"Woodman" | CLANCYPASTA

[00:00:00] I've never really used Reddit, even though I made an account 4 or 5 years ago. I uncovered some old photos of mine recently and reckoned I'd share a story of mine on here. I live in a small town called Woodton, a small place of just under 2,000 people. It's not a very attractive area. The only appealing feature that it has, in my opinion, is the gorge running through the mountain range just west of the town with a river flowing through the bottom of it.

[00:00:28] A road was built on one side of the gorge that spanned its length. It closed in 2017 after a series of large landslides that caused the district council to render the road irreparably damaged. Above the gorge road, on top of the ranges, there is a fairly short hike, about 11 kilometers and only a 1 or 2 hour walk. It's a nice area with a couple good lookout spots above the road, but it's not really anything special.

[00:00:54] The road, once a highway between another small town and Woodton, hasn't been maintained in years. It's eerie, to say the least. There are sparse landslides still happening periodically, but they've mostly slowed down since trucks have stopped driving through the area. Both ends of the road are fenced off with heavy chain link, but that doesn't stop many people cutting holes in the fences with bolt cutters and walking or even biking through the gorge.

[00:01:21] Occasionally, the fences are seemingly fully cut down, sometimes even looking completely bulldozed. It's strange, but the fences are always replaced shortly after. The district council is quick to replace the blockade, but no one that I know seems sure why they keep being taken down. I assume it's just one of the lunatics that live around here.

[00:01:43] There are a few hermits that have holed themselves up in old logging buildings around the area, and they seem to hate everything that the council does for the place. I remember at around the same time as the gorge closing, a couple of quarrying businesses began to pick up around the area. They're still working, and the old logging businesses have moved away from the town and closer to those quarries.

[00:02:07] They've completely deforested a large section of land on a hill above the quarry, although it was mostly to prevent landslides from causing the trees to fall onto people below. There are a couple old abandoned bulldozers next to a small cliff that led down to a river that my friends and I would hang out around when I was around fifteen. They are still there, I think, after six years now.

[00:02:31] We would try and spook each other with reasons of why they were just sitting there about a kilometer or two from the quarry area. I don't really know how I should format this, so I'm just going to list off who my friends were at the time. James, a skinny white kid, was one of my best mates at the time. He had brown hair, shaped almost into a bull cut, although somehow it didn't look stupid. He was a year older than me, and he was also pretty into monsters in the sort.

[00:02:58] He was the one that really got me into those things. Aiden was tan. He was on the shorter side, with buck teeth and curly black hair. He wasn't much younger than I was, but he wasn't good with scary stories. Takuma was small and Japanese. He wore thin rectangle glasses and had short black hair. Matthew was the biggest of us, the same age as James. He was about five foot seven, pretty tall for a sixteen year old, and stocky enough to give him a solid frame.

[00:03:28] He was blonde. We were climbing onto one of the bulldozers. There was one next to the edge of the drop with a great view of the river, so we sat up there sometimes. Aiden was the first to go up, and he shrieked suddenly and fell back. He'd put his hand into a huge spiderweb and now had a spider crawling up his arm. Get it off! Help! He screamed, flailing his arm around, trying to shake the admittedly small spider off. He was a bit of a pussy.

[00:03:57] He bashed his arm against the bulldozer's track, and I guess it killed the spider because he calmed down. Although he was holding back tears from the pain that was now coursing through his arm. James doubled over, laughing, clutching his stomach. I wasn't even that scared. Aiden mumbled to himself, almost inaudibly. James pushed past him and clambered up the machine. He sat with his legs over the edge of it and lay back, putting his arms beneath his head and staring into the sky.

[00:04:26] Matthew and Takuma went up next, fighting each other to get up. They sat beside James, looking out across the river and the vast forests that enclosed it on either bank. Aiden and I made our way up at last, Aiden still sniffling and cradling his arm. As I got up, James turned his head to look at me. Just look. We're lucky to be out here. It's better than being at home with my stupid brother, at least, James said with a short laugh.

[00:04:54] And I guess it's better to hang out with your friends than have to deal with your parents. Huh, Sam? James grinned. I sighed lightly. Yeah, I guess. It's nice out here. I took a deep breath of the fresh air and looked down at the water, moving quickly into the mouth of the gorge. A couple weeks later, we were back out at the bulldozers. I brought my dad's camera with us to take some cool photos, and I think some of them turned out okay for a 15-year-old.

