In Laymon's Terms

Philip Robinson

IGHT WORKED ON the tree, displaying it in a way daylight never could...shaping and styling its leaves and branches until the Cedar seemed to become a huge, drooping face looking at me through the nursery window.

Carol and I were converting the spare room at the front of the house into a bedroom befitting a princess, racing against the miracle of nature to get it done. Stripping, painting, wallpapering, sawing, hammering, carpeting...we went to bed every night with sore hands and aching backs, flecks and smudges of paint on our bodies that no amount of showering could defeat.

I’d never paid much attention to the big Cedar outside the window...but in the summer evening light its beauty was striking. Its leaves were wafer-thin, mostly green but for an erratic spattering of brown and yellow, and each one shaped like an elaborate snowflake drawn by a child. These green snowflakes hung all the way down to the ground, worn like a dress and so thick you couldn’t see the trunk at the center.

In the darkness of night, though, a black hulking thing stood out there, its branches not quite touching the glass but you got the feeling they would like to...maybe splay their leaves like fingers on the cool pane. At night, its luscious green dress became a long black cloak. Trimmed branches near the top, hardly even noticeable in daylight, became horrid amputee stumps, bare and black.

We couldn’t leave it out there after the baby came. No child deserved to sleep under the gaze of such a monster.

Tap-tap!

I opened my eyes and half-climbed out of bed before realizing I wasn’t in bed, but lying back against the wall in the nursery. I remembered sitting down to have a cup of tea after Carol had called it a night (there it was next to me, cold and barely touched), and I must have dozed off.

Tap-tap!

One of the branches was waving back and forth outside, knocking gently against the glass. I walked closer to the window. The tree had never seemed within reach before...

I considered ignoring it and going to bed, but I knew it would bug me so I went outside for a better look.

A nice warm breeze was blowing around...I could hear the swiiiiish-swiiiiish of trees around the neighborhood, tall black silhouettes being pulled back and forth against the dark sky.

I walked around the Cedar, peering up at its full body, watching it sway in the gentle breeze and—

A voice came from within its thick coat: “Brian.”

Raspy and gravelly and guttural. I held my breath...it was the voice a Rottweiler would have if it could say my name.

I stepped back with fright. “Who’s there?” I felt so foolish...talking to a tree, but there was no doubt where the voice had originated.

“I have been waiting.” The Cedar towered high above me, its broad peak rising higher than the rain-gutter of the house.

“Who’s in there!” I reached forward to part the branches, but found I didn’t want to touch them. The leaves began to rustle up and down the height of the tree, as though someone in there was rummaging around for something they’d carelessly misplaced, and then near the top there was a parting in the branches and something was shoved through the black, oval opening.

(I’m dreaming...I must be dreaming this. I’m actually upstairs in bed with Carol and...)

A lump of darkness hurtled down at me. I yelped and stepped back and it slammed into the grass at my feet with a dull thud—the carcass of a gray cat. Its belly was swollen and doughy, its skin visible through its mangy, stringy coat. There were gashes and gouges all over, as though large teeth had ripped hunks of flesh out. There was just a deep, bloody scoop in the front of its head where its face should have been.

I jammed my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. The muscles in my legs were twitching spasmodically. High above, the branches closed in again and the tree rustled softly in the breeze.

“I’m calling the police!” I said, trying to keep from shouting. My breathing was erratic and labored.

A powerful growl rolled out of the tree, vibrating through the ground under my feet. Then I caught a horrible stench from the mangled cat, putrid and sweet. My stomach heaved and I vomited...careful not to get any on the cat. My eyes went blurry with moisture; my throat burned.

“Brian, I know your pretty wife. She carries your spawn.” The voice in the tree was calm. “She comes often.”

Suddenly my nose and mouth were stuffed with cotton. My face was numb. I couldn’t breathe.

Carol!

My ears were buzzing. My body was chilled and sweating; my skin tightened and crawled. I gaped up at the tree.

“Is your pretty wife quicker than our feline friend, Brian?”

I wanted to be dreaming. I had to be dreaming.

“You will feed me. From your own tree. Or a stranger’s.”

