Widjibors

by John Davis

Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:

Mum’s head was discovered at the side of the road.

It happened when I was twelve. She was driving to Melbourne to visit my grandmother in hospital. Going way too fast. An oncoming milk tanker blew a tire, swerved into the opposite lane, and ploughed directly into the front of Mum’s blue Ford Fiesta; that Ford never stood a chance.

You know how a soda can looks when you crush it under your foot? Picture that on a massive scale.

Police officers found her head on the gravel verge. I imagined it lying in the sun, crawling with flies and ants.

My father died before I was born—lung cancer from a lifelong smoking habit—so, three months into my twelfth year, my orphandom began.

I was shunted between foster homes, rarely longer than a few weeks in one place. My foster carers didn’t want me; they wanted the paycheck. One family made its resentment of my presence very clear. I got so tired of the whole thing that one day I just… walked out.

For several days, I lived on the streets under the eyes of wary pedestrians and lingering gazes of strange old men.

Seeking isolation, I headed out of town into nearby Blackwood Forest.

Blackwood Forest—a deep, quiet, and rarely entered swath of woodland—slashed along the edge of town like a wound. A breeding ground for rumours of witchcraft and devil-worship, it roused enough fear for the locals to shun it. Despite its dark reputation, I felt safer there than in town, preferring the benign company of squawking crows and warbling magpies.

I had all but resigned myself to loneliness when I came across a woman, maybe in her seventies, gathering mushrooms from the mossy base of an ash tree. She plucked the mushrooms from the soft soil with pale, wrinkled fingers and dropped them into a woven rattan basket slung over her arm.

Noticing me, she straightened up and smiled a kind smile. Warm, welcoming, and open. A glow spread from my stomach into my extremities.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “Are you lost?”

Too shy to respond, I merely looked at her.

“What’re you doing out here?” she asked. “Where’re your parents?”

 “Gone,” I said. I wiped away tears with an angry swipe of my sleeve, but they kept coming.

“Oh… dear.” The woman put a hand on my shoulder, which relaxed at her touch. “Do you have anywhere to stay?”

“No.”

“Oh, my poor dear. What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Issac.”

“I’m Agnes.” She placed a gentle hand against my back and steered my steps. “I live just through here. I’ll fix you a hot chocolate. Nothing cheers me up quite like hot chocolate.”

I let her kindness guide me.

Above my head, a crow cawed.

Agnes’s hut, a drafty dwelling with timber walls and a conical roof coated in a fuzz of moss and lichen, became my world. It had a combined kitchen and dining area. A small living room was accessible through an archway, which also contained beds. In the kitchen, sitting upon the cabinets above the stove, was a shotgun.

I did chores, fetching wood for the stove, cleaning up after dinner, gathering mushrooms, twigs, and roots for Agnes’s arcane recipes.

Then, about a week into my stay, Agnes made a new request.

“Issac,” she said. She was lighting a tallow candle on the dining room table in preparation for the evening meal. Outside, Blackwood Forest darkened in the gathering dusk.

I stood at attention. “Yes?”

She touched the match to the wick. A flame leapt and danced, dispelling the gloom. “I need you to get me a baby.” She blew the match out. A thin white tendril of smoke curled from its scorched and shriveled head. She dropped it onto a porcelain dessert plate.

I frowned. “A baby? Why?”

Her voice cracked like a whip. “Never mind why. I simply require one.”

“But… that’s bad. Isn’t it?”

“I’ll return it, sweetie. You think I’d keep it? I only need it for a moment. Now, go get one.”

I was nonplussed. “How?”

“You’re a resourceful boy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You know what a baby looks like, don’t you? Not a toddler. A baby.”

“But… what do you need it for?”

Her contemptuous gaze made my stomach flutter and my heart clench. “You are living under my roof,” Agnes said, “which means you do what I say. Or you can leave. Simple as that. You can live on the streets again and eat rats and garbage until some man who likes little boys comes along and does dirty things to you and then chops you into little pieces. Is that what you want?”

Wintry terror passed through my frame. My mouth went dry, and my heart pounded. I shook my head. “No.”

