doom. Pete sat watching the Thursday Night Football game with his wife Marjorie.
His eyes pointed at the screen, but his mind drifting far way into the trees.
The next day, Jamieson seemed much calmer, like a man who realized hope was
lost. Pete intended to collect as much of the story as he could before Dane arrived.
"There's nothing supernatural about them," explained Jamieson. "Way I see it,
they've always been there. The idea of walking trees is so crazy, people could never
really see what's there in front of them. I'm only alive because of concrete."
"Concrete?"
"Like I said, they aren't supernatural. They're still trees that need to grow like
trees, so they can't live in concrete. I figured that out early on. That first day, they
nearly killed me twice. They grew up out of the ground outside and reached into
the windows with their branches. They got thorns a foot long that'll rip your arm off
if they get hold of you." He pulled back his shirt to reveal his torso. His shoulder was
covered in deep scars. Pete had seen veterans who’d barely survived Afghanistan
with less scar tissue. "I damn near bled to death a few times until I realized how to
avoid them."
"You threw concrete at them?"
"No, stupid!" He paused and closed his eyes. "Sorry. Look, trees can't grow in
concrete. So a highway is relatively safe. I ran. I drove through Arkansas, Oklahoma,
and Texas, trying to stay ahead of them. They move faster than you can believe.
Always there at the corner of your eye. You'd think a truck driving at highway
speeds could outrun anything, but not them. There's always a patch of grass and
earth beside the highway. At 90 miles an hour they keep up easily. They're always
there, branches like giant hands reaching out for me. Reaching for blood, reaching
to murder."
Pete winced. Perhaps it was all illusion, but he could empathize with the terror
that Jamieson felt. In his shoes, Pete would struggle too. "But you survived
somehow."