I staggered away...this couldn’t be happening yet that terrible voice, the numbness, the stench of cat and vomit...those things mixed a swirling cocktail in my head which couldn’t be denied.

I ran to the house.

Upstairs, I washed my face and hands and then fell into bed beside Carol. She half-awoke enough to drape one arm across my chest. “Finished that nursery yet, Handsome?”

“Almost,” I whispered. My forehead was burning, but my skin was covered in a sheen of ice. I rolled towards her and squeezed her to me, smelling her hair and fighting tears.

Opening my eyes to morning light, for a moment I had the comfort of thinking it had all been a terrible nightmare. But just for a moment. Then I knew better.

Downstairs, I went through to the kitchen and started coffee, then slumped into a chair and forced myself to wake up.

(It couldn’t have been fucking real! Couldn’t have been!)

Fuck it. I downed a full mug of coffee and went outside. The morning was sunny and bright but a nice little chill to the air...few clouds in the blue sky. I could smell morning dew, and the wet grass felt good under my bare feet.

I didn’t want to look.

The tree stood there in all its fine glory, its coat of green snowflakes elegant and gently swaying.

There was no cat on the ground.

(RELIEF!!!)

I sucked in a delicious breath and—

Nooooo!

There was a smudge on the ground, a darkening right where the cat had lain, and between it and the tree the grass had been flattened.

The tree had reached out in the night and dragged the cat back into its folds.

I ran back inside the house, leaning against the front door and a ridiculously high-pitched squeak whistling from my throat.

“That you, honey?” Carol called from the bathroom upstairs.

“Just me,” I gasped. I could imagine her up there, sitting on the pot with her ubiquitous Bathroom Reader held in front of her.

I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I wouldn’t...

“Hey,” she called down. “Listen to this...did you know that Bugs Bunny actually won an Oscar?”

Oh Christ...I didn’t know what to do.

I went to the kitchen and a few moments later she came in, waddling with her big belly and easing herself down into a chair. “Hey, I checked in the nursery...you fall asleep in there or something?” She put the cup of last night’s tea on the table.

“Yeah...dozed off.” I wanted to blurt everything out but Christ...how could I...? She’d think I was losing my marbles: “Sweetie, I don’t think you’ve got all your dogs on the same leash.”

We drank coffee while she told me of her plans for the morning—look for a cheap border to match the wallpaper, shop for yet more baby clothes, then she was meeting Natasha for lunch and what a gossip-fest that would be.

I walked Carol out to the car. My eyes tried to pull my head to the side but I kept facing forward. I didn’t want to look at that tree. It was watching us. Watching Carol. If I turned it would see the fear in my eyes.

(Get a grip!)

It’s a tree, for Christ’s sake! It’s just a fucking Cedar tree.

I watched her pull away, tooting the horn twice, and relief washed through me. Then I faced the tree and gathered all my courage; I walked forward, arms outstretched like a lost blind man. When my hands touched the leaves a shudder of revulsion swept through me. They felt plastic and rubbery to my fingers and some of them had tiny brown buds on the edges; I parted them and peered inside. Despite the brightness of the morning, beyond the leaves was darkness. I could barely make out the shape of the tree trunk in there. I saw no sign of the cat.

A door slammed, startling me, and I pulled back. It was Alan Mange, our next-door neighbor. We weren’t really on the best of terms since he took it upon himself to cut down half the hedge separating our front gardens. But he did know about trees and so while he was walking around to his garage I called him over. He seemed surprised to be hearing from me, since the last words we’d exchanged had been loud and heated.

Wearing his usual white shirt and baby-shit-brown tie, he worked for a huge chain store...one of those slimy credit officers who spends his day in a gray cubicle calling people to threaten them with litigation when they can’t pay their credit bill.

I was as pleasant to him as I could be, under the circumstances. Skinny man, thin face with a ridiculous attempt at a beard, he gave a scowl and then bent and parted the branches with his hands, peering inside. He wouldn’t talk to me, but friend of the planet that he was he was willing to—

Suddenly his head jerked back and his eyes gaped wide. His whole body tensed and he lunged himself at the tree, tackling it like a footballer. The whole tree shook. A branch cracked and the leaves sighed.

The tree had his arm...it had grabbed him...from inside.

