“Beware the Narrow Trees, child,
For beyond them dark things grow.”
“They grow in forgotten crevices,
And earthen pits of snow.”
“They grow in the quiet, shadowy copse
That grinds the dead to mold,
They grow in ancient cracks of roots,
And the altar made of stone, child,
The altar made of stone.”
“Beware the Narrow Trees, child,
Beware the Keeper of Bones.”
“Where are we going?” asked Lindsey.
“This way,” said Anise. “Hurry up, slowpoke.”
“Quit lagging behind,” said Danna. “We have to follow Anise.”
They trudged over crisp snow as they journeyed further into the woods. It was cold out today, a freezing 20° Fahrenheit, but that would not stop Anise’s quest, no. The wind had died down, its savage bite defanged for the time being, and that was good, because Anise would not be deterred from reaching her goal.
Anise was their leader, bold and blonde and defiant, grey-eyed and strong-willed.
Today, she wore her pink coat, pink mittens, and white boots. True, those colors were traditionally for girls, but she considered those colors a bold statement of who she was, what she was, and what she was was a force to be reckoned with.
Danna was the adventurous one, half black and half Cree Native American, a girl of mixed heritage in a small, white, rural town, also defiant, also strong-willed, those two traits born out of necessity, but adventurous and open-minded.
Danna was wearing a black coat with a dark-green hoodie underneath it, though she had her hood down rather than pulled up, but she would pull it up to protect herself from the biting wind if that wind came back. Her small hands were unprotected, so she had them stuffed in her pockets. She wasn’t entirely unprepared for the weather, though; she had on good, expensive black boots for winter trekking.
Last was Lindsey, brown eyes and ginger hair and a little pudgy, pasty and freckled and skittish, but a good friend, a good and loyal friend…even if she was reluctant over this whole thing.
Poor Lindsey had on her light-green coat, red mittens, and blue boots, a combination of hues that seemed off to Anise, but such was Lindsey’s look on a daily basis. The girl had no sense of color-coordination.
“We’re going to get lost,” whined Lindsey. “Let’s just go back.”
“No,” said Danna firmly. “Anise knows the way.”
The three of them were on a journey of divine ramifications, though Lindsey knew nothing of the quest; she knew nothing of the plan. Over hill and dale they would march, three ten-year-old girls on a quest for the gods, the forgotten gods, the only ones that mattered.
It was because of Paula they had started this quest, because that girl and her pack of hyenas, Tawnya and Renee and Angie, had stolen Lindsey’s lunch money, pulled Danna’s hair, and hit Anise in the face after Anise had been held down in the restroom.
“Why are we going this far?” asked Lindsey. “I want to go home. Rainbow Bright is going to start.”
“Rainbow Bright is for babies,” said Anise. “We have better things to do.”
“Like what?” asked Lindsey.
“We’re going to get back at Paula,” replied Danna.
“She’s going to get what she deserves,” frowned Anise. “We’re going to get back at Tawnya and Renee and Angie, too. We’re going to stop them once and for all.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Lindsey.
“You’ll see,” said Anise with a grim smile.
“They hide in shadows,
They hide in mud,
They keep the dead,
In the blowing scud.”
“Move the flour,
Grind the grist,
Beware the trees,
And the whirling mist.”
There it was up ahead, what she was looking for. Anise could see the slender trees bowed inward on each side of this non-existent path, a path only she could see. Those trees formed an arc, and through that arc was their destination, the place they needed to go.
“Through here,” she said in excitement.
“Why through here?” asked Lindsey.
“Because this place is sacred,” said Danna.
“I don’t like it,” said Lindsey, a hint of fear in her voice. “It looks scary.”
“You’re a baby,” replied Anise.
“I’m not a baby,” grimaced Lindsey. “I’m just not stupid.”
“Then why’d you follow us?” asked Anise.
“Because you’re my friends,” said Lindsey firmly.
“And friends stick together,” said Anise. “We thought you were our friend.”
“I am!” whined Lindsey. “I’m just…I’m scared…You haven’t told me anything!”
“Beware the Narrow Trees, child,
Beware the Altar of Stone,
For if one drop of blood is spilt,
Then face the Keeper of Bones, child,
Face the Keeper of Bones.”
