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Leaves
A "Halloween Contest" Honorable Mention
by
Diane Arrelle
Megan walked home alone.
Again.
It was a long walk through the forest, but Megan didn’t mind. She liked the solitude, the sounds of autumn as the wind gently rustled the leaves in the trees and the foliage crunched under her feet, giving off a musky, slightly spicy odor.
As she came out of the woods and crossed Cemetery Road, she re-entered the forest. She walked a few feet between the trees then turned left to walk through the strange circle of trees where nothing seemed to grow.
The other kids in her eighth grade class at Harlingtown Middle School had told her the space was haunted by the ghosts of an ancient graveyard. No one else used the old rutted dirt road that had been nicknamed Cemetery Road, except on dares, and by the occasional motorist lost in the Pine Barrens.Megan walked into the circle. She found it creepy, but in a way, almost comforting as if it was something familiar. She was always surprised that the circle was so cold, colder than anywhere else and sometimes when the winds stopped for a moment, and the squirrels and birds were still, Megan could swear she heard voices calling out to her.
Although she was being brave just in case anyone from school was around, Megan fought the urge to run away. The circle only held a hint of comforting, but it held a lot of disconcerting. Shivering, a chill rushing down her spine to her knees, Megan walked a little faster than her normal pace and as soon as she cleared the bare patch, she bolted through the final few dozen yards of trees to her backyard.
Ella, her cat, was sitting on a tree stump licking her paw, as if she knew Megan would come bursting through the forest any moment. Megan swept past her pet, swooping the feline up in her arms, and rushed into the house.
“Megan? Is that you?” her mother called from the kitchen. “You’re late.”
“I walked.”
“Megan,” her mother scolded. “I’ve told you before not to walk along the main road. It is deserted and dangerous.”
Megan sighed, feeling a mixture of frustration and total annoyance, “I didn’t use the road, I walked through the woods.”
“My God, that’s even worse!” her mother yelled. “Why didn’t you take the bus?”
“Cuz.”
“Cause what!”
“Cuz, I can’t stand it here in hicksland. All the kids are just a bunch of jerks who spend their time making fun of me.”
“Making fun of you?” Who is picking on you now? Megan we moved so you’d get away from those so called friends you had back home. I think it is time for you to make an effort to find some nice straight kids to hang out with and to get rid of that chip on your shoulder!”
“Oh, go to Hell!” Megan screamed. “I hate you, I hate this place, I hate my entire life.” She turned and ran outside, back through the woods, back to that place where nothing grew, back to that place surrounded by bent, gnarled Halloween trees. She plopped down on the cold, damp, dead leaves that covered the ground and cried. How was she ever going to survive living in a place like this, she wondered. She couldn’t wait to turn 16 so she could drop out of school and quit having to pretend she cared about anyone else. She thought about running away. Even living on the streets of the city had to be better than barely existing out here in the middle of nowhere.
She looked up from her reverie. She thought she’d heard voices agreeing with her, “Yessss” whispering through the leaves.
She got up and studied the trees. For probably the hundredth time she touched the thick, rough, grayish bark that always seemed to have patterns in the ridges. Some even looked like faces, faces with mouths opened in frozen screams. Suddenly the wind howled through the clearing causing the leaves to violently swirl around her like she was in the middle of a mini tornado. The bark grew hot to her fingers as the wind chilled her all the way through.
Pulling at her feet which suddenly seemed rooted to the ground, she broke free and ran back home. Without a word, she locked herself in her bedroom.
A few days later, she started to walk home from school when several of the girls from her class followed her. “Hey Megan,” the one called Bethany called. “Wait up, we want to talk to you.”
Megan kept walking. She could hear the girls behind her calling and giggling. Then she heard their pounding footsteps as they ran to catch up. They walked along side her, seemingly unaware that she was totally ignoring them.
“So, Megan.” Bethany said. “We see you walking through here every day.
Don’t you know these woods are haunted? Don’t you know that for hundreds of years people have disappeared in these woods, never to be heard from again?”Megan muttered just loud enough to be heard, “Well, maybe we’ll get lucky today and you guys will just up and vanish.”
The girls giggled again. “Seriously, Meg, you ought to not walk home this way,” the short blond one, Rachel added. “It’s true about the disappearances. Why, my mother’s cousin vanished one Halloween when she was trick or treating. My mother and all her cousins have told me about it.”
Megan rolled her eyes. “Oh just give me a break. I’m not a stupid kid from the suburbs you know. I don’t fall for any of that horror zombie-ghost garbage. Go find another new kid to scare. I’m not afraid of anything, especially hick stories from a town of losers.”
“Well we were just trying to be friendly,” Bethany snapped. “Besides, you are the only new kid around.”
“Yeah,” the third girl, Sara piped in. “And you’re always acting like such a bitch.
Bethany glared at Sara, “Look Megan, it’s Halloween tonight and we though we’d give you one more chance. We were going to ask you to join us for the Halloween Bonfire Party at the lake.”
Megan turned to face the three girls. “Another chance? For what, to be your friend? Look, no thanks, it just isn’t worth my while at all to even talk to anyone around here. Why don’t you leave me alone!”
The other girls stepped back a bit. They started to turn away when Bethany signaled them to stop. “OK, you think we are just a bunch of hicks who make up stories. Why don’t you just prove how brave you are, I dare you to come out to the dead place over there through the trees at the stroke of midnight. We’ll meet you there and if you don’t chicken out, we’ll never bother you again.”
“You got a deal,” Megan said, turned her back on the girls and walked home.
