Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction

by James Newman Benefit Anthology

  As the plummeting debris pelted the group, Lemuel grabbed Sarah, Lydia and Anna, pulling them under him to shield them like a mother hen protecting its chicks during a hailstorm. Samuel tried to huddle over Sarah and Micah in a like manner, but the discharge of objects still struck Micah painfully on his head and along his back.

  The trees convulsed three more times, each contraction following immediately after the other, each occurrence accompanied by the deafening roar and a streaming emission of objects.

  Then, at last, tranquility descended once more upon the orchard.

  The group crouched together, heads covered, for a few moments longer, unsure if the barrage from the treetops would commence again, fearful to believe that the abrupt disturbance had truly ended. Micah glanced around the moonlit orchard. The ground glittered with the reflection of the fallen objects that lay scattered on the grass, an odd assortment of irregularly shaped sticks and stones, all painted white.

  Micah picked one of the stones that had landed nearby. He rolled it in the palm of his hand, feeling the weight of it, and the texture. It reminded him of the piece of coral that his grandfather had shown him as a young boy, supposedly brought back from an expedition to Florida. He held the white stone up to the moonlight to better examine its shape. Light shone straight through the middle of the stone, as though a hole had been drilled through its center.

  Lemuel also began to examine one of the strange objects, selecting a longer, stick-shaped piece of debris from the hundreds on the ground. He ran his fingers along the length of it, feeling the slickness, the smoothness of it, a slight look of recognition dawning in his eyes. Then he stuck the end of it into his mouth and tasted it. A sudden awareness lit up his face.

  “It’s a bone, a rib bone,” Lemuel said, his voice hollow and strangely devoid of his typical macho bluster and fury.

  Micah looked down at the small white stone in his own hand.

  A tiny vertebra. From a child, maybe his own kin.

  He tossed it away from him as though diseased. His mother Rachel began to weep uncontrollably as she began to understand the meaning of this discovery, falling so hard on Samuel that she nearly took him to the ground with her.

  Lemuel’s wife, slower in understanding what he meant, finally caught on to the implication. It struck her hard. She didn’t look to Lemuel for comfort. Instead she turned to her only living children, to Anna and Lydia, for sympathy.

  “Oh Anna,” she sobbed, “my babies, my babies!”

  Anna took her mother into her arms, holding her tightly, patting her on the back as though comforting an infant. She glared stoically at Micah from over her mother’s shoulder.

  A few feet away, Lemuel still clutched the rib bone. It was clear from the look on his face that his fury was quickly regaining its footing, rage glowing bright as embers under bellows in his eyes.

  He jabbed the pointy bone through the air at Micah like an oversized accusatory finger.

  “Speak, boy,” he snarled, baring incisors that gleamed like small eggs rolled together in the nest of his beard. “What evil have you wrought upon us?”

  Everyone turned once more to look at Micah, their eyes now brimming with a mixture of shock at what had happened and an insatiable longing for an explanation to somehow make sense of it all. Even Samuel, his own father, stared at him as though he was a stranger caught trespassing.

  “It was the apples,” Micah stammered, “the kids were out gathering apples…something grabbed them…they’re…they’re gone.”

  He knew what he was saying was true, that it had happened just as he said it had, but even his own words rang false in his ears. What he was saying, what he saw, wasn’t possible. He was trapped in a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake.

  Lemuel cast his gaze once again about the ground. Although the ground was still blanketed with scattered bones, there was not a single apple in sight. He looked back at Micah, cocking back the hammer on his rifle. The sharp click of metal on metal said everything that needed to be said.

  “There were apples, apples on the ground everywhere,” Micah pleaded. “Anna, you saw them, tell them – tell them I had nothing to do with this. Tell them that there were apples – please tell them!”

  He turned towards Anna, who was still comforting her mother, hoping to beseech her to intercede on his behalf. He knew there was nothing they could do now for the dead children. The realization suddenly struck him that they should be focusing on saving themselves from the same fate, not arguing about who was at fault.

