And Then the Trees Came Knocking

Chapter 3

My heart froze. I looked at Freddy in disbelief, but he was telling the truth. Whatever he saw downstairs had him even more terrified than me, which was a hard feat.

At the same time, we both glanced back towards the corner. Slowly, we peered over the edge of the wall towards the strange shuffling sound. At the end of the hall, near the next corner bend, stood a tree-creature. Collected in its branches was a person, folded like a twisted bow. But it didn't eat the person, unlike the trees on the street earlier. 

This tree stuck something inside the chest of the folded person. It then dropped the corpse on the floor in a hard thud. 

Freddy jumped at the sound. 

The floor creaked. 

The tree turned around, its black spot facing us now. And it sprinted towards us on its contorted ugly roots. It was not quite the same as an animal's run. It was more like a spider's, but if the spider had broken joints. 

Freddy and I did not hesitate to turn around and dash back to the stairs. I ran up, skipping steps and pushing myself until my legs burned again. My heart pounded in my ears. Freddy could barely keep up with me, but I couldn't slow down. 

We kept going. Up. Up. To the next floor and the floor after that, until there were no more stairs. I threw open the door to Floor 32 and hurried down the hall, panting like a dog. 

This time I had no qualms about banging on doors. We had to hide. Freddy chose a door at random and began to kick it in. He threw himself at it twice before the lock gave and he went tumbling inside. 

I rushed in after him and swung the door closed behind us. I didn't see the man standing by the window in the living room with a gun pointed straight at us. 

The gun popped. 

A dime-sized hole appeared in the wall, inches away from my arm. I tucked my taser into my back pocket before the man could see it.

Freddy and I ducked and threw our hands up. The man was older than Freddy and I, probably in his mid-30's. He turned a nearby lamp on. He wore what looked like a cashmere robe with feathers along the collar. 

"Who are you?" the man yelped. "What are you doing here?"

"Calm down," I whispered. I could barely speak through my heavy breathing. Running up the stairs and getting shot at took a lot out of me.

Strangely, I wasn't even frightened of this man. Not really. How loud the gun was... that scared me. 

"I'm Freddy," Freddy said. "This is Dani. You don't know what's going on outside, do you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"There is some sort of attack on the city," I said. 

"Like what?"

Freddy and I glanced at each other. This was going to be impossible to explain. I continued anyway. "Some sort of monsters. They look like trees but... but they eat people. They are everywhere."

The man scoffed. "Your excuse for breaking into my apartment is that you are running from some goddamn plants?"

I clenched my jaw. That was the best explanation I had. My mind was too frazzled to come up with a decent lie. Freddy's shoulders slumped. He looked defeated.

The man reached over and grabbed his landline phone. He dialed 911 and waited for the line to pick up, all the while having the gun pointed at us. His uneasiness grew as the phone continued to ring.

"No one is going to answer--"

"Shut up!" he shouted. "Don't say anything!"

I closed my mouth with a sigh. We were going to be here all night if things continued like this. A thought crossed my mind...one that spoke of how it wouldn't be so bad to die this way. 

Shot by a scared human or get eaten by a tree. 

Fate decided for me.

The glass exploded from behind the man. Branches whipped into the apartment, snatching the man right off his feet. He screamed.

The gun went off twice. I leaped forward, over the coffee table and towards the window. The first thing I did was grab the gun. Freddy took it from me and aimed it at the tree behind the man. I grabbed the man's hands and tried to pull him away from the tree's hold. The thing was strong. 

Freddy fired the gun into the trunk. The tree seemingly lost its grip on the building and fell from the high-rise, taking the man with it.

Freddy and I stuck our heads out the window. We watched the man splatter at the concrete below. The tree slammed hard into the concrete, 32 floors below us. Freddy tucked the gun into the back of his pants. 

The tree squirmed a bit, then popped right back up as if the fall had been nothing. The thing latched onto the building and began running up the side, straight towards us. 

"Holy shit!" Freddy shrieked. 

The tree moved fast. We had no protection. The window was completely shattered. 

In between heartbeats, Freddy and I were back in the hallway, making a mad dash past apartments and around corners. We ducked into the first refuge we found.

A laundry room. It was empty.

I closed the door behind us and run to the back of the room. Freddy and I hid behind a line of washers. He flipped over a table and uses it to block us in from sight.

I grabbed Freddy's arms and squeezed him to keep myself from screaming. He, in turn, did the same. I embraced this stranger hard into my chest until I could barely breathe. And I cried into his dirty shirt. 

He whispered something against my forehead. It wasn't Spanish.

"What are you saying?" I managed to whisper through my silent tears. I choked on every word.

"It's a Thai prayer," he said.

"I thought you were..."

"Dad is Thai. Mom is Peruvian."

"My parents are dead," I said for some reason. "They were black though."

"Yeah, no shit."

I wanted to laugh and punch him but I couldn't. I collected myself then. Wiped my eyes. Rubbed the stiffness out my hands. We sat in silence for a while. There was distant shuffling, but it faded away. For a while, the silence was killing me. I only had my breathing and heartbeat. The quiet. It was too loud.

But the next sound was even worse.

There was a scream, probably 4-5 floors down. Then another scream. Another popping sound erupted, like a gunshot. Finally, bringing together the horror symphony was the screeching melody of the fire alarm. 

I covered my ears from the loud blare. That seemed to set everything into motion. Everyone could hear it, the alarm. Those sleeping in their homes would leave their apartments to see what the commotion was about. And those things would be waiting.

Three screams became ten, and ten became twenty-five. Breaking glass. Short bursts of gunfire. Crashing walls. 

And I could do nothing but hear it all. Even if I plugged my ears, I could still hear crescendo of torment reaching at me through the floor.