The Worm in the Wood

"The Worm in the Wood" is a Cthulhu Mythos short story by Laurence J. Cornford, first published in 1997 in the magazine Cthulhu Cultus.
==Synopsis==
The story is told by a narrator who is trying to dissuade someone from venturing into the wood in the vicinity of Arkham. Although no one has claimed the land after the death of the last owners, the locals take care to maintain the fence around the wood in good condition.
When pressed, the narrator reluctantly tells the story of how he used to visit the wood as a child thirty years before, in 1946, along with three young friends named Hubert, Seth, and Clyde. Due to the recent war, the fence had been somewhat neglected at the time, so the children found a place where they could easily get through. At first, they found the wood a peaceful place, and enjoyed the cool temperature and the supply of tasty apples, even though a good number of these had worms inside them. After their first ventures, they started to feel some kind of presence, and found signs such as trails and half-eaten animal carcasses, which they tentatively explained away as the work of a bear.
When the silence was broken by a sound betraying the presence of a large creature, the children decided to track the putative bear, and followed it to a place where the branches of gnarled trees grew close to the ground and formed a gigantic tunnel covered in some kind of web or membrane. They heard the sounds of the creature moving inside the tunnel, and Hubert urged the others to keep following, in spite of their fear.
At the end of the tunnel, they found themselves inside the lair of the beast: a chamber where many such tunnels converted to, all covered in phosphorescent mold and slime, and filled with apples, fish, and animal remains, which were being devoured by swarms of worms. The worms ranged from regular maggot-sized to cat-sized. Finally, they saw the monster: a pale thing larger than a bear, which attacked the kids. The four ran for their lives, out of the tunnel and towards the outskirts of the wood. The narrator looked behind and saw the thing charge at Hubert. Seth and Clyde reached the fence and escaped, as did the narrator.
Later on, the narrator learned from an old man that the creature was a Manitou, known as the "Spirit of the Trees", or the "Worm in the Wood". The locals retrieved Hubert's dead body from the wood, then proceeded to fix and reinforce the fence. The narrator finishes the story by revealing that he has since had the opportunity to consult a library in Arkham, and believes he knows the truth about the monster. He claims that if his ideas are correct, there must be a great number of such beings, but that they don't want anything from humans. In fact, they won't be a danger to anyone, as long as no one intrudes in their territory and starts killing the worms inside the apples again.
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Laurence J. Cornford works