There was a door in the dark
and the door led where dark doors lead,
into the dark.
That door in the dark could lead anywhere it chose, anywhere the imagination could fold, but it stood steadfast to lead to the heart of where we fear to go. To the place just behind red wood paneling and tarnished brass knob. To the basement of broken homes and secret dens, dungeons where people drag their kicking and flailing sins.
The door resided in the dark and the dark resided in a house and that house sat atop a hill. A hill that was certainly no home.
The house shifted on its old bones upon that hill, a cursed throne guarded by a rotten tree. A
The Bitter Tree the townsfolk coined, a name the children whispered, and old men stuttered. The Bitter Tree that stood as a spire looming in the sky atop the towns highest hill, a hill so high it reached past the smokestacks of the zinc refinement plant and pierced the sky. The tree a gnarled claw that tempted gravity and threatened to swallow the house whole. Roots were scattered knees wriggling along the ground, swimming round every corner of that brick and panel house. Most days might be covered by smokestack clouds, but for the tree that sky was blotted out by a tangle of branches and crooked thorns. No matter the time of day the house lay within the shadow of the the tree and the the tree lay claim to the house beneath. S
The Bitter Tree in the town of Blackwell, a bitter end down in the blackest Hell. G
No one stays long at the Bitter Tree house; it doesn’t seem like a place for people and people say it’s more like a prison for tragedy.
In cold secrets and old rumor, people have talked and some have written. Worn sheriffs and ragged bookkeepers have kept the memory, quietly passed the word in somber nights in the company of fire lit dens and whiskey warm lips. They tell of the things that neighbors gossip and children listen. No one stays long at Bitter Tree and some stay longer than they wished. Some drive from that hill, it’s the sound of tires crunching on gravel, but feels like the fleeing of footsteps. People get glimpses, but never goodbyes and it’s panic they see in families behind those headlights. No one that leaves that house leaves quietly, except the ones that didn’t get a chance to leave at all.
Sheriffs come and go, but none like to tell of the things they found, the ghosts they cart away in sheets. We all know bits and pieces, small stories of prittle and prattle. Tiny crumbs dropped at the doorstep, as if picked from the Bitter Tree’s teeth.
When I was a kid peering in between the doors of my father’s den, I once heard a sheriff say he preferred the families that were never found, ones that as far as he knew never left town. It was better that way, he didn’t need to know, because there’s no deeper Hell than on that hill, no darker well than when you tug on the rope and what’s at the end isn’t a pail.
I
I remember the rope strained, the strands threatened to snap, but like every other time the ropes of the swing kept taught as my body went slack. In places like this there is nothing but solitude, deafening quietness among cracked small town streets. A lone oak towered in front of Blackwell’s loneliest library, its only companion an old swing dangling lazy from its limbs. The morning light snuck its way through smokestack clouds, and like every passing car I had seen it too many times to count. N
Familiar faces floated by, and Mrs. Samson sauntered out through the artificial fog. 6
“Mornin’ Daniel! No archive duty today if you’ere hopin’ for some extra time in the back shelves.” A
“Nah, you know me. Couldn’t sleep, figured I’d swing.”
Mrs. Samson tightened a smile and wrung her hands just a bit under her breath. She’d always been like that, a tight lipped motherly kind, ever since I’d moved to the town. Even before she’d taken the torch from Mrs. Freidman, she’d always been a constant fixture among the library shelves, so it only made sense she’d take up the mantel herself. In her own way she made the library feel like home, though bit of an empty one most of the year.
“Now, Daniel, no need to mope around here scaring the birds. You should be makin’ trouble with your friends, especially on your off day.” Her brow furrowed along with a smirk, her caring had always been blunt. Something I remembered being fond of.
“You spend enough time tendin’ after the books as it is. Y’all have plenty of time to waste dusting books when you’re old like me.” She winked, a sly gentle nod.
“Yeah, got a point there. I’m catching up with Jude soon, he’s got somethin’ I oughta see. Probably another one a his undercooked schemes.” S
Mrs. Samson’s eyes narrowed along with a soft grin. She’d heard me say a lot of things just to cast the questioning away. But this time it was true, not an excuse. Wasn’t a day that passed without me on this swing or sorting the shelves since my graduation in May. It was more home than my house when night fell. She was more around than anyone else, spying me among the shelves. And she knew what most folks pretended wasn’t of note, that I chose not to go home. That I’d shift uncomfortably in my sleeves knowing she knew the bruises I hoped she couldn’t see. G
She sighed, “Lord alive, now don’t let Jude get you all kinds of mixed up. Can’t be down another library aid come Monday.” Her exasperation was light and kind as she waved goodbye, shuffling up the library stairs, long flowing dress skirt following steps behind.
*
“Hey, you dolt!”
I hadn’t been expecting the words to sneak up behind just as the swing hadn’t been expecting my body to lurch to the side. I remember the rope strained, the strands threatened to snap, but unlike every other time the swing collapsed. I came tumbling down hard against the dirt. I’m pretty sure Jude blustered out a laugh. I
“Toldja one of these days that swing was gonna give way.”
Unlike a moment ago I could see him now, but from my purview, upside down. I’d lain defeated in the dirt, Jude casually standing overhead with a crooked grin at hand. N
He wasn’t wrong and that’s only part of the reason it hurt. It wasn’t the grinding of my bruised back in the dirt or that I felt a fool snapping an old rope swing that had finally lost its fight. It just felt like the end of an old friend. I’d spent summers tossing my thoughts around and hanging off that swing. And just like that, rope reduced to frayed string.
“Yea need a hand?”
My eyes shifted sluggish to Jude’s outstretched palm. 6
“Nah, I think I’m where I belong. Probably just life tryin’ to tell me somethin’.”
Jude raised a smirking eyebrow beneath dirty blonde bangs. A
“Well life can get in line, we’ve got business.”
I’d feigned forlorn dismay as I resided in the dirt, till a cold shift in Jude slipped through and his tone turned subdued.
“I found the key.”
*
Everyone in town knew the Bitter Tree house and everyone in town has had a friend venture right up to its mouth. Most don’t make it to the property line before turning round, and the few that do don’t step into the house. The fear is right, there’s always been talk of the people that disappear and the ones that wish they’d might. Only people that ever moved in were from out of town, you’d have to be to make that hell a home. No one that knew would dare step foot. S
Except when I’d met Jude, he’d badger me to scour the place. We’d pass round the stories as kids, haunted rumors and half-truths. But I wouldn’t follow through, wouldn’t go near unless we fully committed, unless we walked through the door into the devil’s den.
Problem was the doors were locked and you don’t break into the devil’s house if you intend on leaving again.
