Long Dead Lovers (Part Two)

Content Advisory: contains scenes that some people may find disturbing. The start of this story was posted on 2/4/2011.

Something moved to the right of her, catching her eye, and she spun around. In front of her, something on one of the tree trunks seemed to be moving, fluid flowing down its length. Her eyes narrowed. Was sap pouring out of it?

Natalie frowned and craned her neck forward. The bark looked as if it was rippling and moving down the tree-trunk; the grain flowing like water. Then the whole body of the tree-trunk undulated like the body of a snake and Natalie jumped back, her eyes wide, her hand at her mouth.

It must have been a trick of the light. She rubbed her eyes, almost comically, and peered into the shadows of the trees once again. This time, there was no mistake. The tree had moved position, the trunk slanting slightly differently, leaning to the left instead of the right. A branch that hadn’t been there before, now stretched out towards her.

It wasn’t possible. She was imagining these things happening, but why? Why did she think she could hear them call her name? Was this some kind of stress reaction—a delayed reaction to her boyfriend’s death?

Mark had disappeared, just abandoned his car and vanished into thin air. Though the police had mounted an investigation, no trace of him had ever been found and the case remained open. No one had ever figured out what had happened to him and it haunted her every day.

That was almost the worst part, the not knowing. It was something she had turned over and over in her head, searching her memory for any possible sign of depression or him being in trouble—anything. Yet they had started that day like any other; a kiss goodbye at the front door, with promises to see each other that evening.

His car had been found in woods, not unlike the one’s she walked through now.

Natalie tore herself from the memories, not liking the connection she had made with the place Mark disappeared and the one she was in now. Was that the reason for the things she was seeing? Had her subconscious dragged these memories from her and dumped her into mental crisis?

Natalie…

The whispering voice came again, calling her into the depths of the woods. She hadn’t imagined it this time, she was sure. She peered into the bushes. Her heart caught in her chest, her eyes filled with tears of fear, the world trembling.

The trees moved towards her, slowly and silently, like ghosts, seemingly unencumbered by the roots that should have tethered them to them ground.

She gasped and spun round, intending to run back the way she came, but the pathway was no longer there. Blocking her way, the silhouettes of skeletal trees stretched ahead, their forms like a street gang, aggressive and imposing.

“What the hell…”

Her mind swam with disbelief and she swayed, thinking for a moment she would pass out.

Then one of the branches stretched out towards her and rough twigs scraped against her face. She froze, her breath held, her body still. Again the image of skeletal fingers touching her cheek flashed through her head and it was enough to break her rigidity.

With a cry, she spun back around, but before her was an expanse of naked, winter trunks and branches. She was surrounded.

Oh, God. This wasn’t possible. Things just didn’t move like this. She must have wandered off the path and not realized it. Except she knew she hadn’t. Maybe she had already got home and now she was asleep in her bed, dreaming this terrifying thing. The walk home had been scary. It was only normal the result might be a nightmare.

A bark escaped her throat, its sound like the eerie cry of a fox in the empty night. Knowing she had no other choice, she took a deep breath and plunged into the woods, heading, she prayed, in the direction of the road.   

Natalie ran, pushing through the trees and bushes. Branches whipped back at her, wickedly thin, lashing against her skin.

She had no idea if she was heading in the right direction; she only wanted to be out of this situation. The trees loomed over and around her, imposing and claustrophobic. They were like giants surrounding her, blocking her way, leering over her as she ran.

Naked braches reached out like hands, grabbing her clothes and hands and feet. It was as if they moved with deliberation, snatching at her as she flew through their grasp. Her feet pounded against the rough ground, her breath gasping in and out of her lungs, the sound filling her head.

Branches tore at her skin. A sharp twig ripped her cheek open, just below her eye, and pain stung her, making her wince. Another branch caught her forehead and blood trickled down into her eye. Still running, she frantically wiped it away with the back of her hand, the red blood appearing black in the dark.

Panic was at her back now, pushing her along in a blind rush of adrenaline. How could she still be running through the woods? She should have burst out by now; either by the road, or by the train track. That she was still running through the trees was impossible. All of this was impossible.

 Her foot caught on a fallen log, and she catapulted over the top, landing in a heap on the other side. Sharp twigs stabbed into the palms of her hands as she tried to break her fall and her teeth snapped together. Pain speared up her ankle and she cried out again.

She was deep within the thicket now, bushes and tree trunks all around her. She felt dwarfed within it as, crying, she pushed herself to her feet, trying to ignore the pain stabbing up from her ankle.

