by Brian Keene
“See you guys back here this evening.” Frank nodded to Smitty and Luke.
“First one to get a buck cooks tonight, right?” Luke asked.
“Well, then we know it won’t be you,” Glen said, stepping off the porch.
Luke headed across the field toward the hollow. Smitty trailed behind him. Glen, Mark and Frank crossed the road and stepped into the woods. The last thing they heard was a flatulent blast from Smitty, followed by Luke telling him that he’d scare all the deer away if he kept it up.
Then the forest consumed them.
• • •
“BRRRRAAAAAPPP!”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Smitty.” Luke winced. “What the hell did you eat yesterday?”
“It’s that fucking tequila.” The big man clenched his teeth. “Rot gut stuff has my stomach in an uproar.”
“Keep it up, and you’ll scare the deer away for real. They can smell that, you know.”
“It’ll clear up. Just got to get it out of my system.”
They trudged through the field. Desiccated cornhusks crunched softly under their feet.
“It sucks about Frank,” Luke said. “Glen told me the doctors can’t do anything.”
“Yeah.” Smitty panted. “Frank doesn’t talk about it much, but I’m guessing we won’t be doing this again...”
Luke was silent for a moment. “If I was Frank, I sure as hell wouldn’t still be working. I’d be out here enjoying myself every day.”
“Me, too. That’s Frank, though. He never did mind those seven-day shifts. The man likes to work.”
“I’m glad Glen convinced Mark to come along.”
“Yeah,” Smitty said. “Still, I think it’s funny that he brought that camera along, instead of a gun.”
They both laughed.
“BRAAP—”
Somewhere in the blue glow that was not true darkness but not yet daylight, a bird chirped in alarm and took flight. The stars, though dimming, were still visible.
“I love this time of morning,” Luke whispered.
Smitty didn’t reply. Luke turned and found that the big man had stopped walking. Smitty crouched, grimacing in pain and clutching his prodigious stomach with one hand. His Marlin 30-30 dangled loosely by his side.
Then Luke smelled it. “Jesus, Smitty!”
“I think I shit myself, man. I’m gonna head back.”
“Okay,” Luke said through bursts of disgusted laughter. “I’ll stay in the field, around the edges of the hollow, until you get back. Maybe a buck will come out, looking for some corn.”
Smitty nodded weakly, sweat beading on his pale face. He shuddered.
Luke backed away in disgust, and his partner shambled back the way they’d come.
Luke watched him go, and then faced the hollow.
He walked toward it.
• • •
“I want you boys to promise me something.”
“What’s that, Dad?” Mark asked, sidestepping a knobby, moss-covered trunk.
“I want some of my ashes scattered up here at the cabin.”
The woods were silent, save for their soft footsteps in the undergrowth and a few birdcalls.
“Um...” Glen stammered.
“Dad,” Mark said, “don’t talk like that. There’s new advances being made all the time—”
“Oh, bullshit, Mark.” Frank spat on the ground. “Sorry. That came out sterner than I meant to sound.”
They halted. Mark kicked aimlessly at a root jutting from the ground. Glen crooked his rifle between his side and his arm and moved from foot to foot, trying to keep warm. Father and sons finally met each other’s eyes, their breath fogging the air between them. Mark sniffed, from both the cold and his own emotions.
“Sorry,” Frank apologized again. “I didn’t mean to snap. But you sound like your mother, bless her heart. We’ve been over it with the doctors at the V.A. and at Johns Hopkins. I brought that shit back from the war, and it’s been killing me ever since. I’m luckier than most. Some guys died right away. The cancer took them quick. At least I got to live a full life. I got to marry your Mom and see you two grow up. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The guys on that wall in D.C. and the ones that died of cancer after the war never got that chance.”
“What about the chemo?” Glen asked.
“Didn’t work,” Frank replied. “And they can’t cut it out either. Two months ago, it was the size of a raisin. Now, it’s the size of a grape. Right smack dab in the middle of my brain. Two months from now, it’ll be big as a golf ball.”
