They Look Like Trees

[00:00:00]AKM McCarthy came through with a story this week, which is great because I didn't have much planned for this week.

[00:00:06]I've got a bunch of longer stories that I'm currently working on, and I'm writing a couple of stories myself, which I was hoping to get done um by the end of this weekend, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to. So, this one's by Team CGS member AKM McCarthy.

[00:00:26]Great writer. Let's see what he's got for us this week.

[00:00:32]Mark leaned his head back and breathed deeply. I could practically see the specs of pollen flying into his flared nostrils.

[00:00:40]It was springtime in Thorny Ridge State Park, and these woods were mostly yellow with clouds of pollen.

[00:00:47]It was beautiful, but a little dangerous, just like the woods themselves.

[00:00:53]It had been a bad 6 weeks for the both of us, but mine paled in comparison to Mark's.

[00:00:59]I lost my job, but my wife made a decent amount, and we had saved up a little.

[00:01:05]I was embarrassed that I was struggling to find something new, but Mark lost more than that.

[00:01:12]"Jenny had terrible allergies," Mark said, his eyes still closed as he basked in the scent of the forest.

[00:01:20]"So, we avoided outdoors in the spring."

[00:01:24]Like so many things Mark had said over the past few months, I had no idea how to respond.

[00:01:31]What can you say to someone who suddenly lost their wife of 10 years?

[00:01:36]The uh "Pollen can sure [music] be a killer."

[00:01:39]I said, immediately regretting my choice of words.

[00:01:43]Mark opened his eyes and smiled warily at me. Every smile he'd given for months seemed like it took effort.

[00:01:51]He walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder, and we stood there for a few moments in silence, watching the late afternoon sun slice through the trees.

[00:02:01]Then we walked back the way we came, back to our cabin.

[00:02:06]Hell, I couldn't believe the news when I heard it. Jenny had been out for a run last fall when a driver lost control of their car and hit her.

[00:02:15]Such a freak accident.

[00:02:17]She was so young.

[00:02:19]I can't imagine how difficult it was for Mark.

[00:02:22]Once the weather started getting warmer, I proposed a weekend trip for the two of us, and Mark immediately suggested we come to this very cabin.

[00:02:32]I thought it was perfect. I figured this would be a good escape for Mark, you know, to get away from his house, from the condolences, from the labor of paperwork and grief that he'd been dealing with for months.

[00:02:47]It also hearkened back to our college days.

[00:02:50]One spring break, we came to this cabin with our friends.

[00:02:54]We spent the week partaking in various substances and wandering through the woods.

[00:03:00]There would be dramatically fewer substances this weekend, but I still hope for a good time getting in touch with nature and each other.

[00:03:09]I wouldn't say that we'd grown apart over the years, but you naturally start spending more time with your spouse and less time with your friends.

[00:03:19]We cracked a few beers and we got to unpacking. And the first thing Mark pulled out was one of the ratty shirts he still had from college.

[00:03:28]I pulled out a matching shirt and we started laughing.

[00:03:32]I think I was crying a little too, though.

[00:03:35]I couldn't remember whether they were happy or sad tears.

[00:03:39]We hung out in and around the cabin for a while, sitting on the porch and clearing off the grill in preparation for dinner.

[00:03:47]The beers caught up to me and I headed to the outhouse for a minute.

[00:03:51]And when I came back out, Mark was standing 20 ft into the woods.

[00:03:58]I called out to him, but he held up a finger to silence me.

[00:04:02]I crept up as quietly as I could, wondering why we were being so quiet.

[00:04:09]"What is it?" I whispered to him.

[00:04:12]"Nothing." He said. "It's nothing, David."

[00:04:16]He was right. The woods were dead silent. No wind through the trees, no birds chirping, no bugs chittering.

[00:04:25]No distant traffic on the road.

[00:04:28]The world around us was holding its breath.

[00:04:31]But why?

[00:04:33]"Hey, why don't we why don't we just go back inside?"

[00:04:37]I whispered.

[00:04:38]"It's kind of giving me the creeps."

[00:04:41]We backpedaled our way to the cabin and hustled inside. We agreed that it was weird, and I tried to change the subject. But I could tell Mark thought about it for a while.

[00:04:52]When we came back outside to grill dinner, the usual sound of the forest returned.

[00:04:58]Everything was normal again, from the mosquitoes to the yellow swirls of pollen twisting through the trees.

[00:05:06]I doused the charcoal and lighter fluid, and I set it ablaze.

[00:05:11]As the flames engulfed the coals, I tried to think of conversation topics.

[00:05:17]We had already discussed the outlook of our favorite baseball and football teams. Hell, we talked about the weather. We talked about the old college friends we came here with back in the day.

