Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

by Chris Priestley

  'Go on,.' he said with a smile. 'Put it on. But don't lose it for God's sake. It was damned expensive.'

  With a little help from his father, Joseph threaded the watch chain through the button hole of his waistcoat and tucked the watch into the pocket, where it ticked satisfyingly next to his ribs.

  Joseph's father went back to London the following day. He had rooms near the City and spent most of his time there, coming back to the house at weekends. Because Joseph was away himself, at school, this arrangement did not usually affect him. But though he rarely missed his parents while at school, he was embarrassed to find himself holding back tears as he waved his father goodbye at the end of the drive.

  'Come on,.' said his mother, understanding something of the sadness in her son's eyes. 'Let's take Jess for a walk.'

  So Joseph, his mother and Jess, the family spaniel, set off through the garden gate and across the pasture. There was a stile at the bottom, leading on to a footpath across some common land and through a lovely wood of oaks and beech and sweet chestnut.

  The grass in the pasture had yet to be cut. It was long and blond, hissing with crickets and spattered with blood red poppies. Towering up above it all was the mighty elm.

  Jess ran a zigzag, sniffing path, as she so often did, but today the tree seemed to demand her special attention. Joseph noticed for the first time that there was a cave-like hollow at the base of the tree and it was this that particularly interested her.

  The spaniel sniffed the air and approached the hole cautiously, peering in, her ears alternately cocked for any noise and then held back against her head. Joseph could hear her whimpering quietly, as though she were mumbling under her breath.

  Joseph and his mother smiled as they watched Jess inching her way forward. Her ears suddenly cocked again and she tilted her head to one side. She seemed to have heard a noise inside. She took a step forward and leaned tentatively into the hole.

  Suddenly she gave a strange strangled yelp that almost sounded like a human scream of panic. It was so startling in its oddness that Joseph and his mother both flinched. Jess jolted backwards from the tree and tore off across the pasture as if pursued by a demon.

  When she got to the garden door she could not get through because the door was heavy and opened outwards. She whined and howled and scrabbled at the door, scratching the wood and digging the earth beneath it in a frantic effort to escape. Joseph ran back calling her name. When he reached her and tried to calm her down, she turned, wild-eyed, and bit him.

  Jess had never bitten Joseph, not even as a puppy, and he could see that she barely recognised him. She seemed to have no room in her mind for anything other than the overwhelming urge to escape. He opened the door for her and she bolted, skidding on the gravel of the drive as she sped through the gates and away down the road.

  'It's all right, Joey,.' said his mother. 'Don't worry. She'll come back.'

  But she did not.

  It had been a long time since Joseph had cried, but he cried for Jess. Playing with her was one of the things he most looked forward to when he came home from school for the holidays. His mother said they must not give up hope that she would turn up safe and sound. They placed adverts in the local newspaper offering a reward but heard nothing.

  When Joseph's father returned from London a week later he took his son for a walk in the pasture. He told him that Jess might not come back and, were that to be the case, then they would get another dog. But Joseph did not want another dog. He wanted Jess.

  Joseph's father crouched down, looked into the hole at the tree's roots and reached into it with his hand.

  'No!' said Joseph with more force than he had intended. His father retracted his hand immediately.

  'What is it?' he said.

  'There . . . there . . . might be rats or something,. ' said Joseph. In truth he did not know why it had panicked him so to see his father put his hand into the hole, but though his father chuckled and ruffled his hair, he did not return to the hole and asked Mr Farlow, the gardener, to put poison down it.

  Joseph's father returned to London as he always did, and Joseph fidgeted about the house until his mother shooed him out. Eventually he found himself in the pasture again, standing in front of the tree.

  The desire to climb the tree came suddenly, without any prior thought on the subject, but as soon as it did, the impulse was overwhelming.

  As he was looking for a way to begin, he noticed something written on the tree. CLIMB NOT had been crudely gouged into the bark, though it must have been many years ago, for the tree had healed around the wound of the words so that they were ancient scars in its elephant hide.