Anise trudged through the opening of bowed trees.
“Come on,” she beckoned.
The other two hesitated. Even Danna, adventurous as she was, hesitated to walk through the ominous portal.
“Come on!” said Anise angrily.
Danna stood still, barely moving, shivering from the cold, her breath exhaling in white streams, her brown face pale despite its dark complexion.
“I…I changed my mind,” stammered the young girl. “I want to go home.”
“Let’s go home,” agreed Lindsey. “I don’t like this place, Anise…There’s something wrong about it.”
Anise turned and looked toward the snow-laden copse in the distance. Dark and barren trees surrounded this sacred place on all sides, and in the center of those looming black pillars of nature was the huge slab of stone she had been looking for, a huge slab of ancient rock mounted upon two support stones, those support stones two big and jagged rocks that held up the great slab by sheer imagination.
She turned back toward her cowardly compatriots and shot them an angry glare.
“We…are…here!” she yelled out, slowly and methodically. “Stop being babies, and let’s go! We have to do the ritual!”
“Ritual?” asked Lindsey. “What ritual?”
Anise’s eyes burned holes through the both of them.
“Tell her, Danna,” she frowned.
Danna turned toward Lindsey and replied for Anise’s sake.
“My grandma used to tell me about the old gods of the forest,” said the young girl. “She had a rhyme she always used to say. It talked about the Narrow Trees and the Altar of Stone and how to do the ritual, but…but I never thought it was real!”
“When the wind knifes and the snow crisps,
You can find the Narrow Trees, child.”
“When the ice bends, and the light wisps,
You can find the Narrow Trees, child.”
“Through the forest, you must go,
When the day is dark with blinding snow,
To find the Narrow Trees, child,
To find the Altar of Stone.”
“How did you even know where to go, Anise?” asked Danna. “This is all supposed to be made up! It’s just a game! I thought we were just blowing off steam!”
“No,” said Anise with grim determination. “I knew it was real; it had to be…I knew it was real, and I walked where I felt it would be, and there it is. Here are the Narrow Trees…There’s the Altar of Stone! You can see it right there!”
She waved one mittened hand toward the huge slab of stone in the distance.
“There it is!” she said angrily. “It’s right where I felt it would be!…I felt it, Danna! I felt it deep down, and I followed my feeling, and there it is!…Your grandma was right! She knew! She knew, and now we know!”
“But she said to ‘beware,’ Anise!” warned Danna. “You know the rhyme! If we do this, we have to face the Keeper of Bones!”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Lindsey in audible fear.
“Do you want to be bullied!” asked Anise. “Do you want to keep getting beat up!”
“You got beat up,” corrected Danna.
“Do you think they’re going to stop with me?” asked Anise. “They’re not going to stop with me! Do you even understand how bad they are!”
“Yeah,” said Danna. “Yeah, I have a pretty good idea.”
“No, you don’t,” said Anise. “I didn’t just get beat up, Danna. She and Tawnya and Renee and Angie all said they were going to burn our houses down. That’s what they said. They said they were going to cut out Lindsey’s balls and stab my eyes with a knife and cut out your tongue and feed it to you.”
“Wh…What?” stammered Danna.
“That’s what they said,” said Anise. “She had Tawnya and Renee and Angie hold me down while Tawnya hit me, and they said those things…She’s evil, Danna. She called me a ‘slut,’ and Angie called Lindsey a ‘fat ass,’ and Renee called you the n-word. She called you a ‘stupid ni—”
“What!” yelled Danna in instant rage. “I’ll kill her!”
The young girl stood and visibly seethed as hot streams of ivory breath blew from her thin lips. Her trembling rage halted, however, by the sad reply of their third and most reluctant friend.
“She called me what?” asked Lindsey.
The pudgy girl looked like she was going to break down and cry at any second.
“Angie called me what?” asked Lindsey, only this time her voice was watery, the tears evident in their impending arrival.
“Don’t cry, Lindsey,” said Anise unhappily. “Don’t let Paula make you cry…We can get back at her. All we have to do is the ritual.”
The pudgy redhead looked up with teary eyes and nodded twice.
“What do we have to do?” she asked.
