The Trees Swallow People: Part 23

I awoke, however much later, on the stripped, hardwood floor of an empty yet not unused bedroom. The pain in my chest stirred me, catching in my throat, like upcoming bile, stinging and hissing, lingering on my tongue the unpleasant taste of dirt and waste from years of decaying reeds, fish, and the occasionally discarded used condom. I couldn't settle on whether to vomit or swallow, not knowing which would be more relief. A fist thumped to the chest was enough to burst the swelling bubble of bile steaming the stench to the back of my nostrils.

A few welcomed gulps of air strengthened me into a sitting position, supported by my hands pressing down upon the textured grain of the wood. My eyes adjusted to the darkness; a door left ajar allowed for some light to seep in. The odd items of half drunk bottles of Fanta, tattered and dog-eared books, grease stained travel pillows, and balls of clothes showed some sign of life, but there was no bed, blankets, or anything that gave the impression people weren't sleeping on the floor.

Pushing myself up and onto my feet, I looked outside the curtainless window. I wouldn't have thought it possible; it was darker than before. From the distant horizon of sky just visible beyond the Mega-Tree, a subtle difference could be noticed; a more Byzantium shade defined the edges, meeting the harsher, hungrier black. I must have been out cold all day. I went for my pocket, discovering my phone was taken off me. I had no way of knowing how late it was. I took one last searching glances around the room before leaving.

The upstairs landing, stairs, and hall were just as bare. Lone staples and wispy threads from edges on the same hardwood floorboards left hints that a carpet had roughly been torn and pulled up in a hurry, for whatever reason. My steps rang out with reverberating knocks so pronounced I had to stop, wincing in the silence, but when a faint whisper from downstairs didn't stop, I thought there was no point in creeping, continuing to announce my approach with each ringing tap. It was only when I got down to the front hall that I recognised the house; it was Shepard's.

The whispering grew clearer, wafting out from the front room. From the bottom step I could just make out Shepard's back, standing at the furthest point from the door. I couldn't make him out fully, nor exactly what he was saying. Maybe had I left there and then, I could have stopped them from taking Diva. In hindsight, I think they were counting on me getting distracted. My curiosity got the better of me. I went into the front room, standing back to listen.

What does it mean? Tell me! I've done everything for you! I've fed you. I've indulged you. I've protected you. Answer me. I have done everything. You can't deny me any longer! What does it mean?

Shepard stood right in front of the window, looking up at the Mega-Tree's underside, his hands clasped together just beneath his quivering lips. His reflection in the glass was gaunt and sickly; exhaustion, stress, and paranoia was finally eating away at his drying, crackling skin, eroding his face. What was once a handsome, almost fatherly, good looking man was now a dishevelled mess, steaming with a putrid stink of sweat and smoke. He was about to continue when his eyes shot off to his side, meeting mine in his reflection.

There was no performance of comradery nor intimidation like all other times. His eyes lingered heavily upon me, a mixture of remorse and contempt, as though he was sorry I had forced him to do something. His cheeks were pinned up in a solemn smile, like he wanted me to not worry, knowing I would soon react badly. I called out to him when he made no movement, making sure he wasn't lost in his thoughts again.

Hello, Witness.

He turned around to face me. In the light, his thin, waxy skin was softer than his reflection made it appear in the shadows, but was nonetheless unhealthy and disturbing. It's like seeing a movie star go to seed mercilessly quickly, fixating on every tiny ageing wrinkle decrying lost youth. He was slow, tired, and disappointedly disinterested, like I was a chore, something that had to be dealt with.

I'm glad you've come back to us... someone is looking out for you.

When I asked what happened, he reached into his pocket and checked his phone, putting it away before sighing, forcing a placating smile.

Some of my flock spotted your wreckage from their own plane. We'll discuss what you were doing with that Declan fellow another time. That reminds me; I should send an apology to Weston Airport for commandeering their planes as well. As I was saying, they pulled you out of the water, but you were knocked out from the impact. You were brought here. There was no point trying to call for an ambulance. In the ensuing panic, they've been preoccupied. All this talk of the RAF and giant trees; it's no wonder people think this is the end.

The last few sentences went over my head a little, as I couldn't help noticing we were alone. Shepard must have guessed I was getting suspicious because he was quick to continue.

I was worried. When they brought you here, I mean. I offered to stay and wait to see if you recovered. Would you like a drink? Or maybe something to eat? You must be hungry.

