House of Dead Trees Read online

  He ate until he felt sick, then drank some more water. When at last he was refreshed and felt ready to move on, he sloshed out onto the rocky bank and went to fetch his clothing.

  Tanka frowned, then cast his gaze about.

  His clothing was gone.

  He walked quickly up and down the bank, thinking he’d forgotten where he placed them, but no, his breechclout and leggings were gone, and so were his moccasins. He cursed under his breath, naked and shivering.

  Had someone taken them? He didn’t think anyone could have crept close enough to steal his clothes while he was bathing in the stream. He was certain he would have heard them.

  An animal, perhaps?

  He supposed it was possible. He’d known raccoons to steal clothing. Large birds sometimes, too.

  “What does it matter who or what stole them?” he grumbled quietly to himself. “I am naked and alone and in a strange land. What am I going to do now?”

  Tears of frustration came to his eyes. Had he thought his luck was changing? Ha! That was a fine jest!

  Tanka shook his fist at the dark forest that surrounded him, distraught.

  “I curse you!” he exploded. “Do you hear? I curse you!”

  He heard Anatissa’s dying words in his mind then: May your spirit have no rest, Tanka, in this world or the afterlife.

  I am the one who is cursed! Tanka despaired, falling to his knees by the stream. Not this forest. Not the man or beast who stole my clothing. I, Tanka, am cursed!

  5

  As night approached, Tanka traveled as quickly as he could, but his body was growing more exhausted with every step. Twice, his legs rebelled, and he was forced to sit and massage the cramps that had locked up his thigh muscles in quivering agony. He knew that he was very near his limits, and with each passing moment, his anxiety mounted.

  Why had he not found the Onemara? That was the question that gnawed at him now. He should have come across the forest people already. Stumbled across a hunting party, or spied their women gathering berries on a hillside.

  Had they all gone? Perhaps they had abandoned this preternaturally silent woodland. Moved on to more hospitable climes.

  Tanka’s people did not wander the land as most of the tribes in the region did, but the Onemara had not traded with his people in several seasons. They might very well have migrated to another region. Considering the lack of animal life in the forest, they may have overhunted their territory and been forced to move to another site, one that hosted a more abundant population of food prey. They might even have been conquered by a neighboring tribe, or succumbed to some virulent illness. Who could say? He only knew that he could not survive on his own. No man could, not for long. He had gambled his life on the chance that the Onemara still lived here in this forest, that they would be willing to take him in.

  It was beginning to look like that was another bet he was destined to lose.

  His bad luck again! Always the same bad luck!

  Tanka crested yet another piney ridge, trying to quash the hope that he would see the village of the Onemara down in the valley on the other side. Again, he was disappointed. Only more silent, rugged hills, more swaying trees. An endless parade of them, stretching to the jagged horizon.

  I will have to find some place to sleep for the night, he told himself, squinting up at the sky. The day is failing quickly.

  Tanka fell back with a cry then.

  A man was grinning at him from the foliage of a nearby tree.

  Tanka scrambled around for something to defend himself with, a sturdy branch or a large stone. He saw a rock about the size of his fist and bent to scoop it up, then returned his attention to the man grinning at him in the tree, his heart thundering in his chest.

  The man in the tree did not move. His arms were spread out like a bird in flight, his eyes deep pools of shadow in the fading daylight.

  Tanka squinted, leaned forward. He lowered his arm with a sigh.

  It was a dead man.

  The Onemara, he remembered, were known to practice sky burial. This was one of their dead. He should have spotted the figure sooner, only it was close to dark, and he had, in his exhaustion, been staring at the ground beneath his feet, only looking up when he rounded a hill to see if the village of the Dreaming People lay on the other side.

  His people buried their dead in the earth, in large communal mounds at the edge of their settlement. They did not hang their dead in the trees. Curious, Tanka examined the corpse closer.

  The body hanging above him was desiccated, he saw, its flesh withered to its bones. More like jerky than human skin. Its long black hair was half fallen out, tangled, its eyes hollow sockets.

