Bogleech.com's 2017 Horror Write-off:
Two-String Tom and Two-Arm Tim
Submitted by Conner Burgess (email)
Two-String Tom and Two-Arm Tim
were brothers, in this town
They'd play their songs,
outside the inn,
For everyone around.
These two brothers, bless their souls,
would sit and play all day
For any guest, they'd play and sing,
for the right to sleep on hay.
They were not rich, not money-wise,
but damn they played a tune!
Every now and then they'd ask for tips
around high noon.
So, Two-String Tom, as you may have guessed,
had himself a fiddle.
The problem was, the story goes,
that it missed its strings in the middle!
But Two-String Tom,
Lord bless his heart,
would fiddle just the same,
He'd draw that bow
across the string
and angels would take wing.
Now, no-one knew
how Two-Arm Tim
had earned his silly name,
but no-one bothered to ever ask,
they'd rather hear him sing!
That young boy there,
God rest his heart,
could cry out through the day.
He sang, and rhymed, and shouted out,
the church bell dare not ring.
Yeah, these two boys were something else,
but I still have more to tell,
of that fateful day, when the skies went dark,
and our sweet earth went to Hell.
Tom and Tim were sitting there,
playing out their songs,
when black clouds formed and rolled right in,
We knew that somethin's wrong.
We went inside, but Tom and Tim,
God rest their poor young souls,
They stayed right there, outside the Inn
and kept on playing songs.
From the clouds there came some men,
walking down the road.
Their arms spread wide
and heads held high,
all covered up in smoke.
The Preacher clutched close his old book,
the hunters loaded rounds,
the mothers hid their children then,
and tried to kill all sounds.
But Tom and Tim, those two young boys,
they just sat there and played
Like nothing weird was going on,
they just saw nothing strange.
So those strange men,
in their smokey cloaks,
they passed on by the boys,
and Tom and Tim began to change,
right before our eyes.
Now Two-String Tom,
he gained new strings,
which otherwise was neat.
The problem is, they weren't just strings,
they were wires with hooks for meat!
He thrashed about,
and swung his hooks,
churning up the ground.
The hooks, they tore at his own flesh,
but he didn't make a sound!
Two-Arm Tim,
at the same time,
was singing bright and loud.
That day his name became a lie,
and his arms began to crowd.
Yes, that's right, he grew more arms!
First 4, then 8, then 12.
He ended up with 84,
all stuffed there in a mound.
Yet still he moved,
he crawled around,
with his seven dozen arms,
he grabbed his brother and pulled his strings,
but was suddenly alarmed.
Two-String Tom,
if that was still his name,
had wired up his brother.
He pulled the wires tight, right then,
a knot matched by no other.
They struggled there,
and the wires cut,
they pulled at ol' Tim's flesh,
the meat was torn
and bones were cracked,
the wires like a mesh.
But irony had struck by then,
and Tom was tangled too.
He gasped for air
and thrashed about,
but his lungs were filled with goo.
The fighting slowed as both bled out,
and finally they died.
The corpses there,
their names now lies,
were burned and and thrown aside.
Out in the woods, they're buried there,
but even to this day,
up in the trees,
there's hooks and arms,
That grow in dangerous ways