Weeping Willows

Weeping Willows
by
Zander Williams


I know why the willows weep, and if you come here you're mine to keep.

Kenny Valley didn't know why those trees had droopy branches until he had entered a grove full of them. What could be so scary about sad-looking trees? he had once thought. He found out why the hard way.

That dusky night in the midst of April of 1996, Kenny and Amanda, his girlfriend, were making out on a sliding board on the playground of Weeping Willows Park. It was somewhere in south Jersey, and some called it the depressed twin of the Pine Barrens, which was supposed to house the infamous New Jersey Devil. About the size of a golf course, Weeping Willows Park was only safe where the sad-looking trees didn't stand—even at night.

There were signs posted in front of the forest that clearly read:

NO PERSONS BEYOND THIS POINT FOR SAFETY REASONS

and people rarely entered. Kenny was one of those that listened to all signs—he was very cautious and proactive. If more brown-haired and brown-eyed teenaged boys were like him, his kind would make up more of the world's populace.

Amanda was allowing Kenny to slip his fingers in her panties when a dull sob filled the shady April dusk.

"What was that?" she inquired. Her vivid auburn eyes were the size of saucers.

"Huh?" Kenny said. His tongue was at work on her neck, barely noticing what she uttered. It was unlikely for a timid guy like him to participate in risky escapades such as getting laid on a playground at night, awaiting anyone to catch him and his sexual partner "doing what comes natural" (as his drunken father had once said) at anytime. But it was Amanda's saccharine scent that had him entranced.

"I heard something."

"What?"

"Can't you hear, Ken? I said I heard something."

The sob grew a speck louder, and Kenny's skin vibrated like a La-Z-Boy. He was always mindful of his surroundings, always ready to act on impulse from impending danger.

"It sounds like somebody's crying," she inferred.

Kenny's hormones had shut down entirely. The sob was coming from their right—where the weeping willows miserably stood, somehow frowning at them. He rose from Amanda's bosom and frowned back at the forest. Never did he realize the glum aura surrounding weeping willows until then. Moreover, the whole forest was blacker than it was green, which made Kenny's stomach turn a little.

Amanda stood with him in her tight denim jeans and her sky blue t-shirt. Kenny just couldn't keep his gaze off of her breast, those juicy and bouncy jugs. While his eyes were reveling over the mammary spectacle, Amanda's gaze was securing itself on the willows. He hoped that she hadn't gathered ideas about going in. It wasn't that she was more valiant that he was; he thought it best to be safe than sorry. Why go somewhere you didn't have to go?

The sob persevered. Amanda began to wander towards the willows.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kenny asked.

"I'm trying to see who's crying," she replied. "Come on."

Kenny jogged to the steel four-foot sign with the green letters, looked at her with a frank face, and put his hands next to the sign as if it was on display at a wax museum. She cackled, rolled her eyes, and kept walking.

"I see the friggin sign," she exclaimed. Her back was turned, which filled Kenny's mind with ideas pertaining to her buttocks. "But don't you hear that? Somebody could be in trouble or something. We have to help."

We don't need to help, Kenny thought. Who does she think she is? Wonder Woman or something like that?

But he tagged along after her anyway.

Before they knew it, they were in the forest. After about twenty paces inward (Kenny was annoyed by all of the branches that fell in their path), they were in a small open field. Their sight could only reach as far as streak of moonlight that ran through the willows would allow; and, besides the hanging trees and the calf-deep grass, the only thing growing there was fungus. Mauve mushrooms, which were so massive they could easily hold a family of six with a dog and as tall as NBA stars, were everywhere. A rancid stench filled the field, and Kenny thought of a large flower in a record book that smelled of rotten meat. Rafflia or rafflesia was what it was called.

The sob sounded uncomfortably close when a faint shadow outlined in front of the mushroom closest to them. Amanda went to walk towards it, but Kenny put an arm out in front of her.

"Why are you going to the danger?" he questioned. "You don't have to prove to the whole world that you have super-heroine powers."

She ignored him and called out, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

What they weren't aware of was that they were already in danger.

