The Abomination Tree

*This is a transcript of several recordings made on January 13th, 2021.

[3:11 PM] I’m recording this just in case. I’m Richard Ware. I'm seventy-nine years old. I live alone with my dog in a north-east suburb outside of Austin, Texas. It’s January 13th, 2021.

[3:18 PM] I’ve lived in my home for fifty-three years. There’s a crape myrtle tree in my backyard. My wife, Diana, planted that tree. She managed to convince our entire neighborhood that everybody needed crape myrtles, and now the whole subdivision is known for those trees. Ours blooms a bright pink. It always blooms later than the rest of the trees on our street. When they’ve all shed their leaves and flowers and are nothing but bare limbs, our tree is still hanging on. It’s almost as if it just doesn’t know what season it’s in. Diana always said the tree went against nature. Eventually, we just started calling it the abomination tree.

[3:27 PM] Diana’s been gone twelve years now.

[3:31 PM] We never had kids. When she was gone, I was alone. A year after she died, I adopted a scrawny shelter mutt. I named him King and told him to live up to his name. He’s grown into just about the bravest and most curious dog I’ve ever known. Nothing scares him... At least not till the day before last.

[3:45 PM] It rarely gets cold here. We might see flurries, or sleet, or freezing rain, but never snow. I woke up to find the backyard covered in snow, and it was still falling heavy. I let King out and forgot he had never seen snow before. He was a natural-born snow dog. Late that evening, I remember, as I was getting ready to go to bed, I let King out one last time. Usually, he’s back in a minute and will bark to let me know he’s ready to come back in.

[3:52 PM] I changed into my pajamas and was climbing into bed when I realized that King hadn’t barked. I figured he must be playing in the snow, so I wasn’t worried at the time. I put on my robe and walked out onto the patio. King was sitting upright in the middle of the yard, up to his hips in the snow. He was staring up at that tree.

[4:01 PM] I yelled his name and he didn’t hear me. I yelled at him again. He turned to face me, looked back to the tree, and then back to me. I called his name again, and he started to run. Fast. He made it to my feet and let out a whimper. I could see he was terrified. His level of fear caught me off guard. I’d never seen him afraid.

[4:07 PM] I looked up at the tree. There was something there. Something large.

[4:09 PM] Whatever the thing was, I could see its shape. I couldn’t make out any details in the darkness, and I didn’t see any eyes, but I knew that it was watching me. I assumed it was probably an overly large barn owl or a buzzard. I hoped it wasn’t something worse. I took King inside.

[4:15 PM] For King’s sake- [Unidentified noises.] [Dog barks.] Shh, now. Calm down.

[4:17 PM] I pretended I wasn’t concerned with the shadow. Something told me that I should be concerned. I was laying in bed, wide awake, and certain that it was still out there.

[4:21 PM] I almost forgot… I keep a stack of books on my nightstand. I picked up the closest one to me and turned to the first page. I read the first sentence three times. On the third night, it made its presence known. [Laughter.]

[4:35 PM] On the second night, I stood by the back door and called King so he could go water the weeds. The dog wasn’t just afraid. This was something worse than fear. I was scared, too. I’m not going to lie about it. There’s a reason I’m recording this.

[4:41 PM] So, I decided to take my walking stick with me. It’s a sturdy piece of carved oak and makes a good weapon, if necessary.

[4:50 PM] I propped open the backdoor and King stayed inside. He made it clear that he did not want to go outside. So I sat in my chair on the porch and looked out to the yard and pretended not to be bothered by the shadow in the branches of that tree. My goal was to prove to King that it was safe to go outside.

[4:54 PM] It was there again. It was there the moment I stepped outside.

[5:02 PM] My yard is used as a highway for a warren of wild rabbits that like to cross through to get to the neighbor's garden. The old man next door has a water feature that looks like a little brook that just popped up out of nowhere. It’s surrounded by wild grasses that grow up tall until the first freeze. The rabbits like to drink that water and eat that grass and then cross back through my yard to get to wherever they live. King loves to chase them. He never catches them, but I’m certain those rabbits think he’s going to tear them apart. I’m not sure he’d know what to do if he did. I think he just wants to play. [Static noise.]

[5:07 PM] So, the snow was still on the ground and undisturbed, for the most part. King had stuck closeby anytime he had gone outside during the day, so I had patches of yellow snow all around the patio. I heard him whimpering in the living room. He needed to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t want to face the shadow. I didn’t blame him.

[5:10 PM] I don’t know why I did it, but I yelled at the thing. [Yells.] Hey, you there! Show me what you look like! [Barking.] Perhaps that wasn’t the best choice.

[5:12 PM] Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A couple of those wild bunnies were darting from one end of the yard to the other. They were moving in the direction of the crape myrtle and the shadow. King saw them but he did not move.

[5:15 PM] The rabbits were fast and had just about made it through a hole in the fence when a noise came from the direction of the tree. It was a guttural sound. I can’t describe it properly, but I can say that whatever it was, the sound made me feel like ice water was being pumped through my veins. The rabbits made it to the other side of the fence and the shadow was gone. On the other side of the fence, one of the rabbits let out a high pitched screech. I’m telling you it sounded like death. I believe at least one of those rabbits is now dead.

[5:20 PM] I turned back to King. There was a pool of urine on the floor in front of him. I didn’t admonish him. If my bladder had been full, I probably would have done the same thing. I looked back out to that crape myrtle tree and found the shadow, but this time, it was staring at me. [Coughing.]

[5:23 PM] The eyes were large and yellow… almost the same color as King’s urine. I picked myself up and then shut that back door behind me. You can bet I turned every lock on that door and used the chain.

[5:27 PM] I was busy all morning. I took all the wind chimes that were hanging from the hooks on my front porch; Diana picked up windchimes anytime we went on a road trip or vacation. I spent the good part of the day moving each of those windchimes. I carried them one by one, as I couldn’t manage more than that. My hands are getting more unsteady every year. I hooked about a dozen chimes to the lowest branches of that crape myrtle tree. I pushed on the trunk of the tree and tried to see how much noise I could make. The wind chimes made a lot of noise, but it was a pretty noise. I needed a scary noise.

[5:31 PM] I want to hear when that shadow moves, but my main purpose is to scare it out of my yard. So what I did was punch holes in a bunch of empty soup cans and used some old twine to tie the cans to the tree as well. I put some new batteries into my flashlight and put it outside on the back porch. I don’t have a floodlight. The flashlight will have to do.

[5:40 PM] It’s almost time. Again King refuses to go outside. I know it’s going to be just me against the shadow, whatever it is. [Muffled.] [Sounds like a dog panting.]

[5:50 PM] [Whispers.] I’m heading outside now. The shadow hasn’t joined us yet. When it does, I’ll hear it.

[6:05 PM] [Whispers.] What I’m going to do with a walking stick and a flashlight, I’ve no idea. But if I can’t manage to scare the shadow away from my yard, my house will start smelling like a truck stop bathroom.

[6:20 PM] [Whispers.] King’s looking at me again. I know he wants to be of help, but he has a stronger urge to stay alive.

[7:01 PM] [Whispers.] It feels like I’ve been waiting forever. I don’t see it. There’s no wind. I was hoping for that.

[7:23 PM] [Whispers.] It’s in the tree now. It’s in the damn tree and it’s staring at me, and every bit of junk I tied to that tree didn’t make a sound.

[7:27 PM] [Whispers.] It’s on the ground. [Unidentified sounds.] It’s on the ground. [Unintelligable.] My god.

[End recording.]