  This discovery, though interesting, did not detain Joseph for long. It clearly did not apply to him, as the writer and intended reader must be long dead.

  But no sooner had Joseph grabbed the very first branch than a voice behind him made him jump.

  'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' It was old Mr Farlow. 'Heed what's writ there.'

  'What?' said Joseph.

  'I know you read it, lad,.' he said. 'I saw you. Heed it.'

  'I'm not scared,.' said Joseph. 'I've climbed lots of trees.'

  'Not this one. You know what they say about elms, don't you, boy?' said the old man with an unpleasant smile. '"Elms hateth man and waiteth." So keep away!'

  Joseph turned and stomped away back towards the house and sulked for several hours, refusing to give his mother any clue as to what was bothering him. That night he watched from his bedroom window as the crown of the elm tree shook like the mane of a giant lion, black against the indigo night, roaring in the wind. Joseph would show that old fool.

  By asking his mother a succession of apparently innocent questions over breakfast the next day, Joseph discovered that Mr Farlow did not come to work on the gardens on Thursdays. That was two days away, and Joseph awaited the arrival of Mr Farlow's day off as keenly as if it had been both Christmas Day and his own birthday rolled into one. His excitement surprised him - frightened him even - but he seemed to have no choice but to give in to it.

  On Thursday afternoon he dashed out of the house unnoticed, ran all the way to the elm and stood gasping for breath in its shadow. After gazing up into the branches above him, he set about climbing.

  Joseph quickly discovered that the tree was going to be harder to climb than he had expected, but this only made the climbing of it more of an adventure. Even when he missed his footing and slipped, scraping his knee on the grizzled bark and almost falling, he felt the pain to be a sign of his commitment to the climb.

  He reached a branch about thirty feet from the ground and could find no way of continuing. He tried to reach a branch above him, but looking down he lost his nerve and could go no further. He took out his new watch. It was getting late.

  Reluctantly Joseph climbed down, trying to retrace his route, vowing to return the following Thursday to continue the climb. He jumped the last few feet, landing with a soft thud on the ground.

  As he landed he had the strangest impression that there was a muffled echo of his landing, that something beneath the earth had flinched or flexed. The hole at the tree's base seemed darker and more impenetrable than ever. He took two tentative steps forward, leaning to peer in, but found that he could not make himself go closer.

  He walked back across the pasture with a carefree gait that was completely feigned. In reality he was resisting an impulse to run. He was almost at the door in the wall, when he turned round quickly, half expecting to see something - he did not know what - standing behind him. But there was nothing there but the tree.

  The following Thursday his mother had invited some of the ladies from her watercolour class for coffee and Joseph had to say hello to them all and smile and be cooed at before he could make his escape. The day was dull and overcast, but the feathery grey clouds were high and would not bring rain. Joseph was the only thing moving as he strode purposefully across the open pasture towards the tree.

  Joseph edge
d past the hole without looking in, and began his climb. He was surprised at how easy he found it this time as he quickly scaled the height he had reached the previous week.

  When he reached the branch that marked the highest point of his earlier climb, he straddled it and sat feeling content and looking about him for signs of where he might find footholds for the next stage. He looked at his watch. It was only eleven o'clock. He had plenty of time.

  It was then that he caught sight of the writing.

  There, scratched into the trunk of the tree, where the branch he was sitting on sprung away from it, were the words, CLIMB NOT. They had been scratched into the bark in exactly the same way as the ones at the base of the tree. But these appeared to be freshly made.

  Joseph stared at them and, suddenly feeling as if he were being watched, he looked about him, out across the pasture. There was no one there.

  Mr Farlow must have done this, Joseph was sure of it. The old man had warned him off climbing the tree after all. But could he really have climbed the tree at his age, however easy Joseph had found it?

