The Wilds of Worcester and the Whats

The year was 1837, and the town of Worcester was still a fledgling settlement clinging to the edge of Massachusetts’ wilds. Beyond its modest boundaries lay a tangled wilderness of gnarled oaks and dark, sprawling marshes, known to the locals as the Black Fen. Few dared venture there, for whispers spoke of things—shapeless, nameless beings—that fed not on flesh, but on something deeper, something vital.

These whispers called them the "Whats."

Gideon Parrish, a man of stout build and sharper wit, was a surveyor by trade, charged with charting the Fen for proposed roads and settlements. He’d heard the tales, of course: how entire families had vanished, their cabins found intact but their hearths cold and their beds undisturbed. Gideon dismissed them as the fever dreams of idle minds. Yet as he stood on the edge of the Black Fen, the air heavy with the scent of rot and decay, unease crept into his heart.

The first day in the Fen was uneventful. Gideon sketched the twisted pathways and marked the trees with his hatchet. The forest seemed still, unnervingly so, as though it watched and waited. By nightfall, he had set up a small camp beside a brackish pond, its waters reflecting the crescent moon like a shard of tarnished silver. He lit a fire and ate his meager rations in silence, the stillness oppressive.

That was when he heard it—a faint, high-pitched whisper, like the rustle of reeds in the wind. Yet there was no wind. Gideon froze, his hand instinctively reaching for the flintlock pistol at his side. The whisper grew louder, more insistent, though its source remained unseen.

“Who’s there?” he barked, his voice trembling despite his efforts to sound commanding.

The whisper ceased. A moment later, a sound like a wet sigh emanated from the darkness beyond the firelight. Gideon strained his eyes but saw nothing, only the blackness of the Fen. He loaded his pistol, though the weight in his chest told him it would do little good.

Sleep eluded him that night, and by dawn, he resolved to finish his survey and leave the cursed place. But as he worked, he began to notice things he’d missed before: crude symbols carved into the bark of trees, their patterns unlike any language he knew. The ground in some places seemed to writhe, as though something beneath the soil sought to break free. And always, there was the whispering—now constant, now louder.

It was on the third day that Gideon saw them.

He had been following what he thought was a deer trail when the air grew cold and heavy, thick as molasses. The shadows lengthened unnaturally, and the whispering rose to a crescendo. Then, from the gloom, they emerged. At first, they were formless, shifting masses of oily darkness, but as Gideon watched in horror, they began to take on vague, half-formed shapes—elongated limbs, gaping maws, eyes that glimmered like dead stars.

The Whats did not walk; they flowed, like smoke given weight. And as they neared, Gideon felt something being pulled from him—not his blood, nor his flesh, but his very essence, as though they sought to unravel his being. His vision blurred, his strength ebbed.

In desperation, he fired his pistol. The shot echoed through the Fen, but the bullet passed through the nearest What as though it were mist. They closed in, their whispers now intelligible—fragmented words and phrases that spoke of hunger, despair, and an eternity of cold nothingness.

Gideon ran. He did not remember how long he fled, nor how he found his way out of the Fen. When he stumbled back into Worcester, his clothes were torn, his face pale and hollow. He tried to warn the townsfolk, but his words were rambling, incoherent. They wrote him off as mad, a man broken by the wilderness.

Weeks later, a trapper found Gideon’s body at the edge of the Fen. His face was frozen in a rictus of terror, and his eyes—once sharp and bright—were dull and empty, as though something had plucked the very soul from within him.

The Black Fen remains untouched to this day, its edges marked by crude wooden crosses erected by the superstitious. And on cold, moonless nights, when the wind is still, the whispers can still be heard, calling to those foolish enough to listen.