In the wood

In the wood, the terrible wood:

Where children scream and the wolves do howl;

But silence is a deathly curse.

A wooded spring would be a clear, crisp drink;

Instead a sullied, bleeding drain

Of carrion’s once vital juice.

Tempted by a grandma’s smile,

Floating on a piper’s tune,

Or chasing chocolate sweets to doom:

In the wood the children rush, the hour long past noon.

Parents lament, howl and scream

For babes in wood no longer seen.

Sliced and diced and crushed they’re killed,

In the terrible wood.

Bodies dumped and blood is spilled,

In the terrible wood.

The suns kept out and the air is chilled,

In the terrible wood.

Murderous evil becomes distilled,

In the terrible wood.

The village close is a desolate place.

No children playing, for none are left.

A curse, a curse, a curse of death.

Adults cowed by the terrible wood.

Hero wanted, hero called for:

To kill the evil in the terrible wood.

So hero comes all big and strong,

Shoulders broad and sword as long.

His boasts are proud.

A legend sung in song.

Come the morn he’s up and out,

Into the terrible wood.

It’s dark and cold, and smells of decay,

In this terrible, terrible wood.

At the spring, an alarming thing,

In this deathly place.

Bodies crushed and sliced and diced,

Lifeless in the spring.

He hears a laugh, bodiless laugh;

His sword sliced in half.

An eerie laugh, an evil laugh.

The villagers hear it too.

In the wood their hero dead,

All hear the laughter spread.

Cries and moan,

To rack and ruin;

And now the evil grows.

Villagers feel a deathly chill,

They’re called into the woods.

A zombie march and off they go.

To the spring in a terrible wood.

All things dropped, even at the forge:

A fire marches too.

Where once a wood,

Now blackened stumps.

A spring that once did flow.