  Joseph suddenly laughed to himself. Of course! The old man did not need to climb. He had a ladder. Joseph had seen him at the top of a ladder the week before, pruning a climbing vine on the garden wall.

  Then Joseph became angry. How dare that old man tell him what he could and could not do? What concern was it of his? He did not own this land - Joseph did. Or at least his parents did, and that amounted to the same thing after all. Instead of the words on the tree putting Joseph off, they became a spur for him to renew his struggles with even greater effort.

  Joseph looked at the lettering of the words and smiled smugly. Why, the old fool could barely write; Joseph could have made a better job of that when he was four years old. And what had he used to make the letters anyway? Joseph had seen and admired the old man's knife that he kept in a sheath on his belt, but these words seemed to have been scratched with a nail or a hook rather than cut with a blade, as they were rough and jagged. Joseph felt the letters with his fingers. Whatever he had used it was certainly sharp, for the scratches were deep and the wood was as hard as stone.

  Joseph saw that if he could crouch on the branch he was sitting on, he might be able to reach a branch that would then support him enough to stand and continue the climb. It was a precarious manoeuvre and, had he slipped, a broken arm would be the least he might expect in the resulting fall to the ground far below.

  But Joseph managed to ease himself up on to the branch and, sure enough, he could reach out and grab a smaller branch above and pull himself up safely to a standing position.

  From here the route suddenly seemed straightforward and Joseph climbed with ape-like ease, hauling himself from branch to branch with barely a pause to see where his next foothold would be. In no time at all he was pulling himself up to sit astride the very last set of branches that formed a kind of basket or crow's nest high up at the top of the tree.

  Joseph whooped with triumph and gazed out at the view, out across the pasture towards the tiled rooftop of his house, which he now looked down upon. Looking to the west, he could see over the hedge to the fields and woods beyond and was able to discern very clearly the regular bumps and hollows that formed the imprint of a deserted village. The buildings were long gone, but their ghostly outlines could be detected through the blanket of soil and grass. He could even see now that the pasture, too, had markings in it. There were round markings every now and then and, stranger still, what seemed to be the remains of a pathway leading directly to the tree itself.

  Then a flock of jackdaws croaked by, and Joseph was fascinated to find himself almost level with them. As they passed, Joseph looked up and saw something he had not noticed before.

  Above him the tree died away, ending in a jagged stump, as if it had once been even taller, and in this highest part of the tree, embedded in the bark, were dozens and dozens of small metal objects.

  Joseph stood up, his curiosity completely overpowering any fear he may have felt at the tremendous height. He stared in amazement at the treasure trove before him.

  Hammered into the bark were crosses of silver and gold, bracelets distorted by the effort of forcing them into the wood, coins, rings and pendants from necklaces, brooches and buckles. Even Joseph could see that many, if not most, of these items were of great antiquity and must be valuable.

  A gold brooch caught Joseph's eye. He reached out and grabbed it, giving it a tentative tug. It shifted a little. It had certainly been hammered in with quite some force, but with a bit of persuasion it would come free.

  As he began to work it loose, he thought he heard a noise at the base of the tree and stopped. There were so many branches between him and the ground that he could not see anything but small patches of grass showing through gaps in the leaves.

  He thought of shouting hello but did not want to alert anyone to his presence. If his mother caught him up here he would never hear the end of it and, after all, if he could not see them, they could not see him. He returned to prising the brooch free, and after a few seconds he had it in the palm of his hand.

  This time there could be no doubt. Joseph distinctly heard a low moan, as if some kind of animal were at the foot of the tree, but no kind of animal he recognised - unless a bear had escaped from a nearby zoo.

  Then it occurred to him it might be Jess; she might be badly hurt and moaning with the exertion of having dragged herself back.

  'Jess!' he called. 'Is that you, girl?'

  But it was not Jess. Whatever was making the noise was no longer at the foot of the tree, but had begun to climb it. He could hear the sound of something thudding into the bark and then dragging itself up, as if a soldier were scaling the tree using grappling hooks. He saw with mounting nervousness that the branches below him were shaking as whatever it was approached.

