by John Everson
Scott risked a look behind them, and saw Sutter crawling up the path. The man clearly couldn’t put weight on his feet, but that didn’t stop him from coming up the stairs on his hands and knees. Scott reached across Caroline’s body and slipped the key into her other manacle. She held his arm with her now-free hand to steady him as he did.
“The good thing about the tree is that it heals you,” Sutter growled from just behind. “The bad thing is, you’re gonna have a lot to heal.”
A heavy hand grabbed at Scott’s leg, and he jumped to the side, abandoning the key to Caroline’s fingers as he just barely escaped Sutter’s grip. He moved quickly away from the trunk of the tree.
“You can run all ya want,” Sutter said. “But you won’t get far. In the meantime, I’ll just give your girlfriend here some of the punishment she deserves. Never thought she’d turn on the family like this.”
Caroline had grabbed the key from Scott and was still twisting it in the manacle as Sutter grabbed her by the waist and used her and the trunk of the tree to hoist himself upright. His feet were stained with blood. A small puddle quickly formed on the ground behind his cut leg as he pulled himself up to stand.
“Your mama is gonna be real angry with you,” Sutter hissed, pressing his face to hers.
“That’s the truth,” Caroline said. “But Mama taught me to go git what I want, so that’s what I did.” Caroline nodded, and then said sweetly while staring straight into Sutter’s eyes, “She also taught me that boys really hate it when a girl does this.”
Caroline’s knee came up and slammed as hard as she could drive it between Sutter’s legs. When she connected with his balls, he gave out a horrible scream. As he clutched his crotch, Caroline turned and finished twisting the key in the manacle to free her other wrist. This time, it clicked open. She shoved Sutter in the chest with both hands and dashed away from the tree before he could recover. She grabbed Scott’s hand when she reached him and yanked, pulling him in a staggering run down the incline and then up the steps on the far side of the room.
Sutter howled on his knees behind them, both hands holding his crotch.
Scott stumbled on the stairs, but Caroline put his arm over her shoulder and pulled him upright. His back felt on fire, both on the surface where his skin was flayed as well as deep within. Parts of his legs felt numb.
“We have to get upstairs,” she urged, and he struggled to move his leg with hers. Together, they staggered clumsily up the steps, with him partly leaning on her and partly pushing off from the wall.
As soon as they stepped into the hall above, Caroline pushed the wooden door shut and turned her key in the lock. “You can only unlock this from the outside,” she said. She gave him a wicked smile. “So Sutter’s going to be crying alone for a while. But we need to go. Mama’s likely to have everyone awake by now.”
“How are we going to get outside?” he asked. “We certainly can’t go through the front door.”
Caroline nodded, and pulled him forward. “We’ll go through the side garden.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They moved carefully down the dark, empty hall. Scott held tight to Caroline’s shoulders, and concentrated solely on putting one foot in front of the other… Until they heard voices up ahead.
“Come on,” she whispered and pulled him to the door of the “Party Room”. With a quick turn she had unlocked the door and pulled him inside with her.
“I can’t get caught now,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know what Mama would do to me, and I don’t want to find out. Let’s wait here a minute until they pass. I don’t think they’d come looking down here.”
They stepped down the stairs and Scott remembered the night he’d been here. The night everything had truly gone south in his stay at The Family Tree Inn.
“The Thornes,” he whispered. “We should let them out while we’re here.”
Caroline looked at him and shook her head. “It’s too late for them,” she said.
“What do you mean, too late? We could help them, cut them free like you did me.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and took in a breath. When she opened them, she looked sad, despite a faint smile. “I’ll show you.”
She guided him down the hall to the room, and when they turned at the entryway, Scott stifled the urge to whistle.
“Holy shit,” he said.
The Thornes remained chained in place to the tree. They didn’t move. It didn’t look like they could. They were locked in an embrace. Their naked hips were bound together by a weave of small vines, and Scott wondered if Mr. Thorne was actually inside her right now. He couldn’t tell, they were pressed so close. Small branches wound all around their legs and arms, tying them together, anchoring them to the trunk.
“We can cut them out of there,” he said.
Caroline shook her head. “They can’t see you anymore.”
“They’re dead?”
She shook her head again. “No. But they are part of the tree now. In a few more days, you would have been like them.”
“I thought you said I’d be conscious, that we would talk.”
“Sometimes,” she said. “But after a month or two, most of the time you would dream with the tree.”
Scott thought of his visions over the past few days while lying against the tree in the dark. Visions of the sky. Visions of leaves moving softly in the breeze as the sky slowly faded from blue to black. He knew what dreaming with the tree meant. Unconsciously he shivered.
Scott looked closer and saw that the skin of the Thornes had turned dark and rough where it was exposed. Veins were visible beneath the skin, as if they were imprisoned by thin vines both inside and out. When he stepped closer, he saw that their shoulders and hips were completely absorbed by the tree; a seamless woody stem seemed to have grown from the heart of the tree to penetrate their skin and bones. All around it, their flesh looked rough…almost like scales or ridges. It dawned on him then; they were growing bark!
