Walking as Trees

    I’ve gotta face this.  His knuckles tightened under a thin layer of whitening skin as their grip on the wheel became somewhat of a rhythmic pulse, keeping his focus from veering him off the road. 
    I’m gonna stare this bitch down.  Brian’s eyes tried to remain faithful to the road as he pictured pleasantries, desperately trying to keep his composure. 
    There is absolutely nothing to be scared of.  If he had shown the true amount of throbbing fear accruing ground in his bowels, it would only have invited more jolly encouragement from the others.  He loved them dearly and greatly appreciated their support, but after two hours in the car, it had grown stale. 
    “Don’t you think your going a bit fast sweetie,” Madeline enquired, brushing her hair from her eyes.  This was the beginning of a three day weekend for them all, and she was in no rush to see Tuesday morning careen around the corner. 
    Not fast enough.  “Just keeping up with the flow baby,” Brian said, continuing to suppress his gut instinct to whip a u-turn and get drunk back at home.  He knew she was right.  The only way to end this was going to be to face his fears.  And what better way to do it than with the support of his fiancé and two best friends, Jack and Katelyn.  Even though Madeline had put up with his nightmares for the last four years, he still wanted to be the kind of man that didn’t wake up in the middle of the night drench in sweat and bawling like a stuck pig.  He was quite content knowing that he was manning up to face this, but the fear nagged his courage none the less. 
      “We should be coming up to the main entrance,” Madeline announced, “You sure we have everything?”  Brian almost wanted to ignore the question being that it was not the first time it had been thrown at him during their trip, but he couldn’t let his dread become venom.  Not with her.  He loved her too much to poison her faith in him.  She thought this trip was really going to help, and she showed her unbound pride in him when he decided she was right. 
    “We’ve got everything we need baby,” Brian lovingly answered, coated softly by a passionate smile.  Everything including the setting sun. 
    “We sure do,” Katelyn grinned to Jack, resuming their game of throat spelunking in the backseat.  They only recently began dating after a year long teasing session as friends, and their non stop groping showed it.  The virginal foreplay began the moment they got in the car and continued to fragrant the air the entire ride. 
    The tree line on the left began to thin as he slowed the car, approaching the turnoff.  He forced his slightly trembling arms to steer the car to the left as his fright hurled his stomach to the floorboard.  He really wished that they had left a few hours earlier; setting up camp was not something he was looking forward to doing in the dark. 
      Five minutes later, he would have missed the sign stating Ocala National Forest had he not had his headlights on.  Didn’t really matter though; he knew all to well where they were.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t been here before.  In fact, this was only the second time.  The first when he was ten years old with his Grandpa Bennie.  Not that he could remember, to this day, anything more about that trip than who came along and who didn’t return. 
    The towns’ gossip made it seem like Grandpa Bennie had something to do with the disappearance of his friend Rhett Tucker, but Brian knew better.  He knew their friendship had spanned over forty years and that his Grandpa loved the Tuckers like they were his own flesh and blood.  He remembered a man full of love and compassion, not a murderer and liar. 
    Here we go.  The road they decided to take was a small one around the east side of the park.  The lane and a half of dirt road they had to travel was not appeasing to Brian, but it was the quickest route from the outside world to Grandpa’s favorite spot.  Three minutes of blind corners and sifting, loose sand, they would hit the small, cleared nook that his Grandpa used to frequent.  What little sun was left to shine filtered in orange splinters through the hanging limbs above.  Brian was intent on getting to the spot before the light was completely blighted, to the point that he didn’t mind the car slipping from side to side like a dune buggy.  He wasn’t too excited about getting out of the car beneath the canopied trees in the dark, but he was here now.  It was time to get this over with. 
      “Here we are,” Brian choked, bringing the car to a smooth stop in a small clearing about a half mile from the lake and a few feet away from a complete breakdown.  His heart began to race as he visualized himself getting out of the car, making two small steps into the wilderness and fainting himself to the ground.  Here I am.
    Madeline smiled as she leaned over, placing a hand on Brians leg, “We’re here for you, and we are going to get through this sweetie.”  The beauty about her presence constantly radiated love and nurturing, yet the thought of failure twitched his left eye nervously none the less.  It was as if he wanted her hand to clutch his thigh that much tighter, sharing in his horrific anticipation of exiting the car. 