  The arms of the dead Onemara had been lashed to the tree branches with cords, bound around the wrists and again around the elbows, but more importantly, the dead brave in the tree was clothed… and Tanka was in dire need of clothing.

  The dead Onemara had been buried in his most ornate ceremonial attire, but time and the elements had robbed his garments of any glamour they might once have possessed. Only the beading still retained its bright turquoise hues. The rest was sun-bleached and filthy.

  Ordinarily, Tanka would never have considered robbing a corpse of its belongings, but he was desperate. Cold, naked, and desperate.

  Scowling with distaste, Tanka set about the task of retrieving the corpse from the tree.

  6

  The dead warrior was dressed in what must once have been fine, meticulously crafted garments: boots and fringed leggings, a bone-plated vest and ceremonial beaded breechclout. The corpse was also clad in an outer jacket and a thick woven shawl. He had obviously been a man of high status among his people to be buried in such magnificent attire, Tanka thought. A renowned warrior, maybe even a chieftain.

  It seemed terribly disrespectful to cut the body down from its burial place, but Tanka felt he had no choice. He couldn’t run through the forest naked. He would die of exposure.

  Tanka found a sharp-edged stone and climbed into the tree. He swiped at his face as he shimmied through the branches, brushing away errant leaves and spider webs. He couldn’t see the webs, but he could feel the diaphanous threads tickling his cheeks and mouth, clinging to his hair. He waved his arms out in front of him to clear his path, then continued to climb.

  He leaned out toward the suspended Onemara and began to saw through the cords binding the dead man, his body swaying up and down as he clung to the branch with one arm.

  Beads of sweat trickled into his eyes. He paused to wipe his face and almost fell from his perch. He tightened his grip with a yelp, his heart jumping up in his throat. If he fell, he was sure to break a bone. It had been many, many moons since last he was a boy. As old as he was now, he would shatter on the ground like old pottery if he fell from such a height.

  Fortunately, it did not take long to saw through the ropes. They were old, and parted easily beneath the cutting edge of his makeshift knife.

  Tanka scowled as the corpse dropped rudely to the ground, hissing and snapping through the branches below. It landed with a brittle thump, and probably would have come apart if not for the sinew binding its bones together. A few leaves spiraled down behind it, coming to rest on the desecrated warrior.

  Tanka was relieved to find that the smell of death in the leather garments was faint-- easily tolerated. The esteemed brave had been hanging in the tree many seasons. Long enough for time and the elements to cure the man’s flesh. Though he was apprehensive stealing the clothing of a dead man, Tanka reminded himself that he did not believe in curses or spirits. Still, just to be safe, he prayed aloud to the soul of the brave as he wriggled into the dead man’s attire.

  “I beg you, proud warrior, forgive this disrespect,” he called out to the purpling sky. “Know that I do this only of necessity. And know that I thank you for the gift of your clothing.”

  He made doubly sure he did not evoke the ire of the departed chieftain by chanting his people’s Song of Mourning for the Dead. He fe
lt like a hypocrite doing it, but it was better to roll over a stone with a stick than tempt the fates with your hand and be struck by a snake. He did not want his first experience with the supernatural to be an encounter with a vengeful ghost if he was wrong and such things did exist.

  The clothes were stiff and tight, but he felt much better with his nakedness concealed. He swept the shawl around his chest and shoulders, smiling at yet another unlikely reversal in his fortunes, relishing the warmth of his new clothing.

  He scowled at the corpse crumpled at his feet, disturbed by its wretched nudity, its insensate rictus. It grimaced without thought into the darkening sky, pitiful and grotesque.

  Is this to be my destiny, as well? he wondered. Grinning mindlessly at the sky in this terrible, silent forest, my eyes plucked out by birds, my flesh turned to leather-- or worse, devoured by wild beasts?