I figured it was a settled deal, but Jude believed his father would be the key, Sheriff Simon Pottersfield and the filing cabinet locked up tight in his study. G
*
Jude’s Plymouth rustled awake, shaking haphazard with a strained turn of the key that threatened to bend if not break. The car should have been pristine, not even a year old, but Jude had a way of running the best of gifts into the ground. I
“How’s this car already a rattling mess?”
Jude scoffed with a grin.
“Hey, she’s lived a fuller life inna few months than most cars live inna lifetime and there ain’t no shame in that.” Jude tenderly brushed his hand across the shaking dashboard as the street signs started to pass by.
The air in the car was a dense droning silence that grew as the hill came into view.
“You seriously found it, didn’t you?”
Jude’s mouth drew tight and his eyes trailed off. It was unlike him, but I’d seen that same look on the faces of so many of the town’s cops.
“You know I tried workin’ into that filing cabinet so many times over the years, but it was Fort Knox, no give, not an inch. But it was the strangest thing, I found it flung open yesterday, dad must ‘ave been in a rush. Right there in that open drawer, folder in alphabetical order.” N
Jude, rummaged his pocket and withdrew, tentatively dangling a tarnished key hanging from a string. It swayed delicate, long and ornate, age seeped into the grooves, the string a noose. The inscription “274 Matthews Lane” crudely engraved. Such an unassuming thing, one would think a trinket if they never knew. Turn it and seal the deal. I really couldn’t believe it at the time, but something felt off and that seemed about right. Jude would mention that his dad was the type to bring work home, one way or another. He’d keep case files close so he could suss out the little things. Sneak evidence if it meant finding something new. S
“Only found one folder on Bitter Tree, probably only keeps the recent cases and returns the rest. You ‘member the last Bitter Tree victims?”
I could feel a chill working up the inside, the tragedy was fresh and the police didn’t much care to spare us from unanswered questions and concerns. They stopped handing out Bitter Tree details long before. G
“I think it was last March, a mother and baby were found dead locked in the basement, couldn’t make heads or tails if it was an accident or intent. Don’t believe they found the husband.”
Some say they only found parts of the baby. I
“That’s the one, Dad had that case tucked away with the key, probably holding onto it till they tied up loose ends.”
Jude’s eyes sparked a bit, as the shadow of the hill cast across the town and ushered us in. Like a great native mound the hill was a monument to something dreams and nightmares are about. As a great maw it opened wide and we tempted it as we drove along it’s tongue, the winding dirt road that endings are made of.
The hill called as the rocks and dirt beneath cried, whether cries for us or for themselves I couldn’t tell. The tires climbed as my stomach fell, closer and closer the summit got. What once was a twig had grown into something akin to an obelisk. The Bitter Tree had crawled over the horizon, eager to meet, stretched its claws and bared its teeth. The house wasn’t a sight much better, as it drew nearer it held itself apart, wood paneling as white as bone to contrast the tree, black as coal. It was taller than I’d known, a white farmhouse concealing multiple floors, a balcony held by supports like bone. Pitch black windows deep as doll eyes. Overgrown brush hiding whatever’s left inside. Something in my mind feared it knew, knew what we had and was looking to get it soon. N
Jude leaned in close, hugging the steering wheel as he spied the approaching property.
“Well ain’t that a site to see. Almost as terrible as what I imagin’d in my dreams.”
He mustered a hushed laugh, leaning back heavy in his seat, fingers quietly toying with the key.
In contrast my stomach was tying itself in knots, though my head was a flurry with thoughts. 6
“You said the key was kept with a case file. Did you get a good look? I’m kinda dying to know what else ya found.”
Jude slipped a cold smirk, and a quick glance as we approached the end of the road. His voice quiet in his throat.
“Yeah, I skimmed it a bit. But I don’t think I can tell. But maybe I can show ya.”
The words hung quiet in the air, a strange phrase I wasn’t expecting to hear. Till the tires came to a stop and the engine clicked off. A
The Plymouth doors slammed shut, as we abandoned our escape, walked a few steps as we stood at Bitter Tree’s gate.
The gate had long since perished, two metal posts left standing in its wake, like gravestones they held its place. A warning to those that tread through would have no excuse.
I knew the pit of Hell was real, because I could feel it in my stomach down to my heels. Pumping through my veins and locking up my legs. The first step would be hardest, the rest like falling off a cliff. But somehow Jude stepped across without a hitch.
“Come on, lets at least get passed the gate.”
And like a wave his momentum carried my legs. Passed the hidden border and under the tree’s shade.
Though the sun was high, it’s rays barely peeked through, we were now in a place beyond God’s purview. The Bitter Tree held its crown high, sorted branches and tarnished leaves above the house and gnarled roots tangled about our feet. The property was a garden of tragedy, walled away by that colossal tree. The house stood centerpiece, a mausoleum among a patchwork of concrete walkways snaking through overgrown weeds. In a solemn way it could be viewed as a wild paradise, a nook cut away from the world, a garden of Eden planted with lies. The overgrowth choked out loose tires and car parts, gripped long rusted swing sets and bicycle spokes. The ground was littered with the things of kids, a discomfort to dwell on why they’d leave them to sit. The grounds a book of long dead hope, under the shadow of a dying oak. S
Though in bitter truth the thing before me was far more than an oak and far worse than dead. As my foot falls found their way through brush and broken things I was finally feet away. A legend in wooden flesh, a massive thing as wide as the house, and as tall as a silo. G
I couldn’t begin to guess what species the tree could be. Its bark was gnarled like an oak with a tangle of grooves and veins, but it had something far more unsightly protruding from its skin, a carpet of thorns dotted with scarlet tips. It was a savage thing to be adorned in viscous teeth, the sight gave me pause as I scanned deep, holding fast to steady my feet. But as if snapped from a trance, something out of place, a carving at the base.
A carving of what looked like letters were etched in deep to the horrible things flesh, jagged letters that seemed legible no-less. The letters stitched together read, “P-E-C-C-A-V-I”, a word that felt more familiar to something I’d read in church. My curiosity jerked as questions started to swim in my head, there hadn’t been any legends of a carving that I had read. My eyes no longer my own scoured the tree eager to find any missing piece. I
And then I peered deeper into the tree’s teeth and saw the things the rumors never speak. My spine went rigid as my stomach dropped.
Far towards the tree top, deep within the nest of winding veins and dying leaves, a rope taught to the jagged tree. The rope hung long like a fishing line and in a twisted sense I hazard to guess just what it could catch, till I noticed it partnered by something worse. A sea of loose ropes that mirrored the first, hanging like anchors, each one heavy from their perch. They swayed as a gallows each as frayed as the first, each had once carried a weight and given way, my heart thumped imagining a sound. The sound of something heavy hitting the ground. N
“Daniel! Found somethin’ over here!” 6
And like that I snapped back, my eyes broke free, gazing anywhere but back to the uncomfortable questions that hung high in the tree.
“Yeah! What is it?”
