The Breeding Mound: A Folk Horror | E1 - We're from the War

First, they lost their brother, then they lost the war. 

Now Jens and Didrich Oversen must set aside their differences and face their family, before beginning the impossible task of rebuilding a nation brought to its knees. Still reeling from their loss, with the weight of defeat heavy on their shoulders, they begin the long journey home. 

But the world they fought for is long gone... leaving something far older in its place. As Jens and Didrich soon discover, the wounds of war may run deep, but sometimes it's the horrors at home that break you.    

The Breeding Mound is an immersive folk horror production available wherever you get your podcast shows!  

Transcript

Night was drawing in, bringing with it an icy breeze that nipped at exposed flesh. It rustled through the pines, leaving shaking branches in its wake—a gentle reminder of the winter still to come.

It had rained that morning, and the smell of earth, and moss, and pine needles still clung to the air. And beneath them, the faint smell of forest rot.

Jens threatened a smile as he inhaled the natural odour of the woods, his eyes dancing across the boughs of ancient, still-wet firs and pines. Their roots rested deep in the earth, like the people that lived here. And their green tips rose high, clasping at the amber sky like outstretched hands, never quite able to reach the heavens. There was something to be said for that and the people that lived here, too, Jens thought.

But there, a piece that didn’t fit.

“Wolf?” said Didrich, limping up beside him.

“No,” said Jens, crouching down on his haunches to inspect the entrails. “Not in these parts. Not anymore.”

A thin line of gristle ran lengthways beside the path, ending in a small clump of matted fur and exposed bone. From the look of the remains, the carcass had been gnawed on for some time before being discarded. A tattered ear, half-chewed, identified it as a hare.

“Then, what?”

“Fox?” said Jens, leaning against his flintlock as he drew himself back to his feet. “Marten? Badger? Some scavenger that finds its home in these woods. Whatever it was, it’s got a full belly now.”

“It’s hunted the woods bare,” said Didrich, letting his weight rest against his own flintlock and rolling a cigarette. “There hasn’t been any game since we crossed into Vissenbjerg. Just this… dead thing.”

Jens turned to consider his brother, wondering if he should share his doubts and then deciding that he should. “I don’t think we’re in Vissenbjerg. We should have made it home by now.”

Didrich placed the rollie in his mouth and then patted at his pockets for a match. His blue fatigues had faded into a dull grey, and his poorly mended trousers were starting to fray above the right knee, where shrapnel had turned his once jaunty gait into a staggered shuffle.

“Here,” said Jens, handing him his own box.

“So we’re lost?” said Didrich, dragging on the cigarette and then flicking the match out. “Pa will have something to say about two Funen boys who couldn’t find their way back after the war. He’ll say, unless we’re dead, we’ve no excuses, so we better be dead or find some good excuses.”

Jens winced at that. There would be no laughter to greet them when they returned home. Perhaps at first, at the sight of Jens and Didrich. But then his mother’s eyes would search for Erik, and his father would go quiet like he always did.

Didrich saw his look and sighed, exhaling a plume of silvery-white smoke and following its path into the canopy with his eyes. “They will have heard by now. Received his pension and his letters. Or else one of the Steinmann brothers will have let the news slip. They left before we did.”

That didn’t make it any better. The dread he felt at the thought of facing his parents had formed a knot in the pit of his stomach, tightening with each step they took closer to home. They would stare at him without blame, but the questions would come regardless. How could he have let this happen? How could Erik be dead? There was nothing he could have done. Erik’s face flashed before him, disappearing as he clambered over the wall of the trench. Smiling, always smiling. A thunderstorm of cannon and muskets, the earth shaking with each pounding beat of the drum. And then Erik’s mangled body in the mud, punctured by Prussian lead, his crooked grin hidden by blood. No more smiling.

“We still have some light,” said Jens, shouldering his flintlock as he tried to push the memory away. He stepped onto the path, not waiting for Didrich to catch up. After a brief pause, his brother limped after him.

They followed the sloping path across a small river and past a shallow ravine. The last of the day’s golden glow had just begun to fade when Jens brought them to a halt near the edge of the forest, where the trees had thinned.

“I don’t recognise this place either,” said Jens, squinting at the outlines of a village that occupied the centre of the small glen ahead of them. The river ran through it, spine-straight, like a sliver of light between grey silhouettes. The forest grew around the town like a great boundary wall, its densely packed confines keeping the world inside from prying eyes, while its towering peaks sent menacing shadows across the field and toward the buildings. A plume of cloud-white smoke curled up from the chimney of the nearest house, and Jens felt his stomach rumble.

