by Pete Kahle
I was grateful for the company and the distractions Jesse provided from an increasingly volatile home life. '78 was the year that my parents' bickering boiled over to shouting and accusations. As an adult, all that I remember now are late night fights and the cold comfort that I found in the soft, radiant glow of the TV; or the vague sad memory of my mother crying as she washed the dishes; or the deep anxiety and sadness that I remember feeling by what my parents and relatives referred to quietly as "the trial separation." The back of my bike was the only place where I found solace. Jesse became my confidant, and, perhaps by more than proximity, one of my best friends. Even if she was a girl, I reasoned (not all that convincingly, mind you).
We had begun to ride further and further afield as the summer progressed, racing against the inevitable afternoon thunder shower. Most days would find us south of town — out near the abandoned quarry, in an area we called the "swamp" — enjoying the eight foot saw grass and the blind paths that wound and twisted their way over steep mounds and into shallow stagnant pools. The terrain there seemed locked in some geological convulsion as if the very earth had recoiled against some assault. The place was riddled with blind paths, dead ends and switchbacks that provided us with a nearly inexhaustible number of routes for adventure and exploration. At the height of summer, the place became a maze — miles of marshy wasteland covered with saw grass. Jesse and I would constantly challenge each other with daredevil feats: whether it be making the largest splash through the pools (at which she excelled), dare-devil jumping over the hummocks, or simply racing break-neck through the saw grass, into the depths of the swamp. It was during one of these races that we discovered the edge of the quarry itself.
Of The Pit, I will say merely this: The quarry had long since been abandoned. Men had mined nickel out of the hills for two world wars, until there was no nickel left. The miners had carved into the hillside like butchers. The open pit was nestled in a narrow gorge, between two flat topped hills that my father would have referred to indelicately as “hogbacks.” Dense scrub oak and thorny brambles shrouded the northern part of the quarry pit like a shawl, cascading down the high rocky embankments and ramparts that had once formed the hillside where the quarry pit now lay. The ground around the pit fell away down a steep cliff that descended into a deep, green, stagnant pool. A rusted fence with barely legible No Trespassing signs hung in disrepair around it. Wide gaps in the fence showed where it had given way, plummeting into the sinkhole below. Cicadas constantly droned angrily in the underbrush.
The quarry pit proved an endless source of fascination (for kids of all ages, judging from the graffiti and beer bottles littering, at this, the far edge of the quarry pit). We’d spend our mornings racing through the swamp but always, inevitably, we seemed to emerge at The Pit. There we would collapse off our bikes and onto the soft mossy grass that lined the rim, alone together and innocent, and yet aware that we were not altogether alone. Most times, it didn't feel as though we were being watched — a feeling we both knew was ridiculous because of the high, yellowing sawgrass, but even more so because there were no houses within a dozen miles of the quarry. But, as the summer wore on, the feeling grew more and more uncomfortable. Of course, by then, Jesse and I were more preoccupied with each other to pay it much heed.
We would rest there, in the scant shade of the sawgrass, rehashing and teasing each other over the morning's events. As the summer wore on, teasing would become wrestling and in wrestling we would become entangled and flushed — confused and excited by the new sensations found in each other’s embrace. In the afternoon light, Jesse's hair cascaded down her slender shoulders like molten gold. When she was astride me, pinning me beneath her, her hair hung down in long lazy rivulets, falling languidly across my face, neck and shoulders. I saw only her then —the rest of the world far removed and remote from the canopy of hair that framed her lovely face. To torment me, she would lean down — a movement fluid in its grace, simplicity and timelessness, far exceeding her years — and brush her hair across my face, kissing me, gently without words.