I quickly trudged through the sprawling grass, taking care not to stumble on tree knees and lost trinkets.
“It looks like a well, help me clear away some of this brush will ya.”
My pace quickened, crossing the wilderness of the yard to find Jude tossing round roots and rotten branches with disregard. It was an uncanny site that stirred my bones, an old stone well with a sturdy wood beam draped across its mouth. A rope dangling into the deep, tied tight round the beam as tight as the tree roots tangling around beneath. I gripped my hand on brittle roots and pulled, the echo of snapping felt like bone.
“Look here, there’s something etched into the stone, just have to pull back the roots.”
Jude pointed to an old tarnished stone that wore its age in scratches and stains. And as the roots gave way, the engraving was clear, but strange. Another foreign word pressed into the stone’s skin, “T-R-A-D-E-N-S.” Just like the tree, a bread crumb piece leading us into the deep. A
My thoughts trailed off as I questioned the message and the connection to the house, while my eyes drifted to the well’s mouth. The rope fastened tight hung slack into the abyss, a pitch black chasm that reached farther than I could comprehend. My eyes poured into that dark as the wind around hissed, I swore the rope tightened as if something had pulled from the other end.
“I saw an engraving like this on the tree, too. Might be a name or an old language like Latin or somethin’.”
Jude dusted his roughened hands against his worn jeans, taking a glance at the well, before tilting his head to the house.
“You could be right on that. This place is hiding somethin’ and I think we should take a look inside, flush out the things it’s trying to hide.”
Before a word could escape my mouth, Jude had already spun on his heel and headed towards the house. I trailed behind, heart building up pace in my chest, this was it the thing that came next. We made our path, stepping through weeds and over rusted debris, I didn’t much care to see the old toys littered amongst tools and tires, the front yards meadow was as full of grass as it was a long lost past.
But as I scuffed my shoes across the concrete path, a hint of something awful stirred at my back. Pins and needles creeped as my eyes noticed a secret passed the weeds. Every discarded item and piece that lay upon the ground had tree roots holding it down. The visage of greedy claws that would never loosen, never give, never release their wooden grip. I wondered in the quiet of my mind, what would the tree claim next? S
Jude halted his stride, as the concrete trail met the stone steps. The house a towering mass, its porch a widening stage, tall pillars stitched across it like a welcoming cage. The overhead hung, pillars fatigued by its weight as we carried our feet the sounds of creaking wood beneath. The wood siding danced with shifting shadows shining down, rays of light dashed to the ground. What had once looked white as bone now wore the age of scrapes and scratches, the marks of an aged home. The windows, haunted eyes that revealed a deep dark soul, what lie inside was cast in shade, a forgotten place as long as we didn’t make our next mistake.
We paused at the hard wood door upon the porch. Its tall frame was adorned in hand crafted grooves and molded flourishes, qualities of an artisan’s mood. Tarnished and tilted brass numbers “274” hung across the tired top frame. The door, a nicked and scratched face, held scars that traced along an array of windowpanes. Five square glass slots that fit together like a cross. My hands felt the ache as they began to shake. G
While Jude drew out the key, swinging it from its string almost carelessly. His hand moved towards the tarnished knob, a feeling of dread beginning to fall.
“Well, now or never.”
He chimed, piercing the key into the chasm. A glint in his eye as with a flick of his wrist, the door clicked.
*
It didn’t come at once, but the panic wanted to set in. As the sounds of the creaking door screamed, it opened wide, beckoning. And like a mouth with hidden teeth, I waited for the snap of a trap to claim me.
Jude took the first step, his sway dragging me in to the devil’s den, though, in truth, it was just a kitchen. The mouth of the house was quiet and calm, composed of an aging dining and kitchen hall. The walls peeling with tired floral decor, scraps discarded along the auburn tile floor. My eyes wandered passed sink and fridge, brushed the surface of steel table legs, till I noticed the shattered plates. Dirt and dust had made its home along the floor and grime had started to form. But it was the uneasy scene of glass and ceramic that scattered the ground. It seemed a freshly flung meal violently tossed, dishes thrown and carelessly dropped. A quiet whisper of dread creeping as I caught a glimpse of a crucifix among the mess. The house was in a quiet disarray, some things appeared pristine, though the age of the place was concealed just beneath new paint.
The corners of the room were cracked, hairline fractures spidering out across the walls, if any worse the house would threaten to fall. But something insidious still creeped across it all as I noticed the cracks snaking along the floor, splitting tiles and warping even more. As if something beneath was trying to leave. I followed the fractures across the wall and found what was at the center of them all, an open doorway covered in cracks a downward staircase shrouded in black.
“If that’s the basement, then that’s where they found the bodies at.”
Jude’s words sent a tremor across my skin as the dark reality set in.
“Want to see for ourselves?”
My skin jumped from the words, as my ribs tightened, heart eager to burst.
“I don’t think I want to find what’s down there.”
The silence held for all but a moment as Jude let out a laugh under his breath, as he spoke with a grin.
“Well, what was it we used to say? When you go into the Devil’s den, you don’t stop till you make it to the end.”
And without another word he paced across the kitchen, through the shattered plates and stepped off into that deep dark space. 6
*
My heart stopped in place as my mind tried to keep pace. I rushed to the doorway, stopping just short of the threshold, peering into the house’s throat, a deep dark stairway that stretched down below. The chasm reached into the belly of the beast, with a string of amber lights taking the lead.
“You comin’?”
Unlike before, Jude’s words came as a relief as his silhouette descended into the deep.
“Yeah, just slow down a bit!”
As I gazed down the stairway, I knew the pit of Hell was real, because I could feel it in my stomach down to my heels. Pumping through my veins and locking up my legs. I’d already stepped off into the pit, there was no turning back from the abyss. A
I walked through the cracked frame and descended down into the dark. Glowing amber lights littered the ceiling as the descent became more like a fall. The stone steps were worn with wear, my mind wandered to the other lost souls who had ventured down there. Down into darkness, lit by bulbs that shouldn’t be on, hidden from the warm light of the sun.
And as the steps grew less, I finally reached Jude, catching my breath. But before I could speak, I noticed something red in the deep. S
There was a door in the dark
and the door led where dark doors lead.
The door was a bold red, cracked and stained with age. It wore cuts and gouges along its ornate face, carved with leaves and decorative trees. Care had been taken to craft the carvings, but all I felt was unease as my eyes caught the splintered edge where the latch would be. The knob seemed intact, but the edge of the door looked like it had been viscously scratched.
“I think it’s the last door. Up for one more?”
Jude’s grin echoed in the stairway as my fear fought my curiosity.
“Well, I’ve followed you down to God knows where and I don’t think we can stop here.”