[00:05:29]But I wasn't sure if I wanted to wade into the serious topics yet.

[00:05:34]I didn't know if Mark was ready.

[00:05:36]He made the decision for us.

[00:05:39]"She still talks to me sometimes." Mark said.

[00:05:44]"Jenny?" I asked him.

[00:05:47]Mark nodded, staring at the charcoal that was beginning to smolder.

[00:05:51]Then he looked over at the forest.

[00:05:54]I hear her in the wind whistling around the house.

[00:05:58]Echoing through the pipes in the sink when I'm brushing my teeth.

[00:06:02]I hear her in the trees here.

[00:06:05]Now, I listened closely, not because I thought I could actually hear Jenny, but because I wanted to hear what Mark might be mistaking for a human voice.

[00:06:16]They were just the usual wood noises of flapping leaves and distant bird calls.

[00:06:21]It was better than the eerie silence a little while earlier.

[00:06:25]I don't remember what I said to Mark, but it was something about how nice it was that he was still remembering Jenny, and that it's a gift to continue to see her in everyday life.

[00:06:36]He smiled and put an arm around me.

[00:06:39]We stood like that for a while before I put the meat on the grill.

[00:06:44]Honestly, I thought that might be it. He didn't bring up Jenny for the rest of the night, and we found plenty of other things to talk about. We had a few more beers, watched an old movie on the TV in the cabin, and we went to sleep.

[00:06:59]Hours later, I woke up to the sound of a tree crashing to the ground.

[00:07:06]It was pitch black in my room. It was disorienting.

[00:07:10]I scrambled around for my glasses and my phone to flip on the flashlight to see what was going on.

[00:07:16]I'd always enjoyed the darkness of the forest and the way you felt totally removed from the constant buzzing and glowing of city life.

[00:07:25]But in this very instance, I cursed the blackness.

[00:07:30]I called out to Mark. The only response was a chopping sound from outside the cabin. I put on my shoes, which felt like it took forever as my hands and fingers had to wake up enough to tie my laces.

[00:07:43]I stumbled to the front door and went out. I shone my phone light around and saw Mark standing next to a recently felled tree.

[00:07:52]He held an axe in his hand.

[00:07:55]Where he had gotten said axe, I had no idea.

[00:08:00]He waved at me and ran over. He looked around like there was someone else out in the woods with us.

[00:08:06]Chills ran up and down my body.

[00:08:09]Mark's body language was simultaneously cautious and yet panicked, like a small animal surrounded by predators.

[00:08:18]He put a finger to his lips as he approached.

[00:08:21]He got right up next to me and covered up the light on my phone.

[00:08:26]Then he whispered in my ear, "It wasn't Jenny."

[00:08:31]he said, "Talking in the trees.

[00:08:35]It wasn't her.

[00:08:36]>> [clears throat] >> It was something or someone else."

[00:08:39]"Mark, you just had a bad dream or something." I told him.

[00:08:44]"You shouldn't have chopped down those trees."

[00:08:47]"No, I needed to." Mark hissed in my ear, "You didn't hear the things that they were saying.

[00:08:55]The things that they were asking me to do.

[00:08:59]They wanted me to kill you, David. They asked me to."

[00:09:04]The creaking sound cut Mark off.

[00:09:06]It sounded almost like a door opening.

[00:09:09]I looked over to the cabin door and it was still shut.

[00:09:13]I took Mark's hand off my phone and pointed it at the forest. The limbs of the trees closest to us had twisted into a shape, or rather the darkness between the branches made a shape.

[00:09:26]I only caught a glimpse of it before they bent back to their usual positions.

[00:09:31]It was like a cross that had been bent or melted. Like if Salvador Dali made crosses.

[00:09:38]As soon as the branches twisted back into position, Mark grabbed my arm and led me inside the cabin.

[00:09:46]He locked the door behind us and leaned the axe against the wall.

[00:09:50]He told me to sit down and grabbed us each a beer.

[00:09:54]Mark stood in front of the television and I sat on the couch.

[00:09:59]He took a long breath, then a long drink, and then another long breath.

[00:10:06]"Okay, David." He began.

[00:10:10]"You know, I'm afraid I didn't tell you everything about Jenny's death.

[00:10:14]And I wasn't totally honest about why we came here this weekend."

[00:10:19]Mark launched into his story.

[00:10:22]He said that Jenny hadn't actually died in a car crash after all.

[00:10:27]She had died in the woods.

[00:10:29]These woods, in fact, in Thorny Ridge State Park.

[00:10:34]She left Mark a note that told him that she was going for a long hike and that she loved him very much.

