Hello and welcome to the Drabblecast, episode 467. The Drabblecast is an audio fiction

magazine that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners,

such as yourself. I'm your host, Norm Sherman. Great show for you folks this week. We bring

you Woods for the Trees by Harley Carnell. Harley lives and writes in London, England. His works

been published in Confrontation, Riptide Journal, Penumbra, Litro, among others.

He said work performed on No Sleep Podcast and Tales to Terrify,

and he has an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

The story is produced by Drabblecast guest producer Adam Prott,

and narrated by Trendane Sparks.

So without further ado, we bring you Woods for the Trees by Harley Carnell.

Woods for the Trees by Harley Carnel On the second day of our search for John Shaw, John Shaw joins our search party.

Frustrated after years of incompetence and inaction from the authorities, and after Shaw recently committed a particularly brutal murder,

we are combing the woods where he is known to operate and suspected to be hiding. I'm trailing behind

everyone else, not having realized when I volunteered both how unfit I was

and how deceptively strenuous it is to walk through a forest.

It's as I begin walking a little quicker, trying to make up ground on the main group,

that I hear footsteps crunching behind me.

I turn, and there is Shaw.

Amen, he says, giving me a nod and a little raise of his eyebrows. What did I miss?

For a second, I'm stunned. This is John Shaw, the John Shaw, that I'm surrounded by 20 of the toughest guys in town, all fueled by adrenaline and seething with a burning hatred for Shaw, does nothing to quell my terror.

For a moment, I'm convinced I'm not going to be able to speak.

But luckily, I find my voice.

...