After dinner she went to her room and locked the door. At 11:00 she called to her mother that she was going to bed. At 11:45 she opened her bedroom window and crept out. As she hit the ground, something hit her in the legs. Megan fought to keep her balance, and fought to keep her wits. What had attacked her? She looked down pointed the beam of her flashlight into a pair of glowing eyes. The breath caught in her throat until Ella rubbed against her legs and meowed.
Megan blew her breath out and laughed. “Damn, Ella, you scared me.”
She stood up and flashed her light into the trees. It was spooky, just like the pictures from her childhood books. The forest was thick and black, but Megan had a point to prove. She knew those wimpy girls were going to chicken out but she was going through with it. Just in case, and besides she wanted to prove to herself she wasn’t scared of anything. She wanted to prove to herself that she was tough enough to face anything on her own. Alone.
As she carefully wove her way between the trees, the woods were dead quiet. Almost too quiet. There was no wind, no animal sounds, only her own footsteps. Ella followed, then ran ahead. Megan neared the clearing where nothing grew. She swept her light beam around and saw that someone had swept the leaves out of the middle and into piles all around the circle. As Megan neared a pile, Ella screeched and hugged against Megan’s legs.
She bent to pick up the cat, but the wind kicked up and the cat arched its back in terror. Ella ran straight into the nearest pile of leaves just as the wind made them swirl upwards into a wild dance of dark forbidding shadows. Megan couldn’t hear anything over the howling wind and the rustling crunching of the dried leaves. She called out, “Ella!”
but the cat was lost to her in the swirling, twirling dancing leaves.Then as if nothing had just happened, the leaves fell back into their piles and all was calm. Megan flashed her light all around. “Ella?” she called.
Nothing. No cat. No answering meow. Just darkness and silence. And the tiniest sound of crying, so soft Megan wasn’t sure she’d heard it at all.
“Ella?” Megan called again. Could the cat have run home, she wondered.
She listened hard, straining to hear something, trying to bring that barely audible sobbing into range. Suddenly she heard a soft sad mewing.“ELLA” Megan shouted, fighting off a feeling of dread in her stomach.
“Ella, where are you?”As if in answer, the moon cleared the clouds and the woods became streaked with shades of gray. Megan listened to the cat’s muffled cries and wildly wove her beam every which way. Then she saw it, on the side of one of the gnarled trees. In the bark!
Megan screamed, tears coursing down her cheeks. She went up to the tree and with a shaky tentative hand reached out to the rough gray bark. The shape of the whorls were still moving but as her hand rested on the hot wood, her fingers traced the shape of a cat. A cat caught in mid-yowl.
“Ella,” Megan whispered then began to back away into the middle of the dead circle. “Oh Ella!”The cat shaped swirls in the bark stopped moving, solidifying into an eternal pattern and Megan heard a final sad pained cry. As if in answer to the cat’s forlorn yell, the wind picked up again and the trees began to sway with a violent rocking motion. Megan turned the light on them and shuddered as they bent toward her, forcing her to the very center of the circle. She couldn’t move in any direction, the leaves swirled around and around getting closer to her with every breath. Megan spun around trying to find a break, but the swaying branches beat at her keeping her centered. The leaves swirled higher and spun faster and faster until all the leaves from all the piles that had surrounded the circle formed a spinning wall. Megan screamed and pushed at the branches. She tried to beat her way out but the leaves closed in.
Megan was caught in a maelstrom of crunching brown that reeked of the scent of musk and spice. It was overpowering, she couldn’t breath, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move. Suddenly she realized she was frozen in place.
She was paralyzed, but she found her voice again. “Help me,” she screamed as the leaves settled once again on the barren floor of the clearing. Megan realized she had somehow been moved by that leaf cyclone, forced over to the ring of trees. She struggled to move her arms, her legs to take a deep breath, but she still could not move. Even her eyes were frozen in position.
She tried to stay calm, _It will pass_, she told herself, ignoring the recent fate of her pet. _I’m just passed out. This is a dream. I’ll be able to move soon_.
She waited, after what seemed like forever, she heard voices. It was the girls and they brought some friends along. _Oh good, help is coming,_ Megan thought.
The girls did come and brought friends with them. There had to be a dozen kids shining flashlights all around. Megan heard laughter.” I knew she was full of it,” Bethany giggled. “A big mouth coward.”
“Yeah,” Sara agreed. “I knew she’d chicken out. Her kind always does.”
“Help,” Megan called. “Help me; I’m trapped inside this tree!”
Bethany spun her light around. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” someone asked.
Bethany shrugged. “Nothing, I though I heard her calling.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” chorused around the group.
“Come on,” One of the kids yelled. “It’s cold out here. Bet that Megan won’t show her face in school tomorrow.”
The rest laughed their agreement.
“NO! Wait!” Megan screamed as the kids started to leave. “Bethany, Bethany,
help me!”
Bethany stopped and shone her light around the circle one more time.
“Didn’t you hear that, she called my name.”“Bethany, you’re nuts,” one of the kids said and pushed her out of the clearing.
Megan was left alone in the dark. Really alone.
It was what she had always wanted. Only, she realized too late, not this way. Never this way. She saw the other faces in all the other trees and realized that she was as she had always been, alone in a crowd.
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© Arrelle, 2006
Diane Arrelle has sold over 75 short stories to magazines and anthologies including Blue Murder, B&N Crafty Cat Crimes, Oui, Nocturnal Ooze and the current anthologies Twisted Cat Tales, Goremet Cuisine and The Travel Guide To The Haunted Mid-Atlantic Region. She is a founding member as well as the past president of The Garden State Horror Writers and past president of the Philadelphia Writers' Conference. She is also the director of a municipal senior citizen activities center, and lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband, teenage sons and her cat.