Writing: Chopper

The tattered lace that hung down of the edge of the bed had faded to a hue of milky weak tea. The edges had started to come unravelled so what was once a delicate snowflake pattern had warped into a toddler's scribblings.

Lottie knew that entire toddler's scrawl in great detail. This is due to the fact that she had been hiding under the bed for at least an hour, desperately trying to blend into the dust and shadows, whilst around her she could hear the sounds of her home being chewed to pieces by the sharp fang of the axe.

She clamped her hands over her ears as once again the thing howled – an eerie unearthly noise.

It no longer sounded anything like her twin brother.

They had been playing out in the back garden. The warden had come by to see them with fresh food and some cast off clothes. They had been orphaned for a year now, their caravan having been set upon by bandits, their parents killed. The village they had fled to, arriving battered, bloodied and traumatised, had taken them in. They weren’t compassionate enough to take them into their own homes, but they were kind enough to give them use of an unoccupied cottage on the edge of town – and often sent them food and clothing. The cottage was run down but with no major damage and if this was not the life they had hoped for, then they comforted themselves with the fact that they were at least still alive, still had each other and their parents would be proud of them for carrying on.

The cottage was a little run down, a little shabby but it had everything they needed – a bedroom, a working kitchen, a roof. It even had an overgrown garden out the back with a tool shed. They had thought it was a little peculiar that the cottage was completed furnished but the villagers had told them that this was because the old lady who lived there before had died without any relatives to claim her belongings. So the villagers had left it as it was.

Lottie thought this to be rather wasteful – after all, there was a plethora of interesting books and herbs and ornaments scattered about the cottage, not to mention the basic linen and cooking equipment that she was sure someone would have found use for. But their loss was her gain; she had no issue about using a dead woman’s things.

The most peculiar thing was the tool shed. Unlike everything else in the cottage, this was sealed shut with shiny new chains and a padlock. They had asked their warden about this and he had shrugged, embarrassed. He had explained that the woman who lived here before knew she was going to die, so she requested from the elders that the tool shed was sealed shut after her death in exchange for the property and anything within it. Upon her death, the elders had complied with her wishes.

Lottie had looked back at the house.

“But nothing’s been taken.” She said

The man shrugged again. “She was a very influential woman. She needn’t have offered anything to get us to do it.” He grinned broadly. “But a stroke of luck for you two huh? Just don’t go near that shed, I’m sure she had her reasons for sealing it.”

“You mean you don’t even know why she wanted you to seal it?!” Her brother had interrupted a look of disbelief on his face.

“No. We all trusted her; she was a wise woman and knew what she was talking about. Plus, I don’t think any of us really wanted to know. I say again, do not go near that shed”

From that day forth Lottie’s brother had become obsessed with the shed.

It had started off innocently enough. A young boys desire to go somewhere he was forbidden. For a few days he kept fiddling with the lock – trying different things to try and smash it open. Lottie saw the exact moment it started to change into something darker. She was organising the kitchen when she happened to glance out through the window to her brother, leaning close to the door, trying to get a better look at the lock. She saw him tilt his head, as if he’d heard something and then something, some shadow of an expression, slide across his face.

It made her blood run cold.

From that day forth it was like the boy her brother was no longer existed. He wouldn’t eat, would barely sleep and even then she would wake in the night to see him standing by the window, bloodied fingers pressed against the glass from where he’d tried to claw his way in. He snarled at her whenever she asked a question, shoved her away whenever she tried to beg him to eat. And always, always he would have his head tilted towards the direction of the shed, as if listening to music only he could hear.

Lottie didn’t know what frightened her the most; that he would die from starvation and exhaustion or that he would manage to open the shed.

She daren’t speak to any of the villagers about it, she didn’t know what they would do to them if they found out her brother was trying to open the shed. The villager’s mercy would only stretch so far. Would they be driven out? There’s no way they’d survive in the surrounding wilderness for long. Would her brother even go? No, she knew there was no way he would ever now leave that shed; he would struggle against anyone trying to drag him away, perhaps be hurt or killed before he surrendered.