It was Danna who answered for Anise. The young girl turned toward their pudgy friend and recited the last of the rhyme, the most important part of the rhyme:
“Bind the wrists with the power of three,
Slice the skin until it bleeds,
Spill the blood upon the stones,
And call the Keeper of Bones, child,
Call the Keeper of Bones.”
“And if we do that, then what?” asked Lindsey. “This is scary, but let’s say we did this ritual. What happens next?”
Anise picked up where Danna had left off:
“Embrace the strength of stone,
Embrace the breath of wind,
Embrace the rage of the wild things,
Beyond the frozen bend.”
“Embrace the flow of water,
Embrace the speed of blood,
Embrace the hunger of the wild things,
Beyond the darkest wood.”
Danna finished out the rhyme:
“Face the Keeper of Bones, child,
Give him all your hate.”
“Face the Keeper of Bones, child,
To forever change your fate.”
“That’s the ritual,” said Anise firmly. “If we call the Keeper of Bones, he’ll make us strong, and then we can get back at Paula, and then she’ll never bother us again.”
“There’s still the last verse, though, and I don’t remember it,” said Danna. “I was really little when Grandma taught the rhyme to me…I’m surprised I remembered this much.”
“We don’t need it,” replied Anise with a shake of her head. “We have everything we need…Are you in, or are you chicken? That’s the only question I have.”
“I was scared before, but now I’m mad,” frowned Danna.
She turned toward their pudgy redheaded friend and grimaced.
“I’m going to do it,” said Danna, “but the ritual calls for three people, so we need you, Lindsey.”
“But it’s…This is…I don’t think we should,” said Lindsey. “We need to tell someone. We need to tell Mrs. Pritt about Paula. I need to tell my mom.”
Mrs. Pritt was their fifth-grade teacher, but she wouldn’t be of any help. Anise knew that for a fact…She knew it in her bones.
Lindsey was going to need some more direct persuasion, some very harsh persuasion.
“Angie said she was going to cut out your balls,” scowled Anise. “She said you didn’t need them because you’re such an ugly fat ass and no man is ever going to marry you anyway because you’re so fat and ugly.”
Lindsey’s pudgy, pasty, freckled face broke apart into a mess of tears.
“I w…want to kill her!” sobbed the poor girl. “I want to tear her apart!”
“Then follow me,” said Anise.
The other two girls trudged through the portal of bowed trees and followed Anise up to the ancient slab of stone. Their destiny awaited, one that would rid them of their enemies, one that would set them free.
“I don’t even have balls,” muttered Lindsey as she wiped her eyes free of tears. “Angie is stupid. Girls don’t have balls. Only boys have balls.”
Danna laughed, and Anise followed suit. Lindsey joined in with their laughter, and Anise could tell, at least for the moment, that the pudgy girl was onboard with their quest for revenge.
The wind blew, the snow whirled around them, and the sun dimmed. They stood before the Altar of Stone, an ancient and cracked thing, a forgotten symbol of wild things, a monument that held imposing in its size and look.
“Here it is,” said Anise in a hushed voice.
“It has no snow on it,” said Danna in an equally hushed voice. “How come it has no snow on it?”
“Because it’s sacred,” replied Anise.
She climbed up on top of the thing and beckoned the others to follow. Her two friends acquiesced to her summons and climbed up to rest on their knees next to her.
“What’s next?” asked Lindsey.
“We have to bind our wrists,” explained Danna.
“No,” corrected Anise. “Yes, we have to bind our wrists, but we have to be bound together. It’s the power of three, remember? Each of us takes one hand…uhhh…our left hand, and I’ll tie the ribbon I brought around all three of us…our wrists, that is.”
“Okay,” said Danna. “I just…It’s…It’s just…How do you know all this, Anise?”
“I told you already,” frowned Anise. “I felt it…I feel like this is what we’re supposed to do, so I’m following my feelings.”
“Well, I feel cold,” said Lindsey unhappily.
“No kidding,” frowned Danna.
Anise shook her head as she pulled a long pink ribbon from her left pocket and a small knife from her right pocket, a knife that was currently sheathed in a black plastic cover.
“Where did you get that?” asked Danna.
“My mom’s stuff she uses to wrap gifts,” replied Anise.