    “Alright,” Jack said, finally coming up for air to open the back door, “Lets get our weekend on.”  Katelyn giggled like a prom date, straightening her blouse and following the good times exit.  Jack had been three feet from a home run for the last hour and he had it in mind to dust that plate in the next ten minutes.  He leaned into the compartment behind the rear seats, yanking both bag-o-tents out, one after the other. 
    Get out of the car.  The damp, musty air that wafted through the open door began to fill Brians head with images of the one and only time camping with Grandpa at this very location.  His over protective mother finally caved to his pleas, and allowed him to accompany Grandpa on one of his excursions to Ocala National Forest. 
    They picked up Grandpa’s friend Rhett on the way to the park, as Grandpa normally did, and made a quick stop at Johnson’s Groceries for a few odds and ends.  Two hours later, Grandpa was showing him how to look for a comfortable spot to pitch the tent.  They fished most of the afternoon away, accommodating a hell of a lot of suicidal bass that leapt at the chance to end it all.  As they made their way back to camp, he noticed Grandpa and Rhett tossing a few fish into the woods and asked them why.  “There are many other creatures that exist around you that hunger boy,” his Grandpa boasted, flinging another fish off into the distance brush, “so when the land has been good to you, you give back.”  Brian grabbed one of the fish from his basket, smiled at it gleefully and sent it soaring as far as he could screaming, “Thank-you.”
    Pull the handle and GET OUT OF THE CAR!  His left arm jerked at the door handle, popping the door outward, almost loosing it to the hinges.  He hadn’t noticed, but Madeline made a tiny jump backwards to avoid the door; she had already gotten out and worked her way around to his side.  He stepped out into the darkness, with only the soft door lights to show the way, which was all of twelve inches.
    “You need some help with the tent sweetie,” she asked in way that seemed she was directing traffic, dragging him back to her from the trees.
    “Nah,” he answered, looking into her eyes for only the second time during the trip, “I’ll have her up in five minutes.” 
    She blew him a kiss and skipped back to the car.  He considered himself a very lucky man to have found her as he looked up to spy Jack finishing off on his tent with a giggling Katelyn in tow.  They had picked a suitable spot not too far away from the car and Brian decided to follow suit. 
    The task of pitching the tent kept his mind busy to the point that he almost forgot where he was at.  By the time he was done, his eyes were gifted with a more glorious vision to gaze upon to keep the fear at bay; a teasing Madeline.
    “Are you finished over there big boy,” she called from over his shoulder, sending the shivers that tickled her below through the air like a mating call.  He turned around to find her nothing but a head, peering over the roof of the car, smiling innocently at him.  She loosed a giggle as her head ducked from view, only to return with a friend holding a pair of jeans.  She swayed from side to side, charming him to rise, as she spun her pants around and threw them over the car. 
    “Is there something I can help you with sir,” she mocked with a pouting lip as she ducked behind the car one last time.  This time it was her t-shirt getting aired out and tossed into the dark, nipples pressed against the cold steel of the car. 
    “I’m sure we can find something you’ll like,” she said, strutting her hips as she approached him wearing nothing more than his favorite pair of undies; the low cut ones with the pink trim always made him complacent.  He could do nothing more than stand there, stiff as steel, gawking on as she unzipped the tent, and crawled inside.  He didn’t hesitate to follow, jumping in head first into her fevered arms. 
    It didn’t take long for the passing orgasm to drag away consciousness as well; he found himself in the land of forgetful dreams. 
    Lying on the damp ground, staring up at the winding branches from the nearby trees that wrapped him in a cold, unwelcoming cocoon, Brian felt that this lucid scene of forestry was about to take a dark turn around a corner he was acquainted with. 