Suddenly, from the undergrowth, a root lashed out at her, wrapping itself around her wrist. Natalie screamed in surprise and tried to pull her hand away, but the root—cold and slick against her skin—held on fast. The root tightened its hold and retracted, dragging her back to the ground. Pulled off balance, Natalie stumbled and sprawled on her back, a mewl of terror escaping her throat.

She stared at her wrist in horror, unable to take in what was actually happening. Before she could react, another root licked up from the ground, lassoing her ankle, pinning her foot to the ground. Natalie screamed. All around her roots and young branches slithered through fallen leaves and mud, so the ground moved as if covered in a living carpet of worms, bugs and snakes.

Another root lashed at her left wrist, wrapping tightly around it and pinning her other arm to the ground. Flat on her back now, both arms and legs spread wide, she could have been on some kind of medieval torture board. Things moved and rippled all around, beneath her body and beside her face, crawling and snaking beside her. Above her head, the branches of the trees leered down, giants watching over the torture of a rodent.

Natalie screamed again and fought against the bonds, but her struggles only served to strap her down tighter. A fourth root, or branch, she couldn’t tell, leashed her other ankle.

“Help!” she screamed. “Somebody, please, help me!”

But all she heard was the rustle and creak of the branches, leaves and roots around her. How, with the strange acoustics, they sounded exactly like they were whispering her name…

Natalie.

She opened her mouth to scream again, but a root slithered out of the undergrowth and plugged her mouth, sliding down the back of her throat. Her reflexes reacted, and she gagged against it, but it made no difference to its downward journey. Now her screams were muffled, their sound muted against the thick rope of vegetation. Terrified, she thrashed her head back and forth, but nothing could dislodge the thing now prizing her jaws open and blocking her throat.

She shouldn’t be able to breathe, but somehow she could still inhale and exhale, despite the blockage. Her body just reacted; she wasn’t able to give anything any length of thought. Terror and disbelief filled all of her mind, certain she was trapped in some horrifying nightmare she was surely going to wake from.

Another root crept up her trouser leg, against the inside of her thigh, cold and slimy, like the rotten touch of a corpse. Her struggles increased with renewed force, knowing exactly where the vegetation was heading. Her screams were mere whimpers against the thick rope of root already jammed down her throat, snaking its way down to her stomach.

The other root slipped inside her panties and forced its way between her most intimate folds, penetrating her.

Inside her head, Natalie screamed.

The roots were deep inside her now, one reaching down, the other up, connecting her with the earth. She was still pinned down, still conscious and aware of everything happening to her, but her mind blurred with disbelief.

Beside and beneath her, grains of earth separated, making way for her form as if she was sinking into quicksand. Instead of pulling her limbs outwards, like being on the rack, the root around her ankles and wrists started to pull her down, dragging her into the earth.

They pulled her beneath ground, soil filling her nose, blocking her airways. She couldn’t breathe yet she was still conscious, still aware of everything. Her desire to take great, gulping breaths vanished, as if her pores were absorbing the oxygen now and she had no need.

Within her, the roots continued to spread. They crept and divided, throughout her internal organs and veins, into her bones, like a cancer eating away at her.

Externally, she was being stretched outwards, her limbs lengthening and elongated. Excruciating pain wracked through her, but she could no longer voice her agonies. Her fingers grew and lengthened, each knuckle becoming a nodule, the finger branching from the node. Her torso thickened. Legs and toes protruded, lengthening and spreading, seeking their way through the earth.

Then, to her surprise, she found herself pushing her way back up through the dirt, head first. She broke through crusts of earth, soil falling around her. The roots penetrating her were now a part of her, no longer an intrusion. She continued to push up, her strangely elongated arms reaching towards the moon, which still hung low in the night’s sky. The damp scent of autumn filled the air and the biting cold was such a relief she wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. She was escaping, breaking free from whatever terror had griped her.

Yet somehow, her perspective was wrong. She was too high. The pathway snaked far below her now, a mere strip, its emptiness lit by the orange glow of the streetlamps.

The branches of the trees that had threatened her now grew around her like old companions. Growing up through them, she became skeletal, her own fingers now elongated and malformed, her knuckles and joints the protrusions of the branches.

A tree grew opposite, across the other side of the pathway. Something about it jolted recognition inside her. There was something in the shading of the bark, in the pits and knots of the wood. She saw the knots as eyes and recognized the imploring death in them.

Mark?

She saw the man she had once loved, and there was no doubt in her mind that his soul was somehow trapped within this stilted and rigid form.

Natalie reached towards him, desperately, and he reached back. What were once her fingers clawed their way towards him, grabbing hold. His fingers felt like bones in her grasp, like hard, jointed twigs. She clasped hold of them, seeking solace in their gnarled touch. She tried to pull herself into his arms, but she was rooted to the ground.