“Not the ribbon, the knife,” frowned Danna.
“From my kitchen,” explained Anise. “My dad calls it a ‘paring knife.’ I’ve seen him use it to cut apples.”
“Ooookay,” said Danna in a cautious tone.
Anise shook her head again as she set down the knife and held up the ribbon.
“We have to bind our wrists first,” she said firmly.
She took off her pink mittens and held up her left hand in a fist, her narrow wrist up and ready.
Danna took that as a cue and held up her left fist in the same fashion, their wrists touching, ready to be bound.
They both stared over at Lindsey for a few seconds before the pudgy ginger took the hint.
“Oh,” replied Lindsey.
She took off her left mitten and held up her fist until her wrist was touching theirs, all three wrists together, and then Anise took to binding their wrists together with the long pink ribbon.
It was difficult to tie a semblance of a knot with only one hand, but Anise managed it.
“There,” she said firmly. “We’re ready for the knife. This is going to hurt a little, but it’s worth it.”
“Just don’t make it too deep,” said Danna.
“I don’t like pain,” whined Lindsey. “I don’t like this.”
“I know,” said Anise. “That’s why you’re going first.”
“Do I have to?” asked the redhead.
“Yes,” said Anise. “If you watch us get cut, you’ll just chicken out when it’s your turn.”
“O…Okay,” stammered Lindsey.
Anise took the paring knife with her right hand.
“Close your eyes,” said Anise. “It won’t hurt as much that way.”
Lindsey said nothing in response. She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth in preparation of what was to be a painful experience.
Anise had made sure she had grabbed her dad’s sharpest paring knife. She opened up her bound left hand and used it to gingerly remove her knife’s plastic cover. She dropped the black sheath, listened to it clatter on the altar’s stone surface without looking at it, and then balled her left hand into a fist again.
“Here goes,” she said.
She stared at the glint of stainless steel on the knife before slicing crosswise into Lindsey’s wrist.
“Ow, ow, OW!” yelled the redhead as her brown eyes popped wide open. “That really hurts!”
“It’s over,” said Anise quickly. “Hold your wrist upright. Don’t let any blood spill. I have to do Danna next and then me. We have to do it now. Our combined blood should spill on the altar.”
“Do it,” said Danna.
Anise cut into the girl’s dark wrist, Danna made a pained face, and then Anise cut into her own wrist, ignoring her own pain as best she could.
“Let our blood combine,” said Anise. “Let our blood spill. Let us call the Keeper of Bones.”
They rubbed their flowing cuts together in a painful, circular motion, their bloody wrists staining the pink ribbon binding them.
“Turn your wrists down now!” commanded Anise. “We have to spill the blood!”
Her two friends complied, and all three of them turned their wrists down toward the altar at the same time. It took a few seconds, but their combined blood spilled, dripping down to the altar, the crimson liquid hitting the ancient stone in a tiny splatter.
The sunlight around them dimmed even further. It was like dusk now, even though it was supposed to be a clear Saturday morning in January.
“Call the Keeper of Bones!” cried Anise. “Say it like I do! Keeper of Bones, we summon thee! Keeper of Bones, we summon thee!”
She did not know where the words were coming from. She knew “thee” was an old word that no one used anymore, and she’d heard the word “summon,” though she never really used it. It was strange that these rarely heard words that lay in the recesses of her mind would surface now, but they did, so she used them, and she used them without hesitation.
They called out the phrase together.
“Keeper of Bones, we summon thee!” they cried in unison.
The sky darkened as a cutting wind picked up and swirled icy specks of snow around them. Lindsey cried out in fear as Danna gave a quick shout, but Anise held firm.
“Don’t stop!” yelled Anise over the roar of the sudden wind. “It’s working! Keeper of Bones, we summon thee!”
Somehow and in some way, they steeled themselves against the biting wind and said the words.
“Keeper of Bones, we summon thee!” they called out. “Keeper of Bones, we summon thee!”
The sun went out. There was only darkness now, darkness except for a red glow, that glow emanating from the bloody stain upon the ancient stone altar they all rested upon, and then came silence, complete and utter absence of any sound, as if they were all trapped in a void, a sphere of absolute nothing.