“Shit,” Glen said.
Frank placed an ungloved hand against the rough bark of a maple. “I feel like this tree—old. You could cut me open and count my rings. ‘Here’s where he was the high school quarterback, and here’s where he got married, and these two are from when he became a Dad.’ You know, I bet some of these trees saw this country settled. They were here with the Indians, and maybe even before that. But even trees die eventually. They rot out from the inside—just like I am.”
The brothers said nothing.
“Now, promise me that you’ll make sure it gets done.”
“You and Mom bought those plots at Bethlehem Church,” Mark reminded him. “What about those?”
“You can still put a little bit of me there.” Frank smiled. “Your mother would have a fit otherwise. But just do me a favor and bring some of me along up here. Let Smitty come too. And Luke, if he wants.”
Both sons nodded, wary of speech lest their voices crack.
They walked on in silence, so that the deer wouldn’t know they were coming.
All of them were glad to use that excuse.
Dawn arrived.
• • •
Luke stuffed a pinch of Kodiak between his lip and gum, and snapped the lid back on the plastic can. Returning it to his jacket pocket, he rubbed his hands together briskly, then put his gloves back on and picked up the rifle.
The sun shone brightly now, a cold orb rising over the forest and fields. There were still shadows about him, especially at the tree line between the hollow and the cornfield, but even those would evaporate within the next half-hour.
In those shadows, something skittered.
Luke spotted it immediately and froze—patient and unmoving. His mouth filled with tobacco juice, and he swallowed, rather than spitting and announcing his presence. He held his breath.
Beneath the outstretched limbs, a shape emerged. He saw four legs, a mid-section, and then a head. And what a glorious head it was! Even enveloped in the murk as it was, Luke could spot the rough outline of a rack. His pulse sped up. It was a big rack— possibly a twelve-point or more.
Fuck me, he thought. His finger twitched on the trigger.
The deer bent its head, as if to sniff the ground, and Luke strained his eyes to see it better. It was useless, he realized in frustration. The shadows were too thick. He pondered a shot, but the buck stood close to the trees, almost entwined with the ones on the outer edges. Then, with a blur and a whip of branches, it vanished into the forest. Luke glimpsed a fragmentary telltale flash of white as it ran.
“White-tail, baby!”
Thumbing the safety off, he quick-stepped towards the hollow. Approaching the space where the deer had disappeared between the trees, he heard it, just beyond his line of sight. It snorted, and he caught a glimpse of it again. The sunlight had not yet penetrated the hollow, but he spied the deer’s dim outline beneath the trees. Carefully, he raised the Remington to his shoulder and sighted. The deer snorted again and turned towards him. He still couldn’t see its features, but he was sure the buck was staring directly at him.
He squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked between his armpit and shoulder. It was a good pain. The deer dropped in the shadows beneath the trees. The shot echoed in his ears, rolling across the field. The others would hear it, and Luke grinned in anticipation. He’d gotten the first one. With a whoop, he crashed into the hollow, running to his unmoving ki
ll.
The tree limbs swung shut behind him.
As he approached it, the deer stirred. Luke brought the rifle up to shoot it again, then paused, gaping. Something was wrong with the deer, because—
Because it wasn’t a deer.
On the ground in front of him, the thing he’d mistaken for a twelve-point buck was unraveling itself. A coiled mass of roots and vines had twisted themselves together, mimicking a deer. Now the simulacra untied itself. The tendrils snaked back into the ground and foliage. Two roots rubbed against each other, reproducing the snorting sound he had heard. Vines whispered across the ground, rustling the dry leaves at his feet.
Something cracked behind him.
Head pounding, Luke whirled around, just as a misshapen tree limb swung toward him. It dealt a vicious blow to his mid-section. The surrounding branches splintered in tune with his ribs. He soared backward, crashing into another tree. His teeth clamped down on his tongue, and warm blood filled his mouth, mixing with the tobacco. He gagged, then screamed.