His laugh filled the void and danced through my chest, but nothing could stop the creeping hell that arrested my steps. Horror chased my heart as he turned the knob, my body threatening to fall. The door opened to a dimly lit room as we both stepped through.
*
We walked, footfalls echoing across the walls. It was a massive space, two rows of concrete pillars guided our way. The room was littered with boxes and abandoned possessions scattered along either side, but a cleared path baited us along, deeper into the hall. The pillars stood guard on both sides, amber bulbs strung up high. In the dark it gave the feeling of a grand church, forward down the aisle the only place to search. Shadows lurked and shifted, my nerves beginning to stiffen, and then in the dark I caught something that wasn’t right. Something I hadn’t noticed along the concrete walls of the great hall. Cracks and crevice’s broken loose by haggard tree roots. My eyes darted through the dark, as my anxiety pursued, the walls and floors, pillars and lights, the roots had long since crawled their way through. As we walked deeper, the roots grew thicker, tangled round each pillar creating a vile sculpture. The tree had long since claimed this place and before my dread could take… G
“The wife’s name was Nina Shaw, the baby, Bartholomew.”
The sound shook my senses, bringing me back from the brink as Jude rattled off the names.
“File says they were left down here for about 27 days. Left in the dark. Left to wait.”
His words painted a dreadful image in my head as the lights flickered, the roots around us thicker, the path forward deeper. Out of dread I turned my head to see our way back, the red door at the end of the corridor.
“Says the husband Howard Shaw was never found, no evidence of anyone else around. The cops always go after the husband first. In this case, probably didn’t hurt.”
Jude’s words trailed off as our footsteps stopped.
There were no words, only silence, what lay before us steeped with violence. In the wall a massive hole burrowed into the earth, a gaping chasm cascading through the dirt. It was the height of the room, resembling a throat filled with colossal roots that spilled out like innards along the ground as well as spines scattered around. The chasm of roots a monstrous altar or unholy throne. I
And then I saw it, a circle cut into the floor’s stone. A dark stain at its center, all alone.
The circle held carved letters etched in stone, the words, “S-A-N-G-U-I-N-E-M”, “I-U-S-T-U-M” danced along my tongue.
My eyes transfixed upon the stain, my legs carried me to it in vain. I kneeled closer still, not knowing what had been sewn, as my eyes noticed a tiny chewed bone.
My vision poured into the puddle on the ground, fear crawled through my insides up and down. Then the silence broke, an awful sound, as the words came out of Jude’s mouth.
“You know the mother didn’t starve at first…because she had that baby with her.”
Time stopped as my blood went cold, my heart in a pit as dark as the hole. I tried to twist my neck to look at Jude, but like a ghost he was now at the door across the room.
Eyes dead and vacant, like he had no soul, he pulled the door shut and turned the key in the hole.
*
“No...”
A sickness bled in that choked my throat and clouded my senses.
My best friend had locked me in.
My legs gave out, the panic setting in,
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand what the hell all this is!
As screaming thoughts tore through my mouth with deafening sound, a noise creeped in from behind my head and turned me back round instead.
My eyes returned to the hole a gaping abyss, from which came another unsettling hiss.
The next noise was a tap or a distant snap.
Peering far into the empty fold I listened close.
Another tap.
Another snap.
Closer it came.
Till the tap turned to two and then to a distant clatter.
Closer still, the sound was faster.
Closer now there wasn’t much space,
before the snapping was feet away.
I only saw blackness in that hole,
the now dead silence worse than I could hold.
My eyes strained for anything in the dim light, scouring the edges for any sign.
My body shaking to flee as from out of the shadow stood a woman.
Her whole body protruding with teeth, from her belly a baby’s muffled scream.
A death rattle of trembling teeth.
I lost my mind, everything boiled from within, my legs flailed running faster than I’d ever been. There was fire in my lungs, screaming to god or anyone. I ran like an animal tearing through roots clawing a way. I rushed to the red door my only escape.
My body had no control, I was barely a soul, the pain raged through my bones as I bashed against the door’s fold. The wood warped but wouldn’t give and then a pop from deep within. Light peaked in from the edge of the latch, where I noticed the paint had been scratched.
But all hope gave in
As the amber lights went out.
And then I heard that terrible sound,
It echoed from the belly of the room,
The grinding of teeth and snapping of bone as a baby’s scream crawled ever close.
I screamed to god, wrenched my fingers along the edge and clawed my hands against wood instead, I bled and snapped, tore at the bolt as the babies scream grew ever close.
Closer and closer still, the snapping came,
the baby’s scream one in the same,
Till I could hear the teeth an arm’s length away.
There was no humanity left inside, only an animal of fear raging to stay alive.
I buried my nails into splintered wood,
wrenched and pulled,
buckled and bowed
as my nails burst out and the door unfold.
I roared to god,
collapsed my soul,
broke my bones as the teeth came close
The door broke free as my body snapped
I ran like hell, fighting collapse
I don’t remember my frantic ascent up the wretched steps,
or the splintering of wood as I burst through the front deck.
I only remember Jude atop the stone well
Arms stretched out as if asking for help.
His eyes wide dripping wet
voiceless lips mouthing something.
something I couldn’t make out yet.
I didn’t register that he’d leapt,
or the rope wrapped round his neck,
till he was gone and a sickening snap.
came from down below the well’s depths.
*
I try not to think about Blackwell anymore, dwell on broken fingertips or drag up the dead. There’s nothing down that well that puts things to rest. Put fingers round the rope and pull till the dark reveals what’s feared the most, there’s only bones and bodies, bad dreams that plague my sleep.
I don’t dwell on the well or the door or the hell that calls itself a hole.
But the dreams never leave. 6
Everything ended the day we turned the key and took a step off into that deep.
There aren’t words to describe the screams that come after mangling every finger and nail, bleach white bones peeking through where fingertips used to grow. My nails were left embedded in the door, not that far from the scratches of people who’d been trapped down there before. No expression for the sound of empty lungs attempting to wail as the only sound is the death rattle of a half-broken neck at the bottom of a well.
Hell is the scream of a baby half-digested in its mother’s stomach, a chorus of rattling teeth her symphony.
I don’t know why, but it didn’t follow. The woman with teeth didn’t climb the steps, dig into my legs and drag me into the depths. It was gone, all that was left was the silence followed by the snapping of Jude’s neck.
The Plymouth carried me home, keys still in the ignition. The blood smears I left looked like finger paintings across the car seats and steering wheel. By the time I crawled up the station steps, the bones scraping concrete were the fingertips I had left.
I didn’t tell the police about the woman at the bottom of the basement, I only half believed it myself. How could I expect anyone else to come to terms? They’d blame it on terror or drugs, implicate me and wash their hands of my testimony. But I pleaded with them to check the basement, something was wrong with the house and they’d certainly find out. But ultimately the story bent, the tree doesn’t leave fingerprints, ties it all up in a nice string. Jude just went crazy, saw files he shouldn’t see and went off the deep. That’s the story they tell, there’s nothing more to see, we don’t look any closer around the tree.