No one said anything, but Anise could feel their fear and anxiety. She could smell Lindsey’s fear, a potent and tangy thing, powerful in its make, and she could even sense the fear in Danna, the one she had always considered the bravest of them. Yes, Anise could taste their fear, feel it deep in her bones, just like she could her own.
A skull came out of the darkness and loomed above them. It was the skull of a deer, a huge buck’s skull, a white and cracked thing that peered down at them from the awesome black around them, a full set of weathered and ebony antlers mounted upon it.
Anise peered over at the pale and terrified faces of her friends, their voices silent, their breathing thunderous in the absence of sound. She knew Danna and Lindsey would do nothing, say nothing, both of them locked in rightful terror, so Anise had to find their courage for them, the courage to face the Keeper of Bones, the courage to speak. It was the vengeance in her heart that lifted her up in a raging glory, giving her the ability to say what needed to be said.
“K…Keeper of Bones,” stammered Anise. “W…We…We want the power to crush our enemies.”
The skull floated there in the darkness, an awesome and radiant power emanating from it, ancient in its origin, unstoppable, palpable in its presence.
“W…We embrace the strength of stone,” said Anise.
She felt her courage rise. She felt steady in her resolve now. She felt ready to make her dearest wish come true, a wish born of blood and vengeance.
“We embrace the breath of wind,” continued Anise. “We embrace the rage of the wild things beyond the frozen bend. We embrace the flow of water. We embrace the speed of blood. We embrace the hunger of the wild things beyond the darkest wood.”
The floating skull creaked as its ivory snout slowly lowered, as if it were looking, as if it were staring down at all three of them.
Anise knew what the Keeper of Bones wanted, what it had always wanted, so she freely gave it such.
“We give you all our hate,” she said firmly. “We give you all our hate!”
Two skeletal human hands floated out of the darkness and raised high above the ancient deer skull. There was a furious blast of wind and snow, Lindsey shrieked, Danna cried out, and Anise covered her face from that biting chill with her right arm.
And then the sun returned.
There was no darkness, no absence of sound, no floating deer skull or skeletal hands or anything like that. The three of them were back upon the altar, blood drying upon their small wrists, the gloom and doom gone and sanity restored.
Anise studied her two best friends. Both of them were pale, especially Lindsey, a freckled ginger ghost, and even Danna’s dark skin was wan in comparison to its normal brown.
Their terror was understandable; they had just met an elder god, after all, but Anise did not share in their cowering sentiment. No, she felt elated, empowered, exactly how she had hoped to feel.
“It worked!” she said excitedly. “It worked!”
And she did feel empowered…no, not empowered…powerful…really powerful.
“Can’t you feel it!” she exclaimed. “It worked! I feel awesome! I feel like I could tear Tawyna apart with my bare hands! Paula will piss her pants when she sees her best friend ripped in half!”
She laughed as she pulled her wrist from the pink ribbon binding her to her friends.
It took a few seconds, but Anise’s laughter and enthusiasm infected her friends. Broad smiles crept across both Danna and Lindsey’s wan faces.
“I…I do feel it!” said Danna. “I feel it!…I do feel awesome!”
“So do I!” said Lindsey in excitement. “I feel like I could lift a truck!”
“Come on!” said Anise in overflowing enthusiasm. “Paula and the others are always at the playground behind the school at this time of day on the weekends! Let’s get to the playground and teach them a lesson!”
“Yeah!” grinned Lindsey.
“I’m going to throw down Renee!” exclaimed Danna. “I’m going to rip off her head!”
“Yeah!” said Lindsey again. “I’m going to tear Angie apart!”
“What are we waiting for!” asked Anise. “I going to rip out Tawnya’s heart and feed it to Paula! Once we kick their asses, Paula’s going to cry like a little baby! Let’s go!”
They hopped down off the ancient stone altar, all three of them brimming with energy, brimming with power, true and ancient power, all three of them strong and ready to rumble…
But it was not to last.
Anise walked about five feet before the pain struck her. She bent over as she gasped, clutching her stomach before falling to her knees. Her best friends followed suit, and all three fell to the cold earth and snow as they writhed in pain.
“What’s happening!” cried Danna.
“I don’t…know!” gasped Anise.