I tried listening over Shepard, concentrating hard to pick up anything other than his droning pleasantries. The only thing that silenced him was asking where was everyone. A sharp inhale was cut short by the flicker of a smile dropping into a pensive stare; blank and flat. There was an internal debate going on inside Shepard, of how little to say to appease me. Finally, he settled on what he must have thought was consolingly detached stoicism.

You're not like us. You never were. I can see that now. I think I knew from the beginning. You hesitate. You pause before you speak. And I know why. You're scared. You're panicking. That little racing feeling in your chest, that voice that screams to run, that primal urge to do anything it takes to make the looming uncertainty of the monstrously apathetic to vanish. That is what drives you. No matter how irrational it seemed, how out of character, how stupid, it was that will to live, you will to live that made you stop, made you name the park ranger, made you examine that twig, made you join in on the arson attacks and follow that car. That is why you've stayed. You're scared. In the face of insurmountable horrors, we do whatever we can, even if it doesn't make sense. Especially if it doesn't make sense, because what good is logic against the incomprehensible? Madness is self-preservation brought to its end. The problem isn't that we've lost our minds. The problem, my dear Witness, it that you haven't joined us. Like you, I'm trying everything. Even if it doesn't make sense, because what's the harm? Nothing else makes sense. So... I am sorry... but I have to try everything to contain and appease the trees... Everything and anything... including your dog.

A sickening chill surging in my veins was numbed by the thumping heat of Shepard's breath and body pressing against and stopping me from escaping, holding me against the wall. Up close, I could see his teeth were stained in blood from inflamed gums; he spoke with the stink of a chain-smoker.

Nothing is working! Bombs, bullets, prayers! There must be something to stop the trees, to control them, to keep them under our dominion. There must be something; there has to be! We aren't going to find out if we don't keep trying! We must try everything! And yes, that means your dog! We can't let it end like this! Not for one stupid animal!

I tucked up my legs, pinned up by Shepard, and kicked off his chest, dropping to the floor with a painful thud, but in that moment adrenaline hurried me out of the house. Tearing down the dark road, passing the whistling, abandoned homes, I only glanced over my shoulder as I heard the squeal of car breaks, still puttering as it stopped outside Shepard's house. I saw the hunched and presumably winded Shepard get escorted into the back of the car. I didn't care to wonder where they were going, hurrying down the steep decline, crossing the bridge over the Rye river, gushing fat, foaming tumbles of water sprinting past the long dead nursing home, puffing up the steep hill leading to my estate.

The crowd of neighbours was gone, having grown bored with waiting to die. No one saw me shoulder slam my own front door open, too distraught to realise I had my keys with me. Stumbling, my limbs thrown wildly, my eyes ricocheting in every direction, I called out for Diva. She wasn't in the front room, the toilets, nor the bedroom. My relief that the back door, still shrouded by the bushy willow in the garden, remained closed was short-lived as I heard from behind me the rustle of steps and breathing.

Entering the kitchen, followed by three men, was the sneering, aged pout of Tabitha, proudly folding her arms and smiling as I came back, searching between the four of them for an explanation. Tabitha obliged; Diva was taken to be prepared for the sacrifice. They knew I'd come here first if I thought she hadn't been taken yet. We were all to wait here, Tabitha went on, like good little boys and girls, as she put it, until it was complete. I had other ideas.

A kitchen was a very poor choice for a stand, especially after threatening to kill my dog. I really don't know how they thought this was going to go down, but I doubted, as I reached into a creaking cupboard, pulling out a small pot, that they were prepared for me to put up a fight.

The gong of the flat, blackened pot bottom rang out as it cracked across and twisted the face of one of the men, sending him falling to the side, smacking his head off the edge of the counter, oozing out blood in cascading sheets of rose, caking his face as he held it in anguish. A second man, bravely stepping forth to take Tabitha's spot as she backed off, got the pot tossed into his face, breaking and compressing his nose, blinding him with the numbing, hot throb in the centre of his skull, sputtering either from shock, broken pieces of nasal bone, or, with any luck, both getting caught in his throat. The third man lunged for me, but wasn't quick enough to straighten up in time to avoid me, jumping out of the way and snatching a sharp cooking knife from the magnetic rack, stabbing him in his side.

With the howl of pain and paralysing shock distracting him, I pulled out the crimson imbibing blade and plunged it back in again, this time catching him in the heart, spurting out a squirt like zest hissing from fruit. I kept going, in and out, for however long it took Tabitha to finally step forward and toss me off the man, who fell slump onto the floor, the light in his eyes dimming in the encroaching abyss.

