Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

More strange sounds — flesh hitting flesh and whimpers and ragged breathing — came from the corner. Shadows moved, rocking fast. “Oh God,” she moaned. “Please, no.”

As if in response to her pleading, the candle in her hand flared brightly, as did the one behind her, illuminating the room until she could see the figures in the corner just well enough to recognize her brother.

“Sean!” she cried. He looked up at her from his position on the floor, on all fours, naked, being pounded from behind, just as he had been in the vision she’d seen on the laptop. His hair matted and sweaty, stuck to his forehead, one eye swollen shut while the other filled with blood that spilled down his cheek in a slow rivulet. Mouth pulverized and pulled back in a grimace of agony, he seemed to be searching for where the voice was coming from, just as she had been searching moments before. “Sean, I’m right here!” She moved forward as her words caused Sean’s rapist to look up at her, revealing his own face, twisted in sexual, predatory release.

The rapist was Sean, holding himself by the hips, fucking himself with such violent force that Karen could clearly see the blood flowing down the inside of Sean’s — the victim Sean’s — thighs.

Her brother. Both men, her brother.

“ TWO MEN HAVE THE CARCASS!” a voice hissed directly into her ear, so close she could feel air brushing her cheek.

She reeled away, screaming, raising the candle in that direction. A shadow flittered away to where the candlelight couldn’t touch it.

“None of this is real,” she whispered. “Just hallucinations.” But where Sean — both Sean’s — had just been, there was now a little girl in an old fashioned high-collared white dress. The girl stared at Karen and began walking towards her.

But no, that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t getting any closer to Karen, though her legs were clearly moving in a walking motion. She was walking, but going nowhere.

Karen’s whole body began to shake as her bladder let go. Warmth oozed down her legs, but she hardly noticed. Her eyes were on the walking girl and, as Karen watched, the little girl held her right arm straight out from the side of her body. Beginning at the shoulder, the arm writhed under the sleeve of the dress in a way that was definitely not normal.

The arm grew wider, fatter, tearing the fabric of the sleeve, splitting the skin beneath it. There was no blood, but Karen could clearly make out the bone beneath the skin.

But no. Not quite bone. It was too dark to be bone, even in this light she could see that.

As if some invisible zipper were opening in the child’s arm, the skin fell away, disappearing completely before it hit the floor and whatever it was inside the arm began to grow tendrils that shot off from the main stem.

A branch, Karen realized. A tree branch was sprouting from the child’s shoulder as the girl stood there and simply stared at her, seemingly oblivious to what her body was doing.

Soon the child held her other arm out from her side and it too began to morph before Karen’s eyes.

“No.” Karen shook her head. “No.” The word, at first a soft mewling sound, quickly became the shriek of the terminally insane. Karen pressed the heels of her hands hard against her closed eyes, sinking to the floor where she remained for an unknowable amount of time.

She’d screamed herself raw long ago, it seemed, when she felt something touch her. She made no sound, resisted having her hands pulled away from her face, but the grip around her wrists was too strong.

Light punched against her closed eyelids and she squeezed her eyes tightly closed, not wanting to see the next horror, knowing her mind would snap if she did, snap and drift away like so much useless space trash floating through oblivion for all eternity.

She heard voices, but made no attempt to understand them, blocking them out. She would listen no more. She would see no more. She would feel nothing ever again, forget everything, become no more than a collapsed star falling in on herself and away from herself, never to return.

Never to return.

Karen’s head snapped back on her neck, hard enough to cause pain as the muscles were pulled.

A vile smell assaulted her nostrils and her eyes opened, watering furiously. She shook her head, trying to get away from the bitter scent.

“I think she’s back,” a voice said.

She knew that voice. It belonged to a handsome dark man with kind eyes and bright straight teeth he flashed whenever he smiled, which was often.

Getting her eyes to focus was a challenge but as she blinked the tears away, the foul stench retreated and the handsome man’s face was inches from her own. She was not particularly surprised to see him smiling.

“Welcome back,” Saul said. “We thought we’d lost you for a minute there.”

Karen tried to speak, found her mouth was filled with what could only be moon dust, so dry it had never known moisture in all the time of its existence.

Looking around, she saw she was no longer in the office on the third floor of the house, but back in her own room, on the second floor, lying on the bed. Rory stood at the foot of the bed, watching her with tired eyes.

Saul sat beside her. He held a tiny object up to her face so she could see it. “Smelling salts,” he said. “We didn’t know what to do so we went through your stuff, figuring since you had the Benadryl you’d probably have something for fainting too. You are one prepared lady.”

She wanted to tell him she hadn’t fainted, that she’d only backed away from the world and had done it intentionally and didn’t appreciate being pulled forward again.

“Here, drink some water.” He held a bottle to her lips and tipped it until her mouth filled with the cool sweet liquid and washed away the desert dryness coating her tongue.

“You’ll probably want a shower soon,” Saul said, taking the bottle away and setting it on the night table. She remembered peeing herself and felt her face burn.

“What happened in there?” Rory asked.

Karen’s eyes darted to him and away again. She didn’t want to remember and talking about it would bring it all back to the surface. Instead of answering him, she asked, “How long have I been out?”

“About an hour,” Saul said.

“Why did you lock yourself in my office, Karen?” Rory wanted to know. “Were you looking for something?”

She glared at him. “I didn’t lock myself in your goddamn office.”

“Oh, you didn’t? Then why was it locked when Saul tried to get in?” Looking away, she made no response. “If I didn’t have the key,” he went on, “we would have had to break the door down.”

For the first time, she noticed the lights were on. “The electricity came back.”

“Yeah,” Saul said. “Not sure for how long though. The wind is really kicking up out there.”

Karen cocked her head, becoming aware of the loud gusts shaking the trees around the house. “I want to go home,” she said suddenly. The revelation irritated her. She had come to find out what happened to her brother and was just now discovering the price of the truth was too steep. She was a coward.

“I want to go home too,” Saul said.

“Yes.” Rory began pacing at the foot of the bed. “We all want to go home. It turns out we came here for fucking nothing.”

Karen didn’t want to deal with him any more, and the only way she could think to get rid of him was to announce that she wanted to bathe, which wasn’t a lie, but it would also mean being alone, which she definitely didn’t want.

“You want to tell us what happened in there?” Saul asked, also ignoring Rory’s outburst.