The Tree Line

It was a beautiful party. Such a shame she was going to die.

Gladys was sitting in an old pastor’s chair, hands tied to the armrests with zip-ties. It was a comfortable seat, all things considered. The pastor probably had a good time in days long past, listening to a choir sing old hymns before his sermon. There wasn’t a podium anymore, nor a cross hung up on the wall. Only a few pews remained, pushed up against the walls to allow for maximum dance space. Gladys leaned back into the chair, trying to sink into the cushions.

She was on a stage, raised up from the floor. Below her, people danced in gowns and suits. The clothes were a bit fancier than Gladys would have thought respectable for a church. One girl spun to the front of the stage, her blue dress swirling out around her. She drunkenly fell into the arms of a man in a bright orange suit. They kissed, crashing into the alter in front of them. Another couple tried to help them up but ended up joining the pile of love-sick fools.

Someone cried to Glady’s right. The old woman sighed as her granddaughter, a rather thin girl that still had her braces on, tried to escape her own constraints.

“Please dear,” Glady’s pleaded, “you must stop that. You’ll ruin your make-up.” Her granddaughter didn’t respond. Big tears rolled down her face, smearing her mascara and ruining her blush. When the men had come by that morning and taken them to the old church, the young girl fought tooth and nail. She’d scratched one man’s face until he bled, and she kicked the other so hard in the groin that Glady’s doubted he’d be having any children of his own. All the while, the old lady had carefully stored her knitting materials and followed the men outside.

“So sorry about that,” she remembered saying. “Kids these days. They don’t want to take responsibility for the future.”

That had given her grandchild a beautiful satin gown. Gladys had always thought she looked good in pink. It looked just like the prom picture the girl’s mother had sent in the mail a year before. Her daughter retched. Bile flew out of the girl’s mouth and onto the beautiful dress. Gladys winced but didn’t admonish the girl. Instead, she called out to a woman sitting on the other side of the stage.

“Excuse me?” Glady didn’t think her shrill voice would reach the woman over the chaos below, but the blonde looked up from a clipboard. She stood from her plastic chair, black gown trailing behind her as she walked toward Glady’s. The woman smiled, touching the masquerade mask on her face.

“Yes ma’am? Is something wrong?”

“I believe my little Kelly is feeling overwhelmed.” Gladys nodded at the vomit in the weeping girl’s lap. At least her granddaughter had gotten quiet now. Kelly was staring out at the party, watching the couple kiss and dance with a glazed look. The woman gasped, quickly snapping her fingers. Two men in servant’s clothes quickly came to cover the mess up with a blanket.

“My goodness,” the woman said. She took a pen from behind her ear and marked something on her clipboard. “Well, thank you for letting me know. The Board will want to know about this.”

“We aren’t in any trouble, are we?” For the first time since getting tied up, Gladys felt her skin crawl. She tugged at her restraints. “I know this sort of thing happens to a lot of people every year.”

“Oh, yes ma’am, we are prepared for this sort of thing.” Another snap of the fingers, and the servants were back. Each held a tray holding one champagne glass. The liquid inside was bright pink. The woman clutched the clipboard tight to her chest, back to smiling. “We’re about to head outside in a little bit. You two go ahead and drink these complimentary beverages. The speech is about to begin.”

The woman bowed her head to the two of them before walking off the stage and into the crowd. The man with Glady’s glass held it out to her. She took a tentative sip. It tasted like strawberries. She readily drank the rest, finishing with a satisfying smack of her lips. Kelly was much more defiant. Even in her quiet state, she refused to drink. Gladys rolled her eyes. Such unbecoming behavior at a party, of all things!

“Dear, drink.” Gladys let the man use a napkin to dab her lips. “It’s not poisoned.”

Kelly slowly looked at her grandmother. Her eyes seemed to focus on her grandmother’s pearls. Her black eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s drugged.” Kelly’s voice was raw from crying. Gladys laughed.

“Don’t be ridiculous dear. They don’t use drugs. Everything is completely organic.”

Instead of reassuring Kelly, it seemed to make the girl more afraid. Her granddaughter began shaking, so much so that the servant had to take the glass away. Gladys's nails scraped along the wooden armrest. The people below were still partying, but Gladys could see them starting to clear a path down the middle. The woman with the clipboard walked back on stage, nodding to Gladys and Kelly. One of the servants brought her a microphone. She tapped it a few times to get everyone’s attention.

