The Old Oak Tree (EPISODE 5)

‘It’s a death sentence, Peter,’ Nancy said, folding her arms. The stump where her right hand had been amputated was still healing, blistering over with cracking scabs that oozed a vague, translucent seepage. Peter wondered if the injury was as agonising as it looked. Since his sister had killed her husband to save her child, she had become a different person. The shine of love in her eyes had hardened to a cool hate, her face twisted into a permanent, half-scowl.
 
She narrowed her eyes as she noticed Peter scrutinising her. ‘It’s a death sentence,’ she repeated.
 
‘John survived,’ Peter pointed out.
 
‘They tried to stone him to death,’ Nancy argued. Her head twitched to the sound of baby Peter gurgling in the next room. She was silent for a few moments, listening, but the sound of babble quietened, and her shoulders relaxed.
 
‘Nothing good comes from crossing the Line,’ Nancy said, lowering her voice.
 
Peter sighed. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘But maybe we can change that.’
 
‘Jesus, Peter.’
 
‘We have family over there, Nance. We have friends. People we used to get a drink with.’
 
‘And they’re gone,’ Nancy replied.
 
Peter shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that.’
 
By way of answer, Nancy presented her brother with her right arm. He stared at the stump, his face shifting in discomfort and imagined pain. Nancy glowered at him until he met her eyes. ‘Daniel did that, Peter. My husband. But it wasn’t my husband. Not really.’ She stepped closer. ‘He tried to kill your nephew. Have you forgotten already?’
 
Peter frowned. Nancy pressed the advantage. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ she said. ‘Whether this is a punishment from God, a plague of madness or the work of the devil. But those people are not who they used to be. Just look at them, Peter. If you want to go to the Line, look across the root and look at them. Something’s happened to them. Even Father Gregory: didn’t you see what he did to John? They’re not people anymore, Peter.’
 
‘I don’t think we know that, Nance.’
 
‘Yes, we do! You’re just in denial.’ Her voice softened. ‘And I understand that. But I didn’t have the luxury of pretending, Peter.’ She took Peter’s hand. ‘I can’t lose you too,’ she said. ‘Please, Peter. Don’t do this.’
 
Peter pulled his hand away. ‘I’m sorry, Nance.’
 
Nancy sighed. The softness in her voice blistered to something hard and scabby. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But know this: if you die, I will never forgive you.’
 
‘Nance–’
 
Peter paused as the baby started to cry from the next room. Nancy stood up, seeming to forget that her brother was still there as she disappeared through the doorway. Peter listened as she hummed soft lullabies to his nephew, listened as his cries quietened to the sound of contented suckling.
 
He sighed, and left the house.
 
Standing on the street, Peter stared across the bifurcated town of Orlow. It was a grey, grim day – it had been ever since the growth of the old oak tree – the sun snuffed out by strangling clouds and dense, impervious shadow. The road was crumpled and mangled where a single, improbably thick root had grown from the old oak tree, splitting its way through concrete and brick where it met the old schoolhouse. Peter could feel eyes on him – the eyes of his neighbours, wondering what he was doing, wondering what he was planning – but also the eyes of the Others, those watching from the other side of the Line. He sighed again to himself, observing the old oak tree. To his estimation, it had grown taller, its leaves wilder and rotted black, but still clinging to the dark bark of the branches. As Peter stared at it, he thought he could see the old oak tree move: not from its position, but within itself, ripples of tumorous pulses pressing from the inside of the trunk, roiling up and down. Even from a safe distance, Peter could feel its malign nature, as definite as it was inexplicable.
 
‘What are you thinking, Pete?’
 
Peter smiled as John limped up to him. John was still hunched over from where the rocks had bruised his spine, his face black and blue.
 
‘I’m thinking I need to go over there,’ Peter said.
 
He heard John sigh. ‘I tried that, Pete.’
 
Peter turned with a sympathetic smile. ‘I know, John.’
 
John smiled back, wincing around a cracked lip. ‘Vanessa?’
 
Peter chuckled ruefully. ‘Yeah. But that’s not the whole of it.’
 
