The Straw Man

The clock in the corner chimed eleven as Martha and I stood in the kitchen over the full sink, the kettle on the opposite side bubbling to make after dinner teas. “I didn’t know you could cook well, I always thought you’d order out.” Martha said as she leaned her on the counter next to the sink. “Things can surprise you. People can especially.” I said focusing on the sink rather than my friend, a sponge in my hands.

Martha nodded, her eyes flitting over to the kettle and then pressing off the bench as if her hands were made of rubber. “So, any news about your mum?” I asked quickly, not thinking of why I actually wanted to know. “They say two weeks, then there’s nothing left to do for her but find a… you know.” Martha answered half heartedly trying to keep her mind on the mugs in front of her. As my gloved hands moved over the crockery through all of the hot water.

I nodded somberly, while placing a dread knife in the sink, although she wouldn’t have seen my acknowledgement, feeling a pain in my heart and an ache in my gut as my mind filled with my own tragic memories. “It wasn’t easy for me either. Trust me, you’ll never truly get over stuff like that. Just make the best out of the rest of your life.” I said, my voice now an octave deeper and my eyes stinging. I heard Martha come closer to me, two steaming mugs in her hands and placed them on the counter near the sink. “I heard that your mother… she said something as she… Who’s Simon?” Martha asked abruptly, nervously backing off in case I took it the wrong way.

I stopped and turned myself around, focusing my gaze on Martha’s slender face. “Simon. He was my brother. He was taken when I was nine years old. No one told me much, and they never found the body. The same night my mother lost her amulet. She thought she found it a week before she died, but it had sunk itself into the straw.” Martha’s face dropped and her eyes widened “I’m sorry, I had no idea…” I held out a hand, calmly. “Don’t be, please.” I said quietly and then tried to change the subject “You ever hear the story of the Straw Man?” I asked even though I knew the answer would be in the negative, especially considering she lived in the city five miles away.

Taking this in mind I continued “A local legend around here. More like a local curse. Every harvest, every four years they say a man made of straw and blood roams the farms. They say he looks for victims.” I paused taking a swig of piping hot tea and downing it uncomfortably. By now I was craving a cigarette, knowing that the lighter and half a packet was in the middle drawer next to the sink.

“He hunts whole families, making the one who saw him first, die last of all. Well my brother vanished, Dad was Killed in action and my Mum after a heart attack. One harvest when I was five years old I heard a noise, and looked outside.” I continued, my voice beginning to break up.

“I thought it was dad coming home. I rushed outside and I saw the man. A scarecrow. I thought I was dreaming.” I finished, but Martha realised why I had told her the story and she was confused. “What… It sounds like some psychopath is after your family.Why don’t you tell the police or someone?” She asked, trying to make sense of this myth. “No evidence, aside from a strand of straw, most of it is coincidental, but there’s a pattern.”

“No, it was all coincidence, nothing you did or didn’t do caused all this.” Martha reasoned, trying to console my emotions, but I knew the truth. “Coincidence that every four years, at harvest one of my family have died? I am the last one. It has been four years to the day when Mum had the heart attack. If… If he does exist, you’d be as much a target as I am, It happened with Dad, his whole squad died with him.” I said, my voice rising in a mixture of panic and rage.

“Tom.” Martha began softly “Tom… I will stay here with you tonight. If nothing happens we’ll go the police and take you to a psychiatrist.” She said gently, as If I was five years old. My fists balled and my shoulders straightened for a moment, preparing to offer some aggressive remark, until a clatter from the back door sounded. We both turned to the door, and slowly Martha approached it, trying to show courage, but feeling the same twinge in her gut that I was.

Martha had arrived at the white wooden door, and within seconds began turning the handle, slowly. The door creaked open, revealing the dark world outside, the fields leading to the barn only a few yards away were swaying slowly and peacefully in the freezing wind that seeped into the kitchen slowly. As the wind howled, the lights flickered and then the light inside of them died, showing a small glow as they were still very hot. I was in total darkness while my eyes tried to focus themselves and make out images in the black veil around me.

