On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 213, of 240 so far.

Deadfall

There were broken branches everywhere, positioned like they’d been placed carefully instead of scattered by the elements. Little piles and trails, as if someone or something was writing in a secret language.

“Going to need a couple of extra chainsaws and a few more men, with the chipper,” the supervisor said, not glancing around as he moved further along the debris-strewn cycle path that ran parallel to the river.

They were a team of three, but they were only the first of many who would be combing the area over the next couple of weeks. When the meteorological office had upgraded the storm warning the day before it hit, the supervisor, whose name was Heller, knew he was in for a lot of overtime. He’d been right.

The last of the winds had died out the night before, and it was now a little after eight in the morning. He’d arrived at the office for a briefing at six, and he wouldn’t be home until long after dark. There were fourteen more sites to assess today alone, and his schedule was full for the foreseeable future.

“Shouldn’t we start now?” one of the men asked, and Heller shook his head without explanation. They had only basic safety equipment, and the first job after the survey would be to clear an access path for carrying everything back out. The man who had asked the question was new, and apparently needed some more training.

They moved further into the strip of woodland, bordered by a road on the other side, and Heller could hear the river flowing nearby. It sounded faster, as if there were impediments to the current and the remaining open areas had quickened, but it was probably his imagination. The waterways weren’t his problem anyway.

It was the third man who spotted the big tree first, voicing a wordless call for attention and gesturing down the gently inclined landscape towards a point about two hundred metres away. It took Heller a few seconds to pick out what the man was interested in, then all three increased their pace a little.

When they reached it, Heller shook his head with sadness. The old oak was a sorry sight, laid almost flat, its crown pointing west instead of to the sky, with most of its directly-underlying root system ripped out of the ground along with it. The damage it had done to nearby trees was prodigious too, but the oak itself was a real tragedy. It had stood there since before Heller’s own grandfather had moved to the area for work with the railways, and was like a member of the community. It had been the midpoint on the cycle path between the station and the town centre, and always a popular landmark for dog walkers, or a meeting place for amorous teenagers. Now, it was a ruin.

The third man stood nearby, closer to the base of the tree, and Heller noticed him making the sign of a cross over his chest. It made Heller frown in curiosity, and he walked over to join him, trying to remember his name. The man was also a recent addition, and was from some Eastern European country where perfectly ordinary consonants had lines running through them, strung together in sequences, with exotic pronunciations. He was embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t recall the name at all, and he suspected that the man knew it.

“Something wrong?” Heller asked, and he received a shrug by way of response.

Coming closer to the foot of the toppled tree, Heller let out a whistle. It was the biggest deadfall he’d seen, and the amount of disturbance to the ground was astonishing. With the hauling out of the roots, a hole many metres across had been opened up, and it extended down into the damp soil farther than he could see in the shaded environment of the remaining trees. But as dramatic as the sight was, Heller could see no reason for undue concern.

“They should be angry,” the man said suddenly, and his name popped into Heller’s mind at last: it was Sikorski, like the helicopters but with an ‘i’.

“Who should, Sikorski?” Heller asked, and the quick glance from the man somehow suggested that he knew Heller had only just managed to recall his name.

“Trees,” he replied. “Because we did this. Made the storm.”

Heller considered his words for a moment. “With climate change, you mean? Carbon emissions?” he asked, and Sikorski nodded firmly.

Heller sighed. The storm had been the worst on record, by far. It would be naive to think that the worst weather events in documented human history were all just coincidentally happening in the same few decades — or few years. Sikorski was probably right.

“Maybe,” Heller replied, “but luckily for men like us who have to cut some of them down, trees don’t get angry.”

Sikorski made a gesture with his hand that Heller didn’t recognise, then the man spat on the ground. “Maybe. Maybe not,” he replied, then he walked off.

Heller watched him go, then made a mental note to enquire with the office why he’d been given two new recruits on the same detail, one of whom seemed to be more like the type who’d chain himself to a trunk in front of their crews. But that was a matter for later.

He took out his phone and noted the fallen tree in the survey app, taking several photos for the log entry. It was a high priority for clearance, owing to the partial obstruction of the cycle path and the degree of local media attention that was certain to come. Heller was about to leave when he looked again at the gaping hole in the earth that the oak had left.

There was something about it that made the hairs on his forearms stand on end, even though his rational mind could find nothing unexpected about the scene.

He stepped closer, peering over the rim and squinting to see in the darkness. There was a sound like branches breaking underfoot, and for a moment he thought that a burrowing animal’s habitat had been disturbed.

They should be angry, he thought, hearing the words in Sikorski’s heavily accented voice.

When the sheared remaining roots reached up from below to pull him in, Heller’s last thought was that he couldn’t really blame them.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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