On all sides, the trees moved toward him, the dirt rippling at their advance. He ducked as a branch swiped at his head, and then spied the rifle. Even as he lurched toward it, more branches and vines swooped down, knocking both him and the Remington aside. Luke rolled through the leaves, loam filling his nostrils and mouth. He swallowed his plug of tobacco. His breath came in sharp, jagged spurts, and when he tried to scream again, all he managed was a harsh wheeze.
A mammoth, ancient oak towered over him, blocking out what little sunlight remained. A massive limb, sporting leafless branches at all angles, stabbed downward. He rolled aside just in time, but it grazed against his side where his shirttail had pulled out of his pants. The rough bark was like sandpaper, and blood welled around the bits of wood that ground into the wound.
More trees surrounded him. Luke spotted a dead girl impaled near the top of one.
How did she get up there, he wondered as shock set in. A cowbell dangled from another branch, jingling crazily. Then the trees were upon him, encircling him where he lay. Their blows fell like leaves, and Luke had one last, disjointed thought.
Timber...
Then he thought no more.
Whipping and coiling across the leaves, the roots swarmed toward him like worms, burrowing through cotton and flannel, and sinking into the soft, pliable flesh. Deeper they sank, struggling for the marrow. Then they began to drink.
Within minutes, Luke’s body began to change shape. Folds of baggy skin drooped around newly-hollowed bones. His face collapsed in upon itself. Finally, all that remained of him was a loose bag of flesh, sucked dry of all fluids and marrow and tissues.
A satisfied sigh went through the forest.
• • •
Gagging from his own stench, Smitty heard the distant rifle shot as he reached the outhouse door.
“Fucker got one.” He groaned, and then collapsed on the rough bench, shivering with a mixture of nausea and queasy pleasure as his bowels let loose.
He listened for more shots, but none followed.
• • •
Joe awoke in the backseat, gloom filtering through the car windows. Disoriented, he glanced at his watch. It was eight in the morning. There was no sign of Jason or Deb. He closed his eyes and lay back down. They were probably screwing in the woods and had fallen asleep. It would serve them right if a hunter stumbled across them now.
Still—something wasn’t right.
He opened his eyes squinted at his watch again. Eight o’clock in the morning. So why was it so dark in the car?
Joe bolted upright.
Trees surrounded the car.
“The fuck?”
He patted his pocket, reassuring himself that both the keys and his weed were still there. He blinked, then looked again.
Jason had parked the car between the old farmhouse and the barn. That space had been vacant the night before, covered only by dead grass. Now, it had turned into a forest.
He stared uneasily at the trees. The panic didn’t set in until they began to move closer.
“Holy fucking shit. Oh, fucking sweet mother of fuck!”
He sprang over the seat, frantically fishing the keys out of his pocket. A tree limb smashed down on the hood, denting it. A second tremendous blow caused the metal to crumple.
Hands trembling, Joe slid the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine turned over smoothly, despite the battering. More limbs hammered down upon the car now. The sound was terrifying. The roof buckled under the force, and the rear window imploded, spraying shards of safety glass all over the back seat where he’d been sleeping only minutes before.
He slammed the car into reverse and floored it. The rear bumper collided with a tree trunk, and Joe was thrown into the steering wheel. Whimpering, he put the car in drive and pressed the pedal again. A knotty elm and two slender birches pressed against the front fender. The tires spun uselessly.
Joe glanced to his right just as a tree limb drew back, unnaturally bending in the middle. He scrambled to the passenger side, flinging the door open just as the tree limb punched through the driver’s side window. Wiry, wooden fingers grappled for him.
He tumbled out of the car and hit the ground running.
The trees swarmed the car. More rolled towards him.
The car lasted longer than Joe did.