Suddenly a crash sounded as the door was torn open by two massive unearthly hands. Martha screamed as the hands tore past the door and clutched onto her shoulders, like hooks onto meat. Quickly the hands pulled her slim body through a the gap into the cold night. As she was dragged away from my sight, her screams filled the air, shrill and soul shattering. I stood there, shaking, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest as the screams echoed through the night.

After my hesitation, I launched myself away from the kitchen and barreled past the back door, leaving the comfort of my home and into the harsh icy darkness, in a simple, thin shirt. The cold penetrating my very being, it must have been, I was shaking more than the blades of grass in the field ahead of me. The serene peace outside was shattered by another scream, this one was more bloodcurdling than the first and was in the direction of the barn.

I tore myself away from my thoughts and powered my way towards the large barn, shrouded in darkness, sending chills throughout my body. I continued, eve though it seemed like a mile I had crossed the fields in a matter of seconds and was not at the front doors of the barn, where everything was silent except for the wind around me. I looked upon the barn, it’s massive old wooden doors were badly weathered and rough creaking upon rusted hinges as the wind pushed it slightly forward and backward. The creaking seemed to be timed perfectly as if beats in a slow waltz or like the dripping of fluid.

Mustering the courage within me, and ignoring the sickening groan within me, I grabbed the left hand door of the leering barn and pulled it open. The door was stiff at first, but then gave in as I kept pulling it in my direction, letting out an exasperated cry as the hinges strained to move it’s bulky wooden frame. Taking in the sights of the old barn that I had seen but never touched since I was a boy, I scanned through the bales of old hay and the rusted farming tools for any sign of Martha. “Hello?” I cried hoping to find Martha safe and sound, hoping that this was a dream or a practical joke taken a little too far, but my voice was met with the howling wind and silence.

I continued inside the barn cautiously, looking around my corners, but I could see nothing but mist inside of shadows as the only light was emanating from the outside world. Tiptoeing around the old storage shack, I could see nothing but straw and sack and rusted tools that were dripping. I must have been tricked by the lack of light in the room, but I swore I saw one of the tools oozing a dark liquid.

I crept forward to investigate, stopping once or twice when I heard the creak of wood around me until I reached the rack of old rusted tools. I looked at them one at a time until I saw another drip from one of the tools, the old sickle was covered in a thick, dark fluid which was sliding it’s way slowly down to the tip of the rough curved blade and falling off of the edge.

I touched the tool and felt the fluid on it, it was fresh and warm, and I placed the liquid on my tongue, praying that it was oil. I tasted copper mainly, not any kind of fuel or oil lubricant, instead it was the taste of blood in my mouth. Shaking I backed away from the tool, a cold grip making me want to empty the contents of my stomach, the drum pounding in my head and chest.

Looking around the barn, I noticed an old rusted ladder which connected to an upper floor of the barn the plank floor was a little unstable but it could hold a few people. Desperate, I pounded towards the ladder as I screamed “MARTHA!” Flying up the ladder, I stumbled upon the aged plank flooring, dust and straw flying up in the air. I stood for a moment taking in my surroundings, my eyes adjusting to the lack of light as I saw what looked like a pile of sacks in front of me. I neared closer to the lump of sack and noticed that something was wrong, sacks don’t bleed.

Shivering, claws of pure Ice clutching my entire body I edged closer to the pile and turned it around to face me. I was met with Martha’s soft and gentle face, her vacant glassy eyes and mouth were jarred open and her face was still warm. I couldn’t take it all in. As I crouched, huddled over her body, I noticed that she was half stuffed into an old coat and sacks, her legs and feet were covered in straw. Her chest was ripped open and straw was rammed inside of it, and her arms were covered in sackcloth.