They told me I was the victim of an obsession come to its conclusion, a fairytale pulled out of thin air, Jude found the Shaw files and went from there. Left me in the basement to starve and then ended it.
*
I still remember the drive to the hospital, riding passenger side in a police car, Deputy Matthews’ terse demeanor leaving me with silence to console. His eyes stealing glances at the blood dripping through crudely wrapped bandages, cloth sticking to the mess of my hands.
“Ya know I always worried the sheriff’s kid might turn out to be troubled, but nothin’ like this.”
Another glance from Matthews’ fidgety eyes as his thumb caressed his own fingertips. S
“A little bit of trespassing, damage to property, starting out small. But maybe sometimes it’s just a matter a time, never know when someone’s gonna snap.”
His eyes stayed trained ahead this time.
There was nothing to say, the words felt like hollow lies to sweep things away as streetlamps blurred by. There wasn’t a clear reason why he’d done it, but it wasn’t just a mental break. I know what I’d seen in the basement and something deeper itched at the back of my mind.
“I was on the Shaw case, such a sad slow way to go. Jude must’ve poured over those files and followed in Howard’s footsteps, practically relived the murder himself.”
The words were cutting, but what was strangest besides their coldness, was his certainty of the circumstances of the Shaw family. There was no doubt in his mind that Howard Shaw had locked the door as his own grip tightened around the wheel. Howard Shaw hadn’t been found, nothing was for certain, but Matthews talked like the case was closed. Maybe just a hint of something he shouldn’t know.
*
From then on the cops couldn’t look me in the eyes, as the lies left their lips. I could see it in their faces, the look that’s just under the skin. Everyone that’s ever dealt with Bitter Tree wears that look like they’ve seen things they can’t say.
I guess now I’m the same way.
Jude didn’t lead me to the pit to starve, he led me to the lion’s den to be eaten. The tears that bit into his face as he leapt off the ledge, I’m not sure what they say. But I know what he found at the bottom of the well. When investigators pulled on the rope and hoisted Jude’s body up, they brought something else.
A second cadaver tangled around Jude like a thicket of thorns, the body of Howard Shaw. The husband they suspect locked the door and left his family to starve. Rope marks cut into his throat, it isn’t a leap to guess he had his turn with the rope.
Just like Jude, they both found god at the end of a noose.
*
I remember three days after Bitter Tree, I pieced together what was left of me.
Stood aimless under the old oak in front of Blackwell’s loneliest library, the strain of the rope creaking, a broken swing at my feet. I stood there, haunted by the thought that the swing marked the last day Jude and I would ever meet.
I wandered the street aimless for a time, but my feet found their way to the funeral, though everything in me wished I could just wander, lose myself in the smokestack fog and stop remembering any of it had happened at all. Dad personally prepared Jude’s body with effort and care I hadn’t seen since he was an undertaker. He’d always been gentler with the dead. Painted away the rope burns and reset his neck, dressed him in his best. He hadn’t been the county coroner since the drink took his hands, but he’d do it for Sheriff Pottersfield. He’d do it for an old friend.
I stood back from the chairs and the coffin, a distance not far enough in the field of lost loved ones, leaned up against a red cedar tree. I hadn’t been to a funeral since my mother. My trembling hands wouldn’t allow me any closer. I hadn’t been to a funeral since my mother. The grass curled against my feet, a grove of headstones crowded around, a solemn audience we’d all meet. The artificial clouds hung overhead, casting shadows that danced through trees. My eyes eased closed lost in reverie. Then it started with the snap of a branch from up above. The faint snapping of teeth started as a whisper that creeped up from beneath, from the back of my skull up through my knees. My hands creaked like the door and birds sounded like screams, the chattering of teeth bubbling up from the deep. The feeling of roots crawling up my legs. Then I was back at the bottom of the staircase, alone in the dark, my hands biting into my arms, gripping hard as the basement closed in to consume me. Shaking and drowning I couldn’t breathe till a hand clasped my shoulder, waking me.
“Daniel, if you have a moment we should speak.”
And there I was, a soul returned to the cemetery, hunched against the bark of the cedar tree. A hand dragging me from the depths of a terrible dream. The hand worn and weary but an anchor to the waking world at least.
Sheriff Pottersfield stood before me, a ghost of himself. What once had been the image of stern resolve was but a haggard shadow, barely a man left at all. Circles grooved deep under his eyes. They had no fight, just a long distant stare that felt as empty as the sky. A tall overcoat hung low, black as the Bitter Tree hole. He was a tall figure that loomed overhead, a tilted sway in his legs. Face as pale as the clouds that branched across the sky. The voice that came out spoke with a curt quietness. I
“Let’s take a drive.”
*
The dirt crunched beneath heavy feet, every step a denser weight, limbs of lead sinking as my footfalls dragged behind. It didn’t hit at first, my mind catching up with my eyes.
It was the Plymouth, its quiet stillness making it no different than a standing gravestone, just another scattered amongst the lot. A monument to tragedy, the door latch waiting. My eyes passed over the sides, where my blood prints had smeared driven to survive, the sins had been washed clean from the door and the seats, though I could feel the memories still clinging. Heart heavy in my chest as the handle clicked, sliding onto the passenger seat. The familiar shake of the engine as it rattled awake, somehow a comfort despite everything. Sheriff Pottersfield knocked the car in gear as the dirt road slipped away. N
The quiet passed between us like centuries as I lifted my hand, bandaged fingertips running gently along the dash, just like Jude had. A dark thought swimming in the recesses of my head. Did he know what he was going to do from the moment we met, the moment he said he’d found the key?
Then a sudden shift in the air as the Sheriff filled the silence.
“I’m sorry if I crossed a line requesting your father to prepare Jude. I can’t imagine what you must feel. I just couldn’t bare anyone else.”
The sincerity was palpable as the age lines creased his face over tightening teeth. I’d say his knuckles were white from gripping the wheel, but they were already so pale.
“No, it’s alright. Jude was my friend, I just haven’t been able to square it, to understand.”
I hadn’t realized till just now how much I needed to say it out loud. It had been a chain strangling me, the weight ever tightening.
His words were quiet, bleeding with grief.
“You’ve always been a good friend to Jude, and I fear there are no words that can be said to undo what he did to you. It is a tragedy to have to mourn a son, even more to mourn the lives he’s nearly undone. You’ve already had to mourn your own family once, and so young.
I’m so sorry, Daniel.”
I could hear the guilt rotting through his heart. It didn’t feel like his to own. He didn’t deserve that burden. That can’t be his to carry.
My hands dug into my knees as the words worked their way through my throat. Fighting every urge to stay below.