He tried to pull away but he was caught in there. He shouted something and reached his other arm out to me and then suddenly he came free and—Oh sweet Christ...he was on his knees and his shirtsleeve ended in a ragged, flapping red cuff which was spurting dark blood and—

A long brown limb shot out of the tree, so fast I barely saw it. It was coated with a dry, matted “fur”; a big hand on the end had bare knuckles, like badly-carved wooden golf balls, and five long, thick fingers tapered into jagged points. In a flash it grabbed the elbow of my maimed neighbor’s arm and yanked him back. This time, one whole side of Al Mange disappeared into those leaves. He screamed but the sound was cut off in an instant. His head gave a sickening lurch. There was a violent spasm within the tree and his whole body kicked, and then the loud, smacking sound of a burst pipe filled the morning.

Blood surged out from under the tree, and the leaves around Al dripped crimson.

I tried to move but...what do you do when the whole world has been pulled out from under your feet?

The tree was jerking crazily, like a dog trying to shake itself dry. Only a single bloody arm was hanging out from the leaves now, and then that too disappeared, taken by the tree.

(Not the tree. Something inside.)

The leaves reluctantly ceased their crazy tantrum and settled, but from inside I could hear wet sucking sounds...chewing...harsh ripping of flesh...cracking and snapping of bones...

All around me was a perfect morning...except for this one little pocket of madness...this tree, which had been overtaken, invaded, occupied. My brain steadfastly refused to accept it, and tried to insist that there was some rational explanation...that it was all just a big mistake that would shortly be rectified.

“Brian.” The voice sent an electric jolt shooting through my body. “Thank you.”

I bolted back inside the house.

It was almost dark. The wind was cooler now.

There wasn’t a drop of blood on the leaves,

(Licked clean)

nor in the soil, which was unstained.

(Sucked dry)

I looked across at Al Mange’s house and wondered if his wife knew yet that anything was wrong. What time had she been expecting him home? Had she called the police yet?

The tree stood tall in the evening dimness, barely ruffled by the wind. Satiated?

Carol was waving at me through the nursery window.

I went back inside and joined her, but I spilled so much paint...knocked over a can of nails, then picked them up and knocked them over again...I put the border up crooked...

We decided to finish early.

When she went up to bed I sat on the floor, back against the wall, and stared out at the tree.

My mind still couldn’t...Christ...had I really seen what—

I was getting fucking tired of that question!

Then I was outside again, standing in the cool breeze in front of the tree and I didn’t even remember leaving the nursery. My body was trembling and I could smell an odor on myself.

(Fear...that’s my own fear)

I stared up. It rose above the rain-gutter on the roof. “You’re just a tree,” I told it.

For long moments there was silence. Then the voice. “I need more.”

“No...I...”

“You do not believe,” it said, and a rustle ran through its bulk.

(Swishswish)

“I am not real to you.”

Somehow I remained on my feet. My whole body felt like it was being held up by puppet strings. My stomach was roiling.

“Brian. See me.”

And the branches pulled apart in front of me like stage curtains. Did I expect to see the bloody remains of Alan Mange? There was nothing. Not even his clothes. Nothing but darkness within the tree.

“Here.”

I screamed and fell back. It had come out of nowhere. Whatthefuck?...formed from the wood of the tree itself! It had been invisible, or camouflaged, then in an instant it was hanging from the branches like a primate. Its head and body was formed from a big, twisting knot of wood with an oval opening in front, a gash like a blow from an axe...and the splinters within were formed into pointing fangs. There were no eyes I could make out, no ears, but a single vine rose from the top of the knot, brown leaves hanging lethargically from its length and gathered in a cluster near the tip. It had four arm/leg-type limbs—one of which I’d seen destroy my neighbor—and these, along with the rest of the body, were covered in a coat comprised of compressed, dead leaves.

It was hanging from one of the higher branches, and its tentacle-type vine swayed back and forth on the air in front of it. It was “looking” at me. I felt a hysterical giggle rising inside me because there was something hanging around its head. Al Mange’s tie, still knotted as though it had been tugged hurriedly off his head.

(Or his head had been ripped off and the tie had been simply slipped from the shoulders...and now this thing was having a joke with it.)