Above the pathway they locked hands together, two trees with branches clasped together, creating a canopy which, in summer, would create a dappled shade for passers-by to stroll beneath.

But in the dead of winter the interlocking twigs would remind people of bones, like the clutching hands of long dead lovers.

~*~

Marissa Farrar

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Copyright © 2011 Marissa Farrar. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

If you would like to catch up on any of our posts or get a preview of the rest of this month's stories, you can purchase the eBook, Digital Digest, Volume 1, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for only $0.99!

Long Dead Lovers (Part One)

Content Advisory: Contains scenes of suspense.

The train reached the station, stopping with a jolt.

Natalie looked up from her book. ‘Lewisham’, the platform sign read. Damn, it was her stop! Quickly, she leapt to her feet and rushed down the carriage to the doors. She pressed the button to open them and jumped from the train and onto the platform.

 Behind her, the doors hissed shut and the train thrummed back to life, pulling away from the station. The platform was deserted. No one else had left the train and the isolation felt oppressive, despite being on the outskirts of London.

 Natalie stuffed her paperback into her bag and stepped off the train platform. She made her way through the wrought iron gates leading to the road. Above her, the moon hung low, fat and white in the night sky, diluting the light from the streetlamps.

Across the road, a solitary car’s headlights cut through the night, heading towards her. The asphalt shimmered and shivered in the cold light. Natalie paused at the side of the road, waiting for the vehicle to pass, and then half-jogged to the other side of the street.

It was late and she had only just caught the last train from London’s Canary Wharf where she worked. Some guys in the bar that night had simply not wanted to go home. Even after she’d called last orders and started pulling down the shutters, they still hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to leave. It was Monday night, so there hadn’t been any doormen on, and the rest of the bar staff had already gone home. She’d thought a call to the cops was going to be needed, but finally the men got the message and drank up.

Now all she wanted to do was crawl into the warm comfort of her bed. Though she knew taking shortcuts at this time of night wasn’t a good idea, she couldn’t resist the temptation of getting home quicker. A path running alongside the train track diverted her from the necessity of walking the much longer route through town. Despite the dangers of walking down a deserted pathway at night, it would cut a good fifteen minutes off her walk home. She fought with herself for a moment, her common sense trying to overrule her body’s desires, but in the end her body won out.

She ducked down the narrow pathway, away from the road and towards the train track. A six-foot chain-link fence divided the rails from the path, acting as a deterrent to any mindless teenagers who decided playing chicken with the trains was a good form of entertainment.

Gradually, the path took her away from the train tracks and deeper into the small patch of woodland. Either side of the footpath, skeletal trees clawed their way up towards the huge moon. The bitter November night kissed her cheeks and she buried herself deeper into the folds of her coat.

She stared down at her feet as she walked, counting her steps as though she were in a marching band: One...Two...One…Two… The walk was hypnotic, lulling her into a place where time had no meaning and the rest of the world existed in a separate dimension.

Around her, the wind moved through the branches of the trees, in such a way it were as though the trees themselves were whispering her name.

Natalie…

Her walk slowed, her eyebrows knitting together. How strange that the acoustics could be so perfect. She shivered again and pulled the coat closer. She was grateful for the streetlight above her head; if this path had been unlit, she would never have dreamt of walking this way.

Then she heard it again, the gentle whisper of her name.

The walk slowed to a stop and she peered into the trees. Was someone in there? Someone calling to her? Sharp tears of fear pricked the backs of her eyes and her heart thumped, quickening its beat.

It was impossible to believe that not only was someone hiding in the trees, but they also just happened to know her, and know her name. Natalie believed in coincidences, but not that much. She had a healthy dose of skepticism. Whatever the sound was, she was sure it hadn’t been a person calling to her. The hour was late and darkness surrounded her, the perfect scenario for her imagination to run away with itself. She just needed to keep walking. Another ten minutes and she would pop out the other side of the narrow pathway, on the other side of town.

She would be grateful to see the bright lights of the couple of takeaways and the cheap off-license-come grocery store opposite the exit. This was London. Even at this time of night, the shops would still be open, catering for the nightclub trade.

She kept walking, picking up her pace. Above her head, the branches of the trees came together, creating a canopy, a tunnel of sharp twigs and stilted branches. In the summer, this would be a walk of luscious vegetation, cool shade from the sun. In the depths of a bitter autumn, it was like being enclosed beneath the clasped hands of long-dead lovers.

Natalie…

Again came the sound of someone whispering her name. Adrenaline speared through her, clutching at her heart, stealing her breath from her lungs. Above her head, the branches rustled and clicked together like bones.