So Lottie, trapped in the cottage with an increasingly deranged brother, with no one to turn to, did the only thing she could think of. She started turning the cottage upside down in an attempt to find something, some diary or will, which would tell her what the thing in the shed was and how she might destroy it. She knew it was becoming a desperate race between her and her brother, perhaps she now looked just as crazy, but it was the only thing she could think of to save him. She tore through books and letter containing incantations, spells and enchantments, only now coming to the realisation that the women who lived her previously was a witch (how she cursed herself for her stupidity!).

She was just going through the pantry – there were various potions on the upper shelves. Probably well past their use by date but, having found no incantation or clue in the books, she was hoping one said ‘to use against thing in shed if your brother is dumb enough to try and open it.’ When there was a metallic clink against the pavestone floor. She looked down, she had knocked a key onto the floor.

The key, she knew beyond a doubt, that fitted the lock on the shed.

She reached down from the step stool when a sound from the doorway made her look up. Her brother was standing there, watching her.

She licked her suddenly dry lips, “brother…”

Too quick to follow he darted in and snatched the key, running out and slamming the pantry door shut behind him. It cost Lottie precious seconds to drag it back open and when she did she saw he was already by the shed. She ran to the garden door, knowing already that she was too late, but couldn’t stop herself from screaming, “brother no!”

He unlocked the padlock. There was an especially anticlimactic thump as the chains fell off and nothing happened. With a blissful smile her brother walked into the shed and came out cradling a shiny axe. He closed his eyes, gave a peaceful sigh and then the bones from his arms exploded through his skin.

Lottie’s knees gave way as she watched her twin brother, with much accompaniment of the sounds of cracking bones and sliding flesh, as he warped into a deformed shape. His limbs lengthened, his nails grew into wicked claws and his face – here was the worst for it bore no resemblance to her brother anymore, it looked more like the face of monstrous beast!

Finally the noises stopped – and then the thing that had been her brother looked at her.

Sobbing, Lottie fled into the house, barring the door behind her, knowing that if he caught her, she would be dead, torn to pieces with those claws. She ran upstairs, trying desperately to think, to hide. She heard him behind her, beneath her, destroying the house, chanting in a hideous voice

‘I was the wolf in the forest, I was the eater of little girl red, and I was the teeth in the dark of the night,

Now I am the shadow in men’s hearts, I am their glory in the strong hunting the weak,

 I am the wolf in the axeman’s blade!’

Hands clapped over her ears she caught sight of the bed. Ridiculousy draped with throws and old lace, the base of it was completely hidden. With no other idea, as quietly as possible, she crawled underneath. Trying to blend in with the dust in the space underneath.

And she waited, listening to the thing that had been her brother destroy their home.

After a nightmare age she heard him start to come up the stairs, banging his axe against the wall to mark each deliberate step.

“Lottie, Looooottie.” He called. Then he laughed. “Remember this game?”

"Here comes a Candle to light you to Bed
Here comes a Chopper to Chop off your Head
Chip chop chip chop - the Last Man's Dead."

Faster and faster, closer and closer until on ‘dead’ he threw the bed off of her. And Lottie, knowing now that she had no choice, had braced herself for this and had pulled from her petticoat the only thing she had found that might stop her brother.

So when the monster was framed before her, his hands occupied by throwing the bed. She shot him six times in the chest with her pistol.

Her father had trained her to be a crack shot. In the circus her family had owned, the twins had been the dare-devil knives and gun act.

The beast before her crumpled to the ground, the axe slipping from its lifeless grasp.

And finally, finally she heard what her brother had, all these weeks. The axe singing. It was beautiful and eerie and sung of blood spilt in vengeance, of righting wrongs and of protecting the future with strength.

She could see how it had appealed so much to her brother.

She stood, as if in a trance and walked over to it. It shone in the setting sun, smugly she thought, as if it knew it had already won. She calmly reloaded her pistol and emptied it out into the axe.

Oddly, for metal, it bled. Thick viscous blood that oozed out over the floor.

It also screamed.

When it was done, she went back to the pantry and soaked the whole building in paraffin. The shed too.

She watched the flames for a while.

Then she turned and walked down to the path to the village.