The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Burning Roots 
by Kathleen McCluskey 

   No one knew when the tree first appeared.

It stood in the town’s center, ancient and gnarled. Its roots sank deep into soil that had never borne its kind before. It hadn’t been there the previous night, and yet by morning, the villagers found it towering over them. Its bark was blackened like it had survived some great inferno.

They should have cut it down.

The first night, the whispers began. Soft at first, like the wind through leaves. But there were no leaves. Maybe a voice? Soon it became clear that it was a voice, speaking in a language no one understood. But its meaning seemed to seep into their souls. Confessions of sins long buried, regrets unspoken, fears acknowledged. Each night someone new heard it, and each morning they woke hollow eyed and trembling.

On the seventh night the tree caught fire.

Flames roared up its branches, dripping like molten gold, yet did not burn away. The fire moved unnaturally, almost controlled, deliberate. It illuminated the town square with a hellish crimson glow. It casted shadows that twisted and writhed, stretching toward the homes as if seeking something. Or someone.

The next morning Father Elias was gone. In his place, at the base of the still burning tree, lay a pile of ash. Its shape was disturbingly human.

Panic gripped the town. Some fled but no road led far enough to escape the sight of the infernal tree. Others prayed. But the church doors wouldn’t open, their windows blackened from within.

On the fourteenth night, the fire spread. Not to the buildings, not to the land but to the people. One by one the villagers were consumed from within. Their screams blended with the whispers in an eerie melody. Their bodies burned like candles, but they did not collapse. They moved even as they were burning. Their mouths were wrenched open with wails, both piercing and silent. Their eyes, black pits that bled embers were soulless. They wandered the streets, their skin sloughing off in molten ribbons, until the fire consumed them whole.

By the final night only one soul remained.

Emma stood before the tree, barely breathing. The fire did not consume her – not yet. It licked at her feet, her fingers, tasting, deciding. She could hear them now, inside the flames. She couldn’t tell if they were begging her to stay or urging her to run.

Then the flames shot out but did not consume her flesh. They slithered beneath it. Burrowing. Winding through her veins, stretching into her limbs. Her body convulsed as something inside of her cracked. Her fingers curled against her will, nails splitting. They began to mutate and stretch into black, charred bark. Her ribs pressed outward, growing, elongating towards the ground.

She tried to scream, but her jaw locked. Her throat tightened. Her spine arched back with a sickening pop.

The last thing she saw before the darkness swallowed her vision was the ground rushing up to meet her.

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Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!