“To tell you the truth. I don’t know that I can blame Jude.”
The words cut a stillness as Sheriff Pottersfield sat silent, patient for the words that would come soon.
“Nothing felt right. Like he wasn’t really himself.”
The air denser as the words grew heavier.
“I can’t shake this feeling that he couldn’t stop this. Like something was pushing him to it.”
There was a swell in my chest, my lungs near to split.
“Dragged him right over the edge.”
My chest growing tighter.
“He was crying when he leapt to his death.”
Then a half-remembered memory that my lungs struggled to tell.
A memory caught in my throat.
“He was crying for help!”
There was no stopping now, no stopping myself. The blackness rose up from the deep, the woman with the teeth.
“There was something in the basement!”
Fingers gripping my knees.
“There was something in the basement that Jude was there to feed me to!”
There was no colder stillness than in those moments between. Between the tragedy of speaking, voicing words that couldn’t be retrieved. It was a leap into the depths, as my body went rigid. Lost in the darkest place as the Sheriff shifted his face towards the road.
A change had taken place as he and the world grew cold. His words slow and methodical, a dagger sharp against my soul.
“There is nothing in the basement.” 6
*
There is no hell like the shaking of my hands as I sat petrified on the passenger side. No greater torture than that long quiet chasm that stretched between his words. The cut in his tone hiding something I’m not sure I wanted to know. My senses grew ever aware of the spinning wheels and the precarious place I had trapped myself in. A conversation with no escape, the dread slithering up from within, the edges growing darker as I feared what I had stumbled in.
Heart beating quick as my sanity threatened to give.
The car suddenly a prison.
My mind begging to leave.
My body ready to scream.
And then.
A folder.
His worn fingers outstretched; a folder clasped between.
He was holding it out to me.
“Daniel, this is something you need to see.”
My mind locked up, everything in me seizing to a stop. My hands gently gripping the folder before my mind could catch up. It was a plain manilla folder, nothing of note, nothing to denote the secrets it might hold. Except the smallest of inscriptions along the corner fold.
The words “Shaw Family 1962 - 274 Matthews Ln.”. My mouth whispered the words hiding beneath.
“Bitter Tree.”
My body still in shock, it took a moment to register. Fingers finally functioning as they pried open the folder. The Shaw family lying between the fold.
It was truly a horror show.
Their case file, a clinical dissection of the family based on the last terrible moments of their lives. The gruesomeness of the autopsies and descriptions contrasted against soulless observation. Somehow the description, “contents of the subject’s stomach included infant organs and bodily tissues” felt a far cry from the horror of the reality. She’d eaten her baby like an animal, chewing through its flesh like a starving dog, only saving grace being that it probably wasn’t alive long.
The report outlined how out of state family members had grown concerned over a loss of contact with the Shaw family for close to a month. Deputy Matthews would place it at around 27 days, making time to drop by the property later that day.
When he went looking I’d say he found a piece of hell at the bottom of those steps that would haunt anyone to this day.
Nina Shaw, face smeared deep with blood, tissue samples still embedded between her teeth, fingers severely fractured, some practically broken backwards. The door was a mosaic of scratch marks, bits of fingernails left lodged in the wood just like mine. Her body was found at the far end of the basement, strewn close to the baby’s remains. She had succumbed to starvation and dehydration. There were no clear defensive wounds and toxicology came back clean, she must have been lead down there or taken by surprise. Worst of all, the key had been left on the floor just a few inches outside the basement door. A
Howard Shaw’s body was found a year later while extracting the corpse of Jude Pottersfield from the bottom of the property well. Likely cause of death, cervical fracture due to hanging. His body was that of a bloated hanged man, a lure bobbing in the water of the well that curled like pondweed around Jude’s corpse. No clear defensive wounds, toxicology ultimately ineffective after a year in the water, no evidence of other parties on or around the property at the time of the incident with Nina Shaw. S
The bodies were collected and transferred to members of the extended family, the remains of the baby, cremated before transfer. No family deserves to see what remained.
If you were looking to make an easy deduction, Howard Shaw’s guilt seemed likely. Especially after the way things with Jude played out. But deep down it told me nothing of a motive, there wasn’t a reason outlined along the pages, there was simply what was done, but why was nowhere to be found.
Though the worst part were the pictures. They’d been scattered about within the folder like a macabre scrap book, items of note mixed alongside bloating corpses and blood-stained teeth. My skin crawled with each new scene, fingertips aching as I peered at Nina’s jagged snapped fingers. An itch running up my wrists as I noticed the worst part of it. An unsuspecting image of the concrete floor, some kind of mess gathered in a pile, nothing of note till my vision noticed the tiny hand sticking out from a thicket of bones.
My stomach dropped as a realization hit two-fold. It wasn’t just the horrific remains of what was left of Nina’s baby, but the concrete floor that lives in my dreams when I fall asleep. A floor incased in a carved circle, an inscription etched at its center and the hole in the wall residing over it all.
Except there was nothing, it was all gone.
My eyes widened as my fingers began sifting through each photo of the room, each one telling the same story, the basement is empty, except Nina and what remains of her baby, left at the end of a vacant room. There are no carvings, there is no hole there are no roots.
And then a wretched swell rising in my chest as my eye caught a date at a photo’s edge, 1963. Mixed amongst the stack, were photos of the door, broken and splintered from where I had pried it loose, but what lay beyond its edge, an empty basement.
Anxiety rushing, fingers jittering, as my eyes slowly shifted to Sheriff Pottersfield.
My mind beginning to reel.
“What did you do to the photos?!”
My heart rate rising, the walls drawing closer.
The words repeating over and over again endless in my head.
This isn’t right.
This isn’t right.
This isn’t right.
It’s wrong.
It’s wrong!
It’s wrong!
IT’S WRONG!
“No, no, no, no no…this is all wrong!”
Louder as the dread seeped in, my voice shrill and filled with panic.
“You’re covering it up!”
The words not enough, I needed to erupt.
“You know what’s down there and you’re sweeping it under the rug!”
“Daniel.”
My name felt like a car crash against my ears.
“If you don’t believe the photos, then I’ll just have to show you.”
And for the first time in what had felt like days passing by I realized I hadn’t been paying attention to much of anything but the folder between my fingers. Everything had blurred into background noise and static, washed away into darkness. I hadn’t kept track of the car or the road or where the road had been leading us.
We were at the mouth of Bitter Tree. G
I heard the click of the driver side door and the rustling of the Sheriff’s coat, but all I saw was the Bitter Tree.
Sheriff Pottersfield leaned down to his open door to face me. Hand along the doorframe, a slight creak as the metal of the car leaned.
“Now Daniel, I won’t make you go in there, but it’s either you believe the photos or you see for yourself.”
My eyes drifted down to the images along the fold, the sickening realization seeping in.
He was right, I only had two options, there could only be two.