[00:10:41]He thought it was odd. It was especially strange because of the wavy cross that Jenny had drawn on the page. Mark showed it to me and sure enough, it was the same symbol the branches in the trees outside had made.

[00:10:56]Mark called her over and over, but she never picked up.

[00:11:01]And just before sundown that very day, Jenny sent Mark a text.

[00:11:07]"They look like trees."

[00:11:10]That was it.

[00:11:11]Mark kept calling and texting and never got a hold of her.

[00:11:15]Then a ranger in the park found her body the next morning.

[00:11:19]She was in the middle of five trees, each of which had that wavy cross carved into their trunks.

[00:11:26]Her head was facing one of the trees and her arms and legs were each facing one.

[00:11:32]Like they were invisible ropes leading from her limbs and head to each fairy tree.

[00:11:39]Now that county coroner couldn't figure out a cause of death.

[00:11:43]There were no signs of trauma. Jenny's heart had just stopped beating.

[00:11:48]At first, Mark was afraid to come to the park. He didn't want to come to the place where his wife had died.

[00:11:55]But when I proposed a getaway weekend, we decided he would face his fear.

[00:12:02]And just in case Jenny was right that there was something wrong with the trees out here, Mark brought an axe.

[00:12:09]He didn't believe there was anything strange about the woods until they went silent on us that first day.

[00:12:16]Then as he was laying awake at night, he said he heard voices from the trees.

[00:12:21]Like the creaks of their branches and the whistling of wind through their limbs were piecing together words.

[00:12:28]They apparently said that they had Jenny's spirit and that Mark had to kill me to set her free.

[00:12:35]Now when Mark told me this after telling the whole story of Jenny's mysterious death, I didn't believe him.

[00:12:43]This guy had been lying to us all for months about what really happened to his wife.

[00:12:49]And all of this sounded crazy.

[00:12:52]So how was I supposed to take him at his word?

[00:12:56]Mark assured me that he wasn't going to kill me. Instead, he marched out into the woods and started chopping down the trees.

[00:13:04]Mark didn't seem to care that cutting down trees in a state park was a crime, especially because of Jenny's final text that whatever these things were in the woods were only pretending to be trees.

[00:13:17]Now the whole situation was just about giving me a panic attack.

[00:13:22]This was the kind of thing I usually called my wife to talk about. But it was 4:00 in the morning, and I didn't want to wake her up to talk about this insane situation.

[00:13:34]Mark then asked me if I had any questions, and well, I told him I didn't even know where to start.

[00:13:40]"Okay," he said.

[00:13:43]"Well, I'm going to head on back out there."

[00:13:46]I ran over, and I stood in front of the door.

[00:13:49]"No. No, no, no," I said. "You're not going to go out there to chop down more trees.

[00:13:55]Listen, you know I love you, brother, and I'm truly sorry for what happened to Jenny, but this [ __ ] me, man, this is nuts.

[00:14:02]Cutting down these trees, or whatever you think they are, that's not going to bring her back."

[00:14:09]Mark glared at me, and he flexed his jaw.

[00:14:14]"But I could stop them from taking anybody else," he said.

[00:14:19]Mark raised the axe.

[00:14:21]The look in his eyes, combined with the white-knuckle grip he had around the axe's handle, well, [ __ ] that was enough for me.

[00:14:30]I stepped out of the way, and Mark plunged into the darkness.

[00:14:36]Now, I sat there for about an hour thinking about what to do.

[00:14:40]I heard Mark grunting, and heard tree after tree tumble to the earth out there.

[00:14:45]I paced around that cabin trying to come up with an argument that could get him to finally stop.

[00:14:53]It took me a while to hear them.

[00:14:55]Started with the limbs scratching on the outside of the cabin.

[00:15:00]You know, that happens sometimes. I don't think anything of it, usually.

[00:15:04]But when the limbs started scratching in unison, like they were a comb, and the cabin was a scalp, I started to pay more attention.

[00:15:14]I went over to one of the windows, and I listened.

[00:15:18]Leaves rustled on the trees outside, and somehow combined with the scratching sound.

[00:15:24]The two noises formed words.

[00:15:29]"Kill your friend."

[00:15:30]They told me.

[00:15:32]"He's gone mad."

[00:15:34]Hell, I almost laughed. I was hearing words from trees.

[00:15:40]If Mark had gone mad, I was right there with him.

[00:15:43]"Save us." The trees called out to me.

[00:15:47]"You'll be a hero.

[00:15:48]You will matter. You will be remembered."

[00:15:52]And just then I thought about the loss of my job, the way I had lost touch with so many friends.