“Good.” She waved a dismissive hand in my direction. “Go now.”

Eager to please, I raced into the forest, heading for the glow in the sky that signposted the town. The night was cold and cloudless, the moon a silver coin upon a blanket of star-stained darkness.

In town, I peeked through the windows of houses, looking for any sign that an infant could be found within.

As the night wore on, towards the centre of town, I pressed my face to a window at the side of a small brick house. Through it I glimpsed a small bedroom containing a white crib.

Encouraged, I snuck into the house through the unlocked back door. The house was dark and quiet, pale light from the streetlights leaking through the gaps in the curtains, conjuring huddled shapes from the furniture like the backs of slumbering beasts.

On cat-like feet, I passed the parents’ bedroom and glanced at their sleeping forms under the sheets.

In the baby’s room, moonlight spilled across the crib. As I approached, I saw the baby inside, dressed in a sleep sack adorned with silver sickle moons and five-pointed stars.

The baby was asleep, its hairless head tilted, mittened hands raised on either side. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl.

I lowered the guardrail, wincing at every scrape of wood and click of latch, reached down, scooped up the baby, and lifted it out.

The baby’s eyes snapped open and riveted on my face.

I was terrified that it would start crying and wake up its parents in the next room. But it made no sound. It stared at me, mesmerized.

I carried it outside. As I made my way through town, the baby kept touching my face with its gentle mittened hand. It had startling blue eyes.

To calm my nerves, I started whistling. The baby’s eyes widened, and it stuck out its arms. When I stopped whistling, it smiled and babbled, flapping its arms up and down. I whistled again, and the baby stared, apparently enamored by the sound.

I was still whistling as I carried the baby into Blackwood Forest. At the hut, I cradled the baby in one arm and knocked on the door.

The chain rattled, and the door opened. Agnes smiled at the baby. “Good, good.” She pulled me inside. “Excellent work.” She closed and chained the door and took the baby from me. She had a strange look in her eyes. Not quite of tenderness. Anticipation.

She lifted her gaze to me. “I need something else. A widjibor.”

“What’s that?”

“A special plant. Looks like a mushroom but with vines coming out the top like this.” Taking one hand from the baby, she twirled her finger in the air, making spirals. “They’re purplish-blue. You will see it from its glow.”

I’d never heard of a widjibor before, but I was too focused on pleasing Agnes to give it much thought. “How many?”

“Just one for now. Oh. And if you don’t find it after three hours, come back.”

I gawked. “Three hours?”

“That’s how long it takes sometimes. Quick, quick.”

Armed with a flashlight, I set out to find a widjibor, but three hours later I returned to the hut empty-handed, dejected, and shivering with cold. Mucus leaked from my nose.

Agnes tossed a blanket around my shoulders and shoved a steaming mug of hot chocolate into my trembling hands. “Never mind, dear,” she said. “Maybe next time.”

I took a sip of the hot beverage and looked around. “Where’s the baby?”

“Oh. I took it home. All finished with it now.”

I thought to ask how she knew where the baby lived, but I figured she had a way.

After the first baby, Agnes sent me out for others.

Agnes’s reliance on me became a source of pride. I finally had a purpose. And I loved her. I loved her as any son loves a mother, perhaps even more because rather than stemming from maternal instinct, her tenderness towards me seemed to spring from innate kindness, which made it more profound.

So, I continued to bring babies to her. After a while, I no longer gave much thought to what I was doing. I even came to enjoy my little evening adventures.

My thefts became increasingly brazen. My most daring act of abduction occurred when, while scouring the town in the middle of the day, I observed a young mother leave her pram unattended while she ran into a hairdresser, apparently having forgotten something. During her brief inattention, detecting no witnesses, I simply grabbed the swaddled, squirming creature from the pram and strode away on the sunlit street. I was around the corner and out of sight when I heard the mother’s first strident screams.

Sometimes, I felt guilty about what I was doing, but I reasoned that every baby I took would soon be returned after Agnes was finished with it, so the child’s parents would be happy once again. In fact, their happiness would be amplified. Few joys are greater than discovering that something near and dear you thought was lost has been returned.

