Campbell Wood

by Al Sarrantonio

  Mark dove for the door, throwing himself under the lower panel as it pulled away to fly across the room and shatter the window. As he pulled himself to his feet and ran he saw that the wood paneling in the hallway was rattling, buckling out and snapping away from the wall in places. The horror was following him down the hall, and as he reached the stairs to the exit the bannister exploded in his hands, cutting him and sending shards of deadly wood at his face. Luckily, none of them hit him hard and he was rolling down the steps, jumping to his feet and bursting through the doorway into the outside world.

  Everything seemed quiet out here. Off across the quadrangle a couple of students walked arm in arm, and the few barren, snow-dusted trees between him and the parking lot were still as the late afternoon air. He ran to the car, not pausing for breath until the doors were locked and the engine in first gear. He gunned the automobile out of the parking lot and through the gates under the bronze-plaqued arch, nearly losing control when he took the turn toward town too sharply. His breathing steadied as his brain registered the calm blue sky overhead, the yellow and orange leaves on the side of the road, the steadiness of the road itself. In thirty seconds it almost seemed that what had just happened to him was more of a dream than reality. But he knew now that he had to get his family out of Campbell Wood. Coincidence was not a possibility—there was something frightening and dangerous going on and it was obvious that his own family was at the very center of it. He wasn't about to give it the chance to destroy them all. They would go back to the Bronx or wherever else was far enough away from the Faerie of Campbell Wood and whatever other evils lurked there.

  The stretch of woods that gave the town its name loomed ahead, and Mark put his foot to the accelerator. On the other side of that forest his family was in danger and waiting for him, and he was going to get to them before whatever it was that had attacked him and killed Tom Nolan got to them. A cluster of images came to him—Feeney, the dead cat, with his middle torn open by a slice of wood; Kaymie's dollhouse, its front gaping wide; the image of someone outside his bedroom window, in the trees, staring in at him while he slept; someone in the trees looming over Seth while he played—and he pressed the accelerator nearly to the floor. The woods shot closer, and he noticed that something didn't quite look right with the roadway. It didn't seem to be where it was supposed to be. Mark's foot leaped from the accelerator to the brakes, and he screeched to a halt as the forest loomed up before him. Now he saw what was wrong. There was almost no pathway through the trees where the road should be, but rather a heaving mass of foliage growing all across the road and everywhere, reaching out to him.

  The woods were alive.

  17

  This, Sheriff Ramirez thought, is bullshit.

  He hadn't been scared a moment in his life—nothing his body would admit to, anyway—and here was the hair on the back of his neck rising as if he'd just seen a ghost. Trouble was, he hadn't seen anything. Nothing he could put a finger on, anyway.

  He'd been parked across from the Campbell house all morning long, waiting to see something happen. And nothing had happened. The girl's school bus had picked her up at eight-fifteen. A little while later Mark Campbell had left in his Chevy. As far as he knew, the other two, the mother and the little boy, were still in the house. And, as far as he knew, just about the whole rest of the town was over at the school auditorium today to see some school production or other. Hell, even that weird deputy of his had wheedled his way into going, saying he should keep an eye on things over there, see if anyone needed any help. Ramirez had let him go; he'd gotten the feeling the kid would have gone anyway. The whole town was full of weirdoes. And here, at this Campbell house, was maybe the one weirdo he wanted to get his hands on.

  A tingle went up the back of his neck again.

  He rolled the car window down, ignoring the cold. It had been warmer earlier in the morning, melting most of the previous night's snow, but now the temperature had dipped. This was going to be a cold winter. Ramirez glanced at the empty thermos next to him in the front seat and muttered a curse.

  He raked the trees across the Campbell property, looking for any sign of movement. Nothing—and yet something was out of the ordinary. They were just trees, for Christ's sake, but there was something about them—the shape, or the way the nearly empty branches hung out like arms—

  Hell, I'm going looney.

  He rolled the window up, starting the car to get the heater going again. Once more that ominous feeling passed over him.

  What the hell was it? He looked up through the front windshield; it suddenly occurred to him that the trees lining the road looked awfully low. The tips of their branches were almost touching the hood of the car.

  Am I going looney?

  He felt a shortness of breath, as if he were being closed into a tight room. This had to stop. Revving the engine, he threw it into gear and pulled out onto the street. As he did so, some of the branches did touch the roof of the car. He looked into the rearview mirror, and it almost looked as if they pulled back and up as he passed—

  Bullshit.

  He gunned the engine, pulling up through town a few minutes later past his office and then pouring it on as Campbell Wood passed behind him. In a moment he was into the forest and his breath, which had evened out, began to grow short again. What the hell's going on? The trees seemed to be bending precariously low over the road. They almost seemed to be brooding.

  A branch suddenly fell from above, glancing off the windshield and startling him. He pulled his hands off the wheel, for a moment losing control of the car but then pulling it back with a jerk onto the road. There didn't seem to be much road, now that he noticed it; leaves covered almost half of each side of the two-lane blacktop, drifting down from the curb. I've got to get the state to do something about this, he thought, and as this passed through his mind another branch, larger this time, fell with a crack onto the windshield in the same spot.

