Arcane II by Nathan Shumate (Editor) Read Free Book Online

across and looked down to see it hit the mossy earth and rest against one of the red oak’s roots.
    He looked about at the ground below, but saw nothing moving to indicate what caused the noise. As he marveled at how high he was, he noticed the root next to the fallen apple move. He first passed it off as a trick of the daylight peaking through the thick of the neighboring trees, then he saw it very clearly move, like a boa constrictor winding methodically through the grass.
    “No way.” It had been almost three weeks since the last time he’d smoked up, and even then only a few tokes to take the edge off.
    The tree swayed, and he was thrown off balance, shoulder-first into a wall of rough bark. He realized he wasn’t high, but he was screaming.
    Derrick threw himself face down on the platform and gripped its edges. The tree rocked and twisted for a few seconds or so, and as quickly as it had started, it stopped. Derrick lay flat, eyes bugged out, and drew in quick, hoarse breaths, unsure of what the hell just happened. Reasonably sure the tree wasn’t about to take off at a run, he pulled his face up to the edge of the platform and looked down. The tree was motionless, including the roots, but there was something off. He spun around on his belly and peered over the opposite edge and looked down. There, at the base of tree, he saw a small slash of black soil as wide as the tree itself—like the thing had moved away from the marsh.
    Did it crawl? he thought. Tree don’t crawl, you idiot. Had to be an earthquake or something.
    He stayed still and waited for one minute, then two. Nothing happened. He spun round on his belly again, grabbed his backpack and snatched his cell phone from the side pocket. No power.
    As he stared at his phone, trying to summon it to life and a bar to appear through sheer will alone, he heard a plunk atop the boards next to him. He looked and his breath hitched when he saw his apple, slightly bruised and muddied from its fall and whatever journey it had taken to make it back up, jostling to a rest next to his right leg.
    “The hell with this.”
    In seconds he had the rope ladder unraveling its way down. It stopped a good six feet up from the ground, but that wouldn’t be a problem for him. He was three rungs down, cell phone in his back pocket and all too ready to abandon everything else, when a voice froze him.
    “Hey, Derrick!” TJ hollered from below.
    Derrick looked down to see his friend emerge from the woods in a hurry.
    “Derrick,” TJ said again, this time his voice lowered and glancing behind him. “What are you doing, man? Jeanie, the one from the paper is right behind me, not to mention a few others. Get the fuck back up there. You can shit in the bushes later.”
    “Damn it, TJ.” Derrick grimaced and contemplated jumping and using his buddy as a soft landing, but heard footsteps coming down the path. Reluctantly, he climbed back up to the platform, pulled the ladder back up, and sat down with his legs dangling over the edge—but he kept one hand tightly gripped onto the rope of the ladder in case the tree got frisky again.
    “Holy fuck, he has lost it,” Brody Stackhouse said, the first to emerge behind TJ. “Derrick, are you out of your mind?”
    “The thought had occurred to me.”
    “Pam, get over here and get a load of this,” Brody called out.
    Oh no.
    TJ had rallied about a half-dozen to come with him, including Jeanie from the local paper, but the only one his eyes could focus on was Pam. She stepped cautiously along the path, her head bowed to the ground as she watched her step. Her cornsilk hair flowed in gentle waves over her shoulders, and when she finally looked up towards Derrick he had to hang on for balance.
    Seeing him, her face lit up. “Oh my God, Derrick, what are you doing?” She asked it more as a gleeful exclamation than a question.
    “He’s storing nuts for winter. What does it look like he’s doing?” TJ quipped.
    A buzz went through