Building 19 “Something in the Trees”

A lot of people have been shaken up by the news. I can't say that it hasn't affected me too, considering everything that has been going on. Only good thing is they found the bastard, but I wish they had gotten to him before he had done what he did to those kids. The paper says that a local girl, a neighbor, saw the kid’s bodies hanging from the branches of the oak tree in the back yard and called the police. The police found the guy, like I said.

He was inside the tree house.

I keep asking myself how something like this could have had happen. I tell myself that there must be something wrong with him. Some of the customers at the restaurant have been talking about it, keeping their voices low. I've always had good hearing though. They say the guy had lost his job recently, though from what I am hearing it was a little more involved than that. Apparently he was fired from his job after an incident at work.

From what I heard, the guy was talking to his super-visor. He kept telling him that he needed some time off, a week or so. Says he has to get out of town. He looks all shaken and bent out of shape. His work had been suffering for it, so I sup-pose it makes sense when the guy told him that if he wanted time off, he would have to be willing to give up his position. Pretty much saying that if he leaves, he would be fired. Seems like that’s what set him off.

The guy started screaming at him. Not angry or any-thing, but more like in a panic. Said that he couldn't afford to lose his job, but that they needed to understand. That he didn't have a choice. The supervisor asked him to explain. Honestly, I am surprised no one committed him.

So he started going on about he had been hearing noises at night in his backyard. Not like birds or anything, but people talking. Only it isn't the kind of talking he could make out. Said that he could understand what was being said, but the tone was wrong. Like it was too low for him to hear it properly.

He says how over the last few weeks he had started finding dead animals in the tree. Squirrels and stuff like that. They looked like they had died of natural causes, but one day he found four of them. As he looked them over, he noticed that there were some bite marks on the trees and figured that maybe the squirrels had been chewing on it.

So he calls animal control to pick up the dead animals. Figures it might be a bug or something.

They run all these tests and they can't find anything wrong. They concluded it was natural causes, that the animals they found were all quite old. I guess it as good of a guess as any. Anyway, that seemed to satisfy the man for a time.

For a little while things were normal, only then after that he started hearing noises again. They started to get louder each night, and clearer. He swears he has heard the language somewhere before. He called the police. Told them that he thinks that maybe someone is hiding out in his backyard. They searched, only they couldn't find anything.

The cops talked to the kids and asked them if maybe they had seen anything. And to be fair, if I was the father and heard what they said, I would probably get freaked out too.

They told them that a woman had been visiting them in their room.

When the police asked the kids for a description, they said that she kept to the shadows. They only knew she was a woman because of the way she sounded when she talked. Though they did say she smelled strange. Kinda bitter, and sour, and the floor where she had been was sticky. The officer asked if they remembered what was said, but they said that Daddy wouldn't want to know. The officer insisted, and so they told him. The woman had told them they had to leave, that this wasn't their home. That she would hurt them if they didn't leave.

The police looked into it. Couldn't find anything, the idiots. However, they posted an officer at the house for a couple of days. Nothing was seen, so eventually it was stopped. But that’s when things started getting weirder.

So the guy, he starts going on about those sounds again. He thought it was his nerves. He even called in the officer several times, but they never found any evidence of someone being there. He says he isn't crazy, that his kids are in danger.

He starts talking about the tree house, how he had built it for them a couple of weeks ago.

By now the police had arrived at the office and be-gun escorting him off the premises. He starts screaming, begging for them to understand.

In the end, the supervisor didn't press charges, but after what happened to the kids, well I suppose he probably should have. The woman at the restaurant said the supervisor resigned today. For personal reasons they said.

The crap at the office was the last time anyone had seen the man before he killed his kids. They tried to keep the details out of the paper, but the little girl who found them talked, and so of course now everyone knows. They say he had taken branches and leaves from the tree and shoved them down their throat. Then he had taken their fingers and limbs and popped them out of place, so they swayed in the wind. Then he hung them with rope from the ladder leading up to the tree house.

No one knows what is going on with the man after he was taken. Probably due to the violence of the crime they are trying to keep a lid on it. The whole thing has really made me ill. I have seen things...awful things...like that. People doing terrible things to one another.

Strangest thing though. His car had been packed like he was going to leave, including his kid’s things. Why would he pack for his kids?

The tree house was badly damaged, apparently by the man himself. They will probably remove it before they try to sell the house.

Jesus, it surprises me how much people talk around here, but I suppose it is a rather tight knit community. Everyone is taking it hard.

The sky is gray today.

And dull.

It is raining.