  He started to press on, then hesitated. Glancing up at the first stars in the east, he spoke quietly. “Once again, I must ask you to indulge me in my desperation, honorable warrior, but I cannot return your body to the sky. It is growing dark, and I am tired. And I have no rope to retie you to your resting place.”

  The trees swayed and creaked as if to acknowledge his words, and Tanka felt better. He moved on without looking back at the dead brave, searching as he trudged forward for a safe place to sleep for the night.

  7

  Dark had already come to the valleys. Soon night would engulf even the highest reaches of the endless marching hills. Tanka searched for a cave or a natural lean-to as the last shimmering coals of the day guttered and faded from the horizon.

  He was growing more and more frustrated by his lack of success. Finally, the exiled brave admitted defeat. He would find no shelter this night. He would have to sleep on the ground or try to rest in the boughs of one of the trees.

  The thought of sleeping on the ground without a fire made him nervous, but the idea of sleeping in the trees was not much more appealing.

  The trees in this forest frightened him, though he could not say exactly why. Perhaps it was the way they moved, even when there did not seem to be any wind. He was even beginning to think the forest itself had stolen his clothes earlier … but that was a foolish idea, he berated himself. You tremble like a child, afraid of monsters in the dark!

  He spied a large oak that had several closely spaced boughs and shimmied clumsily up the side, trying not to think that it was like climbing the scaly leg of a giant reptile, instead of the trunk of a tree.

  His muscles cried out fiercely as he ascended, threatening to rebel again, but he pressed his lips together and persevered.

  Among the rustling leaves, he tried to find a comfortable position to sleep in. He wedged his body against the trunk of the tree and leaned his shoulder and head against the rough bark. His exhausted limbs tingled and throbbed. His clothes smelled faintly of death. Tanka sighed and watched the last light of day vanish in the west.

  His eyelids seemed to have heavy stones attached to them. He couldn’t keep them open. Didn’t want to.

  8

  He awoke in the deepest nadir of the night, startled from his dreams by a crashing in the forest. It was a sound like the wind swirling forcefully through the treetops: the brittle snapping of tree limbs, the whoosh of storm-tossed foliage. Heart knocking in his breast, Tanka peered through the greenery.

  The moon had arisen, a mocking grin in the sky. By its light he could see out across the undulating forest; he could see, in the distance, the crowded treetops swaying violently in the wind.

  He heard the creaking of those distant trees as they tossed back and forth, a deep and reverberating groan, as of a living creature. The sound made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  The wind, he counseled himself, hoping to sooth his jangling nerves. Just the wind!

  As he watched, more of the trees in the valley below began to shiver.

  The perturbation passed through the treetops in a straight line. He watched its passage with dread fascination. It looked like a great invisible beast was running through the forest. The line moved south, then paused for a moment, as if searching for something. It doubled back, hesitated once more…

  And then it headed straight for him.

  Fear jolted through Tanka as the line of tossing trees rushed directly toward him. He froze, clinging to the tree limb beneath him, as the roar of its motion grew louder and louder.

  Muoie, I come! he thought, though he and his woman had only bickered when she was alive.

  The crashing grew louder and louder until it seemed to Tanka that the whole forest was surely being rent asunder, trees ripped from the earth, roots and all, great boughs shattered like kindling.

  He screamed… and heard his voice resound in a sudden, shocking silence.

  He choked off the cry. Clung very quietly to the branch beneath him, listening.

  He could feel the forest listening back.

  I am being watched, he thought, and he felt fear-sweat, hot and oily, trickling down his temples.

  Silent. Waiting. Watching.

  What are you? he thought.

  The sensation of being observed faded slowly from his awareness. Whatever the invisible entity was, it seemed to have withdrawn. Spared him.

  But to what purpose?

  Tanka forced his muscles to relax. Relieved, tears sprang to his eyes, stinging. He swiped his eyes with an angry jerk, then worked his way back to the spot where he’d previously been resting.

  This land is cursed, he said to himself. Tomorrow, I will go back the way I came.