    The fogged stumbled in, getting caught up in the twisting, vagrant roots swimming through the earth.  It’s dank odor a forbearance of the swelling dark beyond the tree line.  The creepy crawlers that scampered over and about his legs was a reminder that he was not alone in the clearing; other than what was forcing the fog his way.  The sound of crickets singing became eclipsed by the familiar creaking and groining of wood moving against the grain.  Brian wanted to run.  He wanted to rise from the ground and fly away like a super hero, but his limbs were deaf to his pleas.  A mighty wind began to roll in on the frightened boy, giving the trees a chance to dance for his amusement.  His fingers dug into the moist soil, trying to escape the realization that the trees were not moving amongst the blowing wind; the trees, in their fluid boogie were assaulting him with the very air around him.  He wanted desperately to get up and run, but he could not move from the earth.  The twisted limbs that seemed distant in the air were now moving closer, like a doting parent checking on their infant in the crib.  These appendages did not appear so loving.  His own body joined in the frolic, rippling up and down as the ground beneath him convulsed violently.  He could not look away; much less shield his eyes from the erupting soil around him.  Six large tree roots burst through the ground, hovering around him, biding their time to yank him into the earth.
    Brian sat up so quickly, it was as if the momentum would carry him the rest of the way to his feet.  His body finally obeying and wrenching him from that blasted nightmare.  That dream had haunted him since the trip with Grandpa in ‘85, without reprieve.  The green glow of the tent was relaxing, but not enough to cradle him once his eyes showed him where he was and who wasn‘t.  He could feel that old terror sweltering up again, as he pulled his jeans up. 
    “Madeline,” Brian called out, unzipping the tent. 
    “Over here baby,” Madeline answered from a low brewing fire a few yards away.  She glowed above the popping embers, bundled in a large fleece blanket.  “I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, inviting Brian into her toasty wrap. 
    Jack and Katelyn were nestled by the fire as well, trading whispers with each other, jostling within their sleeping bag like fornicating puppeteers. 
    The fear that welled up in Brian began to throb in the face of the towering trees.  His fear was about to retake the reins as the light from the fire tossed flickering shadows against the trees, making them seem animate.  Writhing and twisting around the sacrificial lamb. 
    He tried his best, but he couldn’t keep the questions that fueled his fear at bay.  The missing answers that vanished with Grandpa and Rhett that his imagination had to supply.  The image of Grandpa riding home that day, without Rhett was the last one burned into Brians head.  Grandpa was a shallow man behind the wheel, mumbling to himself about how it shouldn’t have happened.  He was dropped off at his mothers’ house and never saw his Grandpa again. 
    The Sheriff had come around later that day to talk to his mother.  He said that there was nothing out there except for the trees.  This one statement seemed to reverberate in his skull, passing back and forth.  Nothing except the trees.
      “We picked the perfect night to come out here,” Madeline said, as she watched the glowing ash fly to its doom above the flames. 
      Brian stood up, staring out at the tree line, this time with scrutiny as those words found their way through every part of his being.  Nothing except the trees.  Nothing except the trees.  …the trees.  A warmth feeling washed over his face.  His fear and terror plucked away from his heart as if it were never there.  He was finally able to gaze upon the origins of his dread. 
      He couldn’t recall anything about the disappearance, that bit he knew.  But that statement stuck in his head for whatever reason since that strange day.  Nothing except the trees.  He couldn’t recall hearing anything else about the trees thereafter, even amongst the loose gossip that floated around town fueling stories of murder and sacrifice.  His young mind, warped with the trauma of losing his father figure to unexplained circumstances, filled in the gaps with a fantastical story of the forest swallowing him. 
    The embarrassment that warmed his face could not be hidden as he turned back around to an ever smiling Madeline.  He returned the expression as he spied the hatchet Jack had used to collect firewood lying next to the fire.  He walked over, confidence driving his step and snatched the blade from the ground. 
      He turned back to the tree line, eyes slanting on the kill; a tree of wealthy girth not more than twenty feet away.  It’s over mother fucker.  He glided to the trunk, cocked and ready to slice, wearing a grin that God couldn’t smite.  “Its over,” his throat scratched as he reeled the hatchet back and slammed it head on into the bark.  The first strike landed with a moist thump, as the vibration loosened his grip on the handle.  The ones to follow were more sturdy; tightened grip and more direct swings. 
    In the blur of the flailing, he noticed Jack mouthing something in his direction as his pointed at him.  Madeline’s face had lost its joy, finding one of question more suitable for the moment.  His revenge paid no mind as he continued to strike until his shoulder just would not bend again.  His lungs aspirated, he stood there dangling in place, basking in the absence of the fear.  The wet thuds from the hatchet continued to echo in his ears.