Without warning I felt something grab a hold of me, a strong vice clamped onto my shoulders. Before I knew it, the barn dropped a level, and I was strewn upon the straw on the bottom floor of the old storage area. Looking up, I saw a tall man, the one who threw me down, staring at me, covered in the darkness of shadows. A second later the man had vanished from his place at the top of the barn and was on the floor with me, heading for the tool rack. In front of me, in the straw, my eyes glanced past an image, a family photograph of everyone in my family, each member being scratched out by some sharp tools, and on my position on the photo was a large red mark.

Struggling around my surroundings, I felt the rough straw around me tighten, it was holding me down as the man went for a tool on the rack. I blinked and saw that he stood near to me, bloodied sickle in hand as the straw scratched and grappled with me. A heartbeat later the man was standing almost on top of my body, the straw covering most of it apart from my chest and head. I could see the man a little more clearly, he was dressed like a scarecrow. Not just any inanimate Straw Man though, it was the very one I saw outside of my window when I was a child, I was sure of it. The same old coat seen on an old soldier, and the same clothes you’d find on a corpse.

The Straw Man raised his sickle, the blood trickling onto my face as I struggled against the binds around me. With a bout of superhuman strength I was able to move against the clutching straw fingers. Just as I turned, the blade had just struck at where I had been. Quickly I rose to my feet and fled the scene towards the house, pelting through the grass at breakneck speed trying to escape the Straw Man. Behind me I could hear the bending of grass. He… It was following me.

I sped into the kitchen and without thinking I turned around. The Straw Man stood in the doorway, his empty sack face almost cracked into a smile as he stood, bloodied sickle in hand as if he wanted to carve a roast in front of him. I threw the white wooden kitchen door onto its frame and held it in place, blocking the Straw Man from my house.

CRACK! The edge of the sickle blade found its way through the door, splintering the wood in multiple directions as the sickle was withdrawn, but the blade seemed to be stuck. Letting go of the door a moment, I headed towards the sink, where a large bread knife sat inside the metal basin, now filled with cooling soapy water. I picked up the blade and spun around to see the Straw Man had thrown the door open and was now standing only a foot away from me. I backed away from the Straw Man slowly, knife drawn at him heading into a corner.

My back pressed against the cold wall, and I held the blade to the vacant Straw Man in front of me. Suddenly the Straw Man was now inches from me and instinctively I plunged the knife into the his straw body. The smile on his fake sack lips, stitched together with black thread creaked as it grew larger, an ooze pulsing from the side of the cloth lips. The Straw Man, animated like a good puppet grabbed the Knife and ripped it from his body, tossing it aside with a clatter.

As I stared fearfully into the eyes of the Straw Man, I couldn’t help but feel the gouged black sockets were portals into hell. Frozen into the corner of the Kitchen feeling a mile away from the door out, my whole body shivering like I had been covered in ice, the imposing straw creature stood completely motionless. The room was so silent that the analogue clock in the corner of the room almost became deafening. Without warning the large sack hands lunged for my neck and in that moment force was being applied.

Now my scrawny neck was being condensed in the dry straw digits, my heart racing, almost heading into my throat. The reality of the situation had sunk in barely a second later, this creature intended to choke me to death, in my own kitchen and there wasn’t a thing I could think of to do to stop it.

My head quickly became light and everything became a dreamland, a wobbly haze that twisted and warped the images in front of me to create even more nightmarish shapes. As more and more of my life essence sucked itself away, I could smell the foul stench of rotting flesh and coagulated blood inside the creature’s seemingly straw body. From the disgusting stitched hole that was it’s mouth, I heard what sounded like words. “Hush little baby, don’t you cry.” The Straw Man said in a voice that was almost happy and childlike.