The impact against the door loosened my grip on the knife, clattering on the tiled floor next to the first man, still screaming and slipping in his own wet puddle of juices. I spun around and had the door open, nearly escaping, before Tabitha's wide, ragged hands pressed down upon me, a sudden weight falling straight onto my shoulders, tossed me back across the kitchen. She stamped over to me, her arms hulking on either side. I threw a punch, and she took it like a champ, grabbing my wrist for support, pulling me to one side, nearly tripping. In the time it took me to turn around, Tabitha had raced over and head-butted me with such forced I finally went down, shielding my forehead with my palm, momentarily forgetting where I was. I narrowly picked myself up into a sitting position in time to avoid Tabitha's slamming stomp where my pelvis formerly was, sending her reeling back, damaging her own ankle.

I rolled over to my right, scrambled to my feet, and head to the back door. I had no plan, but the fear surging through my body was clouding my judgement. I didn't get a chance to damn my stupidity, cornering myself in a dead end, because, when I turned around, five burly fingers sunk themselves into my supple neck; prey for Tabitha to immobilise. My desperate fingers, struggling against Tabitha's strength, were useless when it came to stopping the repeated punches to the face I received, each either loosening a tooth, swelling and eye, fracturing a cheek bone, or else shoving my head back into the window of the back door, feeding the crack in it. I was either going to be choked or bludgeoned to death. Only for the squirrelly strength to duck out of the way of another punch, letting Tabitha's fist break through the window, I'd be dead.

Lower down on the ground, I looked up, still cornered by Tabitha's body, hearing a sharp, shallow gasp coupled with widening eyes, I felt a twinge of remorse. Tabitha looked down, her hand still sticking out through the broken window, her eyes meeting mine with a stinging anger, like it was my fault we were all damned.

With a clatter of glass and breaking bones, Tabitha was sucked out through the door in a blink, as though through a pinhole rupture in outer space, swallowed up by the indifferently hungry, surrounding blackness. Shock, thankfully, didn't paralyse me, affording me the head start needed to narrowly escape the cancerous growth of willow branches and roots slapping and slinging onto every surface it landed on through the gaping hole, spreading infectiously. Its bark scabbed and hardened like leathery rot, continuing to spread and grow as a tsunami would across a seaside village.

Throwing myself back into the back hall, slamming my side into a door, I could see, for the second I wasted, the latching mesh of webbing tendrils was seeping into the house after me, not just claiming the walls, ceiling, and floor but shooting out threads of matter into the open air, landing with spanning splatters, only further engulfing more of the house. It was these same infecting threads, connecting to one another like a network of festering veins, I had to jump over to escape the kitchen, finding two of the injured men desperately trying to aid each other with fistfuls of dampened, mahogany red soaked tea towels. The third man lay dead. In the time, mere nanoseconds, it took to reach the door, the willow tree had swallowed the hall, tearing it off the house like succulent meat off a carcass, stretching into the kitchen and pulling the corpse into itself, golloping it up savagely. The two men, finally realising the danger they were in, went to join me but were too late.

Closing the door behind me on them, I gripped and pulled up the handle, securing the bolt in the latch, jumping up, and landing my feet against the frame. I was a one-man lock, using my own weight and muscles to keep the frantic and deranged screaming on the other side from escaping. It was ten long seconds of screams, calls for help, thunderous banging on the door, and the squelching, twisting, almost whip-like whooshes of branches wrapping around throats and crawling into strangled airways.

Then... silence.

An uneasy calm dropped upon me, so heavy I fell to the ground with comedic irony. I waited, almost hoping for the roots to come out though the alls and floorboards, but there was nothing. Just me. The smart thing to have done would have been to leave. But I, you know, like an eejit, was curious. I stood up, leaned forward, pressed my ear against the door, and waited.

I could hear nothing.

The door exploded, torn off its hinges, exposing a wriggling, slithering wall of organise matter, like a huge breeding ball of earthy serpents, taking up the whole volume of the kitchen, with whining creaks threatening to tear up the foundations. I stumbled back from this monstrous, abominable hellscape as it phased through the front hall with effortless ease. I shot for the front door, not bothering to close the porch door behind me. I leapt from the porch step and tumbled onto the gritted tarmac, rolling and turning to see the vines sprawl and grip onto the outside of the house, cracking and crushing it into a crumbling ruin, burying the tendrils beneath the rubble, dusting myself and a small radius around the house.

I stood up, coughing, trying to see through tearful eyes the striking emptiness that had been mine, Diva's, and my late partner's home. Gone. Forever.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've lost another piece of you. But I won't lose the last piece. Not to those trees.