[00:05:22] James and I had taken to scaring each other with different monsters and cryptids that we thought of, and we slowly started introducing them to the rest of our group. James also told us about how his father had once told him stories of something native to the forest around the gorge and Woodton, but he couldn't remember what it was. All he remembered was his dad telling him about a man who was driven into exile by the original Woodton settlers sometime around the mid-1700s, and he had been lost to time.

[00:05:50] He had never been found, even when the road was being built through the gorge or when the hiking trails were established up along the mountain range. I kind of dismissed it, preferring the stories about the supernatural beings or serial killers that would creep into people's houses. The guy, if he was even real, probably slipped into the gorge and drowned in the river. Months passed, and we kept going out to the bulldozers about once every couple weeks.

[00:06:18] Over time, they became more decrepit. At one point, Matthew fell through the roof of one of them due to it being rusted so badly. One day, when we were talking about monster mythos, James told us about a trail he and Takuma had found near the start of the gorge road. He hadn't gone down it on his own yet, but he wanted us to come with him. Aiden seemed nervous when he mentioned it, but didn't say anything. Matthew and I were hooked immediately, and we asked where it was.

[00:06:48] James replied, It's not too far from here. We can probably go and explore before it gets too dark. He pulled two flashlights from his pocket at the same time, tapping them together. Even if it gets dark, I've got these. Alright, let's go then. Chuck me a flashlight, Matthew said. If it gets dark, I want to be the one that can see exactly where he wants to. Aiden looked as though he was going to complain, but held his tongue.

[00:07:13] We walked for a few minutes before coming across a path entrance that came off of the old road path entrance. There was a sign on the left side of the track that read, G-R-J-T-R-U-L. Some of the letters paint had been chipped to the point where they were illegible. It looked like the track was fairly well maintained, and I questioned why no one had repainted the sign. Matthew and James eagerly moved down the path.

[00:07:39] The rest of us followed suit, although I admit I felt uneasy at the time, for a reason that I could not pinpoint. I wish I had taken that as a sign. My mind kept wandering to the aberrations that James and I had shared with each other, but gulped down my fear. We walked for about thirty minutes before it started getting a little dark. As it did, Aiden and I noticed an axe.

[00:08:06] It was a large wood axe, and its blade was dug completely into the side of a tree. There were not other marks on the tree. We shared a glance. It was eerie, to say the least, but it was just an axe. No alarm bells went off in my head, because why would they? About an hour later, we reached a fork in the path. We decided we'd go down one, turn around, and then go down the other. We turned right.

[00:08:34] We continued until we had to turn on the flashlights. This was the first time we debated turning back. This time, we all saw it. Another axe. In the exact same place, although on a different tree. I don't know a lot about how you wield an axe, but I know that it is definitely very hard to dig the entire blade of an axe into the side of a tree, seemingly with only one swing into it.

[00:08:59] I remember feeling my heart beating slightly faster in my chest as I saw James' eyebrows for Rome. What the fuck? He said with a small, awkward laugh. He looked back to Takuma. Did you see this before? You said you've been down this path, right? He swallowed. Uh, yeah, I came down here the day after we found it, and this wasn't here before. Maybe some guy from the lumber company came out here to set up a new station. Takuma replied.

[00:09:29] It was obviously a stupid explanation, but what else could it be? Aiden finally spoke up. Why wouldn't they just start from the road? Then they could at least get all their equipment there. Saves them having to work off just axes and chainsaws. Wait, why did they even bring an axe out here? They just used chainsaws, right? He said with a confused look on his face. He obviously wanted to turn around, but he didn't want to look like a loser in front of his friends.

[00:09:59] Looking back on this, I really feel bad for the kid. Matthew dismissed it with a laugh. Who cares? It's probably some guy trying to scare people like us. I'd do that for sure. He walked to the tree that the axe was stabbed into. He tossed his flashlight to Takuma, who held it steady on him. My eyes were locked onto him, but I could still see James nervously looking into the surrounding woodland, sweeping the flashlight across the trees.

[00:10:28] Matthew took the handle of the axe in both of his hands, braced his foot against a tree, and pulled as hard as he could. The axe wouldn't budge. It was dug too far in. Hey, I think we need to leave, guys. I'm creeped the fuck out, said Aiden, finally being overpowered by his fear. Sam and I saw another axe earlier, like half an hour ago, in the exact same spot on a different tree. This is bad, man. I don't like it.

[00:10:57] He was visibly sweating, even in the cool night air, and his fear slowly began to spread to the rest of us. James' head snapped to him. What do you mean you saw another axe? He looked between the two of us, his eyes widening. You meant to say there was another goddamn one of those and you didn't think to bring it up? He seemed suddenly on edge. Aiden put his hand between himself and James. Well, come on, it was just an axe in a tree, right? He licked his lips anxiously.