One evening, several days after the fourth baby, for the first time since I moved in with Agnes, someone knocked at the door.

Agnes peaked through the window. In a harsh voice, she told me, “Go out the back and hide.”

“Who is it?”

“Do as I say.”

Not wanting to upset her, I snuck out the back, ran away from the house, and hid behind a thick ash tree, peering out to see what was happening.

From where I stood, I almost couldn’t tell what was going on. Then through the windows I glimpsed movement. Two men. Both wearing police uniforms.

My mind reeled. What were the police doing here? What did they want with Agnes? Terrified that they might take her away from me, I tiptoed towards the hut and pressed my ear to the wall.

I failed to distinguish their muffled words, but Agnes and the officers spoke in a conversational tone. Agnes laughed and said something. Before I could find a better point from which to eavesdrop, the police left.

When I entered, I asked Agnes what the police had wanted.

“Oh. Nothing, dear. Something about a dangerous man. Wanted to make sure I was safe. So, you better not go wandering too far.”

The explanation struck me as dubious, but I was too relieved that Agnes hadn’t been arrested to dwell on the possibility that she was lying to me.

On a chill night, with wind rattling the branches, the men arrived.

By that time, I’d collected five babies for Agnes. She said she didn’t need anymore, and I felt more than a little relieved. I looked forward to my outings, but the kidnappings took an emotional and spiritual toll.

While I was washing dishes in the sink after dinner, I heard a dog barking outside. Curious and alarmed, I went to the window.

Three men came bounding towards the hut through the trees, silhouetted against the waning light. The barking, accompanied by gruff voices, got louder.

In front of the men slinked a low-slung shape, and I needed a moment to understand that it was a dog. A German Shepherd. It strained at its leash, and the man in the middle was struggling to hold it back.

Agnes sat with a book in the living room, oblivious to what was happening. Heart racing, I informed her of my discovery.

Scowling, Agnes put the book down and went to the window. She watched the men and the dog for a moment, then fetched the shotgun.

“Guard the back door.” She broke the shotgun, took two shells from a drawer, and shoved them into the breaches with trembling fingers. She snapped the gun shut.

“What’s going on?” I asked, but I knew who these men must be.

A fist pounded the flimsy front door, shaking it in its frame. I retreated to the back door.

“Open this fucking door, cunt,” a man outside bellowed.

The German Shepherd’s ferocious barking shredded my nerves.

Agnes pointed the shotgun at the door. “Go away,” she shouted back, her voice, though betraying her age, conveying impressive strength and force.

“Open up. We know you got our kids in there.”

“I got no such thing!”

Behind me, the bolt on the back door rattled.

“Agnes?” I hated how hearing the fear in my voice made me even more scared. I quivered.

“It’s okay, Issac,” she said. Sweat rolled down the side of her face. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

To the left of the front door, a window shattered. Agnes whirled towards it. A large rock tumbled onto the carpet.

Through the opening in the glass, the German Shepherd poked its long dark head, pink tongue lolling from its mouth over pointed yellow teeth, its small dark eyes alert.

It was halfway through the window when Agnes jerked the shotgun towards its head and fired.

A tremendous explosion shook the hut. My ears rang. Flames belched from the barrels, and the German Shepherd’s head flew apart, scraps of bloody tissue and hair twisting through the air, and the headless dog slumped through the window, flopping dead on the hut’s floor. Steam spiraled around the red mess where its head used to be.

I smelled blood and something like fresh rot. My throat contracted.

The back door crashed open, and a man lumbered through wearing a flannel jacket and jeans and holding a hammer.

Agnes cracked the shotgun, expelling the spent shells, and grabbed two more from the counter.

To buy Agnes enough time to reload, I threw myself in front of the intruder. Seeing me startled him, but he recovered fast and shoved me out of the way, eyes burning with madness, coming at Agnes with the hammer raised. Behind him, a second man appeared in the doorway.

Snapping the shotgun closed, Agnes raised it and fired. The blast caught the first intruder in the centre of the chest and slammed him to the floor. He squirmed, moaned, and stilled.