[00:15:59]Did I still matter?

[00:16:01]I shook my head like I was escaping from a mess of cobwebs.

[00:16:06]Of course I mattered. I mattered to my wife and to Mark.

[00:16:10]Mark had agreed to face his fears, but only if he could do it with me alongside him.

[00:16:16]That was love, you know?

[00:16:18]That was what it meant to matter.

[00:16:21]It was.

[00:16:23]That's what matters in life.

[00:16:25]Families and close friends.

[00:16:28]Screw these trees, I told myself.

[00:16:31]Then I laughed.

[00:16:33]Ginny was right. Mark was right.

[00:16:36]These weren't trees at all.

[00:16:38]They were something else entirely.

[00:16:40]And they needed to go.

[00:16:43]I got dressed and I stepped out onto the porch. Dawn was approaching and the forest was getting light in a hurry.

[00:16:51]That might have been because Mark had been busy.

[00:16:54]There were at least a dozen trees down by that point, allowing more light into our part of the forest. I ran over to where Mark was. He was drenched in sweat and his face was almost black with dirt and grime.

[00:17:09]"Do you know where those five trees were?" I asked Mark. "We just can't chop these down willy-nilly."

[00:17:16]Mark shook his head.

[00:17:18]"I'm just cutting the ones that I can hear." he said.

[00:17:21]"You know, the ones that are talking.

[00:17:23]I don't stop chopping until they're quiet."

[00:17:27]I told him that I strongly believed those five trees had to be the key.

[00:17:31]There was a reason Jenny ended up there.

[00:17:34]He agreed, and he hugged me.

[00:17:37]"Thank you, man." he whispered in my ear.

[00:17:40]"Thank you so much for believing me."

[00:17:43]I ran back to the porch and grabbed a container of lighter fluid and the lighter I'd used to ignite the charcoal the previous night.

[00:17:50]Then Mark and I set off into the forest.

[00:17:54]The trees, or whatever they were, screamed at us.

[00:17:58]They said that some of the most terrifying and threatening things that I ever heard in my life.

[00:18:04]They rubbed their branches together and ruffled their leaves and cursed us from every angle.

[00:18:10]Maybe this whole forest was rotten.

[00:18:12]Maybe this whole area had to go.

[00:18:15]The sun's earliest rays peeked over the horizon and reached through the trees.

[00:18:20]Clouds of pollen spun through the air like mini tornadoes.

[00:18:25]One of them grabbed my eye. It spun for a few moments, then stopped in midair, about 5 and 1/2 ft off the ground.

[00:18:34]It was like it had landed on something, but there wasn't anything there.

[00:18:39]I watched for a second and gasped when I realized what I was finally looking at.

[00:18:44]It was like the pollen had landed on a person and was now on their head and shoulders like yellow dandruff.

[00:18:52]I grabbed Mark's shoulder and spun him to face the figure.

[00:18:56]He had the same thought I did.

[00:18:59]"Jenny."

[00:19:00]he whispered.

[00:19:02]We both took off for the pollen-lined figure.

[00:19:05]As more and more pollen blew through the air and clung to the shape, it became clearer.

[00:19:12]The small person had Jenny's size and built.

[00:19:16]And we were no more than 20 ft away. The figure started moving away from us.

[00:19:22]We followed, but we could never quite catch up with her.

[00:19:26]She led us through the howling furious trees. Limbs swung down at us, and leaves fell off their branches in bunches.

[00:19:36]Mark and I both tripped on roots and slipped on piles of leaves as we tried to keep up with the pollen-covered figure.

[00:19:44]Mark was just an arm's length away from the figure when it disappeared.

[00:19:48]The pollen fell to the forest floor.

[00:19:51]Mark then reached out and tried to grab the pollen before it hit the ground, frantically clutching at the specs of it like they were shattered pieces of his departed wife.

[00:20:02]But it was just pollen.

[00:20:05]Jenny was gone, and so was her ghost, or whatever it was that led us here.

[00:20:11]I briefly looked around and found out that we were in the middle of five perfectly spaced trees.

[00:20:18]Each one of them bore the melted cross, which looked like it had been burned into each of their trunks.

[00:20:25]Mark raced up to one of them and raised his axe above his head. But before he could bring the axe down, a vine from above wrapped around the axe's handle and pulled it out of Mark's hands.

[00:20:38]The vine, or maybe it was a branch that somehow could wrap itself around the handle, yanked it up into the canopy.

[00:20:45]Mark yelled and stumbled backwards.

[00:20:49]And all of this happened so very quickly.