[00:11:27] Can we please just go home? A bird flew through the trees past us and Aiden let out a frightened squeal. He ducked to the ground so quickly he hit his forehead against the ground. He looked up in a daze, looking like a frightened child. He looked at me for a moment before looking just behind me and letting out a scream. I whirled around and James flashed his light ahead of me. My heartbeat raced, but there was nothing there.

[00:11:55] I turned back to Aiden, who was now sobbing. Shit, man, he's got a concussion or something, I said to James. Matthew, can you carry him back to the road? I'll call my dad and ask him to pick us up. I frowned. There was only one beam of light. I looked around and my heart dropped. Where the fuck is Takuma?

[00:12:19] My heart skipped a beat before I realized he probably just dropped his flashlight and didn't turn it back on. I laughed at myself for thinking he had disappeared. Tack, turn your flashlight back on, dude. You scared the shit out of me. James once more swept his flashlight around us while Matthew picked up Aiden. Takuma was gone. I haven't seen him since that day, five years ago.

[00:12:48] I'm so, so sorry, Tak. I felt my heart drop. I called out for him. This was the first time that I felt true fear in my life. Real, incomprehensible fear. I looked at James and he turned and ran. Since he was our only light source now, we had no reason but to follow him. We ran for what felt like hours until James finally stopped.

[00:13:16] He looked back at me with a wild look in his eyes. Where is the damn fork? We should have hit it by now. He's sounding hysteric. He screamed at us. Where is it? Where are we? God fucking damn it! Matthew lumbered over to him, snatching the flashlight from his grip, still cradling Aiden. You idiot! Why the hell did you run off like that? We could have at least made sure we were looking the right way before bolting. He turned to me. Can you call your dad? Tell him we need help.

[00:13:46] Tell him to bring a first aid kit and, if he can, more than just himself. The gravity of the situation hit us all at once. Takuma had disappeared. Tell him that we need a search party as well. I flicked my phone on and prayed that I had a signal. I held my breath as my phone came to life. I had a bar. I immediately called my father. Dad? We-

[00:14:15] We're out near the gorge on a trail and I don't know where Takuma is. And Aiden's hurt. And- And- He cut me off. What the fuck were you idiots doing out there? It's almost midnight. Your mother and I were terrified. I'm on my way. I'll bring first aid. Wait, what do you mean you don't know where Takuma is? I told him everything that happened and I could hear his voice became shaky. He said he would call James and Takuma's dads and come out as soon as possible.

[00:14:45] He hung up the call and I finally realized that I could use my phone's flashlight. I turned it on. Another god damn axe. There was another one in front of me. This time there was a carving above it. It looked hurriedly cut and it showed a river flowing between two mighty mountains. Even more unnerving. Stickers of trees were placed on the mountains.

[00:15:12] Peeking out from one of the stickers was another sticker. It was of a man. I remember snapping a picture of it but I haven't been able to find it. After seeing that we got the hell out of there. It took us about two hours to get back to the fork in the path and my father as well as Takuma's father, David, were waving flashlights around calling for us. James' dad stood behind them.

[00:15:39] My dad rushed to us and embraced me as did James' dad. David, however, just stood there. He stared past us, his flashlight trained on something. I looked over my shoulder and saw what he was staring at. There was a man watching us in the trees. He grinned eerily and in his hands he clasped a broad wood axe.

[00:16:06] Matthew immediately turned and ran, still carrying Aiden down the path. I couldn't move. The man locked eyes with me. He didn't move. I was terrified. Writing this I can feel the terror come back. I can remember his face perfectly. His wide grin still causes me to freeze in terror whenever I think about it. I feel his gaze locked on me and I hate it. I hate it.

[00:16:36] I don't know how to describe it but I remember my dad picking up a rock and throwing it at the man. It hit the man in the chest and he took a step back but didn't break eye contact. I turned and ran. I heard the rest of us follow closely behind. I don't know how long we ran but it didn't feel very long. Matthew and Aiden were already waiting by my car and my dad unlocked it, throwing the driver's door open.

[00:17:06] David was already driving from the area. The same with James, father. We must have broken at least ten different road rules but we didn't care. No one spoke a word. Matthew and Aiden stayed at our house for the night. I hadn't even thought about this until a year ago. David had lost his wife a decade ago and tack was the only thing he had left.

[00:17:35] He became a recluse. Some fucking asshole stuck an axe in a stump in his own backyard and that was the final straw for him. He committed suicide days after. I haven't talked to any of those guys in a while. I really hope they've forgotten about it. I really hope they've been doing it.