  He pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road and got out. It was unnaturally cold, colder than it had been, and he grabbed his overcoat from the front seat, pulling it on and turning up the collar. It was unnaturally dark, too. Leaves were swirling around the car, and the wind had somehow picked up; the tree boughs above him began to whip back and forth, clanking their close branches together with an unearthly sound. He shoved his hands in his pockets to find his gloves and then lifted the tree branch from the hood of the car.

  Damn, he thought. It had cracked the windshield, badly enough so that it would have to be replaced; a spider web of cracks led out from his line of vision behind the wheel almost to the top and bottom of the glass.

  He threw the bough off into the woods, disgusted. The wind was fierce now, and biting cold. Ice had formed from the melting snow in the branches above, and there was an eerie tinkling sound.

  He pulled at the car door but it wouldn't open. He brushed the frost from the side window and looked inside. Sure enough, there were the keys in the ignition. But he hadn't locked the door behind him; he could see the button in the up position. He yanked at it, but it wouldn't budge. Somehow, a bit of moisture must have gotten into it, freezing it in place.

  Shit.

  There was a loud, strange sound above him, and he glanced up just in time to see another huge branch falling toward him. He pushed himself off the car and back, and the chunk of wood hit the hood just above where he had been standing. He couldn't believe it; if he didn't get out of here soon the police cruiser would be totaled. The wind was even fiercer now; he pushed the piece of wood off the top of the car, noting with a curse the fresh damage it had caused.

  He banged the roof of the cruiser with his gloved fist and cursed again.

  Off to the right, in the woods, something caught his eye. A patch of bright red, metallic, like the trunk of a car. Keeping his eye open for more falling tree branches, he made his way cautiously off the roadbed into the tangled underbrush, pushing branches away.

  There was a car in there. Looked fami
liar, too; he'd seen it around town. But how the hell did it get in here? It was propped on its side, surrounded by trees. He moved closer, peering into the side window at the empty seats.

  A twig fell on his shoulder from above, and he looked up.

  "Oh sweet Jesus Christ."

  He nearly puked. On two close-set trees above him were two bodies—he recognized them now, the schoolteacher McGreary and her husband—attached to the trees, crucifixion-like. Each had a huge sliver of wood through its chest, nailing it to the trunk.

  He felt suddenly mad—who the hell would do something like this?

  The red car moved. It was as if someone were on the other side, pushing up. It flipped off its side to stand steady again. Then from underneath it Ramirez saw something else, a branch that curled snakelike up from the undercarriage to be joined by another coiling over the roof of the car.

  Around him, tree branches were in motion everywhere. Twisting and winding over and through one another, the whole forest was coming to life. Ramirez backed away from the car. He tripped momentarily over a fallen trunk that rolled toward him. Regaining his balance he pulled his gun, feeling foolish as he did so. Who the hell to point it at?

  Turning, he ran for his patrol car.

  At first he couldn't find it. It seemed as if the entire woods were alive now, and the road had completely disappeared under a heaving mat of foliage and broken twigs and leaves. Ramirez pushed his way blindly through this jungle, finding it tough going since the sky overhead had been blotted out completely by twining tree limbs.

  Finally he stumbled onto the patrol car. It was still fairly intact, and Ramirez noted with a burst of hope that the roadway behind the car still was free from this madness—there was some roiling foliage at the curbs but the blacktop itself was still visible.

  The car door was still frozen shut. With a mighty heave he managed to pull it open. The car stalled on the first two tries, then coughed spasmodically into life. Ramirez rammed it into reverse, twisting around in his seat to look behind him. Branches crawled over the hood and around the sides, but he managed to pull away from them by hitting the accelerator to the floor and keeping it there, maneuvering with his other foot on the brake. The car hesitated, tires screaming against the wild underbrush and the wooden arms holding the car back. But then he suddenly shot backward as though the car had been squeezed from a toothpaste tube.

  The roadway behind was fast disappearing but he kept his foot to the floor, using up the road as it was eaten away by the forest. He could just see the end of the woods now, and off beyond that the town of Campbell Wood, sitting serenely in the late autumn afternoon.

  A small tree, and then another, fell across the road. Ramirez was nearly thrown into the back seat as the patrol car hit them solid, flying up and over and then coming to a stop. He gunned the engine again, but then another and another tree fell across the back of the car, obliterating most of his vision and making the car jump on its shocks. There was a wall back there now, and a wall in front.

  The patrol car began to move to the right, carried off into the forest.

  Ramirez pushed at his car door. His sunglasses fell from his face. In the corner of his one good eye he caught something moving from the passenger side. He turned his head just as a huge tree trunk thrust its way right through the side window at him.

  I still say bullshit.

  He barely had time to think those words before his head was taken nearly clean off.

  18

  Kaymie was lost.