He looked between the hundreds of tiny vines to see their faces. Their mouths were locked together, though their eyes remained open.
But as Scott looked at where the whites should be, he only saw a milky green. And from the center of their pupils, tiny filaments reached out, like roots. They extended a couple inches in the air beyond each of the Thornes’s eyes and where they met in the middle, the white root-like things twined around each other, locking the couple forever together.
“I only have eyes for you,” Scott whispered, shaking his head. “Damn, that’s creepy as hell.”
“They’re happy this way,” Caroline said. “All they know now is each other. They’re together, forever.”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” he said, examining the network of branches and vines that held them.
“If you cut them out now, they would probably die,” Caroline said. “After a certain point, they become more tree than human.”
She pulled him away. “C’mon, we need to go.”
Then she stopped. “But first…” She walked over to the bar and poured a tall glass of amber.
“No,” he said. “That’s the last thing I want.”
“You need it,” she insisted, pressing it into his hand. “You need to heal fast, or we’re not going to get very far. Drink. If we could, I’d have you stay here half the night and get drunk on this stuff.”
He saw the wisdom in that, but feared the dulling effects of the liquor. Still…he tilted the glass back and instantly felt the warmth spread across his chest and then dip lower. In seconds, the pain in his back seemed to warm and grow a little less excruciating.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Caroline led him back up the steps to the main hall, and after peeking her head out to make sure the coast was clear, she led him down the corridor towards the side entrance.
But no sooner were they movi
ng when they heard voices nearby again.
“C’mon,” she said and pulled him into the den that Sherrilyn had taken him too once before. The photo of her with his young grandfather was still there, and her presence in the black-and-white still made a lot more sense this time.
“We need a diversion,” he said. “Something to draw them to one spot while we slip out the back.
Caroline nodded.
Scott looked around the room at the books and old pictures on the wall. His eyes settled on a gas lamp in the corner of the room on a small desk. “Does that light?”
“Sure,” she said. “We keep them around because the power goes out around here all the time, especially in the winter.”
He picked up a box of wooden matches next to it, lifted the glass hood and lit the wick. Flame guttered up quickly. But Scott didn’t put the glass lid back on.
He pulled a few books from the case and opened them, lining them out on the seat of an upholstered chair. Then he began to drip kerosene from the lamp over the paper.
“What are you doing?” Caroline cried. “No, no you can’t do that.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“But you’ll burn down the inn!”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t think so. Not if they work to put it out. Meanwhile, we can get the hell out of here.”
“This is my home,” she whispered. Her face looked as if he’d slapped her.
“I don’t think either of us can live here anymore,” he said. And with that, he threw the lamp on the floor next to the chair, and flames leapt from the carpet up the trail of kerosene. The books flared to life. Tongues of eager fire shot three feet in the air and engulfed the entire chair in seconds.
“We need to go,” he said, and pulled her to and through the door.
“It’s this way,” she whispered, as they staggered together down the hall. He could hear the tears in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I never wanted to hurt Mama or Sutter or any of the others.”
“I know,” he said. “But I didn’t know any other way.”
Someone was just ahead, and she pulled him into a closet. “Now what do we do?” she whispered.
“We give them a chance to save themselves,” he said. Scott counted to ten and then poked his head out of the door to look down the hall. Agnes was walking hurriedly away from them.
“Any sign of them?” someone yelled.
Scott raised the alarm himself. “Fire!” he yelled at the top of his lungs before pulling back into the safety of the closet. He watched through the crack as a handful of people rushed down the hall towards the flames. He could smell the smoke building up already.
Doors opened and slammed along the hall and the cries of people began to grow, echoing his own. “Fire!” someone yelled again and again. “Water, get water!” someone else shrieked. He pushed the door open slowly and nodded. Smoke and confusion reigned a few yards down the hall.
“Show me the way,” he said.
Caroline nodded and slipped into the hall, dragging him behind her. He struggled not to fall, gripping at the walls for support. But the pain seemed to be lessening. And after they ducked once more into a room to hide while people rushed past, they finally were able to run down the last hall and exit to the side garden.
“Where is my car?” he asked when they reached the front of the inn.
“In the forest,” she said. “This way.”
She led him down the path into the woods, and then down the side trail that he’d taken twice before. The trail to the auto graveyard. Now he understood. He knew why the Thornes’s car had been driven back here…and why his had been taken away as well. And all the others.
A lot of people had died over the years to feed the tree.
Then he panicked as their whole impromptu plan crumbled in his head. “I don’t have my keys!”
“We always leave the keys under the seat,” Caroline said. “Case we have to move the cars later for some reason.”