The second man came for me, rough hands gripping my neck and hoisting me up. I thrashed and kicked and screamed but to no avail. When I tried to bite the hand holding my face, the hand pressed tightly over my mouth.

Agnes reloaded.

The front door flew open. Agnes whirled.

“Whoo!” the man holding me bellowed. “Greg, don’t!”

The third man was too intent on his mission to heed his friend’s warning. He stumbled inside from the night, eyes wild, clutching a hatchet.

He never saw Agnes. When she shot him, the barrels of the shotgun almost touched his ear. Like the German Shepherd’s, his head came apart. I glimpsed a crimson flash of jaw, a curved ridge of bone lined with teeth, spin away from the wreckage of his pulverized skull. I could see the popcorn crowns of his molars. The corpse flopped forward in the doorway, one arm outflung, the hand extended as if entreating me.

The air stank of gunpowder and death.

Agnes reloaded the shotgun and pointed it at me. I realized she was pointing it at the man holding me.

“Don’t do it,” the man said. “You shoot me, you’ll hit the kid.”

Agnes’s eyes narrowed over the shotgun. She never wavered. From where she was aiming, the blast would rip my head apart as well as my captor’s. I didn’t know what she would do. I knew what she was capable of, but until that moment, I hadn’t considered that I was expendable.

That, ultimately, I was nothing to her.

My life was over, but rather than feeling afraid, I felt lighter. All my life, I’ve imagined death in all its forms, but I never could decide which form it would take.

In the end, I just hoped it would be painless.

Then Agnes dipped the barrels towards the floor and fired.

The man screamed and fell, letting me go. I scurried away from him. He lay on the floor, clutching the ruin of his right foot, rocking back and forth, moaning and whimpering.

Agnes went to the counter for more shotgun shells and found none. She rummaged in drawers. All empty.

The man dragged himself towards the back door, his shredded foot smearing blood on the rug.

Taking the shotgun in both hands, Agnes strode towards the injured man. She stood over him, lifted the shotgun, and brought the butt-end down against the back of his skull. I heard a sickening crunch. The man slumped. He didn’t move.

I thought it was over.

The man stirred. His right hand clawed the floor like a dying spider.

The shotgun came down again, then again, each blow deepening and widening the concavity in the back of his head. The man gurgled once in the back of his throat and stopped squirming. A putrid stench assaulted my senses; he’d voided his bowels.

Breathing heavily, Agnes leaned the shotgun against the cupboards. “Right.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead and put her hands on her hips, eyes roaming over the bodies. “We have to clean this up.”

Just like that. She was all business again. I was in much worse shape. I sat on the floor, hugging my knees, trembling as if from hypothermia, teeth chattering in my head.

Agnes strode over and wrapped me across the head. “Get up and help me,” she said. “Look at you. A sniveling little baby. Get up. Get up, for Christ’s sake, get up.” Another slap across the head. I threw my hands up to protect myself. “Stop crying and help me. I swear to God, I’ll throw you out on your ass.”

Recovering from my shock, I grabbed the man in the doorway by the ankles and dragged him out to the woods. His dead weight repulsed me. It was the grisliness of Agnes’s work, undeniable, stinking and heavy and terrible.

I deposited him in the trees while Agnes gathered wood, a can of kerosene, and matches. When I’d dragged the other two bodies and the dog carcass to the pile, Agnes stacked wood around them, doused the bodies with kerosene, lit a match, and tossed it onto them. Flames leapt and spread, snapping and spitting. Black smoke billowed into the night, carrying the scent of roasting flesh.

Agnes stared into the flames. Her eyes reflected them.

Unable to stand the smell, I turned away. I’d lied to myself. Clearly, the babies had never been returned. I resolved to discover where Agnes was keeping them and to return them to their homes, hoping to salvage something of the mess I’d made of my life.

Agnes once again sent me out for the elusive widjibors. I’d accepted that the widjibors were fictitious, a means of getting me out of the hut. Agnes had deceived me. Betrayed me.

I set out on my widjibor hunt as instructed, except this time, ten minutes into my journey, I turned back. My actions betrayed Agnes’s trust, but I felt entitled. An eye for an eye.