There was a gentle creaking sound...the sound of the creature shifting...clenching a muscle, stretching a limb. When it spoke, the whole face twisted in grotesque patterns, and that deep growl rolled from the head. “Meat.”

How could this be (my mind insisted, still refusing to accept)?

“Brian. Feed me.”

“Fuck you.” The words came out on a breath before I even realized I was speaking, but the creature just laughed softly...the wood cracking and splintering against its natural state to comply with the chuckle.

“From another, or yours, Brian. I will have your pretty wife, and the tender meat she grows within.”

“You can’t. Please.”

“Cats and puppies. Snatching birds from flight. Digging insects from the ground. These do not sate me. I must feed.”

The tree closed up and I stood there for a moment, then staggered back inside the house, into the dark nursery.

How long had it been out there, gestating in the tree, watching Carol and I going in and out? Where had it come from? Were we still alive only because it needed me to supply “meat,” just as I had unwittingly served up my neighbor?

Get Carol out of the house...get her away from here.

Of course, in her condition she wasn’t about to scale the eight-foot fence that surrounded our back garden, and certainly not the wall beyond. And how would I explain...she wouldn’t take me seriously...any more seriously than the police would.

Police? Yes, I’d like to report a monster living in my Cedar.

Well, I could say we saw someone lurking around out there.

What then, though? They might come and look...and what then?

But maybe that would be enough...

I got to my feet. It was the best idea I had...but still a long way from good.

The creature was out there...waiting. It didn’t know I’d called the police, and it didn’t know Carol was awake and sitting quietly—albeit confounded—in the dark kitchen (I’d told her nothing, begging her to simply put her trust in me), and it didn’t know about the bucket in the hallway. Unless, of course, that horrible tentacle was super-sensitive.

Christ, for all I knew it could read my fucking mind!

The glare of headlights momentarily filled the front garden and illuminated the Cedar as the police car came to a stop. It was 3:15 a.m.

“Carol,” I said softly. “This is it. Please just do as I said...but wait till their backs are turned.” I went to the front door before she could hit me with another barrage of questions. Two officers approached from the car, a man and a woman. “Thanks for coming,” I told them. “I haven’t seen any movement for a few minutes.”

Their radios were silent on their hips. “Where did you last notice the intruder?” the woman asked. Her young eyes had been hardened by her job. The man was older but his face softer, more experienced.

I gestured to the Cedar. “He was hanging around over there.”

“Let’s take a look, then.” They went to the Cedar. Behind me, Carol stepped around the pungent bucket in the hallway and out of the house.

Then all hell broke loose!

Whether it was because of the police, or Carol, the tree...whooshed! as though a huge fart had been let loose inside...that long green coat billowed out like Marilyn Monroe’s dress when she stood on that subway grate. And the night filled with screams.

The male officer drew his gun, then dropped it to the ground with the rest of his arm. Blood sprayed from the shoulder-stump and a big brown fist grabbed his head and dragged him into the tree, his kicking feet tearing up divots in the lawn.

Carol was screaming and I shouted at her over my shoulder to run!

The female officer had managed to draw both her gun and her radio. She was shrieking incoherently (to my ears) into the radio, and when she started firing her hand was shaking so badly her first shots shattered the nursery window and knocked a chunk of siding out of the wall. Then the creature burst out of the tree—not entirely...it held on to something inside with one limb—and grabbed the officer by the face. Her screams became muffled and smothered in the hairy, wooden grip. She managed to raise her arm and fire her gun once more, then she was flung to the ground, leaving most of her bloody face in the fist of the creature.

I spun around and saw Carol lying on the front lawn, legs spread-eagled and clutching her heaving belly.

Oh Christ...not now...please...!

I grabbed the bucket of gasoline from the doorway, clutched the Zippo in my hand, and turned to see the mangled remains of the female officer being hurled through the air in a red and black mess. A warm spattering suddenly moistened my face, and the sharp taste on my lips wasn’t rain. She flew high into the night above, and came down with a metallic crash onto a car parked across the street.

Then the creature turned, and although there was some distance between them...I had no doubt it could reach Carol.