  The Fearless Ghost Hunters

  "You know," he went on almost under his breath, "every man who thinks for himself and feels vividly finds he lives in a world of his own, apart, and believes that one day he'll come across, either in a book or in a person, the Priest who shall make it clear to him."

  --Algernon Blackwood

  Allen

  1

  Allen Mandel cursed as he sliced the ball and watched it arc across the greens, its descending trajectory angled straight at the water hazard on hole eight of Diamond Lake golf course.

  “God DAMN it!” he cried, and his golfing partner, Jim Dagstine, chortled.

  Allen squeezed the grip of his driver, trying to quash the image that flashed suddenly in his mind: him, wrapping his golf club around his buddy’s skull.

  His ball went into the little pond with a distant ker-plunk! and then he felt the tension drain out of him, and he couldn’t help but chuckle, too.

  Fucking whore! Fuck-shit!

  “I hope you piss straighter than you golf, my friend, or I feel sorry for your housekeeper,” Jim said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Naw,” Allen said with a sheepish grin. “My aim in the bathroom’s just as terrible.”

  “That’s nasty, dude. I wouldn’t have admitted that,” Jim laughed. Allen stepped out of the way, and Jim squatted to place his tee. “So what’s up? You’ve been golfing like shit the past three weeks.”

  As Jim bent to place his ball on the tee, Allen wondered if his buddy knew just how fat his ass looked in that particular position. Jim was dressed in one-hundred-dollar-a-pair, green and yellow argyle golf pants, and the breadth of his derriere was really quite remarkable. Jim Dagstine had a peculiar pear-shaped body, normal-sized everywhere but through the hips. Allen considered mentioning it to his friend—a little jab for all the enjoyment his buddy had derived from Allen’s terrible showing so far today—but he held his tongue.

  Save that little chestnut for later.

  “You having problems with the old lady again?” Jim asked as he stood upright and squinted across the fairway. He shaded his eyes with his gloved hand, lips pulled back from his teeth.

  The chrome-bright July sun glimmered on the surface of the water hazard, the ripples made by Allen’s golf ball still oscillating outwards from where it had plunked into the drink.

  “Trouble? No. There’s no trouble,” Allen said. “I wish there was tr
ouble. That would be better than what she’s been doing.”

  Jim glanced at Allen sympathetically. They’d been friends for five years, from the very day Allen had moved in next door to him. Jim had come out to offer them a hand with the moving, which in Dagstinese basically meant “You mind if I stand around and watch you do all the heavy lifting?” Afterwards, the two had shared a few beers in Allen’s garage, piddling around with one of Allen’s cars like a couple of bored teenagers. Talking about sports, sex, their jobs, their wives. They didn’t have much in common apart from sharing a demented sense of humor. Jim was a proctologist, and Allen… well, Allen was a famous television personality, star of the cable reality program Ghost Scouts. But they got along well enough.

  Hell, better than well enough. Sometimes men just click, and they had formed a near-instant bond. Allen’s wife joked that it was probably a scent thing. “You know, like how dogs will sniff each other’s butts,” she said.

  Allen assured his wife that he had not, nor did he ever intend to sniff Jim Dagstine’s enormous ass, but Sharon was right, sort of. They’d bonded on a primal level. They’d even been known to admit they were best friends from time to time, but only after they’d drunk enough beer to get maudlin.

  “She giving you the old silent treatment, huh?” Jim asked.

  “It’s more than that,” Allen said while Jim slid a club from his golf bag. “It’s like she’s shut herself down. Or shut me out. When she looks at me, it’s like she’s looking right through me, like I’m not even there. It makes me feel like Bruce Willis in that movie… You know the one.”

  “Die Hard?”

  “No.”

  “Beverly Hills Cop?”

  “Jesus Christ! Bruce Willis wasn’t even in Beverly Hills Cop!”

  “Oh.”

  “Buy a fucking vowel, dude!” Allen snapped his finger. “The Sixth Sense! You know, the one with that weird kid in it. ‘I see dead people.’”