    “Brian,” he heard Madeline call from behind him.  He turned, wiping chips of wood from his arms, to find her standing alone by the fire.  A movement in the trees over her head detoured his questioning of Jack and Katelyns absence.  “I was wrong,” she cautioned, pointing over his head as the blood rushed to her feet. 
    “You should not have returned here, boy,” bellowed a mighty voice, echoing down from the treetops as if it were dropped on them from a plane flying overhead. 
      Brian glanced back to the spot by the fire where Jack was previously seated.  Jack, you asshole.  “Oh, you’re a funny guy Jack,” he yelled into the creaking darkness, knowing there was nothing left to fear in these woods.  He fought back a smile as his eyes crossed back and forth between the trees, intent on spotting the jester before he leapt towards the punch line. 
      Madeline appeared behind him, arms latching onto his tightly.  He expected a casual boo, but her hands shook slightly and her breath pressed harshly against his chest. 
      “Alright Katelyn,” Brian warned, “Jack, get your asses out here.”  I can’t believe Madeline is so scared.  Her gasp welcomed a rumble just beyond the waning flames. 
      “There won’t be any part of your friend joining you this evening,” hissed the wind through the trees.  Cracking laughter joined a chorus of unnatural motion, as the trees danced amongst the invading wind.  The other side of the clearing answered in it owns verse of elderly bark, like swaying silhouettes in the distance. 
      “I’m still hungry,” another voice howled through the dank air behind them. 
      Madeline began to sob into Brian’s chest, “That’s not Jack.  That’s not Jack.”  Brian felt those words melt away his short lived sense of shame, exposing the painfully raw fears that lurked just beneath the skin.  He choked back the convulsing shivers of dread as the wind beat against them, cackling sharply. 
      His inner eye opened to his Grandpa kneeling in this very clearing.  Brian’s ten year old mind blurred the scene as his elders mouth moved, sending slow bits of sound sluggishly through the small amount of air between them.  “Never……back……come……back……never……back,” his grandpa whispered, before dragging him off to the car, minus his friend Rhett. 
      “Madeline,” Brian stated, keeping his eyes trained on the tree line, “get in the car.” 
      She looked at him, tear soaked and swollen with terror. 
      “Your right,” Brian agreed with her nerves, “That’s not Jack.”                 
      She took a quick look over her shoulder at the car, which was no more than thirty yards away in the shadows.  The shove he gave her on the small of her back kept her from pondering his abandonment too long and sent her quickly on her way. 
      Brian spied the hatchet lying on the ground not to far from him, igniting the flame of courage in his veins.  “Come on out mother fuckers,” he shouted to the wind, taking a step towards the blade.  He was sure there were other people in the woods, and they were about to get a good old ass woopin’.
      Madeline’s scream from behind jerked his body round, bringing him to gaze upon the truth; the trees were alive.  They twitched and writhed, shaking about to loosen the earths hold on their roots.  The wind wasn’t screaming through the trees; the trees were sending the air around them moving, carrying with it the creaking cries from the musty wood.  She made it to the car before the nearest tree had accomplished its task of freeing itself of the ground.  It bent and swayed, using its entire being to take each craggy step. 
      “Come reap your disobedience boy,” that familiar voice clanged through the night beyond the fire, tickling the nape of his nape. 
      Grandpa?  He stood there waiting for a slackened shadow of his Grandpa to emerge from the woods, aged and weathered from living as some crazed hermit in the wilderness.  He knew that couldn’t be possible, but his imagination had its kick start. 
      The muffled sound of Madeline’s’ scream dragged his attention back to car, where he found her buried up to her waist in the ground, being held there by what looked like a root from the tree behind her.  It snaked around her body, as it lifted more of itself from the earth.  He made his final step towards the hatchet when that voice returned. 
      “Boy,” rang out, closer this time as the darkness beyond the range of the radiating fire began to move within itself. 
      “Brian,” Madeline yelled out, succumbing to the groping roots. 
      “This will end today boy,” the darkness bellowed, “We will take her and you shall obey me this time and not return.” 
      “We’re still hungry,” cried out from somewhere near Madeline. 
      Brian snatched the hatchet from the ground and stood to feel the air warm around him, pulsing like a great breath wreaking his neck.  He was speechless as he looked up to see a cyclopean tree writhing before him.  Its trunk as wide as his car, hulking in front of him, its grimacing branches spanning the sky. 