I was certain Agnes had kept the kidnapped babies, so perhaps I could return them to their homes, back into the loving arms of their families, and thereby undo the pain and suffering I had inflicted upon the community.

I entered the hut and saw no sign of Agnes. Perhaps she’d gone into the woods. I entered the living room.

The Persian rug lay rolled up against the wall. In the centre of the floor, in the lightly shaded rectangle of space where the rug had once lain, was a trapdoor. My insides twisted and crawled.

Warily, I grabbed the metal ring in the trapdoor and pulled, but it would not budge. I was looking around for something to pry it open with when something rattled beneath me. The trapdoor began to rise.

Terrified of being discovered, I ducked behind a bookshelf. I heard Agnes climb out of the trapdoor, tread across the room, open the front door, and step outside.

Heart slamming in my chest, I approached the open trapdoor. It revealed a square portal of darkness. Earthen stairs descended into gloom.

Glancing behind me to ensure Agnes was not coming back, I descended into the earth.

The stairway was cold and clammy; thick air clung to my skin. As I descended, the meagre light spilling from the trapdoor faded until I was walking through pure blackness, pressing one hand against the earth wall to keep from becoming disoriented, taking each step with immense care as if the next might drop into an abyss. Always ahead of me, a faint light flickered.

As I stepped into that flickering glow, the stairway let onto a wide room that swelled out before me. Putrescence, like overripe fruit, assaulted me. Long black tapers burned in copper candle holders around the perimeter of the round, flat space, melted wax weeping down their sides. In the centre of the space stood a high-backed black chair. Spreading out from beneath the chair, scrawled upon the floor in thick red lines, was a large five-pointed star within a circle.

At each point of the star lay a small mound. At first, I thought they were dolls, but as I looked, comprehension descended like the cold inevitability of nightfall.

Not dolls. Babies.

Five babies.

Quivering, I approached the nearest one.

I recognized it as the first baby I’d taken, the one that had been so enamored with my whistling. It lay naked on its back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, skin flat and grey. A neat cut across its small throat marked the manner of its dispatch.

I bent down and touched the baby’s bare chest.

Its skin was ice cold.

Standing, sick, I gazed at the other tiny shapes placed neatly and deliberately on their backs as if they were details of a grotesque artwork.

“What are you doing here?”

I whirled.

Agnes glared at me from the doorway. Her face softened. “Actually,” she said, “this is good. You finally see the fruits of your labor.”

I balled my fists. “You said you would give them back.”

“I couldn’t very well tell you the truth, could I?”

“You… you killed them.”

“I killed them? You delivered them. Did you never question what was happening to them the entire time you were out on your little hunts, tearing them away from their families?”

She walked towards me; her figure eclipsed the doorway. “You may be young, Issac, naïve, but not stupid. You know you’re as much to blame for their deaths as I am. Even more, really. If not for you, these little ones would never have fallen into my hands. You made all this possible.”

I tried to run past her. Agnes seized me in her powerful hands, spun me to face the room, and pinned me against her chest, holding my face so I was forced to see her creation. I struggled, but her grip on me was strong.

“You’re about to witness something marvelous,” she said. She began to speak. I thought the words she spoke, if the sounds were words, didn’t come from any human civilization.

As if in response to her unearthly chanting, I felt the ground tremble, vibration that grew to a rumble.

“I’m dying, Issac. Pancreatic cancer. I don’t have much time left. Not even the powers I have tapped into can prevent the disease, the failure of our fragile bodies. But before I leave this world, which has shunned and murdered my kind for centuries, I intend to bestow a parting gift.”

Where she gestured, I saw a black fog rise from the earth, conform to the lines of the pentagram, and coalesce into a cloud. The cloud shimmered, melted into an elongated disk, like a looking glass, and tilted upright, hovering in the air, a tear in existence.

Through that tear, I glimpsed a world of slimy black edifices that crawled with segmented bodies; fathomless abysses of swirling hateful darkness; realms of tenebrous mountains wherein infernal fires burned. Screams emanated from the portal, terrible tortured screams, piercing wails of such profound misery and unbearable agony that my soul shriveled to hear them.

