Episode 6: If a Tree Fell

Tori's family disappeared in a blink

Jan 25, 2024

Marredbury is a serial anthology, a combination of a larger narrative and a short story collection. If you missed an episodes of Marredbury, check out the table of contents.

Episode 6: If a Tree Fell

If a Tree Fell

The dog whined as the hike took them near the tree. He knew. The subtle hints: a sudden chill, the urge to look over her shoulder, just to make sure she truly was alone. The disquiet of the atmosphere was obvious now, after it took away her family. But the dog knew.

He barked when she stepped into the clearing, but didn’t follow. The redwood tree towered over her. The width of the trunk spanned at least two times Tori’s arm length. A tunnel had been dug out through the trunk, large enough to drive a car through, though there were no access roads around, just winding trails. The origins of the tree tunnel were unknown, like the empty space through the wide trunk just appeared overnight a long time ago. Even in the middle of the day, with the late summer sun beating down, the clearing remained cool, the tunnel dim. The space through the tree appeared empty while the entire woods sat silent, like it held its breath, waiting.

“If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around,” Tori murmured and rolled her eyes. “There’s always someone around, though, right?”

Her voice filled the quiet dread. She spoke to the dog, kind of. Mostly, she spoke to her husband. He’d disappeared in this spot a year ago, along with their two children. Part of her hoped he could hear her, but most of her just needed to talk to him.

Her voice wove through the surrounding trees. Overcast shrouded the summer sun and settled an air of gloom over the forest. Tori didn’t wait for a response, but dropped her bag at her feet, opened it, and continued, “All those strange noises in the other room, or when the radio acts funny. That chill that raises the small hairs on your arm.” She checked her own forearm. The hair stood on end, just like every other time she visited the tunnel. She retrieved a flashlight out of the bag and shined it into the tunnel. “I see now. We’re never alone, are we?”

It had all been revealed to her through De Luca’s Phantasmograph.

She lowered her flashlight, a persistent tremor in her grip. Discovering De Luca’s work with ghost orbs and the supernatural didn’t settle the thudding of her heart. She didn’t fear the ghosts, but the power of the tunnel reverberated terror.

Their family dog still waited at the edge of the clearing. A small whine weaved its way past the surrounding redwoods.

“I’ll be done soon, bud,” Tori said. The golden lab mix insisted on staying with her since the disappearance, but never stepped into the clearing. They’d both witnessed the tunnel work its evil. She didn’t blame him for keeping his distance. She would too, but she had to get them back. Everyone else was giving up. She won’t accept it like they did.

Huddled over her backpack, Tori shoved her phone aside and fished the device out. She couldn’t be bothered with her phone or the wallet buried deep in the bag, having only packed both for evidence. When a hiker found her backpack, there would be clues of how Tori’s horror ended.

With a grip on the device, she discarded the bag against a neighboring tree and then balanced the Phantasmograph in both her hands. The device almost looked like a camera. A screen filled most of the back end of the device. Navigation buttons lined to the right of the screen. Tori unhooked the telescoping lens and stretched out a few inches. A large flash bulb was attached at the top. Mirrors and additional cameras protruded from the sides.

Tori slipped her hands through the open space between the additional cameras. She inhaled deeply, “Here’s for nothing,” and flipped the on switch above the screen.

Hope skipped her heart another beat. She knew she wouldn’t find them today, but she couldn’t help the anticipation quickening her pulse. Just the thought of discovering one of them filled her eyes with tears. She blinked to clear her vision. Behind her, the dog paced, his paws crunched the forest floor. Tori gave the dog a small reassuring smile and returned her focus to the device.

“I’m here, Cory.” Tori murmured. “Send just one of them back for me.”

The Phantasmograph purred as Tori scanned the forest. The screen was as large as her palms pressed together and the three-sixty cameras caught the flecks of dust dancing in the rays of sunlight that penetrated the forest canopy.

She pointed the spectral camera at the tunnel and snapped a picture. The flash illuminated the residual energy of the dead around the carved out redwood tree for just a moment. Grief, pain, anger, fear. Just the sight of it spilled the emotions in the air, bringing a stench of rot and death. Not a hint of hope, or peace, or joy. Those weren’t the spirits that remained with the living.

