Wood Cut (written by Universal Monk)
Mason Gregory found it at a yard sale on the edge of town, just past where the cracked pavement gave up and the weeds won. A mailbox leaned like it had given up years ago. Grasshoppers snapped through the dry yellow-brown grass as he stepped out of the car, their clicking the only sign of life.
The table was covered in chipped mugs and old dolls with missing eyes, but what caught his attention was the block of dark wood leaning against a rusted lawn chair.
It was carved deep with a figure that looked part jaguar, part soldier. The thing stood upright, claws gripping a torch in one hand, a club in the other, its mouth peeled open in a snarl. Feathers (or maybe they were spines?) fanned from its skull, and red circles danced across its armor like dried blood. The eyes, two black pits, stared like it knew him already.
“That’s old,” said the woman behind the table, her voice dry and cracked. “My husband dragged it back from South America. I always thought it was ugly as shit.”
Mason chuckled. “Hell yeah. Looks like something outta Doom.”
The old woman didn’t smile. Just flicked ash off her cigarette. “What?”
“A video game,” he said, still staring at the carving. “Old-school. Demons, fireballs, that kinda thing. I started playing it again after getting sick of arguing with people on Lemmy. Figured I’d do something a little more retro.”
She squinted at him through the smoke. “Still don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Just rambling. How much for this?”
She drew on the cigarette, what teeth she had left the color of old paper. “Ten bucks. Cash.”
Mason froze for a second. He hadn’t carried real money in forever. He pulled out his wallet. A crumpled five, a few ones. Just enough. He handed it over, nodded his thanks, and walked back to his car with the woodcut tucked under his arm.
It felt heavier now.
That night, he hung it up on the wall. He meant to leave it and go to bed. But hours passed, and he kept coming back. Staring. The eyes seemed deeper now. Hungrier. The mouth wider. A ring of fresh notches lined the bottom. Like it had been counting.
By morning, he still hadn’t slept. His gums throbbed. His hands pulsed with a dull ache. And the woodcut had changed. The jaguar-thing stood straighter now. Its grin stretched wider. Scratches marked the wall behind it. Long, shallow gouges he had never noticed before. He stared at them, unsure. Had they always been there?
He told himself it was stress, maybe that damn black mold that was on the ceiling, or maybe sleep deprivation.
That night, something whispered from behind the walls. Scratching came from inside the floorboards.
“What the fuck?” he hissed, standing barefoot in the dark. Sweat clung under his arms and pooled in the creases of his neck. Probably that damn black mold, he told himself. He was probably delusional.
Then came a sound. A soft shuffle. Like claws dragging across old floorboards. Near the woodcut.
He looked.
It hadn’t moved. Just sat there. Still. Watching.
Then the mirror shattered behind him.
His hands were black up to the wrists. The skin was hard, rough like bark but warm and pulsing. His teeth ached like they wanted out of his skull.
It wasn’t mold. It wasn’t madness. It was the woodcut. It had to be. He could feel it burrowed inside him, grinning without a mouth.
He turned to the mirror. His reflection stared back, but the eyes were too wide. Pupils flat like old coins. Lips pulled into a grin he didn’t recognize.
That’s when he understood.
It wasn’t a picture. It wasn’t art.
It was a doorway. A mask. A summoning.
And he had stared too long.
When the cops entered the apartment a week later, after neighbors reported screaming and a foul stench, they found no body.
Just the smell. Thick and sour, like something rotting deep in the walls. Black marks streaked across the plaster.
And blood. Too much blood for someone who had simply left.
The carving was still there. Nailed to the wall.
Still smiling.
END
Well, when Lemmy disappears—and it will soon, it’s already stagnating—I can at least say I did my part in memorializing it! lol