Perhaps it was the warm sun and gentle breeze that lulled me to sleep that fateful afternoon. Maybe it was the memory of Jesse's soft embrace which distracted me from the dangers in our midst. But when I awoke, I was alone. I must have slept for hours, for the warm afternoon had turned dark and chill. Thunder crashed all around me. Of Jesse, there was no sign. The wind had toppled our bikes into the saw grass and the remains of our lunch lay strewn about the clearing. I called out to Jesse, but received no response. I searched more and more frantically around the clearing and into the veritable forest of saw grass itself looking for her. It was only after I'd grown hoarse from shouting her name that I spied her far across the opposite edge of The Pit. Her hair whipped around her as she scaled the steep embankment around its southern most edge.
Although it was unlike her to go off alone, I doubt, even now that I could have dissuaded her. Jesse was as headstrong as she was beautiful; and I, without thinking, went after her.
A single sliver of silver sunlight sliced through the clouds to illuminate a dense copse at the end of the box canyon behind The Pit. Jesse had covered more than three quarters of the distance to the hyrst before I caught up with her. Even from that distance, you could feel the presence of it. Watching and waiting. Growing out of the bowels of the hillside a twisted and loathsome tree had taken root. Its dull yellow-white bark seemed to illuminate the clearing around it and perhaps, this was the reason why Jesse found it so enchanting. From a distance it looked like bleached bones which had sprouted leaves. Even from a distance, you could see what appeared to be blackish-red berries, dangling lazily in the heat.
The treacherous terrain and foul weather should have been enough to deter us. We should have left it alone. But, kids' curiosity can be hard to quell when the dangers of the world are unknown and you feel the staggering immortality of youth.
Together, ignoring the scratches from the brambles and crumbling shale scree that covered every surface, Jesse and I finally obtained the small shelf on which the esurient hyrst grew. Jesse arrived first and pulled me up over the embankment, bloodied and bruised from the climb. Flies droned around the crest of hill — a steady buzz hypnotic in the still summer air. The tree appeared to have grown from a fallen Chinese Elm. The elm's blackened, rotten and distended trunk appeared to have disgorged the gnarled and twisted tree which sprouted from its stump. The trees flanking the elm looked withered and stunted, their leaves brown and curled. Perhaps my memory embellishes the way the surrounding elms had grown away from the sallow tree growing in the center of their stand, as though they were repulsed by the thing thriving in their midst. The esurient hyrst itself looked like an albino willow tree. The bark of the tree was chalky, and peeled downward in long papery ribbons to collect at its base, not unlike the bark peeling from a birch tree. Indeed, at first, I thought that the ground around the trunk was littered with shredded bark until on closer examination, I discovered that it was in fact covered with the bones of small animals and birds — the bones inexplicably crushed and desiccated beneath the drooping branches and the pinkish green leaves.
Pink leaves? Yes, although they had appeared black at the distance, they were in fact, a dull red, like rust, and coated all over with ash white powder. When the light struck the leaves just right, you could see what appeared to be tiny animals trapped inside, some still straining weakly against its translucent leaves. In the shadows, however, the leaves turned black. The stench coming from it was awful — sickeningly sweet and rich with rot. Like rotten meat drenched in Mountain Dew.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something break from out of the underbrush. A cardinal or maybe a red-tailed sparrow, startled by our appearance at the top of the hill. The bird had abandoned its usual caution and in a panic flew too close to the low hanging branches. Quicker than the eye could follow, the bird was plucked from the air, only a single red feather fluttering to the ground as its frail body was bound and woun
d amidst many long and thorny branches. I can still recall its anguished cry as its tiny bones snapped and it was drawn inexorably into the tree's dense and thorny crown.
Jesse looked back to face me then, her face registering a mixture of horror and fascination.
Although the air was calm, a shudder seemed to shake the branches as Jesse approached. The gnarled roots seemed to clutch more tightly to the ground, and the tree seemed suddenly to loom over her. Was it my imagination or had there suddenly appeared, from the depth of the crown, an obscenely red and bulbous fruit. It dangled wetly from a low-hanging branch, as though freshly germinated from the tree for her benefit. What appeared to be dew or sap dripped down and over its shiny, slick surface. Perhaps this was the same sap that dripped down, and filled the various crescent-shaped seams in the bark of the tree as well. The sap was the color of old blood and smelled dizzyingly sweet.
