When the Macabre is the Norm

Oh perhaps macabre is not the right word to use. Ghastly? Perhaps some of the events that unfolded years ago on that small patch of ground were macabre but not all. No not all by any means. Some were simply "interesting."

One such encounter was the story of the stone. It is a story that goes back even further in time. In the days when my mother was a young girl. It transpired not on the farm itself but in some adjacent woods that were about five miles from the Silent Woods themselves. Five miles as a crow flies. It was in those woods, covered in brambles, the ground hidden from the light of day by the dense branches hanging overhead, that my grandmother discovered the stone.

The stone was large and flat and smooth. Nestled there is the green moss of the spring woods it glistened and beckoned. "What a perfect stone for the flower bed." must have been what my grandmother thought as she gazed upon it. For it was smoother than one would expect in the deep woods far from the river to the north.

With hands on hips she stood towering over it. It looked heavy and it was slightly buried in the damp soil. But grandmother was not one to be daunted by the need for muscle. Hard work was no stranger to her and so she stooped without a second thought and tugged at the stone. It did not break away from the ground easily but when it did, she gasp and stepped back quickly, covering her ears with her hands.

For as she lifted the stone, the distant sounds of screaming voices reached her ears. Voices, she described later that were like those one would imagine in the bowels of hell. With shrieking, and moaning, and gnashing of teeth. Cries of agony, begging for release. So strong and real that she quivers in telling the story.

In the woods that day, she shoved the stone securely back in place and moved quickly through the damp darkness of the woods. For evening was approaching and she wished even less to find herself in these woods at night then she had earlier.