“It hurts!” whined Lindsey. “Oh, it hurts!”
Anise looked over at poor Lindsey and watched in horror as the redhead’s freckled face turned grey, greying over until it was a dark grey, a deep and dark grey that spread like a disease over her normally pale skin. Anise turned her head to see Danna’s skin turn from brown to black, as black as a starless sky, as black as the bottom of the ocean.
Anise stared at her own exposed left hand as the skin on it turned to a deep grey, like the color of a looming storm. Her nails turned black and lengthened into curved claws, splitting open the tender skin of her fingertips.
“I don’t want this!” she cried. “No, I don’t want this! This isn’t what I wanted!”
Her friends were screaming now, wailing from the torturous transformation all three of them were suffering through.
The pain was intense, insane, but this did not prevent Anise from looking up at her friends.
Lindsey’s mouth opened wide as her teeth fell out, the white pegs spilling out over her bloody lower lip. Her eyes squeezed shut in tremendous pain as new fangs, ivory, bold, savage things, mercilessly ripped through her gums to replace her former human teeth.
Lindsey opened her eyes a second later, but her eyes were yellow; they were a golden color like an animal’s eyes, but they lacked human sentiment…They lacked mercy or compassion or reason of any kind.
Anise squeezed her eyes shut as her own mouth wracked over with pain, she spit out teeth and blood, and the last thing she heard was Danna’s gurgling scream of agony before Anise’s own rational mind shut down once and for all.
She opened her eyes after that, and the whole world coated over in red.
*****
Paula patted more snow on the snowman’s head.
“Now it’s coming together,” she said happily.
Tawnya leaned her head to the left and looked intently upon the wintry construction.
“It kind of reminds me of that fat ass, Lindsey,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Don’t say that!” warned Paula. “Now we’re going to have to beat that fat ass with her own fat, and I don’t want to touch her. You’ll have to do it.”
“I ain’t touching that,” said Tawnya. “I’ll hit that pink turd, Anise, all day long, but you’ll have to get someone else to beat on fat ass…eww.”
Paula looked over at the other two members of their gang, Renee and Angie, but those two were running around throwing snowballs at each other.
“We’ll get them to do it,” she said. “Honestly, though, someone needs to take that fat ass to the vet and get her spayed. Can’t imagine her ever having kids.”
“No kidding,” said Tawnya. “Hey wait…What the heck?…Look…Isn’t that fat ass now? She always wears that puke-green coat…That’s her, isn’t it? And there’s Darky Danna and that pink turd, Anise.”
“I thought we already flushed her,” frowned Paula. “What are they doing? They’re actually coming here to our park?”
There were three figures in the distance, three figures crossing the street, their coats matching the colors of the girls’ coats in question. They had their hands in their pockets, and their hoods were on, their faces down…There was something odd about them.
“Hey!” yelled Paula. “Hey, you can’t come here!”
Renee and Angie stopped throwing snowballs as Paula and Tawnya walked past them.
Paula stood firm next to a blue, iced-over carousel, and the other three girls lined up beside her.
The three intruding girls crunched through playground snow, continuing their steady march until they stood in a line before Paula’s gang. These intruders still had their heads down, their hoods pulled up, and their hands in their pockets.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, Anise!” warned Paula. “You’re not allowed here, slut!”
“Yeah!” said Renee. “Get out of here! And take Darky Danna with you! Do it, or I’m going to whip that stupid ni—”
She was cut short by a low growl originating from underneath Danna’s dark-green hood.
All three intruding girls lifted their heads, and Paula took a step back out of surprise.
Anise and Lindsey’s faces were grey, dark-grey, and they had yellow, animal eyes. Danna’s face was jet black, as dark as a chunk of coal, and she, too, sported yellow eyes. Each one still had their own normal hair color, which made the colors of their skin and eyes even more unsettling.
The girls’ dark lips parted, revealing sharp white fangs. All three of them rumbled forth low growls, menacing in the sound and quality of that bestial warning.
Paula shook her head and took a step forward. She knew what was going on. She knew what this was.
“You three are so full of it,” she scoffed. “That’s really good make up…Did you get a special-effects guy to do it? That’s neat what you did with your voices, too, but you can’t scare us. I’ve seen Scooby Doo, you losers. I guess we’re just going to have to beat you up twice as hard now.”
