Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

“What?” asked Gary. “Maybe it wants this.” He pointed the fire extinguisher at the brown bones, still pulling to extract the rest of its spine.

Gary pulled the trigger before Mike could object and sprayed the creature with a thick white fog.

“Why?” asked Mike.

“I thought it might not like cold,” said Gary as they waited for the fog to disperse. When it had, they saw that the skeleton’s progress had not been impeded. In fact, the bones had picked up a fast tremble, as if they coursed with energy.

Katie’s camera continued to flash, freezing the skeleton’s chattering jaw with each strobe.

“We have to steal its energy,” said Mike. “Or at least slow it down. It’s picking up speed.”

“Wait. Wait,” said Katie from the stairs. “It’s us. We didn’t see any non-linear energy drain until you came down here. It’s taking our energy now.”

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Mike pushed Gary back towards the stairs.

They climbed quickly, pulling the railings and scaling the steps three at a time. Just before shutting the cellar door, Mike thought he detected the chattering teeth slowing down. He locked the door and then ran for the kitchen door, following his sprinting cohorts back to the van.

Once in the van, they pulled shut the doors, locked them, and turned to the monitors. The skeleton was attempting to pull its thigh bones free from the cellar. Its head spun and turned randomly.

“Looks like a top winding down,” said Gary.

“Yeah, doesn’t it?” whispered Katie.

“What’s the readout?” asked Mike.

“Oh, sorry,” said Katie. “Yup, definitely leveled off. It was up here when we left,” she said, pointing. “Still dropping, almost back to ambient.”

Mike looked back at the video and could see the change in the skeleton’s behavior. The twitching, chattering, and other movement had curtailed. As they watched the various displays and readouts, the creature became completely still and Katie’s readout had returned to the baseline.

“Do you think it’s dormant again?” asked Katie.

“Sure looks like it,” said Mike.

“Oh shit,” said Gary. He pressed his ear against the side of the van. “Homeowners.”

“Quick,” said Mike. “Grab them. Don’t let them go back in, that thing may wake up again.”

Gary tugged on the handle and then spilled out of the van to the driveway. Mike plowed out after him. The two jogged across the yard, waving their arms at the returning couple. When they had explained the situation, Mike invited the couple, Bob and Linda, to see the video displays.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Bob. “Is that my cellar? Did you guys plant that thing there?”

“No, seriously,” said Mike. “That came up from your cellar floor. Back up one of the streams please Gary,” As Gary made his way to the panel, Mike explained the technology. “These monitors are hooked up to our digital video recorders. We can watch the live stream or back it up while it’s still recording.”

“This is when I first saw the hole appearing,” Mike pointed at the screen when Gary had found the right spot. “This is a low-light infrared system, so it’s a bit grainy, but here you can see the hand coming out,” They all watched in silence until the picture changed substantially. “That’s where Katie turned on the cellar lights,” Mike explained.

“Lin,” Bob turned on his wife. “I thought you said these guys were just going to shoot some video, not dig up the entire fucking cellar.”

“You’re not listening, Bob,” said Linda. “I kept telling you there was something down there.”

“Jesus, babe,” said Bob. “Let me guess, you found this terrible thing in the cellar, right where Linda said you should look, and now it’s only going to cost ten thousand dollars to cleanse the evil, right?”

“Sir, we are researchers ,” said Mike. “We have no intention…”

“I’m calling the cops,” said Bob. He pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and turned to walk back to the house.

“We don’t want your money,” said Mike.

“I bet you don’t,” said Bob. “You just brought all these crazy cameras out of the kindness of your heart.” He held the phone to his ear and waited for a response. “Well I hope you also brought some money for bail because I’m calling the goddamn cops. Hey, Joey,” he said into the phone.

“Who’s Joey?” Gary asked Linda.

“That’s his sister’s husband. He’s a deputy sheriff,” Linda answered. “They fish together a lot.”

Bob disappeared through the kitchen door and lights spilled from the kitchen windows. A few seconds later, he appeared on the video monitors.

“Nothing,” said Gary.

Katie bent over her display—“No energy drain here.”

“Want me to turn on the amplifier?” asked Gary. “That would probably change his mind.”

“No, no, we can’t do that,” said Mike. “Who knows what would happen. We can’t be responsible for that.”

On the infrared screen, Bob crouched next to the skeleton as he talked into the phone.

“Do we have audio on that?” asked Mike.

Gary turned up a dial and they heard Bob’s voice over the speakers—“Looks like an actual goddamn skeleton, Joey,” He paused. “Yeah, bring ’em,” he continued.

“WELL IT CERTAINLY DOES LOOK like it came from there,” said Sheriff Murphy.

Mike, Gary, and Katie had been repeating their story for several hours as more and more officials arrived at the site to examine the corpse poking halfway out of the cellar floor.

“When you find a skeleton in a basement, it would be really helpful if you give me a call instead of making music videos with the thing all night.” The sheriff waved dismissively at the van.

“Sir, I know it’s hard to understand, and we certainly don’t have all the answers about what happened here tonight,” said Mike.

The sheriff interrupted him—“Look, chief, just keep your tall tales to yourself and tell me how you happened to find the deceased.”

“The only information we had was that Mrs. Hubert described a funny feeling and voices coming from the floor of the cellar. That’s it, I swear,” said Mike. “This is what I research. I’ve got dozens of documented cases.”

“Bob told me that you wanted several thousand dollars to clean the evil spirits from the house.”

“No, sir!” said Mike. “That’s something he made up and ascribed to us. We never had any intention of trying to charge anyone. That’s not what we do. We’re purely researchers.”

“My deputy has been friends with Bob a long time. I’ve got no reason to doubt him. You get your equipment out of here and don’t darken the Huberts’ doorstep again and we’ll just forget that this happened. I won’t even arrest you for tampering with evidence or grave robbing.”

“But the video,” started Mike.

The sheriff held up his hand and walked away from the researchers. He sent over a different deputy who directed them to pack their things and leave.

Back in the van, Mike was furious. “Next time we’re getting the press at the site before we do anything.”

HE WOKE SEVERAL TIMES after sunset, but didn’t leave his cave until the moon rose above the tree line. Between naps he imagined himself absorbing the power of his father and brother. Then, he extended his aspirations and tapped the strength of all his dead relatives.

Pulling with his intact arm, he crested the lip of the cave and paused to survey the bodies of his family. At first, he thought they had all been carried away by scavengers: he only saw jagged rocks. By the time his one good eye came completely into focus, he had already guessed his mistake. What he took for jagged rocks were the pale remains and split bones of his kin.