She snapped a couple more times, pointing the camera to the side and then higher. She zoomed in to get a closer image of the view through the tunnel, not daring to step closer herself. Satisfied that she had the images she needed, she deactivated the spectral camera and clicked the icon for gallery mode.

The pictures appeared as small JPGs on the screen, all tinted a sickly shade of green. While the small rectangular images were too small to make out details, the white blurs of residual energy speckled each snapshot. Inky black drowned the tunnel.

Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t muster any words. The moment of truth. Did she capture their image or not? Of course, she should never wish for her family to be dead, trapped in the in between realm, but Tori didn’t even know if they were still alive. Any answer could bring some kind of peace, at least she hoped.

She selected the first image, a direct shot of the tunnel. The dug out space through the tree trunk was swallowed into blackness. It seeped along the surrounding trunk, like thin vines grasping for its next victim. Glowing orbs of spectral energy wound between a few tendrils. No ghostly human forms, just a few glowing points.

Tori choked back a sob. They weren’t there. Relief and disappointment quivered in her gut.

Before the Phantasmograph, the path through the redwood appeared innocent, a quirk of the area that attracted tourists. Tori had walked the trail with her family many times. They’d all walked through the center of the trunk and come out the other side, giggles from her two young children muted by the wood of the tree.

Did the tree get to know her family through those visits? The inquisitive questions of her four-year-old and Cory’s patient replies. The shouts and screams of joy as her eight-year-old bounced off of every rock and fallen branch she could find. The panting of their family dog. All of it a taste for the blackness. A taste acquired three months ago when her family had raced ahead of Tori on the trial, ventured through the tree tunnel and then — nothing.

She peered through the tunnel. The sight still brought that moment reeling back at her. She squeezed her eyes shut. The soft flesh of her palm dug into the sharp corners and junctures of the device. She couldn’t much more, but she also couldn’t stop, not when she didn’t have answers. With a slow breath, she opened her eyes again and stared ahead. The view through the shadowed alcove skipped, like an image of an old VHS. Before that afternoon, she’d never noticed that, never had a reason.

She couldn’t see the gleaming orbs with her naked eye, only with the Phantasmograph. The thin vines of the black twisted around them. The shine of the orbs closer to the tunnel dimmed more than the ones farther away, like the black hold ingested their light. There were more around since her last visit. The tunnel seemed to attract them.

“What are you looking for?” Tori traced the tip of her finger between the maze of orbs. The orbs had been spirits, old ones. Death hadn’t ended their search for answers; it wouldn’t end Tori’s either.

On that horrific afternoon, her family never came out the other side of the tunnel. With the dog at her heels, she’d walked around the wide trunk and looked through from the other side. They were gone in a blink. No cries, no cracks of ominous thunder. Even the sun still shined overhead, mocking Tori in the silent forest. She stared through the tunnel, unable to make sense of what happened, but she didn’t walk through. Some instinct kept her in the tree's perimeter, a tightness in her chest squeezing the air from her lungs as her eyes scoured for any evidence of her family. A tiny shoe. The crunch of Cory’s foot stepping on the forest debris. The dog leaned his body against her legs. Her vision blurred. They couldn’t just be gone. It wasn’t possible.

The police had been polite and sympathetic, but they didn’t believe her. The ramblings of a woman who snapped. Her family had gone missing, but it couldn’t have happened through the tunnel of a tree. There had to be another explanation. The investigation grew stagnant just weeks after Tori’s report.

It was through desperate searches on the internet that she found the Phantasmograph.

The dog whined from the edge of the clearing, bringing Tori back to the present. He paced along the edge and then barked at the empty space in front of him.

Tori raised the Phantasmograph and snapped a picture. She clicked over to the gallery and found and shadowy image of a gray man in the empty space the dog had been barking at.

“Good to see you, John.” She spoke to the image.

The dog quieted, but his tail remained between his back legs.

Though grainy, Tori could make out hiking boots and a water pack on the man’s back. She assumed the spirit to be a victim of the forest. There were half a dozen photos of him from her previous searches, like he wanted to help or keep her company. She called him John Doe. The dead hiker hadn’t walked through the tunnel, though. He remained a spirit of the forest, where Tori’s family was nowhere to be found.

For three months, Tori had scoured the trails, spent sleepless nights searching online, reaching out to private detectives, psychics, and ghost investigators. She quit her job and drained their savings. Tori stopped answering her phone. She had no time for condolences and inquiries from their family and friends. She stopped responding to the police. They weren’t helping her.