Paula sensed the other girls relax upon the calling out of the three losers in front of them.
“Yeah, get out of here, losers!” taunted Renee. “Get lost, Darky Danna!”
“Go suck your momma’s milk bags, babies!” followed up Angie. “And you Lindsey…”
She stepped forward to stand right before Lindsey.
“Did you actually think we’d be scared of you, fat ass?” asked Angie. “You can go suck on your mommy, you tub of fat. You’re going to be crying, because I’m going to cut out your balls, fat ass. I’m going to show them around school, and everyone will know they came from a big…fat…ass…”
She rammed the index finger of her right hand into Lindsey’s chest, each thrust of that finger matching the ending insult of her final sentence.
The retaliation was swift, brutal, and fatal.
Lindsey pulled her hands from her pockets. Those hands were dark grey like her face, the nails on the ends of those fingertips now wicked black claws, her actual fingers warped and elongated.
The pudgy ginger reached up, grabbed the offending finger poking her in the chest, snapped it as if it were a twig, grabbed the rest of the arm with both weird, grey hands, and bit into that arm with a huge maw of razored fangs, biting with a mouth way too big for her little head.
Angie’s arm came off at the elbow, coat sleeve and all.
The blood sprayed from the terrible wound, but Angie didn’t even have time to scream. She was raked twice across the face, a one-two of Lindsey’s dark-grey hands that turned Angie’s once pristine profile into a gory mess. Angie’s body fell to the playground snow, and then Lindsey was on top of her, tearing through the girl’s coat and into her abdomen. The strange and monstrous redhead proceeded to pull out entrails, biting into them with a savage hunger, ignoring the steaming blood staining the ivory snow a nice dark vermillion.
The two other girls, Tawnya and Renee, screamed. Paula, herself, could not move as she watched the gory execution of her friend play out in real-life technicolor.
Renee tried to run, but Danna leapt forward onto the poor girl’s back. Renee was forced to the ground, face first, but Danna pulled up on Renee’s thick brown hair with pitch-black, weirdly elongated fingers. Renee screamed, but that scream was cut short as Danna spun the girl’s head all the way around, brutally snapping the neck, and then that head was pulled off the body to shower the playground snow with Renee’s sanguine lifeforce.
Danna tossed the head aside, grabbed the body’s left arm, and then bit into it, only to tear off a chunk of coat, shirt, flesh, and muscle. She spit out that mess, bent over, and tore into the neck stump after that, biting into the spine, savoring the gore, drinking down the steaming blood with a primal fury.
Anise ran down Tawnya as Paula’s best friend screamed in absolute terror. Tawnya was grabbed from behind, picked up, and lifted into the air until she was above Anise’s head. The screaming, terrified girl hung there for a second like some pro-wrestler about to be slammed to a mat, but she was torn in half instead, torn in half to where her torso and legs separated completely.
The two halves of Tawnya dropped, and Anise pulled apart Tawnya’s intestines in the dark-crimson, gore-and-offal-covered snow after that, feasting upon those innards without care or hesitation.
Paula felt hot urine run down her left leg and into her boot. She could not move. All she could do was shake and tremble as she watched the light leave Tawnya’s eyes.
The three murderous girls eating Paula’s friends lifted their heads in unison, and then they stood, but Paula still could not move. She could not do anything but tremble in place.
“Face the Keeper of Bones,” growled Anise in a bestial, rumbling voice.
“Face the Keeper of Bones,” repeated Danna in the same growl as Anise.
“Give him all your hate,” growled Lindsey.
Their fanged mouths were covered in the blood and gore of her friends, and that was all that Paula could see, could focus upon, but their words ground into her, pounding into her psyche like a merciless hammer.
Anise bent down and tore open Tawnya’s ribcage. She pulled forth the dead girl’s steaming heart, the organ dripping with hot blood, and then she stepped forward as she held it in both dark-grey hands, holding it up like some kind of twisted, sadistic offering.
“Face the Keeper of Bones,” chanted all three girls. “Give him all your hate. Face the Keeper of Bones. Give him all your hate.”
