Hung
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(a short story written by Mustin Zugel)
Sammy Jenkins woke with a start. Sammy Jenkins looked at the mobile hanging from the ceiling slowly spinning to the left and to the right, to the left and to the right. Sammy Jenkins was struggling to remember what it was that had made him wake up in such a state; but to no avail. This wasn’t the first time this had happened to him. Almost every night Sammy had awoken like this: sweating, shivering and shaking and almost every night Sammy would look up at the mobile sitting at the end of his bed and take comfort in its gentle, soothing motions. Then he would remember that there was nothing to fear whilst he was awake. But presently he remembered...
Suspended from the contorted limbs of a withering tree, rotting fruit swayed in the breeze that blew by, invasively caressing the hairs on Sammy’s head. The odour of putrefaction clawed its way up Sammy’s nose until he felt the threat of imminent suffocation approach him. It wasn’t the thought of asphyxiation that Sammy was scared of. It was the sinister fruit that the tree bore upon its gaunt arms: the deathly pallor of the decaying flesh and the slow trickle of pernicious fluid around its swollen body. Sammy would walk closer with the intention of severing the deathly tether between the tree and its insidious progeny but fear would stifle him.
Sammy was so frightened that he thought he had best leave his room but once again fear had stifled him. Despite the solacing thought that everyone must be asleep, due to the deathly quiet, he lay in bed until the roots of fear had receded to the back of his consciousness. Sammy wondered whether his mother would even want to see him. His mother wasn’t happy but then again, she hadn’t been for a long time. Just this morning she had spent an hour watering plants which seemed strange to Sammy considering they hadn’t blossomed for months. He had wondered if maybe she had forgotten this but when he asked she ran slender fingers through his hair and continued her fruitless labour. Sammy slunk his way closer to his door, every step filling his heart with terror, wondering all the while what she would say when she finally saw him.
Frail roots protruded from the ground around the tree like maggots protrude from an old corpse. At first these cadaverous limbs snapped under the weight of Sammy’s footfall with a ghastly crunching sound but as he drew closer they began to thicken and strengthen, forcing him to step over them. They snagged at Sammy’s feet causing him to stumble occasionally, slowing the progress of his mission.
Sammy had always struggled to open the heavy door that lead out of his room. He wedged himself in the crevice between the door frame and the oak piece allowing him to squeeze his way through. A window must have been open somewhere in the house as there was a gentle breeze caressing Sammy as he stood there shivering. The pale moonlight cast insidious shadows on the walls. To Sammy they looked like infant saplings bursting from the bloated ground from which they drew strength, writhing and contorting as they searched for something to coil their anaemic bodies around. At the end of the hallway he knew was his mother’s room but all he could see was the deep, impenetrable darkness that seemed to lead into oblivion.
Sammy could hardly move through the sea of snakes surrounding his now trapped feet, forbidding him from further progress. He was close enough that he could reach out and touch the wrinkled bark of the decaying tree. Its pallid skin was rotting and falling off exposing the tender, pink flesh that lay beneath. With a finger, Sammy touched it, releasing a putrid sweat that clung to him firmly. He wrenched at his arm trying to pry it loose from the resilient grip of the tree but it was of no use. The tree was consuming him with roots so thick that Sammy could see nothing but the approaching oblivion.
Sammy was now close enough to see the door to his mother’s room. Shards of paint had accumulated at the foot of the door in a neat, white line. He kept walking closer. Gangrenous tendrils from the tree slithered through the carpeted floor behind him like serpents. Sammy Jenkins was finally confronted by the door to his mother’s room, holding his breath as the snakes washed over his feet he turned the door handle to enter. With a nudge, the door opened slowly but only to reveal darkness through which Sammy couldn’t see his mother anywhere. Struggling to move with the trees’ arms enveloping him, Sammy lurched towards the light switch, ignoring the tightening grip of the serpents around his throat. He reached up and flicked the light switch. The light gradually flickered into life, eventually illuminating the whole room. Sammy Jenkins looked at his mother hanging from the ceiling; slowly spinning to the left and to the right, to the left and to the right.