John nodded. He looked beaten down, not only physically but in spirit, something haggard and broken. ‘Is there anything I can say to talk you out of it?’ he asked.
 
Peter looked at him with genuine warmth. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He paused. ‘Thanks, John.’
 
John clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Alright, Pete.’
 
He limped away. Peter watched him for a few moments.
 
‘Now or never,’ he muttered, and strode forwards.
 
The old oak tree loomed over him, catching him in its shadow long before he reached the Line. The darkness brought with it a chill, and Peter shivered, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders. He willed himself to look up at the tree, to face it down, but found he couldn’t, his eyes fixed to the ground. All the courage he possessed was put to the task of forcing one foot forwards after the other, forcing himself to reach the long root and finally cross the Line.
 
When he stepped over the root, he felt a chill of terror. He paused, hesitating. He glanced over his shoulder. The safe side of Orlow seemed strangely distant, now. Peter swallowed, and turned away.
 
‘In for a penny…’ he muttered, pressing onwards towards the church. The cross on its steeple leered down at him. The air smelt stale and thin, never quite filling his lungs. When his shoes pressed against the gravel of the church path, the tiny stones seemed to needle and stab him, sounding like crumbling bones as he crunched them underfoot.
 
‘Jesus,’ he mumbled, his legs freezing. He knew he couldn’t step any closer. He wanted to run: to turn and flee, screaming back to the Other side of the old oak tree. He could feel his body trembling, the icy cold of panic freezing up his veins. He tried to breathe, but he couldn’t quite catch his breath.
 
He closed his eyes. Breathed in and out in short, uneven breaths.
 
He sat down on the ground.
 
Peter could hear the sound of raised voices from within the church. He couldn’t quite make out the words – not because they were muffled, but because they sounded strange, like grunts and snarls – but he could hear the anger in their voices, the fear. He kept his eyes closed, willing himself to stay. Though he could not articulate it without blushing, Peter knew that this was important: that if he could stay on the Other side of the old oak tree, that it would matter, somehow.
 
He heard the creak of the church doors opening.
 
Peter opened his eyes.
 
A mob of the Others stared back at him, their faces and bodies distorted, twisted. The man at the front was familiar – Peter thought it might be Jack, but his face seemed to be melting, dripping down in putrid pus from his cheeks and chin. Behind him were an array of monsters, each horrid in a different way, a cursed blend of mutations and broken features. Peter forced himself to look at them: to look upon each face, to overcome the immediate revulsion of their appearance. If he squinted, he thought he could see the people behind the grotesquery, like the evil was just a mask that slowly blurred to nothing.
 
A figure pushed back Jack, wearing Father Gregor’s cassock. Peter forced himself to stare past the smouldering, red flesh that cracked like volcanic rock around black, furious eyes. When Father Gregory spoke, his voice reverberated like thunder, an intense, frantic screaming that seemed to emanate not from his mouth, but from inside Peter’s head.
 
‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?!’ the preacher roared.
 
Peter breathed. He tried to smile. ‘I want to understand you,’ he said.
 
Father Gregory bellowed something back, but Peter could not make out the words: it was like the ground itself was splitting apart, breaking open in earthquakes to unleash a cacophony of shrieking daemons. The sound rose and rose, so loud that Peter felt like his skull was cracking, blood leaking from his ears. It was not speech, it was just incoherent, terrible rage: a living nightmare snatched from the bowels of the night terrors that had so frightened Peter as a child. It took all of Peter’s power not to scream, the world closing in around him, distances shrinking into compressing walls of a smaller and smaller box.
 
But Peter did not scream. He breathed, and kept his position, sitting still.
 
The roaring faded to blessed quiet. The Others shuffled past him, and Peter forced himself to look at them all again, to try and see the humanity behind the monstrous masks they had been forced to wear. None of them met his eyes. Peter thought that they seemed scared. He smiled at Vanessa, but she shuddered, hurrying on.
 
Peter started to wonder what they saw when they looked at him.
 
The sun fell, but Peter maintained his vigil. He was resolved, now. No matter how long it took, he would stay there. He didn’t know what he was waiting for exactly, but he knew it would come.
 
For good or for ill, it would come.