The sky darkened as the wind picked up and the snow whirled around them. The sun went out completely, and Paula could see nothing but Tawnya’s heart in front of her, because that heart began to glow with a sanguine light, and then it began to beat in a steady, rhythmic pulse.
“Face the Keeper of Bones,” chanted the three murderous, monstrous, ten-year-old girls. “Give him all your hate. Face the Keeper of Bones. Give him all your hate.”
The skull of a huge buck with black antlers appeared out of the darkness, hovering above the three deadly girls’ heads, two skeletal hands floating, poking out from black robes, the nearly invisible arms spread wide as if to give Paula a great and terrible hug.
“Face the Keeper of Bones,” chanted the three girls. “Give him all your hate.”
Paula understood now. There were some things far older than her young mind could fully comprehend, but she understood enough to know what she had to do, the only thing she could do to survive.
She accepted the steaming, glowing, beating heart of Tawnya into her gloved hands. With trembling anticipation mixed with utter horror, tears streaming down her cheeks, she bit into the somehow still-living organ, tasting its rich flesh, savoring the copper blood.
Each bite, each swallow of flesh and gore opened up a cavern in her soul, a cavern of hunger and rage that made her shake and shiver to her core, right down to her very bones.
The last verses of a strange rhyme echoed throughout the recesses of her mind as she ate her best friend’s heart, verses that had somehow been missed by the girls before her, verses that tied this madness together in one perfect orchestra of insanity:
“Beware the Narrow Trees, child,
“Beware the blinding snow,
“Beware the Keeper of Bones, child,
“Beware the Wendigo.”
BONUS STORY…THE CUPBOARD
Ethan gripped his knife and marched slowly and steadily up the stairs. He knew what he had to do, and though it would be horrifying and completely traumatizing, he would do it. Things had gone straight south since his sister had opened that cupboard, and with that opening, had brought forth a horde of terror like no other.
Those things were watching him. They moved on the walls in slow and flickering, jerky movements, distorted shadows that were somehow alive. He heard their hissing all around him, but he was brave for an eight-year-old, and he would not be daunted.
His knife was silver, a piece from his mother’s collection, and he had coated it in salt, because salt and silver killed evil things. He slashed a shadow as it attacked; it gave a wail, a far-off keening as if heard from a great distance, and then it bothered him no more.
An icy, clawed hand gripped his left ankle, and he fell right at the top of the stairs, but he caught the railing just in time to prevent a lethal tumble down the wooden steps. He slashed at the shadowy appendage until its owner wailed and detached itself. His ankle had five long bruises upon it now, and it hurt, but he did not cry. He would not cry. No, the cupboard had to be shut, and it had to be done by him…He was all that was left.
He opened his sister’s bedroom door and stepped into the yawning darkness, but he had his dad’s small flashlight to guide his steps forward. He shone the light upon his sister’s bed and saw her lying there surrounded by shadows, an eternal, deathless sleep upon her pale form. She was sixteen and did not believe in the darkness anymore, and that was why she was in her current state, fed upon by those things.
They surrounded him. He slashed wildly left and right and left again, making his way to the closet door. They tore at him, screeching and wailing the entire time, bruising his face and hands and back, but he fought past them and flung open the closet door.
His mind could not comprehend the yawning expanse of insanity that was revealed within the cupboard door at the back wall of the closet. He was too young for such terrors to break his sanity; he believed because these things simply were, so he advanced through the madness, though he was filled with nothing but pure and unadulterated fear.
Inside the cupboard was the Void, and the Void contained the Great and Yellow Eye. Inky tendrils of madness sprouted from it as it comprehended its error; it suddenly knew this entrance was a mistake, for this one before it was too young to know insanity, too young to know anything but belief, so its true horror could not reach into the depths of the boy’s mind, and Ethan gripped the cupboard door before it could further react.
“NO!” was the only thing Ethan could hear over the intense wailing around him.
He slammed the cupboard shut, turned the latch lock, and all was still once more.
The Narrow Trees Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
The Cupboard Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 100 Tall Tales Matthew L. Marlott
The Cupboard Copyright © 2025 bloodytwine.com Matthew L. Marlott
Note: The image for this story was generated via artificial intelligence courtesy of Canva.com.
