THE TREES HAVE EYES

Revision of a story I wrote concerning nature turning on mankind.

THE TREES HAVE EYES

By R. A. Merritt

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           No one can really say when it began when the trees and even nature itself began to develop an intelligence it could act on, could utilize in a last desperate defense against the parasitical malevolence of the human species, but if you are one who believes in a vengeful God then I suppose it was inevitable. 

At first it was the disasters, the volcanoes, the earthquakes, the floods and droughts, the pestilence and many other inequities straight from the Old Testament.  Of course the corporate scoffers, the talking heads on the radio, apologist of all stripes dismissed the concerns of those who spoke up about the situation as wacko, commie environmentalist tree huggers out to destroy our living standard. 

The irony of such a position was that the corporations were the ones intent on destroying our living standard by their quest for total unchecked power over us all.  But the day came when the many disasters, and the growing patterns of the plant life was such that one could not deny the seeming deliberateness of the scenario.  The environmentalist had been vindicated, but their was little comfort in knowing you had predicted your own certain doom. 

And then the strangest thing began to happen, the trees began to pluck human beings from every manner of structures.  They would embrace them in their limbs, strangling them in one instant and then holding them like some grotesque crucifixion denying any attempt to retrieve the corpses.  They would maintain their hold on the bodies allowing the birds to come and ravage the remains as they rotted among their branches.  What the birds didn't get 

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would eventually plop to the ground for the vermin that now roamed the streets unmolested save but for the cats who came in their turn to feast upon them. 

Every day became a mad dash to go about one's business, but the situation became so hopeless that finally the day came when no one left their abode.  Everything came to a halt. 

Fire was the greatest weapon at our disposal, but most times it would be somehow detected and suddenly would be extinguished by some magical delivery of water, or wind or other such substance to put out the flames.  And the use of it became problematic in itself for one might win the battle and lose the war exposing them to Enemy Earth. 

Anything in nature became the bane of man.  Large wild animals roamed the streets in vast numbers unmolested by all feeding on those humans they might capture.  They did so in  the countryside as well taking their share of human prey.  There was not enough ammunition to kill them all.  And now it seems they have suspended their natural animus towards each other, all aspects of the food chain have disappeared, every creature, every tree, every fauna, every insect, all now partake of human flesh.  

I don't know if there are others left besides myself now, or if I am now the last man alive.  I'm trapped in this building, have been for months now, perhaps years there's no real way to calculate the passage of time save but for the wrist watch that I wear.  Thank goodness it is an old spring movement one for I can wind it.  Had it been a quartz battery one I would have long ago been unable to at least put an hour to the time of day.  

Over the course of my battle I have been able to stay alive by fleeing from apartment to apartment long abandoned by my contemporaries for other venues only to suffer defeat as they tried to flee for what they felt was greater safety.  

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I've managed to watch them at times when I could get near a window undetected.  I watch them racing down the overgrown streets right into the arms of death.  Their screams would echo briefly the sound of a terrible prophecy. 

And then the trees began to encroach on the buildings unbelievably sprouting from the concrete and asphalt pushing out their branches and roots like claws and arms intent to bring death to any human being they could divine.  I began to make estimates of how long I could hold out.  My conclusion is ruin, pure and simple, ruin and the clutch of a miserable death.  

            They surely know I'm in here, they are changing now, they are evolving more and more with the rapidity that must be the calculation of a higher power.  But surely I will starve even if I do somehow manage to elude them.  My space grows less and less each day as the limbs and running vines push down the halls entering every nook and cranny seeking me out.  I eat the spoiling food, relieving myself wherever I may, drinking what is safe for only in some artificial man made state can I consume water.  In its natural state it seems capable of emitting some signal of my presence.  God this is madness.  The poem now takes on a sinister stanza. 

"I think I shall never see

Anything as deadly as a tree."

My mind is made up.  Tentatively I approach the window.  I rip off the barrier, the trees have me, the trees MY GOD HAVE EYES!

Author's Note

One day, perhaps not in my lifetime, the planet will turn on humanity for how we are destroying the environment. The signs are already there for one to bear witness to it.