By the time I acted, I felt it was too late. My left arm rose slowly, the strain was incredible making my head spin and an aching groan rise from the pit of my stomach. My hand outstretched like a claw and dug into the straw man’s sack like face. Having grappled the scarecrow’s stitchings on the side of it’s head and I pulled hard. First nothing happened, but as I kept trying the decade old stitching began to tear away from the sack head, something underneath it, as If peeling off a layer of dead skin to reach something new. As more of the stitches began to break under the pressure of my hands, a smell even worse rose from inside the sack cloth skin.

The room became darker, my vision was grainy like an old film as I kept pulling down on the cloth which was on it’s last stitch. A second later my hand gave one last push as the final stitch was freed, but my mind was lost for a brief moment leaving this nightmarish world for a pause.

When my eyes reopened I noticed that the straw man had let his grasp of my neck slip and I was slumped against the walls, and I coughed back into life harshly, my throat feeling like a match had been thrown down it. My eyes turned to the straw man, who had by now turned away, thinking I was dead and it now stood directly in front of the doorway into the hall.

It’s head turned in back my direction as a twisted chuckle left the straw mouth, sounding like a scream being sucked in through a straw. I could see what my hands had done when the Straw man had finished turning around. The head of the creature was composed of straw and a dark crimson adhesive dotted around like chicken pox. The pieces of straw were coming and going in every direction, and every so often something inside it’s head moved a little bit scurrying around in the depths of the straw.

I moved quickly, speeding out of the corner and held my eyes on the Straw man as I headed left towards the sink and the three oak drawers underneath it. The straw man watched as I moved, keeping its exposed face upon me at all times as I moved. When I arrived at the sink, the strawman’s legs began to creak as it started moving towards me. I back into the sink, and moved my right hand to feel for the middle drawer. The straw man crossed the white tiled floor silently, and went from being a few feet away to a few inches.

My hand felt the handle of the drawer and I stiffly shuffled along to the left as the Straw Man closed in on me. I opened the middle drawer quickly just as the Straw Man was inches away from my position, its limbs creaked again as it’s arms lifted. My hand felt inside the drawer, passing a knives, graters and cutters. As the Straw Man came to embrace me in its grip of death, my digits had located what I wanted. The sack arms had found my sore neck and gripped it as before. As I choked I pulled up my weapon, a lighter and tried to click it on. Nothing.

I tried to wriggle free for a moment while I was madly clicking on the tool. Nothing. The straw head came ever closer to me, the menacing collection of plants smelling more of death and blood, making my stomach turn. Click. Click. Desperately I pulled the tool closer to the straw body as if that would aid me in some way. I was almost drunk with the lack of air, my head spinning as I kept clicking. Click. Whoosh. A small spark had blossomed into a miniature flame, hitting the dry straw and sack body of the Straw Man.

I felt faint when the sack hands around my throat ceased their vice like grip and the Straw Man backed away from me, as inside his body a furious flame began to build within. The flame spread around the inside of the Straw Man’s body and despite its attempts to smother the fire, it only kept spreading. Soon the flames protruded from the sack skin and out of the extremities of the straw body. Smoke filled the air as an ear piercing electronic bell sounded from the fire alarm on the kitchen ceiling. I stood there and watched as the straw was being incinerated by a massive orange flame covering its body. As It burnt I could hear a small scream inside of the fire alarm bell, the Straw Man was dying at last.

I watched him burn, like a burning doll on fireworks night, until his low chilling screams died like the rest of him, the ringing alarm pounding in my head. I watched the Straw Man kneel before me, as if it was about to beg for mercy and then it collapsed on the floor at my feet. As the last of the Straw Man became ash or charred cloth, I stood peacefully in the kitchen, although the howling wind was blowing the door open and the fire alarm was screaming at me. I looked into the ash in front of me as I saw what looked like a necklace, my mother’s jewelry.

I knelt in front of the dead remnants of the Straw Man, wondering if the curse was truly broken. As I thought, I heard a noise from the barn. Curious I peeked outside and saw a fleeting glimpse of a woman, her hair flowing through the wind as her animated body, dripping with straw passed the back door, walking like a badly animated puppet, looking for a hunt.