After purchasing the Phantasmograph and taking pictures of genuine spirits, she had hoped the creator of the device, Phillip De Luca would help her. Tori searched for his contact information and drafted out an email, including the photos she’d taken of the tunnel. The email was a university address, De Luca, a professor of the paranormal not far from his hometown in Italy. A director responded to her message. The creator of the Phantasmograph had launched himself in front of a train the previous winter. He’d left a note to his mother explaining his decision. With a final “Cordiali saluti,” the director closed off another hope.

All the while, the grainy image of John Doe pointed to the tunnel.

Tori scrolled through the device’s gallery to the final image she had snapped, a shot up the tree. The shine of daylight should still have seeped through the evergreen. Instead, the black vines hung from the branches, like a parasite feeding off its host.

She returned to the photo of John, his arm still outstretched, finger pointing into the blackness of the tunnel. She’d always known where her family had gone. All this time searching, and she couldn’t get an answer beyond that tunnel. Whatever realm or hell the tunnel led to, Tori couldn’t rescue them by walking into the blackness herself. She’d be trapped, just like her family. She’d be giving up and she couldn’t do that, not while she still had hope to save them. The police. The Phantasmograph. Something had to help. She had to find them and get them back.

“Mom called today, Cory.” Tori returned to the first photo and stroked the inky black of the tunnel. “I didn’t answer. You were always better at small talk and I didn’t want to talk about, you know.” She looked at the actual tunnel before her. A breeze rustled the branches overhead. “When I didn’t answer, she texted me. It’s official. The police are calling your investigation stalled. They can’t do anything without additional evidence.”

Additional evidence. Tori stared at the screen of the Phantasmograph until her vision unfocused. No one took her evidence seriously. They couldn’t believed that three people could step into a space and disappear.

Her life had stalled. What did everyone expect her to do? Go to work and return every evening to the four-bedroom house, now atrociously big for her family and the dog. Do they expect her to cook, clean, fold laundry, and attend holidays as if she had never had a family.

Of course, they would be remembered. Tori had experienced a nightmare that made everyone else grateful not to be her.

She raised the camera and snapped one final shot. She had zoomed and focused on the hiker. Through the grainy image, Tori could make out his turned down lips and sorrowful eyes. The image reflect the heaviness in her heart, and his arm still raised, finger poised toward the tunnel.

A stalled investigation. De Luca dead. What else was Tori supposed to do?

“You win, John,” Tori said.

She powered down the Phantasmograph and returned it to the backpack. The police needed new evidence. With her disappearance, the backpack would be that new evidence. Maybe then, they would listen to her theories. Maybe then, they will have what they need to find her and her family. She set the bag against the base of a neighboring tree, right next to their family dog.

She knelt beside him and scratched behind his ears. “When I’m gone, run home. I left the dog door open and extra food and water. My mom will take care of you when they discover I’m gone.”

He looked back with the same sorrowful eyes as John Doe. Tori kissed the top of his head, stood back up, and turned back to the tunnel.

With the backpack in position, Tori stepped before the tunnel. She allowed her eyes to zero in on the view through the narrow walkway, her destination still skipping in the unnatural static of the supernatural. She imagined her children running through after her husband. Their memory of their voices echoed in her mind. She ached for the feel of their bodies pressed against hers, her arms enveloping as the comfort of their scent washed over her.

She’d tried to get them back. She tried to find anyone who could help them. This was all she could do next. Best-case scenario, the backpack would provide the police with the additional evidence they needed to continue their investigation. They’d have to believe her. Her absence should be evidence enough.

Worst-case scenario, she’d be reunited with her family. Wherever the black hole of the tunnel took her, she’d be with them.

She flashed her gaze to the spot where the gray man stood. She imagined John ushering her forward. He’d be happy that she finally followed his direction. She turned back to the tunnel.

“Does it hurt, Cor?” Her voice broke.

She took a shaky breath in, taking in the musty scent of the rotting forest floor. Light speckled her skin. The sun managed to break through the overcast, but the chill in the air rose goosebumps on her flesh. After a moment, her heart slowed, her palms no longer sweaty. She was ready. Slowly, she exhaled and stepped into the tunnel.