The Crossroads

“We’ll chop it up into firewood, mulch the crown.”

Tony Mandica had brought a crew of six tree men with him to the Jennings house early Saturday morning.

“Would you guys like some coffee?” Judy asked.

“You got a bathroom we can use later?”

“Uh, sure. Right off the kitchen.”

“In that case, pour me a big ’un!”

Judy smiled. Poured coffee into paper cups. Four of the new home’s five bathrooms were still operational. The one off Zack’s bedroom was a mess. Good thing the plumber was coming that afternoon, too.

“Is your father here?” Judy asked Mandica.

“Yeah. Probably someplace shady taking a nap. I swear, if his name wasn’t already on the truck, I’d fire him!”

“Do you think he’d like some coffee?”

“Never saw him turn down a free cup.”

“Zack? Can you and Zipper take Mr. Mandica some coffee?”

Zack really didn’t want to traipse around in the evil trees looking for an old man napping like Rip van Winkle.

But Judy gave him that smile. What else could he do? Tell her he was afraid?

“Sure,” he said.

He took the coffee and headed into the woods. Zipper followed him.

Zack saw the old man sitting on a big rock staring at the jagged stump left when the oak toppled over. He had a chain saw sitting near his feet, but it wasn’t running.

Zipper barked and the old man looked up.

“I brought you some coffee, sir.”

The old man’s eyes looked as milky as bug guts.

“I tried to bring this tree down once before.” The old man pointed at a cluster of angry gashes scarring the bark. “See there? That’s where I took my ax to it. Took a saw to it, too. Bent my ax head. Chewed up my saw blade.”

The old man didn’t look at Zack and wasn’t actually talking to him, either. He was saying stuff to the empty air and Zack just happened to be the only person close enough to hear it.

“When they come to me, I told ’em I’d chop it down. But I couldn’t ’cause it’s a devil tree.”

The old man wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. The temperature was way over eighty degrees, but he was wearing red-checked flannel.

Because the old man is crazy.

“They wouldn’t let me be. Chop it down, chop it down, chop it down. Every night, they’d come at me in my dreams. Chop it down, chop it down, chop it down.”

Zack placed the coffee cup on the ground.

“I’ll leave your coffee….”

The old man spun around. Glared at Zack.

“It’s a devil tree, boy! You hear me? The gateway to hell! That’s why you never see no snow around it come winter. Hell’s too hot. Melts the snow outside its back door!”

“I think I hear my father calling.”

“God himself had to bring this tree down,” the old man ranted, “because no mortal man could!”

“Okay. So long, sir.”

Zack ran the hundred-yard dash back to his house as fast as he could. Zipper ran after him.

Great. The oak tree wasn’t just evil; it was hell’s back door.

Now Zack had something else not to tell anyone.