I headed off, running down the road where Diva would bark proudly announcing to others she was on a walk, over the grassy hill where Diva would prance and gambol, through a stone walled path where I would often have to pull Diva from eating nettles, and racing out to an estate leading to St. Catherine's park where I'd often have to pull Diva from leaping onto the road from over-excitement. It was a path I could have crossed a million times before, yet now it felt as though I was racing through memories, poignant for how limited they now seemed, suddenly rare by the realisation of how finite life is. I won't let them do this; I won't let them take her. Not my Diva.

I cut across the pitch immediately inside the park as directly as I could. If I could have flown through the old monastery, briefly joining the ghosts haunting the grounds, I would have. But I had to suffer the agonising sprint past wilting flowers, starving for sunlight. If it wasn’t for the ominous amber glow ahead, pulsating around the turn, I would have been lost in the darkness. I turned around the corner to the pitch and they were there.

Everyone.

The entire village of Leixlip.

It was a sea of sweltering fire. Candles, lanterns, lit furniture legs. Hundreds, maybe just shy of thousands, of the remaining residents were present, sweating in the collective heat, each highlighted and silhouetted in the living haze. They took up the length of the pitch, with many forced to stand as far back as the parallel path or in the neighbouring, fenced-off dog park. The aura of fire was able to reach the underbelly of the Mega-Tree, etching soft lines that could have been mistaken for bemused grins of pagan gods, leering down upon us disgusting, hopeless cretins; an infestation in their paradise. And leading them, Shepard.

He stood, elevated above masses, on top of an unfolded ladder, once again needing the prophet on the mound effect to carry his voice and give him a legitimacy he never deserved. Over the flutter of flames and crackling torches, he spoke with the same deranged and unhinged fervour he desperately wanted to pull off.

My flock! You have seen the righteous anger and might the trees are capable of! Technology and weaponry are no match! Under their providence, we are sheltered, protected, and whittled down to you, those who have been mercifully spared, worthy of their love! But we must offer that love in return! And love is, if nothing else, an act of sacrifice! I give you our sacrifice!

Shepard was handed and help up Diva, shivering and crying out a high, heartbreaking whine. I couldn't help myself; I was incensed. I raced forward, forcing my way into the army. I only made it a few yards in before I was recognised; a murmur of acknowledgement forming an angry call of dissent. I pulled myself from groping claws, swung a punch, and managed to kick that nosey Emma onto her back, but the man I had rescued from the Mega-Tree had thrown himself on top of me, still half naked, sending us to the ground. A pair of hands grabbed my ankles. Two more grabbed either arm. I was lifted up and carried away despite my wild convulsions; a paroxysm of indignity. The blurring wall of fiery shadows parted for us, as I was carried and dropped onto my knees, forced to look up at Shepard, smirking as he loomed over me.

You'll see. You'll see, my Witness. This sacrifice will restore order. Your dog will appease the trees... It has to.

Maybe I could have stopped him from doing it if I reasoned with him. Maybe he wouldn't have done it if I swore or insulted him. And maybe he wouldn't have had his skull caved in with my fist if I had begged. But I did nothing. I watched, dismayed, as he held up Diva, who looked to me with pleading, helplessly human eyes, like a child would have, descending into the trench and tossed her over the wall with a callously careless spin.

With this offering, we satisfy you! Return! Return to your harmonious state!

… There was nothing... No tremble of trees shrinking back to size. No thundering voice of God or gods. No angelic call from a being of light emerging from the paddock. Nothing but the hush of the flames. Nothing but the relief of hands pressing down on me easing, stunned by the absence. Nothing but the rush in my ears as I ran down to Shepard, turning to meet me with his disappointed, doleful eyes, before I punched him in the face. Nothing but the slap of a second punch, and then a third, and another, and another. Nothing but the frantic sobs and wails as I sat on top of him, cutting open my knuckles on his face, tenderised, becoming misshapen and warped with each blow, drenched in blood from his broken nose and mangled teeth. Nothing but the guttural gurgle of bubbling spit, blood, and bile in a feeble call for help as his skull began to cave and a bulging eye finally popped out with a satisfying squelch. Nothing but my exhaustive breath mingling with the excruciatingly enduring rhythm of punches, continuing to imprint themselves into Shepard, who went limp. Nothing. That's all we had. That's all we have. Nothing.