  In his peripheral vision, he noticed something moving towards his face at an incredible rate of speed. Before he could react, it struck him hard in the head, and he found himself falling towards the ground. His body hit the ground with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil, an explosion of brightly colored sparks lit up the inside of his mind.

  As he lay staring at the muddy toe of Lemuel’s boot, he felt the grit of dirt on his lips and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. It reminded him of eating clay from the streambed, and for a moment he felt himself starting to drift away to a far off place that was bright and warm. He wanted to go there more than anything.

  A swift kick to his shoulder brought him back to the orchard with a flash of pain, the force of it rolling him halfway onto his side. Through blurred eyes, he saw Lemuel looming at the far end of the barrel of his gun like a bearded demon, grinning with excitement at the evil he was about to do.

  “Murderous Cain! Treacherous Iscariot!” Lemuel raged, jamming the barrel fiercely into Micah’s ribs. “I wish I had just one single apple, so I could ram it into your lying mouth before I roast you alive for this evil you’ve brought upon us.”

  Micah heard his father’s deep voice rumble to life.

  “Leave him alone.”

  Micah felt as though the ground swayed back and forth underneath him like ocean waves, making him seasick. Though his line of sight was partially obstructed by Lemuel’s boots, he saw his mother fall to her knees, as Samuel let her go and squared off with his son’s attacker.

  There was a brief scuffle in the darkness, accompanied by the sounds of a struggle. Then the night was illuminated briefly with a flash of fire accompanied by the sound of thunder and the screams of women. Gunpowder and sulfur stung his nostrils as Micah peered through the settling cloud of smoke. Then he realized that he had been joined in his repose by another man lying on the ground only a few feet away, knees bent, legs askew. Micah’s mother crawled across the ground and fell on top of the man, her body shaking with uncontrollable grief.

  Bright squiggles swam along the edges of Micah’s eyelids, and he closed his eyes for a moment to clear them. When he opened them again, he was startled to find Lemuel crouched over him, eyes maniacal, breath fetid with the stench of chicken and whiskey.

  “You’re of the devil, the whole lot of you” Lemuel slurred, working his fingers into Micah’s thick hair and pinning his head to the ground so hard it felt as though his scalp might rip off. “All against me, tried to keep me out of the Garden of Eden where the Lord has led me, defiled the tree of the life with the blood of my own children.”

  He lay his gun on the ground by his knee, and withdrew a large hunting knife from its sheath hidden inside his coat.

  In an instant Anna lunged at her father, grabbing his arm, trying to pull the knife away.

  “Father, stop it! Why are you doing this?” Anna screamed.

  Lemuel was not deterred. He grabbed his daughter by her slender throat, shoving her roughly away from him. He studied her with cold eyes, like a cat with its prey.

  He released his hold on Anna’s throat after a moment, and started to turn away – but then spun about, striking her hard in the face, knife still clenched tightly in his fist. The blow knocked her clean off her feet, and she hit the ground forehead-first, emitting a moan of anguish, muffled by a mouthful of dirt.

  Micah tried to crawl away, but Lemuel was back on him in a flash, yanking his head back rou
ghly, exposing his neck to the long sharp blade, as he breathed curses into his face.

  “I’m going to gut you like the pig you are,” he seethed. “Going to slice you and your dead old man there, Judas and Brutus the lot of you, right down the middle – going to hang your carcasses in the smokehouse, feed your flesh to that stupid sow that bore you, while she repays me by bearing me twofold the children you stole from me today.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Micah saw movement on the ground, inches from his face. A bright red apple now rested where none had been before. Lemuel noticed it, too.

  “Well ain’t that nice,” Lemuel sneered. “There’s that apple I needed. Can’t roast a piggy without a shiny apple stuffed into its lying mouth, now can we?” he said, setting his knife down to grab the fruit.