The cicadas were suddenly silent. Far in the distance a crow croaked out a curse, or a warning. What happened next, I cannot remember all that clearly. My doctors assure me that my mind has hidden the memory of that day to preserve my sanity.
After plucking the fruit from the tree, Jesse spun to face me. She leaned languidly against the esurient hyrst and cast me a lecherous grin before biting into it. Thick brown juice dripped down her chin and hands and she smiled wickedly as she licked one hand clean. The slightest of shudders passed over her then. She arched her back, pushing her shoulders and neck onto the rough, papery bark cooing and sighing. The esurient hyrst began pulling Jesse closer to it then, the branches slowly winding down to ensnare her delicate arms. Before madness overtook me, I was sure, in my final glimpse of that horrible scene, that mouths — many mouths — appeared in the splitting papery bark on the trunk. Mouths lined with rows of razor sharp teeth.
Jesse didn't cry out as the maws began to devour her. Instead she moaned and sighed as gobbets of her delicate flesh were torn from her slender frame. Thrusting her hips against the trunk, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy. Wherever the tree bit, her skin grew pallid, white and hard as it transformed into wood.
I must have fallen backward over the embankment then. For when I awoke, I was on my back and 10' from the shelf. The thick underbrush had largely cushioned my fall, but my arm had been broken. Rain from the afternoon storm had roused me from my stupor. I glanced up at the summit and to my horror saw long root tendrils descending the embankment, struggling to reach me. They were dull reddish brown.
Jesse was gone.
I have no memory of descending the hill; but I do know that I never looked behind me. I vaguely recall pushing Jesse's Schwinn between a section of fallen chain link fence and into The Pit below. It seemed to take a long time to hit the bottom; and, when it did, the remaining perimeter fence seemed to vibrate with the impact. Eventually, the dull vibration was overcome by the angry susurrus of the cicadas.
To my shame, I told the police that Jesse had fallen into the quarry pit. A kid's dare: an Evel Knievel stunt gone horribly wrong. Something that the adults would believe. Nobody would believe the story of the esurient hyrst. Of course, her body was never found. I spent several days in the hospital, and several years thereafter under psychiatric care for a "nervous disorder." My mental state catalyzed my parents’ divorce. Jesse's mom moved away, never to return.
And of course, the nightmares have never gone away.
It was much later, while in college, that I ventured back to the quarry. Armed with a machete and can of gasoline, I climbed the hill during winter recess my sophomore year. The swamp grass lay flat, frozen to the ground, but the scrub oak was denser than I had recalled. I was chilled to see the Schwinn, rusted and twisted, half submerged in the frozen quarry pool, the basket rimed with dead white stalks of saw grass, clutching it like fingers…or roots. It didn't take long to climb the hill. The embankment was steeper than I remembered, and I fought nausea that had nothing to do with vertigo as I ascended. Finally, I spied the esurient hyrst, larger now, its trunk thick and buckled but its leaves blackened from the winter frost. The ground around it was thick with bones.
Cradled at its trunk, did I see Jesse’s bones tangled in its roots? No fruit emerged to tempt me that day, but the tree did shudder as I approached. Could it sense me as it lie sleeping amidst the winter frost? Even now, I try not to believe that the limbs twisted and raked at me as I poured gas all over it. I try not to believe that I heard Jesse’s screams as I lit the hellish thing on fire and watched it thrash as it withered and burned. I try not believe that things like hungry woods exist in the world.
But I am older now, and have put away childish things.
Michael Picco is not a monster despite what THEY say. Think of him, instead as a host of sorts. Yes: A human monster hostel (as opposed to a hostile human monster). The monsters that dwell in his mind don’t linger long. They come, share their stories, and like all monsters, they slither or slouch their way back into the worlds whence they came…their appetites whetted. Michael has given voice and form to the things that clamor through his skull for the better part of 25 years through short stories, novels, and playwriting. He was inspired to write The Esurient Hyrst after waking from a particularly vivid nightmare of a tree deep in the forest. A tree that sported many mouths. And lots of sharp teeth.