I take his word or I see for myself.
I find out now or forever live with this doubt.
I clicked open the door, the handle like a snapping lock.
There was no going back.
The dirt and rocks cracked as we ascended to the long-lost gate. What once had felt like cries beneath my feet had turned to that of cracking bones, we walked this path alone, not a soul would follow. Sheriff Pottersfield did not hesitate for even a moment at the precipice of the gate posts, his coat drifting as a dark shadow, its forward track unimpeded by the property’s presence.
The tree loomed overhead, panic starting to shudder up my hands as in the deepest part of my soul I could almost feel its grin, like a long-lost friend. Arms outstretched to welcome me in.
The Sheriff moved, his momentum an inescapable wake, dragging me across brush and weeds, the old trinkets and tires buried beneath; their warning cries to be ignored. Except the glint of something that couldn’t be. As shoes met scuffed concrete paths there was an unnerving feeling that had already begun to creep passed. Something that felt just slightly out of place, something I had forgotten that had unsettled me from the beginning.
There were no more roots wrapped around anything.
What once had instilled an uncomfortable curiosity had now sprouted into a panicked frenzy. The fear spidering up my spine as the thought of the tree roots under the surface stilted my steps. The monster you can’t see, the thing just out of view, the unknown unseen lurking beneath.
Then the grit of stone on my feet.
We were at the porch and its carved stone steps and the quiet ascent to what came next.
A white paneled house wrapped around an ornate door. Dark windows peering into the depths of who I was before, as I lost myself in the knicks and scratches of the hard wood door. I prayed silently to the door and the five square glass slots that fit together like a cross. As Sheriff Pottersfield drew is hand and gripped the brass knob. Tarnished “274” hanging more solemnly than before.
“Don’t you need the key?”
The words escaped my lips reflexively.
His face quiet as his grip paused.
A subtle sway still carrying his legs as he stood tall lingering like the tree.
“If you need the key to open this door then you don’t want to be inside anyway.”
His wrist twisted as the knob clicked.
The door creaked wide. Somehow as if by will alone. The great maw welcoming me home.
The squeal of the hinge and strain of the frame creeped up my back, as my fingers remembered the pain. The house’s mouth still appeared like a regular door, but everything in my body could feel its hidden teeth. Sheriff Pottersfield wandered passed the threshold, shoes kicking through broken glass and scattered plates, just missing the crucifix amongst the mess of things. He didn’t hesitate, nothing could slow is gait as he pushed his way to the doorframe at the end of the room.
And then he stopped.
Stood like a shadow against the wall of decaying floral paper and spiderweb cracks. Like a shadow puppet perched against the wall, he stood as his cold eyes looked.
“It’s just one more door, Daniel. Then you can know for sure.”
His eyes were empty as he leaned, like a tall dead tree, one gust of wind away from crumpling to the floor. Something unspoken seemed to be pushing him to proceed. Just as the basement was pulling at everything inside me to follow him into the deep. The black void of the doorway, the opening into the throat, into the hell I know it surely goes. Where the teeth must be waiting, and hell is a hole in the wall where nightmares are born. Just a dark doorway in an old house, on an old hill under a bitter tree.
And without another word I paced across the kitchen, through the shattered plates and stepped off into that deep dark space.
*
My heart echoed the thump of each step as we wandered into the dark of the abyss. Amber lights overhead, flames leading me like a moth into open jaws. Down the beast’s throat back to the woman at the bottom of the steps. The descent felt darker than before, the lights weaker and frail, simple flickers against the night of the stairs. Concrete steps crunching beneath feet, the sound of ground stones the sound of grinding bones.
Deeper and deeper still we walked down the tongue. Eyes scouring the dark for the door I begged would leave my dreams. Desperate for unplagued sleep without the door and the teeth waiting to meet. I plunged the dark and then a question crawling up from beneath. I had to say it to fill the silence.
“Please, just tell me truth, what is it down in that room?”
And then the silence still.
But so much more than before.
Like all sound had been sucked from the room.
A pit of silence deeper than I had known.
Both our steps had stopped, there wasn’t a breath or a whisper as I peered over my shoulder.
My blood went cold, my soul drained from my legs, fear taking hold.
I was alone.
Stranded in the dark, and then the faint
snapping of bone.
The sound echoed distant down the steps, ripping me round to peer into the depths
“no…”
It started as a muffled crunch,
the scratching of stone.
Another snap.
Almost like bone.
Sickening snaps echoing up the steps.
The clatter of scratches.
Getting faster.
Nails on stone.
Getting louder.
Closer now.
Closer still.
A mass of movement,
skittering from below.
Snapping like twigs.
Hurling up the steps.
The snapping at my feet.
Till in the dim ember light,
A silhouette just below me.
My body trembling as my eyes scoured the dark.
Eyes begging not to see the thing before me.
It was a body on all fours,
limbs bent backwards malformed along a twisted back,
Jude’s head hanging from a broken neck.
The scream erupted through my teeth, my bones tearing at my body, feet scraping at steps beneath, I fell and flailed, as the thing skittered closer.
Nails digging into stone, muscles tearing to get hold.
The arm reaching out as its bones snapped and broke.
Jude’s sunken face a haunted scream
moaning and retching as it neared me.
I clawed elbows into the steps
As its gnarled hand clawed for my chest,
The scream bellowed from within as its nails wrenched at my collar,
Haggard claws grabbing fabric and tearing me closer.
My body flailing, kicking and wailing.
It’s nails digging into my chest.
My mind breaking,
Hell coming to take me.
Moans and screams a cacophony
Death approaching.
“Daniel!”
Then nothing.
Jude was gone, my body aching lying on the steps.
Cold rough stone against my palms,
Nothing of it remained, evaporated into the dark like it was never there.
Except the subtle feel of a few stray roots along the stairs.
Then the silence broke,
the sound of Sheriff Pottersfield running down to meet me.
“You alright!? You went quiet and just took off.”
His tall form blotted out the amber lights as he crouched over me, and gripped my hand.
“Let’s get you up.”
I could feel the cold in his taught hand, but arms like solid stone as he pulled me to my shaking feet.
We were alone with ourselves in the dark. There were no scratches echoing out in the abyss, just us standing along the steps. I was at a loss, my mind failing to make sense.
“Didn’t you hear me screaming? Or see…something, anything strange?”
The words came out in a hazy stream, the memory in flashes.
His eyes stared with concern and confusion, his mind working through the question.
“Nothing strange besides you bolting down the stairs and hearing you hit the steps. You hit your head?”
The words left me still, an ache crawling up my back and across my chest. The face and the sounds still gripping me under my skin. My fingers clenching at my shirt.
Then the hint of something that lives in my dreams.
I could have sworn I had fallen further up the stairs.
But somehow we were standing at the bottom of the steps, the red door lingering in the corner to meet.