I don't know for how long I was still savagely beating Shepard for, nor how long I just sat on top of him, crying for Diva, seeing the black, sappy puddle pooling in his exposed cranium; a choppy stew of brain. But when I was ready I stood up, lifted Shepard, clumsily pushed him up and over the wall, letting it vanish with a roll, and ascend the trench, about to try making my way though the mortified village of onlookers, who had just watched their would-be messiah get decimated by a non-believer.

And then, I heard her.

I froze, we all did, with the first echoes of Diva's barks emanating from the paddock of trees. As though to reward my slow turn back to face them, the trees allowed for another round of barks. I knew there was no proof that was her. For all I knew, this was how the trees were finally going to get me; with the promise of peace. But I didn't care. My Diva needed me. With dutiful commitment, I shuffled back down into the trench, climbed up the wall, and jumped in.

Screadaíl. Timpeallach. Stoirmeach. Tá sé I ngach áit. Seasim. Lag. Tuisleadh. Siúlaim go mall.

Níl mé I m'aonar.

Tá siad go léir anseo. Táimid déanta sa píosaí bán agus dubha. Tá siad go léir cailte.

Breathnaím ar an spéir. Tá sé cosúil le huisce. Lámh ar mo chos. Tá sé fear gan aghaidh. Ciceáil mé é. Siúlaim arís.

Ann! Tá sí ann! Mo madra! Cliabhaim í. B'fhiú é.

Is fiú í.

I rolled over the top of the paddock wall, tumbling and landing with a painful smack, cutting myself on the jagged stones and the weedy stalks. We huddled there for a moment, trying our best to recover. Diva, shaking in a slowly calming spasm, tries to nuzzle into me as much as she can, tucking in her paws and ears, burying her whimpering face into my neck. In return, I dug my strained and shaking fingers into her small, frail body. If I was hurting her, I think she resisted a squeal only because the pain meant she was safe.

I kept my promise.

I stood up, marching up the trench, to find the mass of onlookers, the village that was once Leixlip, soon to be a ghost town, still standing there, as a sliver of dawn penetrated the gap outside the Mega-Tree's reach. As we trekked through the large gathering, parting for us as we went, I don't know for how long they were waiting, but, as one of them stepped out from behind us to speak, I soon found out what they were waiting for.

Well... is that it?

I froze, ensnared by the demanding tone, insulted by the insolent ignorance. I turned to face them, wondering how best I could tell them to go fuck themselves, how to even begin to explain the godless void they had submitted to in a single night of indulgent madness, or how to justify to myself the strength it would take to not do to them what I did to Shepard. But I didn't do any of that. After all these months, though I sometimes entertain myself with the question of what it would be like if I did give in to those temptations, I am still glad I approached and snatched the torch out of their hand, crossed back to the paddock, unencumbered by the parting sea of faces, and hurled the torch over the wall, into the trees.

There was the quick dying of light as the flames vanished behind the paddock wall, with the ease of a blown out match. For one quiet second, it was funny, appropriately disappointing. So this is what Shepard must have felt. No wonder he gave up in the end.

But then, in a growing chorus of what sounded like ringing crystal voices from the mouths of heavenly angelic choirs, a hum of light and a high note of an ear titillating crescendo, the clear pastel sky was alive with billions of small glowing orbs in place of the Mega-Tree, disappearing in a blink. In a wave of sublime awe, the heat of the flickering flames was extinguished with dropped torches and candles, falling in the desolated, muddy pitch, leaving a vacuum for the refreshing chill of wonder to flood in and fill. They hung high above us like pulsating miniature stars, aloft and gracefully meandering, unsure if they were to regroup or disperse. Some drifted on the breeze. Others dipped and bobbed, waiting for their turn to rise up into the sky as the topmost orbs were doing. The paddock, once thick and daunting with its fortress of horrors, was growing dull and empty as the heavy curtain of orbs rose higher, free to float and ascend. Away in the distance, far behind where the trees stood, a field, wide and open, was revealing itself, distorted by the refraction of the orbs.

We didn't stay. Not as long as the villagers, anyway. Myself and Diva, who was still snuggling into me for reassurance, walked across the field of villagers, now unmoving in their oblivious trance, forcing us to weave and skirt around them, passed the opening gap between the normal evergreens, now idyllic and pleasant, alongside the monastery with the flowers visibly springing back to life, and out of the park, all as a galaxy of light stretched across, joined by orbs from our estate, all slowly vanishing as they drifted higher, leaving us forever. The dawn grew in intensity; dazzling rays announcing a new day. With our home gone, we had no reason to stay, other than to break into Mary's house and going for an overdue sleep.

Finally, we were going to leave Leixlip.