In Laymon's Terms

“You do not believe,” it said, and a rustle ran through its bulk.

(Swishswish)

“I am not real to you.”

Somehow I remained on my feet. My whole body felt like it was being held up by puppet strings. My stomach was roiling.

“Brian. See me.”

And the branches pulled apart in front of me like stage curtains. Did I expect to see the bloody remains of Alan Mange? There was nothing. Not even his clothes. Nothing but darkness within the tree.

“Here.”

I screamed and fell back. It had come out of nowhere. Whatthefuck?...formed from the wood of the tree itself! It had been invisible, or camouflaged, then in an instant it was hanging from the branches like a primate. Its head and body was formed from a big, twisting knot of wood with an oval opening in front, a gash like a blow from an axe...and the splinters within were formed into pointing fangs. There were no eyes I could make out, no ears, but a single vine rose from the top of the knot, brown leaves hanging lethargically from its length and gathered in a cluster near the tip. It had four arm/leg-type limbs—one of which I’d seen destroy my neighbor—and these, along with the rest of the body, were covered in a coat comprised of compressed, dead leaves.

It was hanging from one of the higher branches, and its tentacle-type vine swayed back and forth on the air in front of it. It was “looking” at me. I felt a hysterical giggle rising inside me because there was something hanging around its head. Al Mange’s tie, still knotted as though it had been tugged hurriedly off his head.

(Or his head had been ripped off and the tie had been simply slipped from the shoulders...and now this thing was having a joke with it.)

There was a gentle creaking sound...the sound of the creature shifting...clenching a muscle, stretching a limb. When it spoke, the whole face twisted in grotesque patterns, and that deep growl rolled from the head. “Meat.”

How could this be (my mind insisted, still refusing to accept)?

“Brian. Feed me.”

“Fuck you.” The words came out on a breath before I even realized I was speaking, but the creature just laughed softly...the wood cracking and splintering against its natural state to comply with the chuckle.

“From another, or yours, Brian. I will have your pretty wife, and the tender meat she grows within.”

“You can’t. Please.”

“Cats and puppies. Snatching birds from flight. Digging insects from the ground. These do not sate me. I must feed.”

The tree closed up and I stood there for a moment, then staggered back inside the house, into the dark nursery.

How long had it been out there, gestating in the tree, watching Carol and I going in and out? Where had it come from? Were we still alive only because it needed me to supply “meat,” just as I had unwittingly served up my neighbor?

Get Carol out of the house...get her away from here.

Of course, in her condition she wasn’t about to scale the eight-foot fence that surrounded our back garden, and certainly not the wall beyond. And how would I explain...she wouldn’t take me seriously...any more seriously than the police would.

Police? Yes, I’d like to report a monster living in my Cedar.

Well, I could say we saw someone lurking around out there.

What then, though? They might come and look...and what then?

But maybe that would be enough...

I got to my feet. It was the best idea I had...but still a long way from good.

The creature was out there...waiting. It didn’t know I’d called the police, and it didn’t know Carol was awake and sitting quietly—albeit confounded—in the dark kitchen (I’d told her nothing, begging her to simply put her trust in me), and it didn’t know about the bucket in the hallway. Unless, of course, that horrible tentacle was super-sensitive.

Christ, for all I knew it could read my fucking mind!

The glare of headlights momentarily filled the front garden and illuminated the Cedar as the police car came to a stop. It was 3:15 a.m.

“Carol,” I said softly. “This is it. Please just do as I said...but wait till their backs are turned.” I went to the front door before she could hit me with another barrage of questions. Two officers approached from the car, a man and a woman. “Thanks for coming,” I told them. “I haven’t seen any movement for a few minutes.”

Their radios were silent on their hips. “Where did you last notice the intruder?” the woman asked. Her young eyes had been hardened by her job. The man was older but his face softer, more experienced.

I gestured to the Cedar. “He was hanging around over there.”

“Let’s take a look, then.” They went to the Cedar. Behind me, Carol stepped around the pungent bucket in the hallway and out of the house.

Then all hell broke loose!