Its blood red wood waiting in the dark just a few feet.
The ornate tree calling to me. I
There could be no waiting anymore, I had to see it through.
“Nah, my head’s good. I just think we should go on ahead.”
I nodded hesitantly towards the door.
The slightest worry creeping across his face as I walked passed, not giving a chance for either of us to speak. Everything in me screaming to see what’s inside.
Nerves quickening as my hand pressed against gnarled door, knob and latch broken from the last time I was here. My fingers aching as the door gave way, a long splintering creak filling the space as my feet stepped through.
There were no words, just silence.
My head tilting on the bits of sanity left, swirling memories of dreams of the past, nightmares dragged up from the grave, death that had crawled its way into everything, a room spinning that was just as he said.
The basement was empty.
*
There was nothing but my tumbling head, drifting on shifting shadows, my feet nearly slipping out from under me as I stumbled through echoing corridor. The walls and columns lonely in barren solitude, no branch or twig, not even a root. Only cold callous concrete to accompany the room. What once were columns crowned in roots, were simple supports holding up a heavy roof. The floor scuffed and scratched, but a grand circle it did not have. Nothing but a stain, no etching or hole, this bare coffin all that remains.
Sheriff Pottersfield’s heavy steps slowly meeting mine, his hand a subtle weight on my shoulder.
“If you need a minute, I’ll be outside.”
His words were quiet, understanding, as if he could read the vast void my mind was swimming through. His hand slipping from my shoulder as my mind tried to slip away from everything.
I lowered my head as his steps grew quieter till it was only me that remained in the room.
My eyes floating, the darkness giving nothing. The hell I called a hole was no more if it ever were. What remained, a light web of razor thin cracks that snaked out across pillars and walls, but no holes for roots to crawl out of.
I don’t remember climbing the steps, or stumbling through the porch door, all I recollect are the weeds that brushed against my legs as I ventured the yard and stood at the base beneath the Bitter Tree.
I couldn’t stand to waver there long, just to know that the inscription was gone. There wasn’t a hint of carving or cut against its cruel flesh. It was as pristine as the skin of a monster could be.
I wanted to scream and kick at it, bury my fist and tear out its leaves.
I needed to know,
understand the things I’d seen,
to know what was happening to me.
Anger and confusion welled up inside.
While my eyes caught Sheriff Pottersfield standing quiet, the old well by his side.
I let my grip unfold, left the anger to lie on the ground as my legs carried me across the yard to the well’s mouth. We stood together at the well’s lip, staring into nothing and sometimes into the abyss. Just the wind to howl making conversation with the clouds.
Mourning in our own way at Jude’s true grave.
Till my eyes caught the shaking sadness in his eyes as he peered into the deep. His hands tight in his pockets as he gritted his teeth.
“It was my fault, Daniel. This was because of me.”
The wind was gone as my breathing grew still. His eyes aching deep.
“I thought I could keep him safe, I thought I could hold it at home long enough to protect my men.”
His voice cracking with pain as his words unfurled. My legs gearing to give.
“I told him…I told him not to worry about the dreams.”
A wretched shake running through his words as the air grew tense.
“That it would be okay.”
His eyes shaking with pain.
“I believed that if I locked it away I could take the burden for a bit. Give my men some rest.
But without even asking him I bound my boy with me….me and that godforsaken key!”
It was as if the world had stopped, my heart ceased beating, there was just the fear in his words that tore through me.
“I know I locked that cabinet drawer! He couldn’t have gotten to it!”
A rush of wind as he brought his fist down onto the stone ledge of the well, as he slumped, knees threatening to give.
“Or maybe I just dreamed I did.”
His voice quiet and tired. His head bowing below his chest.
“I had to know I’d doomed him from the moment I brought it home. How could I possibly have thought it wouldn’t find a way? I betrayed his trust. Worst of all he didn’t even know.”
It was all a blur, a thicket of fear and sadness, and so many questions. The words stuttering from my throat. A mix of rage and ache.
“What are you saying?! This is…this is madness what it’s doing to us, we have to stop it!”
A long breath branched out from his mouth as he slowly raised his head, with little strength left.
“We can’t.”
His eyes, cold and broken, a cold that drowned out the fire in my hate as he withdrew his worn hand, reaching out with bone white fingertips.
A folder and the Plymouth key, like a gift held out to me.
“Daniel, you take it all and you run. Forget Bitter Tree and get out of Blackwell, there’s nothing but death in this place and it will take you next. Bitter Tree doesn’t simply let people leave, you have to fight for it.”
For the first time in a long time there was fire mixed with the sadness in his eyes.
“We didn’t find the key on Jude. It will be coming for you.”
Like a shattering glass, there was nothing left. The pieces too scattered to ever fix. I had to go.
I took the file and Jude’s keys, Sheriff Pottersfield hugged me tight as we said goodbye.
*
The walk from the gate to the car, the longest I’d taken since walking Jude down to the basement. The dirt and rocks cracking beneath, this hill was a bone yard for Bitter Tree’s cemetery. Grounds cursed with death, the door slammed as I jumped in. Hand gripping the Plymouth key as I tried to bury the memories. It clicked as the engine shook to life, that familiar shake that made it all okay.
I tried not to look back as the wheels spun and the hill grew smaller. But my eyes caught the rearview and the solemn silhouette of Sheriff Pottersfield, a shadow lingering at the well, haunting his son’s grave. I could feel it in my soul, there’s nothing precious that tree wouldn’t take. At its heart only hate.
The quiet of the car left me to my memories, to life lost and the pain caused. The sadness rooted inside, till pins and needles ran up my spine.
My eyes caught a glimpse, my reflection in the glass, small markings across my chest. I yanked the visor down, eyes scouring the mirror.
Heart rate rising as I saw beads of blood had soaked through fabric just enough, panic creeping as I noticed three short scratch marks ran across the skin. Shallow cuts that ran right up to my breast pocket.
Breathing halted as my blood ran cold, fingers shaking as they felt the feintest weight along the bottom of my pocket fold. A nightmare making as they pulled something cold from the pocket’s hole.
There was no sound that could come out, no scream or pleading, no sense to pray. In my trembling hands a string with a key with the inscription “274 Matthews Lane”.
I don’t remember how I shattered the window glass, but my blood painted the car like it had in the past, and the key was gone, flung far off the road as I hit the gas, threatening the engine to blow.
I drove from that hill, the sound of tires crunching on gravel that felt like the fleeing of footsteps. Running from the hell that threatened to swallow everything whole. And just like everyone else that ever tries to leave Bitter Tree, I didn’t leave quietly. Everything in me screaming, screaming to leave and never look back.
Never look back to see the Bitter Tree in the town of Blackwell, a bitter end down in the blackest Hell. N
I wish I could say I never went back. 6