I stepped in front of my wife and the creature lunged forward. Some kind of trailing, ropy cord unfurled from its rear, running back into the tree. I hurled the bucket’s contents right at it, soaking it with gasoline. It hit me hard. I flew backwards, slamming into the ground with the creature on top of me. The stench of gas was overpowering. I could barely breathe and then something poked into my belly, gouging the flesh, burrowing and rummaging inside as though looking for loose change in a pocket.

I tried to ignore the pain...(in fact, it was more a numbing sensation than an agonizing one)...and I flicked open the Zippo in my hand.

I would go up with this creature, but Carol and the baby...

I flicked the flame into life, hoping I’d be able to—

White light exploded in the night...followed an instant later by a deep, powerful phoof! sound. Flames engulfed us. I shoved, kicked, and punched. The fire spat out sparks and crackled like crumpling plastic. The creature’s fangs had become little flames in its mouth. I rolled sideways in panic and something was yanked out of my stomach with a sucking pop!

I could smell burning wood, grass, and flesh. Red and yellow flames danced from my body. I threw myself to the ground, rolling around the way I’d seen done in movies; miraculously, the technique worked. Black smoke billowed from my charred clothes and skin. Numbing shock was slowly giving way to pain. A few feet away the creature was throwing itself around in a panic, still burning...it obviously hadn’t seen the same movies I had. Flames were running down the length of its tail-cord like a lit fuse, and when it reached the tree the lush Cedar didn’t waste any time in going up.

The burning creature began making its way towards Carol. Not as sprightly as it had been, but still intent. This was no longer about hunger...the creature was going to kill her just because.

Her top had pulled up and her bare belly looked huge in the glowing fire of the Cedar, which painted the whole front garden in broad orange strokes and threw manic shadows across her pale, bulging flesh. The heat was like the inside of a barbeque.

I rushed at the creature and kicked as hard and solidly as I could, and felt my foot break with the impact; then I dropped my weight onto its crawling bulk and the flames reintroduced themselves to me. Thick fingers grabbed my jaw and shoved, and I felt my chin jerk sideways to a position it had never known before. The lower half of my face suddenly felt like it had been jammed down into a sink of slushy ice. I tried to scream but that only hurt more. The creature threw me off and reared over Carol, and even in its horrid condition I could sense how it relished what it was about to do. Its bulging paws, all splintered wood and raging fire, reached for her belly.

I grabbed its blackened tail-cord, barely feeling it singe my palms, and yanked...hauling the creature back a little from Carol. Then I turned and tugged from the other end. There was no give at first...the creature bellowed and I gave another pull with all I had. For a moment nothing...then I was thrown backwards and thought the creature had dragged me. Then I realized the cord had snapped away from the burning tree.

The Cedar was dropping its burning limbs as though in submission. Black smoke was pouring from it in a torrent, growing a dark mushroom in the sky above the house. The creature was screaming; with its connection to the tree broken it seemed to lose all strength to fight.

But that wasn’t enough. I forced myself to grab its severed tail and I dragged it across towards the inferno that had been our Cedar.

Only then did I notice the line of gawking people on the edge of the lawn. They were speaking and shouting, but I ignored them and kept to my purpose. Then the blare of sirens filled the air and I ignored those too. I picked the creature up by the tail, and in its cindered face I could see its pleading and horrified expression. Its front tentacle—that all-sensing stem—had been burned away to a little wavering nub.

I swung the creature into the heart of the burning Cedar.

Fire department, police vehicles, an ambulance...they gathered around the front of the house in a circus of flashing lights and hurrying uniforms. Firemen battled the tree and the side of our house, which had caught. Two medics prepared Carol to give birth on the lawn while two more begged me to come with them to the hospital. But I refused...I wouldn’t leave Carol so they worked to set my jaw, plug the hole in my stomach, and treat the burns right there on the lawn...I don’t think they even knew about my broken foot.

I was barely conscious. Carol’s face was covered in tears and smudges. Ash fell all around us like black snow, and smoke hung like thunderclouds above the house.

And our daughter was born into chaos.

I clenched my teeth and threw my head back as the medics plugged my belly, and beside me the baby screeched.

I could hear the swiiiiish! of the other trees in the neighborhood, the planet’s lungs, and I wondered.