Tree's Revenge

A.N:   The Editing Competition inspired me to dig out the first work that I ever posted on YWS ( The Better Path ).  I'm still not too proud of it, but maybe in another couple years I'll try fixing it up again!  I really didn't give myself much to work with.

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A/N #2: I posted this work was written a LONG time ago. I have written much better works since then, which your time would be better spent on. Please don't review this work- I appreciate you wanting to help out but I have moved onto better things! But I'm leaving this work up because I don't want the reviews to die with it. -Holysocks Sept. 2016

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“Crap!” Eric cursed, noticing he had stepped into a puddle. The murky water splashed onto his jeans as he quick-stepped it to the side.

“Way to go,” Landon said blandly, dodging the mess Eric had left behind.

Eric thought that the two of them should talk, but he couldn't think of what to say. After all, it had been his fault that they weren't at school on time for exams yesterday.

He'd been obsessing about the improved version of The Last of Us, and the two of them had decided to go to the early release the night before their exams. They hadn't got home until 3:00 am, and they'd stayed up the rest of the night playing the bloody game. As a result, Landon had slept through more than half of his exam time, and he barely answered the majority of the questions, most of which he probably got wrong. Eric had just been incapable of concentrating for any long period of time.

Frustrated, Eric stepped off the road into the ditch where he came face-to-face with a well displayed poplar tree. Leaning on the trunk, he dug in his baggy pant's pocket, and pulled out a well used Swiss Army knife.

Landon watched as his friend carved a frowny-face onto the horrified tree's body. After that, the two boys stayed silent, each one abandoned in their own damp imagination. The clouds over head disapproved of this and began drowning the little town slowly, enjoying every drop of clear black liquid that hit the dust of Rabbit Heel Valley.

The boys eventually began trudging, with heads hung, through the mushy road.

“Hey Landon,” Eric shouted over the heavy spray of heart drenching rain. “Let's go there today,” he pointed off to the side where a miserable path wound warily down and in between thick trunks of firmly grounded, green giants. “Maybe it won't be as wet.” 

As these trees bent their ear to eavesdrop on passing travellers, the path looked more as if it would bury it's face into an ocean of pillows and sob the whole night through.

That didn't seem very dry to Landon, but Eric turned to the path and started down it. His blue jeans and splash jacket were half soaked and looked as though someone had thrown a particularly moist mud ball at them.

“Wait!” Landon yelled, hesitant to follow his friend. “That trail goes past Innet's house, doesn’t it?”

Eric spun around to face Landon. “Yeah, so, what's the deal?” Eric's voice was nonchalant as he said this, shoulders slumped and eyes glazed, then he spoke again. “You're not afraid of her, are you?” He sounded more concerned than mocking, but it made Landon's body go stiff.

“No,” Landon said, rolling his eyes, “she's just weird is all, and... wait, are you?” Landon asked Eric, who had been looking thoughtfully at the path ahead of them.

“Hmm?” He glanced up at Landon. “Oh, of course not! Can you hear your own voice? Like seriously, Lan, you're crazy.” He turned away and continued down the path.

Landon wasn't that stubborn, so he found himself chasing after Eric. “Wait up!” He whispered as he caught up to Eric. “This place gets eerie when it rains.”

“So you are scared of her,” Eric's eyebrows raised as he said this.

"No, no, I'm not afraid of the chic...  She's creepy, alright! And you're telling me that you don't wonder about the rumours?”

“Wow Lan, really? You're basing your opinion on her off of gossip and rumours? She's not creepy, she's hot.”

“What...?”, Landon tried to contain his surprise, “You're dragging me down here because you've got a crush, on the weird chick no less! Remember she tried to curse Mrs. Carson just last year? Do you really want that kind of relationship?”, Then Landon sighed. “You don't really like her, right bro?”, He was staring directly at Eric, who was still slowly making his way down the path.

“No, I don't think so,” Eric grumbled.

“So why are we here?”, Landon whined.

“Because, its dryer.”

“But look, the rain's almost stopped completely.”, He revealed his palm to the sky. “See, practically dry.”

“Yes, but we're nearly there.”, Eric reported.

“Nearly where...?”, Landon's question sat motionless in the cold air, almost as if it had froze.

“What do you mean, nearly where?”, Eric looked up to see that they were in a dark field surrounded by thick, wispy, fog.

“Eric?,” Landon said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Where are we?... Where the hell did all this fog come from? How did we get here?...”

Not far away a shrill scream broke the silence of the blackened eve. Though just as soon as the silence left, it had returned with an even fiercer chill about it.

Landon felt his spine go cold as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. “What was that?”, he managed out.

“I don't know bu- did you see that?”, the words barely squeezed through Eric's teeth. He was looking off past the tree line, eyes wide.

“No,” said Landon, “What was it?”, he asked in a suppressed voice.

“It was...a, it was kind of like a...”

“What was it?”, Landon persisted.

“I think it was...”, Eric's voice was hardly a whisper. “I'm not sure, really, what it was... but it was creepy as hell.”

“What?”, it was cold enough that Landon could see his own breath as the word escaped his lips. “It's probably just someone from school playing a trick on us... right Eric?” Landon started fiddling with his zipper pull, zipping his jacket up and down, up and down...

Eric leaned slightly over to Landon and whispered. “On a count to three, we run, down that path as fast as we can. OK?”

Up and down, up and down... Landon nodded.   

“One.” Eric started.

“Two.” Landon breathed... up and down, up and down...

“Three?” Eric whimpered as Landon's zipper jammed and he took off running, not waiting for another chance.

“Landon!” Eric tried to yell as he felt rough spindly fingers dig into his leg.

Just into the woods where the huge trunks huddled together, Landon thought he heard his best friend running behind him and then turning off to go to his house, so Landon continued home.

Landon barely slept that night, and as he slumped to school the next day, he felt as though the skies were watching him and he realized with shock, that the poplar tree no longer displayed Eric's frowny-face. Landon circled around the poplar’s trunk numerous times, but he couldn't see it anywhere. He shook his head in confusion. I could have sworn it was that one.

After school Landon caught a kid in Eric's locker. Landon scolded the boy and asked him what he was doing. He innocently answered saying he was “getting his lunch out of his locker,” and looked rather confused as to why anyone would want to know.

Landon was well past just being worried. He dashed out of the school, and sprinted down the road. He desperately needed to find Eric, who hadn't shown up for school.

Maybe he had injured himself on the way home last night, and maybe he had been told he had to stay home and rest up. Landon was still running at a pretty good clip when he turned the corner into Eric's yard.

A huge spruce towered over Landon and frowned down upon him as he slowed and then came to an abrupt stop. Landon stared in horror up at the magnificent tree. It was standing, as tall as it could, right in the driveway to Eric's house. Or to be more specific, right in the driveway to were Eric's house used to be.

Landon couldn't believe his eyes, but the spruce tree merely swayed to the hum of the wind.