  Joseph wondered if it was old Mr Farlow trying to frighten him, but even as he clung to this feeble straw of hope the thing swished into view. He could not make out any features on the black shadow that was climbing faster and faster towards him, save for the huge curved claws that it used to grip the bark.

  The scream that Joseph made flew across the open pasture and crashed through garden wall and house wall and shattered the chattering peace of his mother's coffee morning. His mother instinctively ran towards the pasture, with her friends in tow. They found Joseph's body at the base of the tree, together with the branch he had been sitting on.

  Joseph had a number of deep scratches on his legs and back, caused, they supposed, by the fall, and curiously his precious watch was missing and no amount of searching beneath the tree would uncover it.

  'Elm's will drop their branches without warning,. ' said Mr Farlow, shaking his head when he heard the news. 'I did warn the boy not to climb.'

  But Joseph's father decided to take vengeance on the tree he blamed for his son's death and demanded that Mr Farlow find someone who would cut the tree down. The old man shook his head.

  'Not I, sir,.' he said. 'And if I were you, I'd leave the tree be.'

  There was something in the way the old man said the words that seemed to end the discussion and no tree surgeon was ever phoned. Instead, it was estate agents who were contacted and the house was put on the market once more.

  They moved before the house was sold. Joseph's mother could not sleep there. The rustling of the great tree played on her nerves. Mr Farlow was kept on by them to maintain the grounds until a buyer was found.

  At the very top of the tree, light would occasionally twinkle as it played across the dented back of a watch embedded in the highest reaches of its ancient trunk.

  'More tea, Edgar?' said my uncle, lurching forward rather alarmingly.

  'Yes, please,.' I said.

  My throat did feel somewhat dry. I was finding it difficult to shake off the thought of being trapped at the top of that great tree with some nameless horror climbing inexorably closer and closer. My imagination had been horribly effective in its ren
dering of those murderous claws.

  Uncle Montague refilled my cup and his own. He placed his saucer on his knee with one hand and lifted the cup to his lips with the other. When he had taken a sip, he put the cup and saucer back on the tray and got to his feet.

  'Perhaps I should not be telling you such tales, Edgar,.' he said, walking to the window and peering out. 'I do not wish to give you nightmares.'

  'That is quite all right, Uncle,.' I said. 'I promise you, I was not so very frightened.'

  'Really?' said Uncle Montague, turning round with a crooked grin. 'My tale was not frightening enough for you?'

  'No, Uncle,.' I said, putting my cup down with a rattle. 'That is to say, I mean . . .'

  'Calm yourself, Edgar,.' said Uncle Montague, turning back to the window. 'I was teasing you a little. Forgive me.'

  'Of course,.' I said with a smile. 'I realise that.'

  Uncle Montague chuckled to himself but said nothing more. He seemed lost in a kind of reverie, gazing out through the windows to the garden.

  I looked about me. The dancing fire flames were producing a not especially pleasant illusion of animation among the objects around the room and the shadows they cast. The shadow under my uncle's chair seemed particularly to have a life of its own and gave the unsettling impression that something was squatting beneath it, twitching and ready to dash out like a great spider across the room.

  Though I knew, of course, that it could not be, the framed prints and paintings, the objects on the mantelpiece and on the cabinets, the books and the furniture - they all seemed to be trembling in anticipation, as if alive.

  Uncle Montague turned and picked something up from the top of a cabinet nearby. The 'movement' of the contents of the study seemed to come to a sudden halt. When he turned back to face me I could just make out it was a tiny doll with a china head and fabric body.

  My uncle walked over and handed me the doll with a degree of seriousness utterly at odds with the object, although I could see that it was made with unusual care. Still, it seemed an odd sort of thing for my uncle to have in his house. I felt a little foolish holding it and thought of the ribbing I would get at school should anyone there have seen me.