“Good afternoon, everyone!” The crowd responded with a drunken ‘good afternoon’. The woman held up her hand for silence. “Thank you for attending our annual sacrificial party. Our theme this year was ‘Washed-up Cash’, and let me just say, you all have outdone yourselves!” She was interrupted by ravenous applause. “First, we would like to say thank you to Paula for providing our drinks tonight, and we also must thank the Bristol family for the sandwiches they made.

“Now, I know we are all very excited to continue our night of fun, so we are going to go ahead and move our lovely ladies…” She motioned to Gladys and Kelly. “…outside so that we can get to the costume contest. If Thomas and Jerald could come up and help me, we can go on ahead and get things started.”

The two men from that morning walked up onto the stage. It seemed that Thomas was still reeling from his manly injuries. He opted to get Gladys this time. As Thomas cut the zip-ties and helped Gladys up, Jerald was doing the same with her granddaughter. Kelly only struggled a little. Jerald was easily able to hold her up by her armpits. The group walked down the altar steps, through the crowd of clapping people. Gladys saw her friends from the town book club, sipping water. One of them waved at her as she passed.

Outside the church, tents and houses lined the roads. Gladys had to step around a pile of trash that someone had left on the road. Kelly dragged her feet every step of the way. Some people inside the church followed them, still singing and drinking and generally being loud. At the edge of the town was a large white wall with a metal fence at the top. As they got closer to it, Gladys could hear the buzzing of electricity along the metal prongs.

The woman with the clipboard waved at the guards at the gate. Two men began cranking a pulley at the door. Slowly, the metal doors swung outward. The metal hinges whined at the effort. Kelly began to whimper as Jerald pushed her toward the door. Gladys did her best to ignore her as she walked forward. The crowd cheered as they walked past the safety of the town’s walls.

As soon as they had walked a good way away from the door, Jerald and Thomas let the two women go. Jerald pushed Kelly forward so that she fell. The two men jogged back to the safety of the walls. Kelly screeched, an unholy sound that sounded like it came from an animal. Gladys winced as the girl stood, running for the door. She never made it. The doors closed just as Kelly reached them. The young girl pounded on the door, screaming for help.

Gladys could hear the cheering of the crowd slowly getting softer. They must have been going back to the church to decide the winner of the contest. Kelly had stopped screaming. Instead, she hit her fist into the door. Gladys hiked up the hem of her dress, walking over to her granddaughter. She lifted Kelly up, letting the girl hang onto her arm.

Kelly was trembling. She buried her head into Gladys’s shoulder. “I don’t want to die,” she whispered. Gladys rubbed the girl’s head. She led Kelly away from the town. There were tree stumps and dead grass close to the town, but as they got farther away, more greenery started to appear. Gladys’s dress got caught up in some briers that had been allowed to run wild. Kelly tripped over the roots of an old stump.

“I don’t want to die,” Kelly repeated. They were getting closer to the woods. These trees hadn’t been cut down. The town had deemed this area far away enough to be left alone. Gladys sat her granddaughter down on one of the last stumps left.

“It's not so bad.” Gladys began to braid Kelly’s hair, just like when she was a little girl. “No need to be scared of it.” Kelly didn’t seem to hear her grandmother. She just kept saying ‘I don’t want to’ over and over. She only stopped when the two heard a deep growl coming from the forest. Gladys left the braid half done. There would be no need to finish it.

As the growl grew closer, Kelly stood from the stump. Her face was streaked with black smudges, but her eyes were as hard as steel. Gladys tried to sit her back down, but Kelly smacked her hands away.

“You stay then,” she spat, “you stay and get torn to shreds. I’m leaving.” Gladys watched in horror as Kelly tore the bottom of her dress. Kelly hurled the fabric to the ground and took off running. She didn’t go back toward the village, nor did she run into the woods. She ran down the destroyed forest path, dodging between the stumps and briers until she was a little pink blur on the horizon. Gladys sighed, turning back to the woods. There would be no going after her now. The growling was loud enough that the old lady could feel the vibrations in her chest.

Gladys took a seat on Kelly’s stump, hands clasped in her lap. Kelly wouldn’t be able to outrun it. No matter how far she went, or how fast she ran, she would eventually lose this fight. Gladys closed her eyes as the creature appeared at the tree line. She held her breath as she heard it roar. She let it out as she felt its claws touch her cheek.

Kelly paused in her run as she heard a scream. She held a hand to her mouth, holding back her vomit. Her grandmother’s howls of pain only lasted for a few more seconds before the area was quiet again. Kelly slowly let her hand fall. She wiped her last tears from her face. And she ran.