She led him deftly through the dark woods, the trail lit by just enough moonlight to stop them from tripping on roots and stepping into holes. They navigated to the old tree branch, and when they reached the old log barricade, Caroline let go of his hand and picked the thing up by one end. She began to push it to unblock the path.
“You can’t move that,” he exclaimed, but the words were barely out of his mouth when he saw it did move. The tree was on some kind of hidden hinge; once she gave it a good push, it began to slowly swing open like a gate.
“Camouflage,” she said. “Supposed to keep people from coming back this way.”
“Not sure how successful that is,” he murmured. Then he followed her past the graveyard of clothes until they finally reached what he was now mentally dubbing “the parking lot of damned”. His car sat at the outermost line of abandoned vehicles, and he rushed ahead of Caroline to open the driver’s side door and ease himself inside. His back flared as he sat down, but he barely noticed. Slipping into his car felt like a homecoming. He reached beneath the seat and found his keys easily, just where Caroline had promised they’d be. The engine was running before she had even climbed inside.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered, more to the car than to her.
The passenger door slammed shut. Scott put the Kia into drive and turned on the headlights. A minute later they were turning out of the forest path and driving toward the inn. He could see the glow of orange from a side window and a plume of smoke on the back side of the rambling structure.
“Oh my God,” Caroline moaned. “It’s all going to go.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “Look, someone’s out there with the garden hose.”
She began to sob.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, looking over at her. He couldn’t imagine how much this was hurting her inside. He hadn’t wanted to destroy her whole life…but he hadn’t wanted to die either.
A bullet shattered the front windshield.
Glass sprayed Scott’s face and he jerked to the side as a stinging heat sliced across his chin. The car swerved with him, and he saw Sherrilyn, just twenty yards away, right in path of the car, holding a shotgun. She was pumping another round, getting ready to fire again. He stepped on the accelerator and drove right at her. Sherrilyn had no choice; she dropped the gun and leapt out of the way. But as soon as he turned the car back towards the road, another shot hit the side of the car. And then another.
This time, the sniper was Ellen. The innkeeper stood in the middle of the road out, her own shotgun trained on them. The road fell off on either side of her into steep ditches that drained into the creek that ran through the woods. There was only one way to go. Through the path where Ellen stood.
“Don’t hit her!” Caroline screamed as Scott hit the gas.
“She’ll move,” he said.
But she didn’t. Instead, Ellen hefted the shotgun to her shoulder again and sent another bullet through the front windshield. Caroline gave out a small, startled cry…and was quiet.
Scott glanced quickly to her side and saw blood streaming across her face. Shards of glass fell into the cab from the disintegrating window. Ellen got off another shot that took the whole top part of the glass down. It cascaded off the dash and rained over their legs. Sprinkles of glass covered his lap like hail, and Scott let out his own scream.
“You can’t keep me here!” he yelled, losing his temper. He aimed the car straight at Ellen, slamming the accelerator down.
She didn’t move, still trying to get off another shot. At the last second, he swerved as much as he could, trying to miss her and hoping she would move. But instead, the car slammed into her and she came down hard on the hood. Scott hit the brakes instantly and she rolled back off.
“God damn it!” he yelled, and rammed the gearshift int
o park.
He took a deep breath and looked at the dark blood oozing from the wound in Caroline’s head. He couldn’t tell how deep the wound was. There was a bullet hole in the seat just behind her, so he hoped it was from the same shot and that the bullet had simply glanced off her skull.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispered and pulled on the lever to open the driver’s side door. It swung out with a creak, and Scott pulled himself up and out of the car. He had to go find Ellen. After running her down, he couldn’t just drive away. How bad was it? He had to know. For Caroline’s sake.
Ellen lay crumpled up in a ball to the left of his front wheel.
Had he killed her? If Caroline woke now and saw what he’d done to her mother, she’d never forgive him.
He bent down to put his hand on the old woman’s heart, and she stirred. There was blood oozing from her arm, and he had to believe she’d broken ribs. He straightened her out on the ground, and her hand reached out to grab his shirt.
“Ya can’t go,” she whispered.
A bullet whizzed over his shoulder and punctured the rear door of the car.
“I can, and I will,” he said. “And I have to!”
Scott crawled on his hands and knees to where Ellen’s shotgun lay, and picked it up. Sherrilyn was walking up the road towards them, her own gun aimed right at him.
“Put it down,” she called.
He debated what to do for a second.
And then he mumbled “Fuck it.” He went for it.
Scott took aim at Sherrilyn and pressed the trigger, just as a bullet slammed into his chest.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
He fell backward, and suddenly found that it was difficult to breathe. “Oh shit,” he whispered, “Come on, not now.” The pain spread across his chest and up his shoulder.
Scott pushed up on his good arm and screamed at the top of his lungs. His frustration was almost as intense as his pain. And the pain was horrible. He couldn’t see Sherrilyn. Had he hit her?