  The second his fingers touched it, the fruit split open, sharp wooden appendages piercing and twisting their way through Lemuel’s hand, wrapping around his wrist, slicing into his skin. He stared at his mutilated hand in shock, shaking loose his grip on Micah’s scalp to pick up his knife. He stabbed at the fruit that was devouring his hand, ignoring the injuries he was inflicting to himself in the process.

  His blade found the center of the fruit, piercing it to the core. As the knife stabbed through into the apple, the entire earth began to quake beneath them. A guttural roar tore through the night again, an enormous growl of pain.

  Micah scuttled away from Lemuel towards where Anna lay, stunned. He pulled her to him, shaking her gently. Blood poured from her nose into her mouth.

  “Anna, we’ve got to run,” he pleaded, pulling her upright.

  Lemuel frantically used his knife, sawing away at the root that attached the apple to ground. The sharp appendages of the fruit flailed wildly like the legs of an overturned crab, where they jutted through the backside of his hand.

  Behind Lemuel, in the dark shadows of the orchard, Micah saw the entire trunk of one of the trees lift up from out of the ground, roots dangling beneath it as though it was a mere weed pulled from the garden. The tree hovered a few feet in the air for a moment before slamming back down to earth, sending shockwaves reverberating along the ground. The tree beside it followed suit, pulling itself into the air as roots ripped from the soil, the trunk moving forward briefly before pounding back into the earth.

  Then the entire orchard was alive and moving, and Micah realized that the trees were not separate trees at all – they were connected, two sets of four thick trunks moving in unison across the ground like legs, another tree raised in front as a long neck or head, and another swinging along behind like a tail. The orchard had uprooted itself, separating into two sets of trees - two gargantuan beasts - stomping towards them through the darkness.

  The horrific sight brought Anna back to her senses, and Micah pulled her to her feet. Hand in hand they began to run towards the mouth of the valley. The ground shook underfoot as the creatures took chase. He hoped they could make it to the open plain before the beasts picked up a full head of steam.

  Still unaware of the orchard on the move behind him, Lemuel pried the last bit of apple from his mangled hand and tossed it away in disgust. He snatched his gun from the ground with his uninjured hand, clutching it between his knees to reload the chamber.

  He glanced about for his wife and daughters in the darkness, and realized that they, too, had abandoned him. A hot breeze blew down onto the top of his head, accompanied by a rustling flurry of leaves.

  Lemuel looked up just as the creatures closed in on him. To Micah looking back, it looked as if Lemuel were Ramses swallowed whole by the Red Sea. The massive trunk-legs of the behemoths slammed together as they simultaneously lunged for him, tree branches bristling along their spines like quills on a porcupine’s back.

  As Micah continued his flight with Anna towards the open prairie, he heard the thunder-crack of a single gunshot pierce amidst the bedlam, followed by a man’s brief yet piercing scream. He glanced quickly over his shoulder to see if the creatures were still occupied in the valley, and was dismayed to find the titans already cantering towards them, slowly at first but clearly gaining momentum, working up a full head of steam.

  The realization settled upon him that he and Anna had no chance of outrunning them on the flat open plain, especially if they continued their straight-ahead trajectory. But the beasts, although clearly massive and powerful, also seemed stiff and clumsy; perhaps it would be difficult for them to follow up the steep ridge. Micah made the split-second decision to head for higher ground, for the trail that led up and out of the valley. It lay to their left, about a hundred yards away. If they made a sudden break for it now, they could make it.

  “Anna, this way,” he yelled, pointing to where he knew the entrance to the trail lay hidden in the thin brush that lined the hillside. He pulled her towards it as he cut a sharp left. “Follow me!”

  As they changed course to flee for the hilltop, he saw the blur of the beasts as they bore down on them, massive dark shadows in the moonlight. He suddenly felt like a newborn lamb, still stumbling on feeble legs, as he fled across the valley. Anna clutched her long dress to her waist, blood still trickling from her nose down her neck and onto her breasts, the flesh of her bare feet shredding away as she ran across the coarse gravel that littered the ground where the lush grass gave way to rugged mountainside.