      A massive, horizontal slice opened towards the bottom, displaying a cavernous hole which spoke, “You do not understand, as I did not.”  Its breath was musty with fungi spores as it spat from a hole that moved like a crooked hook, tangled in bits of moss dangling from jagged flanks of wet teeth.  The tree before him was some how the embodiment of his Grandpa.
      Brian backed up towards the fire, aiming his retreat for one of the burning branches in its girth.  This is going to end now.  His lonely hand grabbed one of the logs, arming itself with fire to compliment the cold steel in the other hand. 
      “You have already brought us two others, boy,” the goliath tree said, “walk away and leave her.”
      “Our hunger will not wait child,” a third voice crept through the shadows. 
      “If you need one last body,” Brian threatened, spinning the flaming branch around, “take me and let her go.”  His offer was followed by moans of displeasure throughout the night. 
      “You must understand,” his wooden Grandpa began, before getting cutoff.
      “I will set this entire forest on fire,” Brian screamed, pointing the branch towards the quivering mouth, “Understand that.” 
      “So be it,” The tree growled, as the rest of the forest began to stir from its resting place.  Every piece of growth within site pulled itself from the earth, escaping its eternal bond.  They stumbled forward, one by one, enclosing Brian around the fire in a creaking bubble.  Each one different in its own grotesque fashion.  One tree seemed to glide forward, being pulled gently on by its snaking roots.  Another one simply bent its lengthy bark down from the clouds for a better view.  Some used their winding branches as arms, raking themselves toward him. 
      Brian looked back just as Madeline closed the car door.  She made it.  The tree that had her stood within throwing distance of him now, waiving its bloodied appendages in the air, shrieking madly as it blotted out another piece of the sky.  Madeline pressed her face to the passenger side window, unable to control her crying that fogged her view outside. 
    “Get out of here baby,” Brian shouted, using the smoldering branch to keep the encroaching trees at a distance, “and never come back here.”  She pounded on the window, screaming something that was swallowed by the sounds of a restless and hungry forest. 
      Even with his nightmares fleshed out and breathing in front of him, a sense of pride overwhelmed him and he split a smile.  I love you baby.  He was finally able to return the borrowed sense of surety that Madeline had loaned him on so many mornings.  He stood in the cradle of his end, brilliant with confidence, knowing that trading his life for hers could never have been in question.  I love you.  The cars engine turned over, giving him the strength of one last goodbye. 
      The air pounded his body as the sky closed up above his head, completely cutoff by the knotting fellowship of wood and appetite.  Growling pits of cavernous hunger scratched their way closer for the fading chance of first taste as the great, gaping mouthed Grandpa hovered above Brian. 
      “Alright old man,” Brian yelled, reeling the flame behind him, “Let’s see you swallow this.”  He lobbed the burning stick, head over tail, into the blasphemous mouth that was intent on choking him down whole.  The horizontal lips seized, shuddering closed for a brief moment before chomping down on the branch in one destructive fall.  Its reply to the cannibalistic morsel was a mere chuckle.
      “That won’t quell the hunger child,” one of the other lurking trees cawed.
      One of the roots from the Grandpa tree snuck up and caught Brian’s leg, jerked him violently to the floor.  “I was not strong enough to sacrifice you boy when I should have,” Grandpa wined, “so you now begin your ruined death where mine began so long ago.”  The other trees answered in kind, snagging hold of his flesh with their own appendages.  “You should not have returned here,” Grandpa sighed, tearing his leg from its socket.  Brian had time to scream briefly before the rest of his limbs were pulled apart, rationed chaotically amongst the nearest trees.  His throat, awash in his own blood, could not purge itself as the Grandpa tree hoisting his quivering remains into its ravenous orifice.  His wavering consciousness blurred out the shattering sounds of his owns bones breaking in the mouths of the surrounding creatures. 
      “Your son is now destined to return here in twenty four years with his own sacrifices to the wild,” the Grandpa tree taunted, “and you shall be the tormented soul who will devour him if he makes the same decision you and I have made.” 
      My son? 
      The great mouth slammed shut, sending its jagged teeth into what was left of Brian. 
      Madeline could not see the horrific end to her love, but she could not have mistaken those echoing words.  She gently laid one hand on her stomach, caressing herself as she sped away. 
      Never return here boy.