The Grand Sacrifice
by Sallie McDaniel
Nanette figured she had been born with the same amount of luck as anyone else. Yet, providence, or maybe fate, kept proving her otherwise. Like all female children in Goldenvale, when she was born, she had been assigned a year and a season, and it fell in line behind the last child born. There was no lottery; it was all procedural. Every female child was chosen. Nanette’s assigned year was that of her nineteenth, and her season was autumn. Whoever doled out these years and seasons made sure they always fell when a woman was young—nothing else was acceptable.
The year of her nineteenth birthday was almost over, and as the fall slowly began to chill into winter, Nanette found herself breathing a little easier. Just a few more days, she would say to herself.
The day started out simple enough. She travelled to the market to pick up a few odds and ends. There was a gentle hum of conversation with the occasional abrupt yell of salesmen attempting to push their wares. The day was balmy with a crisp wind that pushed by on occasion. She had worn the appropriate gown for such weather and such an outing. It was simple, with a pale underskirt and no wiring to make it voluminous. She had also donned a matching bonnet to secure her black hair against the cold wind. Winter was on the horizon. Nanette wished it would come faster and alleviate her concerns. Just a few more days, she said once again. The frequency in which she repeated it had nearly turned it into a prayer.
She let her thoughts be consumed with the grocery list her mother had given her. The woman’s handwriting had degraded with age and was nearly incomprehensible. It also didn’t help that her mother refused to use any other quill pen than the one her sister had given her. The nib was split and caused the letters to look as if they had a shadow. Nanette had almost deciphered the third item down, when her thoughts were interrupted by a shrill screech followed by the entire market becoming silent. Nanette looked up in enough time to see a body crash into a roof two blocks away.
The guards rushed by her. Gossip rippled through the crowd, and whispers grew more prominent where there had once been steadfast conversation.
“It-- it was a Fallen,” an elderly man whispered to his wife.
Tightness gripped Nanette’s chest, and her breathing became frantic. Just a few more days, she pleaded obstinately to herself. She wanted to run home. She wanted to run away. Yet, she stayed. She had to see if it truly was a Fallen.
Sometime later the guards marched back through the market. A few of them pulled along an old cart. It was over filled with hay, but Nanette could make something out beneath the straws. She frantically looked it over until her eyes landed on the Fallen’s eyes. They were smooth like white pebbles, as if they had never
known the notion of color. Her white hair mixed in with the yellow straw, her arms lay over her chest, and her dress was so tattered it was almost indecent.
“She fell into the Barrenstone’s roof,” someone said.
“That’s one of the tallest roofs in the town. It couldn’t have been an accident,” another person said.
“So it’s really a Fallen,” a young girl said. The tone in her voice conveyed more excitement than fear. “Does that mean we are going to have a party soon? A party for the lady who’s going to go into the sky?”
“Yes, sweetie,” her mother cooed, “a party for the sacrifice.”
“I wonder who that is?” an elderly woman asked. She broke away from the crowd and looked at Nanette. “Do you know?”
Nanette didn’t say a word. Instead she dropped her basket and ran home.
# # #
Since the end of the third world war, the last bastion of human existence had come to dwell within Goldenvale. The history books hadn’t said what the war was about, but they spoke volumes about what happened after it—about how everyone had been saved by the Great One. It was a god-like entity that came from the skies in mankind’s time of need and kept them from annihilation.
The Great One collected the people that wished for peace and placed them there, in Goldenvale. It then erected The Wall, a massive structure that protected the town from the dangers of the outside world. Nanette had heard horrible stories about what existed beyond it. Fearsome monsters and beasts made the untamed wilderness their home. Whenever one came to threaten Goldenvale, the Great One destroyed it.