  Micah heard her labored breathing over the splintiferous sound of timber thundering after them. He prayed she could make it. Just a few more steps and they would be climbing up the mountainside. Whether or not the beasts could follow them, he did not know, but he was determined to survive this madness and to bring Anna through it with him. His own lungs were screaming, each breath a chest full of fire as he ran. Bright lights blossomed in his eyes as adrenaline surged through him, turning the night sky into a swirling galaxy of stars, decorated with constellations of fear.

  He scanned the murky gloom of the brush for the path to the top of the ridge, their last chance for salvation. His senses were blinded by panic. The trail was lost in the darkness. His eyes tracked back and forth across the hillside, searching for any sign of it. He could see where the trail led halfway up the ridge, tracing a pale serpentine path up to the top of the ridge, the packed dirt reflecting an ashen glow back into the night sky.

  The beasts were almost upon them. A maelstrom of timber would collapse on top of them at any moment, a swirling roar of rushing leaves, with ten thousand pounds of murderous, stabbing boughs lusting after their blood and flesh.

  The scent of their ancient hunger filled his nostrils, and Micah, still running, still searching as he dragged Anna along behind him, tasted the sweetness of forbidden fruit upon his tongue again, the flavor of the frothing drool of the beasts in pursuit misting the air. They were close, the end was near, and the trail…the trail…where was the god-damned trail?

  Then – there, in the same abominable darkness that greedily swallowed his chances of salvation - a blossom of orange and red erupted in the shadows, sparks briefly illuminating a group of men, huddled together and gesturing for him to run to them, their faces etched with both fear and hope in the blinking flashes of light as flint struck stone, again and again, signaling their location.

  Micah’s heart seized with joy as he recognized, lit up in the flash of light, the twisted human pretzel of the bush that marked the entrance to the ridge trail. He pulled Anna towards it, his conscious mind briefly overpowered by animal instinct, as he fought for survival, his hand clasped over hers with a grip that nothing less than death could pry loose. The sparks flashed again, then again. Life, here, they seemed to say. They were almost there, just a few more steps, so close now.

  So close.

  Then all the earth was thrown to the sky as Micah was ripped away from the prairie floor, his feet continuing to pedal frantically as he soared upwards into the air. Hope still surged through him as he clutched onto Anna with a death-grip, even as he felt her hand go limp in his.

  The shower of sparks fluttered ag
ain. But this time the sparks were below his feet, not in front. He realized that he was no longer running towards safety, but being dragged away from it. His mind struggled to compute his spatial relationship with the world, and when it did so, he realized Anna was now above him, not behind him, and that he was dangling twenty feet or so in the air from the end of her arm.

  Micah looked up along the path formed by his arm, across the bridge of his hand linked with Anna’s. His eyes slid along the porcelain skin of her slender arm until they met her dark eyes just beyond. Once beautiful orbs, they now bulged from their sockets, brimming with pain and the hell of the creature that was devouring her. A dark mouth was hidden in the cluster of tangled branches, with rows of piercing, stabbing wooden teeth that pulled her legs mercilessly into its hungry maw.

  Her body vanished up to her knees, then to her waist, as it greedily gobbled her down.

  Then she was gone. The bright light of her spirit was snuffed out in an instant. Micah was sure he was gone, too, as he felt himself falling into a dark abyss, plunging into nothingness as he fell, the world around him a blur as it receded away in his vision. The only comfort he still had was holding Anna’s hand in his, and he thought that enough. If they could not be together in life, then together in death would have to suffice.

  He clenched her lifeless hand even more tightly as he braced himself for the end.

  Micah collided with the hard prairie floor, landing flat on his back, the wind knocked from his lungs in a single bone-shattering blow. He saw blurry shapes of swooning trees towering over him, silhouetted in the night sky, branches interlocked with each other in battle over the tasty morsel each desired. Then he felt himself being pulled along the earth, dragged across the ground by his feet. The world around him was going dark fast. Disoriented, he clutched Anna’s severed arm close to him for comfort, feeling for the rest of her and not finding it. He was confused.