Two figures about Amanda's height were swishing through the high grass. The first halted in front of the moonbeam, the other stepped into it, and Amanda's jaw crashed like a kamikaze airplane. Kenny turned around—then his jaw crashed. The first figure was a teenaged boy who was naked from the waist up with red hair, freckles, and no arms. His shoulders were squirting blood in all directions, and his intense turquoise eyes were in sockets that had blackness all around them.

The second figure was tall and hearty man with dazzling lime eyes costumed in a black gardening hat, a loose black turtleneck sweater, and silky tan khakis. Jet-black hair hung to his earlobes, and an ominous and oversize grin (which revealed all thirty-two teeth) hung below his pencil-pointed proboscis.

"I know why the willows weep, and if you come here you're mine to keep," the man sang with melody. In his off-white face was the ice pick of terror that kept chipping at Kenny's heart. The man was carrying two severed arms in his hands until he dropped them to his glossy shoes; blood stained the grass.

"You can call me Periculum," he uttered as he came closer inside the moonlight.
Just as Kenny rotated his waist to dash (dangerdangerdangerdanger), a thick emerald vine spat out of Periculum's arid palm and bound itself around Amanda's ankle (who was frozen solid from dread beforehand). The man tugged the vine and Amanda landed in his arms with blinding speed. Kenny received the message and paused like a fighter in a video game. Reluctantly, he locked eyes with his girlfriend's captor.

"You are not pondering of escape, are you?" Periculum smoothly asked. "Take a look at Mitch here." The armless teen was still wailing in that eerie way that Kenny never heard before. "He tried to leave Weeping Willows without my consent, and now he doesn't have the arms to move those sinking branches out of his way next time. Now Kenneth—you wouldn't want anything thing unspeakable to happen to Mandy here, do you?"

The man was correct; Kenny didn't want anything unspeakable to happen to her (how did he know our names?), but his legs and feet hadn't been concerned about her in the slightest bit. The exit of the forest was a huge magnet, and his body was a scared piece of scrap metal. He stared at Mitch; the boy looked awfully familiar to him. Perhaps they went to he same high school (well, if Mitch was here, than there was no such thing as school for him anymore). Forget all of that—why would you slice someone's arm off like that? Just because he didn't want to stay in the forest any longer? Yeah, and the same thing is going to happen to you because the girl you were about to do in the park wanted to know who was crying their eyes out—or getting their arms sawed off.

"P-Please," he stuttered, "Mr. Periculum, sir! Please! Don't hurt her! Oh man, what did she do?"
"You don't have to worry about me hurting her—" Amanda struggled and screamed with all her might despite the man's inescapable grip."—but she is mine now, and so are you, Kenny."

Another figure emerged from the moonlight—it was girl that looked a little like Pippi Longstocking with her red pigtails and orange freckles. This version had black around her eyes and wielding what appeared to be a chipped meat cleaver; its blade reflected the moonlight brilliantly. The black-eyed Pippi was coming closer to Kenny, carrying the cleaver with two shaky hands. Her shirt and jeans had many dark splotches on them, and only a fool would say that it wasn’t blood.

“Now I’d like you to meet Cindy,” said the man. “She’s one of my favorites. Never did she try to leave, so I rewarded her with a weapon she could use very well. Now let me ask you a question—do you want to leave here?”

Kenny looked up at the man and Amanda, backing away from the girl with the pigtails. “Please—I won’t tell anyone about any of this if you let me go! I’ll keep my fuckin mouth shut and won’t even think about the thing!”

“Answer the question.” Periculum placed his hand over Amanda’s screeching mouth—it didn’t stop the screeching, though.

“I want to leave!”

“Right tone, wrong answer—you’re not going anywhere.”

Periculum put that horrid smirk on his face again and used his athletic arms to snap Amanda's jerking neck. Her head dangled feebly on her shoulders for a few seconds while Kenny stung his throat with screaming; blood streamed out her nose and onto her upper lip. As Kenny glanced at her lifeless russet eyes, Periculum elevated her corpse by her blue shirt and flung her in back of him; her body resembled a torn doll as she soared like a punted football in the night.