Her heart thumped audibly and her hands balled into fists, her nails digging painfully into the palms of her hands. Something wasn’t right here and it wasn’t just the feeling of being spooked. It was the certain sensation of being watched, of feeling eyes upon her, and not just one set, but surrounding her.

The trees rustled, each naked branch creaking against the other like the wooden bow of a boat on the ocean. They sounded as if they were talking to each other in hushed whispers, passing a secret from one to the next.

What the hell had she been thinking, coming this way? She knew there was the possibility of danger, of a madman leaping from the trees and abducting and raping her, yet all it had taken was that split second decision. She ignored the sensible part of her, just so she could save a fifteen minute walk. Should she turn back? Go back the way she came and then walk through town? The entrance to the path and woodland was still closer than the exit.

Yet somehow she didn’t want to turn back, as if giving into this irrational fear would make it more real. She was scared that if she turned to run, panic would take hold and she would lose her rational self. Better to just keep walking, keep her head down, and pretend she didn’t feel something inextricably wrong around her. Pretend she didn’t hear the trees whispering her name or feel their branches hug tighter above her head, as if trying to embrace her.

As she continued to walk, dried leaves of russet browns and yellows crunched beneath foot like broken glass. The cold burnt the insides of her nostrils, the chill of the night reducing the scent of industrial smell of the rail track.

She was grateful for the soft orange glow of the streetlight. Without its light, the path would be in almost pitch black. Natalie could still see the white of the moon peeping through the silhouetted branches of the trees. It looked like the moon of a science fiction movie, one where the moon was too close to the earth, an impending doom.

Natalie kept her head down, her neck and ears tucked down low within the collar of her coat. The branches rustled and creaked above her. She glanced up. Were they lower than before? Surely they had tightened around her, knitting together? Between the branches, less of the moon was visible now and the ground seemed darker than before, the shadows thicker.

She should call someone; just let someone else know where she was. She wanted to hear the sound of another person’s voice—one that wasn’t whispering her name.

Her handbag, bumped against her hip. Her flat-mates would both be in bed. They worked regular nine-to-fives and they wouldn’t be happy about being woken up, but it would be worth their wrath to connect with another human being and have them tell her how ridiculous she was being.

Natalie paused on the pathway as she pulled open the flap on her satchel-style bag. Her breathing sounded heavy and labored—as if she had been running—and it only made her more aware of her isolation and how close panic was. She could feel it creeping upon her, like the sensation she was not alone in a room, like fingers trailing lightly down the nape of her neck.

She scrabbled around, pushing aside the paperback she had been reading, her fingers feeling for the cool, slim plastic of her phone.

Damn, where the hell was it?

 Natalie pulled open the couple of small front pockets of the bag, designed for keeping things like her phone in, but, except for some old receipts and a bit of change, they were empty.

“Shit!”

Now she saw her phone, but only in her mind. The mobile sat on the back of the bar, beside the till. After all the commotion at the bar, she had been in such a rush to get the last train she had completely forgotten to pick it up.

Sharp crack of twigs made her jump and she started around.

“Who’s there?” she called out, her voice horribly loud in the still, cold night.

Natalie…

“Stop it! Whoever you are, this isn’t funny.”

She listened again, her ears straining. Surely she wasn’t imagining this? Surely this wasn’t just acoustics and her over-active imagination playing tricks on her?

Would her flat-mates even notice if she didn’t come home? Would they just think she’d gone out in the city after work, or maybe stayed at a friend’s house? If she’d left her bedroom door shut, they might not even realize she wasn’t in her bed. They all kept such different hours, it could even be a couple of days before they finally realized they hadn’t seen her.

Suddenly, the feeling of loneliness swept over her, weighing her down. How awful not to be missed. At the age of twenty-eight, Natalie thought she would have been settled with a husband, maybe even considering children. Instead, she was alone. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away, furious with herself. She told herself she wasn’t going to cry over him anymore. The man who had left her.

Natalie pushed the memory away. It had been a year now, but every time she believed herself to be over it, or at least healing, the pain was back with renewed force, stabbing her in a way that left her breathless and stunned.

The wind moved the branches above her head, whispering and creaking around her. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought they had a life of their own.

~*~

Long Dead Lovers will conclude on Monday, 11th July.

Marissa Farrar

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If you would like to catch up on any of our posts or get a preview of the rest of this month's stories, you can purchase the eBook, Digital Digest, Volume 1, from Amazon and Barnes & Noble for only $0.99!


Copyright © 2011 Marissa Farrar. 


All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.