Wizard's Oak

one week later...

Ring. Ring. Riiiinnnngggg.

The answering machine comes on:

“Hello, you’ve reached the Jenkins. We’re not able to come to the phone at this time so if you could please leave your name, number and the purpose of your call we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Have a good day!”

[beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep]

“Laura, it’s Eric. I need to come see you. I got those photographs developed. You know the ones that Linda took when we were out hiking. Remember? Well, there’s something I need to show you right away. I-I don’t have time to explain it right now. It’ll be better if I just show you. This may sound crazy, I know, but I’m a bit concerned that I haven’t heard from you in a while. I, I just want to make sure everything is alright. I might end up taking a drive up to see you. Please give me a call and let me know. Please let me know you’re safe. I’ll see you soon. Take care. Goodbye.”

[click]

A couple of hours later, Eric arrived at Laura’s. He made good time. He was speeding a good half of the way. He couldn’t stop thinking about the photographs, the sounds he heard, the blood, and Linda and Jonathan, too. What sat in the seat next to him in that beige folder might explain it all. He just had to know. What did Laura see that night? What did she take a picture of? The car screeched to a stop. He looked to his left, right at Laura’s front door. He sat there for a moment. Then he got out. He was so nervous that the sound of the car door closing made him jump. He breathed in slowly, collected himself, and walked up the concrete steps that led to her front door. When he arrived he rang the doorbell. Beyond the door, inside, it chimed a light, welcoming tune. He waited for a minute but heard nothing stir inside.

Eric rang the doorbell again, more insistently than before. He even knocked. He waited, but heard nothing still. In his urgency Eric convinced himself to try the door itself. And to his relief, he found it unlocked.

Eric entered.

“Hello. Anyone home?”

There was still no answer.

“Hello, I’m a friend of Laura’s. I have something important to talk to her about. Is anyone home?”

Eric crept up the stairs. When he reached the top he quickly found Laura’s room. The door was open ajar. He knocked on it and called to her.

“Laura, are you in there?”

There was no answer.

He opened the door and found it to be perceptively empty. In this glance he noticed that there was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing had been pulled apart or broken. Whatever was the cause of Laura’s lack of correspondence was seemingly elusive. A light blinking on her dresser momentarily distracted Eric from his thoughts. It was her answering machine. He walked up to it. The message count read one. One new message. He pressed the play button.

“Laura, it’s Eric. I need to come see you. I got those photographs developed. You know the ones that…”

Eric pressed pause. Laura hadn’t heard the message. She hadn’t been in here for a while. She hadn’t been…

The closet door right behind him opened. He tossed the beige envelope down on the desk. It flung open and its contents slid out into full view on top of the desk. Eric tried to peer in through the crack, but it was too dark. Slowly, carefully he opened the door to let more light in.

“Laura?”

He opened the door further. He opened it until it was wide enough to see its back wall.

Eric froze in terror. He could hardly breathe. On the floor, by his feet, roots stretched out to him from long slender slumps that split in two. At the center they joined with a long thick truck the birthed branches at either sides. They were broken, bent inwards and wrapping themselves around something they secured tightly to their trunk. The object they secured was long, slender, and made of iron. The end of which buried itself in a great bulbous knot that centered between each branch. Eric slowly crept forward and wrapped his fingers in between tiny roots that webbed and weaved in amongst themselves along the crown of this bulbous abomination. And, as he slowly bent it backwards, he saw that the long, slender object that had planted itself into it was that of the barrel of a shotgun.

In that exact moment, in his attempt to pull his fingers out of that tangled mess he had planted them into, the mass fell back in such a way that it cracked and nearly broke off. Eric screamed. What was there in the closet just stared at him, and all he could do was stare back. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t even blink. And neither could Laura, or what was left of her, as she stared back at him with those empty eyes sunken inside of that empty shell of flesh and bone that had now become trunk and root. And before her were cores of that mysterious fruit scattered about at her feet. The buds of some of which even now began to blossom on those grotesque appendages that were once sleek, beautiful arms.

Eric got up and pushed himself against the desk. He looked behind him and saw the photographs that had shot out of the beige folder. He now saw them in a new light, with new eyes. He saw what Laura had taken a picture of their first night at that old, abandoned town. He saw a tree whose structure very much resembled that which now lay in the closet behind him. And its face, its face was clearer than the rest. He could see it now. And he looked at the portrait that he had found folded and stuffed in Linda’s backpack. It was a portrait of a young woman, a young woman whose face now bore an uncanny likeness to the face captured in that photograph of that hideous thing. Eric looked at it once again. He looked at Laura. Then he looked at the fruit. In a moment of horrific clairvoyance he patted himself down, everywhere. He was looking for something that he wasn’t sure of. Something different, something he was afraid he’d find. And then Eric found it. He desperately pulled up his pant leg and examined himself. The skin that was once there now resembled the texture and pigment that Laura’s did. He turned his leg as he felt it. Something was poking him. He twisted his leg to see what plagued his joint. There, growing from veins, poking out of calloused skin, were the tiny bumps of sapling branches, each one with infant leaves that stretched out, yearning for the sun.

Eric looked over at the answering machine. The message was still paused. He pressed play and reached for the shotgun.

“…that Linda took when we were out hiking. Remember? Well, there’s something I need to show you right away. I-I don’t have time to explain it right now. It’ll be better if I just show you. This may sound crazy, I know, but I’m a bit concerned that I haven’t heard from you in a while. I, I just want to make sure everything is alright. I might end up taking a drive up to see you. Please give me a call and let me know. Please let me know you’re safe. I’ll see you soon. Take care. Goodbye.”

[click]

END