“Cindy," Periculum said serenely, "make sure that brown-haired faggot doesn't leave Weeping Willows, will ya?"

Kenny darted for his life. As he speared through trees, he heard Periculum's demonic laugh and Cindy’s small footsteps behind him. She was chattering something that sounded like Gonna getcha then splitcha! He tripped over a dead branch and flew face first into the grass. When he looked up, blood dripped from his nose and Cindy stood over him like a dark and almighty idol. The cleaver was gleaming above her head like a rectangular moon; her grin was nowhere near feminine or human for that matter.

“Gonna getcha then splitcha!” she cried, mimicking the war cries of tribal killers.
She kicked him square in the forehead and exposed it to the white skull. Kenny grimaced and no sound came out of his leaking mouth. She came down hard with the cleaver. He rolled over to the left and was face to face with one half of a human skull (where’s the other half?).

“Can you please stop movin?” Cindy asked him, stomping him wildly in his back.

He swiftly scattered over to a tree and heaved himself up. The agony in his back was dull now, but the relief didn’t stop Cindy from chasing him. She took a swipe at his neck and he barely evaded it. The cleaver punctured the bark and was stuck there; her grunts were savage as she tried to pull it free. Kenny rose from the grass again in rage instead of fear—he wasn’t going to let a girl pulverize him, psychopathic or not. On impulse he rammed a fist into Cindy’s dark face and sent her flying into another tree. Her cries were as vicious as can be—he didn’t think she crying, though.

“Take that you bitch!” Kenny shouted, red spit soaring out in front of him. Running wasn’t on his mind anymore; wrath and revenge was there, hot and heavy. He yanked the cleaver out of the tree and monstrously approached the evil Pippi who was holding one side of face.

“Why does that man want me to stay here?” he asked her, holding the cleaver a few millimeters from her face.

“You entered the forest,” she said, rising slowly, “and you’re now a part of it. Master Periculum needs life to fulfill the purpose.”
“What fucking purpose?” Kenny didn’t think there was a purpose to snap people’s necks and chase them with chopping utensils—at least any good purpose, anyway.

“To give life to the willows. They cry because they need life. We cry with it because we feel their pain.”

Kenny analyzed her carefully; she was speaking in a tone that made her sound sane but her eyes were deranged somehow. “So you kill everyone who comes here?”

“We don’t kill—we give the willows life. And you’re going to contribute!”

Cindy fell on him and he shoved the cleaver into her ribs without thinking about it. She dropped to the grass and pulled the cleaver out as if it were a piece of lint on her sweater. “My life is with them—not with me. So you can’t kill me. Nana-nana, boo-boo!”

As she chuckled, a demented moan came form the side of him. He turned and saw Mitch, the armless teen. His jaw was elongated like Venom from the Spider-Man comics. Kenny eyes bulged and the magnetism between his body and the exit of the forest aggrandized. He dropped the knife and ran, crying like a newborn infant. The large footsteps pursued him. Branches were here and there, foiling his efforts to escape. This guy is going to eat me! he thought.

Finally he was out of the forest, but he didn't stop there—he ran across the playground he once thought was a closed bedroom all the way home to his own bedroom.

The next day Amanda’s mother called him asked had he seen her last night.

“She’s serving the purpose, “ told her in s solemn tone, and hung up on her.

I know why the willows weep, and if you come here you're mine to keep.

That ghastly tune rang like a thousand telephones in Kenny's head ever since, eating away at his consciousness and his sleep. He occasionally rode by those melancholic trees and tears fell out of his eyes, the cries and moans and wails haunting his ears. He made a pact within himself to return to that forest and see what the purpose was. He could still hear Periculum’s voice telling him that he had to return, just had to.

I will come back, and when I do, I’ll kill the life of that forest. I’ll murder that life just like Amanda and Cindy and Mitch and all the other people who were sacrificed to that life had been murdered.

Everyday after that night, every morning after that night, and every single night after that night, Kenny was reminded why those sorrowful willows wept.