  Here on this darkened stage, in this darkened auditorium, she felt more alone than she ever had in her life. Her father, who had looked so worried lately, and who said there were things he just had to do, wasn't here; her mother was home taking care of Seth, who was still in bed after getting hurt the other night; even her teacher, Ms. McGreary, the one person in the entire school who had given her any attention, hadn't shown up for the play. And there was something else. She knew that every pair of eyes in the theater, everyone in the audience, and even the others around her in the play—she knew that all of them were watching her. They were watching her with an intensity that nearly burned holes in the darkness. She had felt compelled to wear the things she had found in the attic, and she felt as if the white gauzy robe and the delicate gold crown blazed in the darkness like beacons that called to every soul around her. She wanted to run from her spot, out through the woods and home and hide in her bed. But she knew that wasn't possible now. She knew that all of these people wanted something from her, needed something from her, and there was something, down deep inside her, but sure and strong, that wanted to respond to it.

  But what do they want me to do?

  Something, she knew, was happening inside her, and she didn't really know what it was. She didn't even know if there was anyone she could turn to for help. It was as if she were in a long dark tunnel, the tunnel of her dreams, and that no one was there to lead her out of it. She felt isolated from everyone—her parents, even from Seth. There was also another feeling within her, something new and free, as if she were a bird, long confined, let out of its cage. Things were bursting into life inside her over which she had no control.

  And someone was watching her. That same someone she had seen through the attic window. Eyes were peering at her out of the darkness, bright and hateful and red.

  What is it I'm supposed to do?

  A knot of tension formed in Kaymie's stomach as the two spotlights to either side of her came on.

  The boy to Kaymie's right, his face painted pale green with pointed black eyebrows and wearing a dark green leather jerkin and short pointed cap, began:

  "How now, spirit! Whither wander you?"

  The other spotlight, to Kaymie's left, held a short girl in pink robes and felt slippers. In a sing-song voice, she replied,

  "Over hill, over dale,

  Thorough bush, thorough brier,

  Over park, over pale,

  Thorough flood, thorough fire,

  I do wander everywhere,

  Swifter than the moon's sphere;

  And I serve the fairy queen

  To dew her orbs upon the green. . . ."

  Oberon, suddenly revealed by another spot-light, this one bright green, said, "Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania."

  Kaymie went blank momentarily, casting a wild glance over the hushed audience, but then she remembered her lines.

  "What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: I have forsworn his bed and company."

  As Oberon answered, a wave of nausea washed over Kaymie.

  Someone's here, she thought. Watching.

  "Then I must be thy lady," she said automatically, regaining some of her composure. "But I know when thou hast stolen away from fairy land, and in the shape—"

  Suddenly she became aware that the auditorium had become deathly quiet. The lights had gone up. The tension in the air was thick enough to taste.

  They were all looking at Kaymie, and there was fear in their eyes.

  What do they want me to do, her mind screamed at her.

  Up above, there was a creak.

  The auditorium swayed. It was as if the wind had suddenly whipped up to typhoon level and was moving the place on its foundations.

  Again there was silence, and then another creak.

  The sounds were coming from the ceiling, from one of the huge timber strips which crossed and ran down the sides of the walls. Between the strips was oak paneling, which began to buckle in little waves. One of the beams seemed to be cracking at its center.

  The hall began to tremble, sending shivers through the floor.

  All those frightened eyes were on Kaymie, who stood helpless.

  And then a panic began. Those who moved to the exits found that the doors would not open. A press of people formed behind them, pushing futilely against those in front.

  Someone screamed.

  Ramirez's deputy found the microphone on stage, and was trying to calm everyone down. "Please!" he shouted. "Stay
where you are!"

  There was a sharp sound, like an arrow being shot from a crossbow. The deputy stopped in mid-sentence and gave a short cry, leaning forward and throwing his hands to his throat. He stood bewildered for a moment, and then, weakly, almost playfully, looked down and tried to tug out a ten-inch shaft of wood that was lodged in his neck. He gave a gurgling sob, looked up at Kaymie, trying to say something, and slowly sank to his knees.

  What am I supposed to do?

  Chaos erupted in the auditorium. The two exits were now a crush of people, pushing madly with their weight against the doors. One of the exits began to give, and this spurred others to make a rush toward it.

  The oak paneling began to peel down away from the walls, flying outward in great deadly strips. Seats and benches collapsed. The beams on the ceiling broke into small lethal projectiles that hurtled down. The beams lining the walls, meanwhile, broke away from their moorings. Everyone was screaming; a man next to Kaymie was shot through with a bolt of wood which speared him to a wall beam.

  A huge section of the ceiling broke away and fell, crushing a score of those underneath near one of the exits and blocking it just as it had begun to open. Efforts redoubled on the single remaining door.

  Another wave of horrible nausea washed over Kaymie.

  She screamed and emptied her mind; she threw her hands to her head and grasped it as if it would come apart. The window in the back of her mind opened a crack, but would not open any further. With all her strength she forced it open a bit more.

  Instantly, there was a lessening of the destruction in the room. The ceiling overhead pulled back up and steadied.