“No,” said Didrich, already walking out from the forest, his thoughts a step ahead of Jens’s. “But I am hungry, and they will have beds for a pair of tired old soldiers. Come on. They can show us the way back home in the morning.”

Jens returned the friendly waves of the few folk working on the outskirts of the village, toiling in the fields and gathering fruit from the orchard that grew along the river. Didrich scowled back at them, stomping a cigarette out on the path before a nudge from his brother yielded a… more friendly-looking scowl.

“Do you want them to send us on our way like a pair of beggars?” Jens said, keeping his voice low as they passed a bygmester and his cart on the road.

“Look at them,” spat Didrich. “As fat and happy as pigs in a pen. Where were all these young folk when we were getting shat out of the Als?”

Jens frowned deep into his coat, his eyes darting at the figures in the field around them. His brother was right. Everyone they’d seen had been around their age or near enough. This close to Sønderborg, why hadn’t they enlisted to defend Denmark’s borders?

“Just… keep it to yourself. They’ll have their reasons, as do we.”

Didrich stabbed him in the chest with a tobacco-stained finger, his voice low to match Jens’s. “This was everybody’s war, Jens.”

“I know,” he replied, trying to keep his tone even. “But pick your arguments. Now is not the time. Unless you want to spend the night in the open again?”

Didrich snorted, showing his yellow-stained teeth like a snarling pine marten. But Jens’s words made sense, and after a moment, he lowered his hackles with a begrudging nod.

The village dwellings were uniform in shape and size, single-story structures with white-washed walls and Victorian-styled roofs. Only the chimneys appeared to be fashioned from brick and stone, poking out from the rooves like rabbit bones. The village chapel towered over the surrounding dwellings, standing over them like a vulture guarding its brood.

A small crowd was gathering by the town well, and Jens met their warm smiles with one of his own, nudging his brother to do the same.

There were a few grey heads and wizened faces amongst the gathered group, though the number of unwrinkled faces far outnumbered the wrinkled. As did, Jens noted curiously, the number of men to women.

“Hello,” said Jens to no one in particular. “We’re from the war.” He ignored his brother’s barely stifled cackle and looked hopefully at the crowd until a short, squat man emerged from their fold and extended a hand.

“Bjerund Hansen,” he said, his yellow eyes blinking as a smile appeared on his round face.

“Jens Oversen,” said Jens, taking the proffered hand in his own. Bjerund’s grip was moist, and he suppressed the urge to wipe his hand when it was released. “And this is my brother, Didrich. We are on our way home to Vissenbjerg.”

“Vissenbjerg?” Bjerund looked confused for a moment, and then his wet eyes lit up again, and he nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, aye, haven’t been along the coast in a time! But tell me, what news from the front?”

Jens crooked his head, like a crane staring down its beak at Bjerund’s toad-like face. “It’s… over. We lost. Hadn’t you heard? They’ve taken Schleswig. Holstein and Lauenburg too. Cut Denmark in half.”

Bjerund seemed to nod to himself, considering Jens’s words. And then he shrugged. “News travels slow to Fødebjerg. We sometimes joke that the world has forgotten us here, and we it.”

Fødebjerg, Jens thought, trying to place the village on the map. Fødebjerg, Fødebjerg. Yes, he recognised the name, somewhere north of Glamsbjerg, but still within the Assens municipality. They were about a half day’s walk from home.

“But don’t think we are blind to your sacrifice. We will not forget that so easily,” Bjerund was saying, waving one of his chubby, wet hands at Didrich’s leg. “We have bed and board for you both. I can offer you veterans a night beneath one of our roofs, a full belly, and a mind dulled by lager if you will have it?”

“How about it?” Jens turned to his brother, but the smile slipped from his face when he saw Didrich’s expression. His lips had curled into a snarl that was all too familiar, and his eyes were fixed on a face in the crowd.

“Aksel Bodin,” Didrich hissed, his voice coming out like a saltwater spray, spittle coating his lower lip.

Jens followed his gaze, staring into the crowd. For a moment, he didn’t recognise him. His hair was longer, his face gaunt, the tufts of beard not quite managing to conceal his weak jaw. But there he was. Aksel Bodin. Deserter. Traitor. Coward.