[00:20:52]Before Mark could even get his footing, the ground below us gave way. It was like a sinkhole developed out of nowhere. Mark plunged into the hole in the ground. I was a few feet away from Mark at at very edge of the hole, but I started to slip into it.

[00:21:09]I managed to turn and leap backwards with enough time to avoid falling in.

[00:21:15]And while I did that, I accidentally dropped the container of lighter fluid.

[00:21:22]I scrambled to my feet and looked down.

[00:21:25]The hole was probably 8 ft deep, and it revealed a series of roots coming from each tree.

[00:21:32]Or at least I thought they were roots at first.

[00:21:35]But when I looked closer, I saw that they were pulsating gray tentacles.

[00:21:40]And in the center, they came together in a huge knot.

[00:21:45]Mark straddled the knot trying to avoid touching any of the tentacles.

[00:21:50]My bottle of lighter fluid had slid most of the way down to the knot.

[00:21:55]"Mark!" I yelled out to him. "Hang on!

[00:21:58]I'll figure a way to get you out."

[00:22:00]But Mark wasn't even looking at me.

[00:22:03]He was looking at the bottle of lighter fluid.

[00:22:06]He bent over to grab the bottle, and one of the tentacles released itself from the knot and grabbed Mark around the waist.

[00:22:14]He squirmed but couldn't break free of the tentacles' grasp.

[00:22:18]He panicked for a moment, and then a calm look washed across his face.

[00:22:24]And he smiled at me.

[00:22:27]Mark's hands were free, so he was able to reach out and grab the bottle of lighter fluid.

[00:22:32]He undid the cap and sprayed it all over the tentacle that was holding on to him and the knot of tentacles below him.

[00:22:40]Then he turned to me.

[00:22:42]"Throw me the lighter!" he cried out. I shook my head.

[00:22:47]"Fuck no! You'll set yourself on fire in there!"

[00:22:51]"These things are going to kill me just like they killed my Jenny.

[00:22:54]At least I could take them down."

[00:22:57]I waited in my head for several moments, but then Mark started screaming.

[00:23:03]The tentacle around him was squeezing on his abdomen tighter.

[00:23:08]Another tentacle wrapped around his left foot and another grabbed his right foot.

[00:23:15]It was now or never.

[00:23:17]The tentacles were going to wrangle Mark's hands next.

[00:23:21]I pulled the lighter out of my pocket and I tossed it down to Mark.

[00:23:26]"I love you, brother."

[00:23:27]I said.

[00:23:28]He nodded and smiled. Then he clicked the lighter.

[00:23:32]Blue flames wrapped around each of the tentacles and raced up them toward the five trees.

[00:23:38]Screams erupted from all around us.

[00:23:41]I heard the axe fall to the ground a few feet away from me as the tree dropped it.

[00:23:47]The tentacles let go of Mark, whose clothes were on fire.

[00:23:52]He rolled around in the hole to extinguish himself and then he started climbing up the side of it. He scrambled frantically but couldn't quite get up the side of it.

[00:24:03]I stretched my arm down but Mark was just out of reach. The flaming tentacles writhed wildly in the hole and the trees were starting to smoke.

[00:24:13]"Just go." Mark yelled up to me.

[00:24:16]But there was no way in hell that I was going to do that.

[00:24:20]I looked around for a fallen branch or something to reach down to him.

[00:24:26]Then a glint on the ground caught my eye.

[00:24:29]The axe. [ __ ] Of course.

[00:24:33]I ran over to it, picked it up, and held the handle out to Mark. He grabbed it and I dragged him most of the way up out of the hole.

[00:24:41]When Mark was close enough to me, I reached down for him and pulled him the rest of the way.

[00:24:47]I patted the parts of Mark that were still smoldered and we booked it the hell out of there.

[00:24:53]Somehow all of the trees were connected and the fire was reaching all of them.

[00:24:59]By the time we made it back to the cabin, the air was full of smoke.

[00:25:03]We could barely see where we were going.

[00:25:06]We grabbed our wallets and keys from the cabin, and we left everything else.

[00:25:12]We drove off through the smoking woods as limbs and leaves rained down upon us.

[00:25:18]It's going to be impossible to explain to the authorities if they find that bottle of lighter fluid that started the fire, but hell, I know what we did was right.

[00:25:31]And after listening to those things, those horrible things that looked so much like trees, I know we saved other people from Jenny's fate.

[00:25:43]And after all, Mark was right.

[00:25:48]I've been thinking back to when we drove out of the woods that morning.

[00:25:53]The sun was beaming down through the smoke, making the whole world around us various shades of [music] orange and red.

[00:26:01]And I swear, I swear to you, I saw a figure in the rearview mirror outlined in pollen and waving at us.