Curse Tree

There's a curse tree on a lonely hill in a small town somwhere where people write the names of their grudges.  The bullied, the jealous, the angry, and the curious.

For years, the practice went on.

Maybe people believed, maybe it was therapeutic, but eventually someone died.
 
-

The kid was lying on one of the well travelled roads of the suburbs, his body crushed in the middle as though by a steam roller.

The little town wasn't used to such gruesome murders, but Detective Fowley had the grit and metal to be able to deal with it. He examined the crime scene that had way too many evidence markers, indicating the stray particles the victim had strewn across the entire street. They numbered up to 102.

Fowley had seen enough, "Cover him up."

He smoked a cigaratte and looked down at the body as it was covered. The CSI was already taking some photographs.

"Jesus, what did this to him?" He asked rhetorically. His fellow officers looked equally perturbed, but were professional about it all.

Fowley looked again at the blood and shook his head. "He's all over the place."

The CSI photographer looked up from his camera,

"I know him, sir. He's a local school drop-out Denny rogers." He checked his camera and took another photo before continuing, "He used to bully a lot of kids. Don't think people will miss him. "

Detective Fowley frowned and sighed before flicking his cigarette away and walking back to his car,

"I hate cases like these" He grumbled, "If someone is hated by enough people, killing starts to feel like justice. We all know what that looks like on a larger scale."

He stopped at his car and nodded to the other officers, "Let's catch this guy, fast."


-

But they never catch him. People die badly - most are unpopular and infamous for one reason or the other. Some are more or less liked by the community. The killings have a pattern but tend to veer off into unexplained directions. But one thing is clear: They are all concentrated on the town.

Detective Fowley is not a genius, but he's efficient, diligent. He prefers working evidence rather than talking to people, which is why it takes him so long to hear about the tree.

-
The door to his study creaked open.

"Dad?"

"Hm?" Fowley didn't look up from his desk. It was strewn with crime scene photographs and notes of various interviews the others at the precint had conducted. He was going through it for the umpteenth time, trying to find a break somewhere.

"I... I've got something to tell you."

From the quiet tone of his son's voice, Fowley looked up at his desk. His son was in his pajamas. He looked scared and nervous.

"What's wrong?"

"It's about... The people who were hurt. Who died."

Fowley looked alarmed, "Did you look through my drawers again - I told you-"

His son shook his head, "N-no it's not that. I mean I didn't... But everyone was talking about it. And I heard from some friends... I don't know if you know so..."

Fowley sighed, "Explain. I'm listening, son."

He looked nervous, but takes the plunge,

"I was being knocked around by those guys again."

Fowley's jaw set. He was sure he had sorted that out with the school already. He was about to go in an outburst and his son noticed and continued along.

"I was talking to some other kids and they said if I want revenge I just go write their names in the tree. With a knife in the bark."

"The tree?" Fowley asked.

"The curse tree." His son whispered.

-


So Fowley visits it.

He finds scratched out names in the bark, and having just read his case files he knows that all the names there are either dead or missing. Fowley suspects they all have the same fate.

Then he sees his name scratched in the bark.

Scratched and jagged like the rest, like it was done with a knife.

Before he can process this, he feels an explosive pain in his left shoulder and the sound like tearing meat.

He takes his hand from the bark and realizes that his left hand is not there. He looks at his shoulder and realizes that he's just lost his left arm - A bleeding stump is all that remains.

Still in shock, he is unable to react to the monstrousity that has spawned behind him - It's a mass of hands covering a mass of grinning hungry teeth, propped up by muscular malformed legs that range from feminine to masculine, some with numerous knees and unnatural bends and turns. The wriggling mass is preparing for an attack.

And it flies to finish the job as Fowley falls to his knees, but dissipates right over his head.

It vanishes.

-

His son is crushed apart instead. The boy whimpers in his death spasms as the mass of hands kneads his bones and flesh like dough, decimating his organs and managing to keep him alive for a few horrifying seconds.

In his hand is his fathers' journal, his finger on the page he was last reading at that moment.