• • •
Frank aimed, carefully lining the deer up in his scope. He squeezed the trigger and the deer jumped. It sprawled on the ground, then leapt to its feet and loped toward the cabin.
“Shit!”
“I think you hit it, Dad,” Glen said. He stepped out from behind a tree several yards away.
Mark followed him. All three hovered over the spot where the deer had been. A slick of blood proved the shot had been true.
“Let’s track him, boys,” Frank said.
Eyes to the ground, they followed the wounded prey.
• • •
For the fifth time that morning, Smitty found himself wishing that Frank had thought to stock the outhouse with more magazines. The Field & Stream issue he was flipping through was two years old, and he’d read it before—and once more in the last half-hour. His buttocks were numb, but each time he stood, another cramp gripped him, forcing him to collapse back onto the seat. He longed for a copy of Hustler.
Something thudded against the door. Startled, his sphincter let loose again.
With one foot, he pressed against the door. It didn’t budge.
“Not another fucking tree limb!”
Beneath him, in the foul pit, something moved.
Smitty glanced down between his legs just as the root rushed upward. He exhaled in pain as it slithered inside him, burrowing deep. Gasps turned to screams, then high shrieks as it wormed its way through his intestines. The skin on his extended belly began to swell around his navel. It darkened, purple, then red, as it split open. Smitty screamed one long, uninterrupted wail as the root sprouted from his stomach and began to coil around him.
Then more roots were upon him—clenching, tearing. Drinking.
Piece by piece, shred by shred, he was dragged down into the hole.
• • •
Mark was the first to notice the road.
Eyes to the ground, they’d followed the blood trail almost back to the cabin. Alert for the spatters of crimson, he saw something peculiar. The dirt road peeked up from the middle of the forest floor.
“I think we missed the cabin,” he said. “Isn’t this the road?”
Frank and Glen looked up in confusion.
“What the hell?” Glen gaped. “Dad, that’s not part of our road is it?”
“It can’t be. We’re still in the—”
Smitty’s distant scream cut short Frank’s reply. They ran, glancing about them in bewilderment.
“That is the road,” Mark shouted. “But we came out farther down.”
“The road doesn’t cut through the forest,” Frank yelled.
; “Look!” Glen pointed. “There’s the cabin. What the fuck is going on, Dad?”
Smitty’s screams had taken on an inhuman quality. Mark shuddered at the sound. Nothing human could make that sound. He thought of the sound the deer made when his father had shot it.
The cabin stood amid an instant forest. They watched in disbelief, then horror, as the outhouse was crushed beneath a savage onslaught of battering limbs and trunks. Smitty went silent.
Then the trees surrounding them erupted with life.
Mark and Glen bounded onto the porch and turned. A limb clutched the back of their father’s jacket, yanking him to a halt. A sea of brown and green flowed toward them. Mark leaped from the porch and sprinted toward his father. Grabbing the branch with both hands, he snapped it in half, freeing Frank. His father lurched forward, and the tree shuddered. Then it crawled toward them.
Regaining the porch, they piled through the door and slammed it shut. The rustling from outside was unlike anything they had ever heard. The thrashing branches raked against the walls and roof. The leaves hissed like rattlesnakes. The cabin shook under the attack. They huddled together in the center of the room as angry branches thrust themselves through the windows, grasping at items and withdrawing.
Finally, as quickly as it had begun, the assault stopped.
“I knew,” Frank gasped, chest heaving. “I knew we built this thing solid.”
They waited.
• • •
“Eventually,” Glen said, “somebody will have to come. The game warden maybe? I mean, if we’re not back by the end of the week, Mom will start to worry. She’ll call somebody.”
His words were slurred. Mark supposed his were, too.
The trees had tried two more assaults. The first had come an hour after their imprisonment, and the second that first night. Their father’s craftsmanship had withstood both.
Their father, however, had not.
The air was different now. It felt electric and heavy, and had the sharp tang of ozone, like just before a thunderstorm.
