory! I can't wait until you have the chance of finishing the story and weighing it out with your own ending.

[soliloquy]

I have the feeling i will enjoy reading the rest too. Make sure you are spacing things a bit more....(white space is free) and then you will get more readers....

please dont take offense to some though...some are kind of mean.

[Tiffany Kelley]

No way! I take no offense to any criticism, no matter what level. I think of it as lessons.

I just spaced the paragraphs out a little, will you tell me what you think?

[soliloquy]

i noticed that....good. it already makes it better.....

you should go through though and do a little more...some are still a little big....in my opinion.

[soliloquy]

it is looking better thought....and that makes it easier to dive into as a reader....

[Drifter]

I like stories like this. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of my all-time favorite novels and this definitely made me think of it. I'm torn between hoping Frankenstein does something to show he's more human, appearances aside, than the townsfolk, and doing something truly atrocious, as if he's finally snapped.

On a different note, there are areas that could use some tightening up. I'd love to see it when it's polished. At any rate, this is definitely something that's piqued my interest.

[Tiffany Kelley]

Yes I am still fooling around with tightening up lose ends. Is there any specific parts you had in mind? I love hearing other's ideas to an ending. I can't wait to finish it and compare it with my reader's thoughts. Thank you for such a lovely review!

[Drifter]

Hm, I found myself wondering a bit about the infamous willow. Also, the first paragraph is one that needs that tightening. The descriptors could use with more intensity. Perhaps that would make the contrast between Frankenstein and Rory- at least in physical features- so much more evident. As I said, I'm definitely interested.

[Tiffany Kelley]

I was wondering if by chance you could give me your own performance at writing the first paragraph. I don't want you to write the entire paragraph but maybe give me some words or sentence ideas so I can have a little inspiration. The Infamous Willow Tree idea was left so bland because it will be a very important factor in the end of the story. Do you think that might confuse or anger readers that I left it so empty? Or can it cause curiosity, in a good way?

[Tiffany Kelley]

By the way, I am not sure if you noticed, but I edited a lot of the story since I first posted it. I went into better detail of the reasoning behind Frankenstein's nickname.

[Drifter]

If it was me, I'd leave infamous out of it the sentence. I think it arouses enough curiosity without it to benefit you later on. Anyway, if it was me, here's how I start it (at least in my earlier draft): "If he had a name, only Time knew it. The townsfolk, however, knew him as Frankenstein. It was his face, decorated with an oval scar over his (whichever) eye down to his bottom lip’s thin curvature. As if some past sin- his own or someone else’s, no one knew- had not mocked him enough, his ear lay against his head, devoid of its lower regions. His Stygian hair retained a permanent greasiness and his flesh seemed…." It's not overly explicit and it's not exactly what I meant, but I hope you get the gist of what I was trying to say.

[Drifter]

See, I've heard the refresh button does wonders for updated text. I've got to work on my own piece for a bit, but I'll check it out again in a while. It really is a good start, by the way.

[Tiffany Kelley]

Oh my. I am completely blown-away by the little writing you just performed. You are too good for your own good. I would feel like I was stealing by using your advice. Are you absolutely sure you wouldn't mind? I can't believe what you can do with words in such time.

[Drifter]

I don't mind. If it'll help, by all means. :)