“Death!” cried the Creepy Old Man in a Chair on a Porch near the Woods. “Deeeaaaaathhhh!”

The Creepy Old Man finally expended the meager volume of air in his decrepit lungs and fell silent. He could still hear nervous laughter and the tissue-paper crunch of fallen leaves as the Young Folks moved into the forest.

He rocked slowly, and under deflated coveralls, his thin, puppet-legs worked against the moldering wood of the porch. His hands curled themselves over the ends of the rocking chair’s arms like they too had been milled in some forgotten town a hundred years ago. The ancient man’s scalp was visible beneath the few white hairs that persisted there, fluttering in a soft, evening breeze. And his jaw worked in silent agitation, causing his beard to twitch at regular intervals like a filthy metronome.

In the distance behind the Creepy Old Man’s shack, a slouching box that decay and gravity had not quite conquered, one of the males let out a theatrical wolf howl. A young woman giggled, and another gave an exasperated “Geez, Jason.” A second boy—the one with the glasses, the old man thought—shouted, “Watch this!” before a crash of heavy branches and underbrush rattled the darkening sky. The rest of the forest had grown quiet.

The Creepy Old Man guessed that they would be getting to the deer carcass in a minute or two. He had to admit that the depression just past the fallen oak was a pretty good spot for foreshadowing, even if it seemed a little gratuitous to him. He drummed his fingers on the chair’s arms and reminded himself that it wasn’t a competition.

Another shout, but surprise and disgust had replaced the mirth of the previous noises. The Creepy Old Man shook his head and laughed humorlessly, a process that had evolved over the ages to include several expansive spasms and an artfully placed thread of saliva. Even after so many years, he got sensitive when Young Folks failed to react to his drifting left eye, only to fall for that stupid, dead stag every time.

And it was revolting, too. Glazed, lifeless eyes and the tongue hanging out of its mouth like that redneck Glen down at the nudie bar. The guts were dragged out and scattered on the dirt just to show that he’d been killed for pleasure—the deer, not Glen. Sometimes, just the heart was removed, and the whole setup drew enough flies that you could hear the ominous drone well before you got into range of the stench. He conceded that it was a deceptively complex move, but he would never say so publicly.  

Long, long ago, in the first years of his watch, the Creepy Old Man would hear nothing for a great while after the Young Folks passed him. Silence, right until the screams and shouts of the first snatching. Nothing to draw out an anxious titter or a shocked yelp. There had been no deer, no intimation of random, pitiless violence. None of the other ornamentation, either. But gradually, Whatever Was In The Woods had developed a sense of narrative scaffolding (a mild sense, in the Creepy Old Man’s view), and these gory omens had arrived, one at a time, years and years apart. Appetizers for the appetizers.

The deer was a relatively new addition, appearing sometime in the last decade. When he’d heard gasps and squeals earlier than ever before, he’d crept into the woods to investigate this new phenomenon. And there it was—a dead deer practically on his doorstep. And since his own doorstep was precisely where the Creepy Old Man was, he had been dismayed by this most recent escalation.

The Creepy Old Man stopped rocking and bent forward, stretching precariously toward the porch. After a few grunts, he rose with a picturesque, stoneware jug. It was pleasingly heavy, and liquid sloshed within as the Creepy Old Man settled the vessel onto his leg. The guy at the craft fair had had one with a comical XXX hand-painted across the side, but the Creepy Old Man thought his main tonal elements wouldn’t accommodate self-conscious whimsy.

He worked his hands around and under the glossy ceramic and its unique pattern of dimpling, which only occurred at a specific kiln temperature, and lifted the spout to his stained lips. Cool water spilled into his venerable mouth-hole; all that cackling did a number on the ol’ vocal cords. He had considered dropping the cackle and adopting a wheeze, but he wasn’t completely comfortable with his wracking cough yet. It ought to instill a sense of loathing, but it still felt more like “object of reluctant sympathy.” Maybe if he elongated the gurgle a little?

The evening was warm, and while the water was refreshing, the Creepy Old Man thought that a splash of corn liquor would have hit the spot. But he wasn’t 75 anymore, and alcohol just turned him into Sleeping Creepy Old Man in a Chair on a Porch near the Woods. Anyway, he just needed to stay sharp.

Whatever Was In The Woods was up to something—he was sure that there was some new stunt that it was getting ready to roll out. The Creepy Old Man heaved the jug up once more and took a long pull. What was left to do? A lighted sign that announced certain, horrific death to all who entered the forest? It apparently wasn’t enough to have the deer and the bloody tent and the sacrificial altar. And who knew what else. The entire presentation was slipping into self-parody, if anyone wanted his opinion.

Which, if all the dead Young Folks were any indication, no one did. But that really wasn’t the point.

The Creepy Old Man stuffed a massive pinch of chaw into his cheek, the bulging hemisphere pulling his mouth into a lopsided sneer. He again contemplated his piece. He just wasn’t connecting to this generation. He hadn’t been openly mocked since the late ’90s, and he was pretty sure that several years had passed since he’d heard even a nasty whisper. It had never occurred to the Creepy Old Man that Young Folks would develop a generally unshakeable empathy, and while that was admirable from a larger perspective, it posed a performative challenge that he had not quite surmounted.

Oh sure, there were cheap ways to produce the attenuated interplay of pity and abject scorn—say, a Confederate flag or some such. But where was the craft in that? He ejected an impressive pellet of tobacky spit, landing it with practiced precision onto the porch’s bottom step, just where a boot or a gleaming, white tennis shoe might rest. Props came with the territory, but he refused to accept that they should be the core of the experience.

Naturally, this was the essence of his one-sided dispute with Whatever. Given the powerful effect that slaughtering one’s audience had in driving the spectacle, the Creepy Old Man was disappointed by Whatever’s lazy reliance on mere objects to structure the engagement with the Young Folks. As if the sight and sound (and smell, presumably) of claws tearing through intestines weren’t enough!

The first screams of pain and terror suddenly resounded from the forest, and the Creepy Old Man turned his head, the sun’s last light casting an uncanny shadow against the wall of the shack. These sounds still sent a thrill down his curved spine, from which he took a considerable amount of vain satisfaction—he’d spent countless hours perfecting the vaguely obscene tilt of the hips that this posture required.

Whatever Was in the Woods just did not seem to understand its own dramatic power. The Creepy Old Man was mystified, quite frankly, that it couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize the minimalist perfection of serial disembowelment! He knew that this was common, of course: the deep investment of the self into performance frequently alienated the artist from the art. This was the path to popular gimmickry, the commodification of art that transformed it into mere entertainment. Was being eviscerated entertaining? Hell no. But was there a more vivid set of significations available to the performance of relational aesthetics than the violent spilling of guts onto the forest floor? Again, hell no.

The Creepy Old Man marveled still at the acoustics of this space. He swore he could hear the splatter of blood on tree bark, the suggestive drip of individual agency flung away by the cruel cosmos. He waited, his eyes moving weirdly under closed lids, like he was dreaming, but really he was just doing some light resistance work—those eyes weren’t going to bulge themselves. Well, they were, but it took some intricate muscle control.

The howl came then. Not human, but exhibiting much of the same anguish as its owner had just wrought. It was a wail of terror. A lament. A conquering roar. This—this—was magnificent! Art! The world shook!

At last, the woods and Whatever Was In The Woods were silent again. The Creepy Old Man shook his head and pushed himself out of his chair. Young Folks would come to the porch again. They always did, and he wanted to polish up his wheezing.