Agnes was crying. “See,” she whispered. The cries, screams, and shrieks swirled around us like invisible birds. “See. See how wonderful it is.” She kissed my cheek. “Thank you. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” She kissed me again.

From the portal, an enormous eye appeared, triple-pupiled, with an amber iris of molten flame. A foul stench, as of an opened grave, issued forth. An immense clawed hand reached through the portal, followed by a hirsute arm, and the one-eyed, low-slung, slavering creature emerged, crawling forth from the cavity, its triple-pupiled eye staring at me, into me, through me.

Agnes murmured against my cheek. “I love you, Issac.”

In desperation, while her lips were still pressed to my cheek, I turned my head and bit her bottom lip, sawing and crushing with my teeth. Agnes screamed as I bit through the soft flesh and tore her lip from her face.

In her shock and pain, she dropped me, and, spitting out the awful hunk of bleeding flesh, I scrambled out of the room and up the stairs on hands and knees, breathing hard as I scurried up through darkness and emerged into the light of the living room. I slammed the trapdoor closed and pulled the bookcase down on top of it.

From below, Agnes pounded against the trapdoor, striking it with such fierce blows that the bookcase shifted with each. A low, dreadful growling issued from under the hut.

The trapdoor would not hold that monstrosity for long.

Rummaging through drawers and cupboards, I found the kerosene and matches. Unscrewing the cap of the kerosene with sweaty fingers, I returned to the living room. With Agnes pounding at the trapdoor, I splashed kerosene in waves over the floor. Walking backwards into the dining room, I splashed more kerosene on the walls and floor. Outside, I doused the doorway, tossed the empty cannister into the hut, took out a match with trembling fingers, and struck it.

The flame flared briefly before the wind snatched it away.

Agnes screamed and rained blows upon the trapdoor.

Dropping the ruined match, I grabbed a second one. Struck it. It flared and died.

In the house, the trapdoor, now unobstructed by the bookcase, swung open. Agnes climbed out.

Fingers drenched in sweat, heart racing, I struck a third match. When the flame flared, I dropped the matchbox and cupped my hand around it, protecting it from the wind.

Agnes stood in the doorway to the living room. The bottom half of her face was a mess. Blood leaked from her torn bottom lip and down her chin and neck. The permanent grimace of her exposed lower teeth was stained crimson. A dark smoky shadow loomed up behind her, a shadow with a clawed hand and a triple-pupiled amber eye.

Screaming, Agnes lurched towards the front door, hands outstretched, fingers hooked.

I dropped the match.

Flames leapt up from the kerosene trail, racing through the hut like agitated snakes of fire, the snakes multiplying as they climbed the walls, devouring the ancient timber. Agnes vanished behind a flapping wall of fire and smoke. As I backed away from the burning hut, an intense wall of heat followed, drawing moisture from my eyes and sweat from my skin, I glimpsed Agnes flailing amidst the conflagration, shrieking and draped in fire. Her hair ignited, and she looked like a hellish apparition. The roof collapsed, hurling sparks into the air.

As I watched the hut burn, a shadow rushed out at me, flat and birdlike, with a contorted face, borne on vast wings of smoke and fire.

I threw myself flat on the earth and covered my head. The hateful thing swooped over me, singing my back as it passed. When I lifted my head, there was only the burning house and the glow of ignited leaves. And smoke.

Smoke as black as the inside of a coffin.

Many years later, that night’s memory remains an open wound.

The fire devoured fifty hectares of forest. The scorched patch of earth has never recovered. The trees remain as pillars of coal. Locals shun the area more than they ever did in Agnes’s days.

The only remains anyone found were those of three men and a large dog.

I stayed in Blackwood Forest. I have never been lonelier. Sometimes I imagine death would be easier, but death terrifies me because I have seen the infernal fires and abyssal pits.

Agnes lies among the damned, waiting for me.

Want another gripping story by John Davis? Read “It Hungers” in Horrific Scribes September 2025, “About a Girl” in Horrific Scribes March 2026, and “Enemy” in Horrific Scribes June 2026.