by Pete Altieri
The spring and early summer of 1927 were uneventful. Some of the crops returned and I was able to hire some of the staff that I had to let go when the curse started. It seemed that the Jesus Tree had been doing exactly what Father Dominic and the monks of St. Bede had promised. Even the terrible nightmares that had deprived me of sleep had lessened. I decided to have the annual cookout on the 4th of July, hopeful that better times were ahead. Elijah and Christopher were both seven now and growing faster than I could believe, and despite the fact they lost their mother at such an early age, were surprisingly well-adjusted. They were both the picture of health and doing things that most boys their age were doing in sports, in school, and socially.
The boys had a great time at the cookout, inviting several friends from school to the estate. They spent most of the day swimming in the Oak Grove Pond. At first I was mortified to think of them swimming in that water, polluted with the remains of Rosemarie, but when I thought about the Jesus Tree and the apparent magic it had been making against her curse, I felt that such things were in the past. I didn’t think any more about it. Instead, I decided to have a good time eating and drinking with friends and enjoying the beautiful summer day.
After the fireworks, I waited until the last of my guests left and the boys were sleeping, and took out a fine Cuban cigar. I made a stiff drink to sip in the night air. I felt like a new man with the curse behind me. It was just before midnight when I decided to turn in for the night. I heard a noise inside the house as I got ready for bed, and realized it was Elijah and Christopher, both standing outside my bedroom door, clearly in distress. When I asked them what was wrong, they both complained of having a fever, headache, and that their muscles were sore. I assured both of them, that a day out swimming in the heat could certainly do that to a person. I noticed both of them were warm to the touch when I put them to bed, and it appeared they both had a rash on their neck and face. I didn’t think much of it and went to bed.
It was almost exactly midnight when I heard the hideous laughing. It cut the humid night air like a buzz saw. I sat straight up in bed, and all the fears and nightmares of the last few years came rushing back to me. Rosemarie made her annual visit, like she had the last three years, and told me that the curse was far from over. She told me that planting those trees wasn’t going to stop a thing, and the worst was yet to come. The flesh rotting off her face was just as horrible as ever. I cried myself to sleep after she left; not knowing what could possibly be worse than losing my wife and all the rest of the terrible events that had occurred. I had no idea how right she was.
A week later, the boys were still sick. The rash had gotten worse, with visible skin lesions covering their bodies. The muscle soreness had escalated to the point that neither of them could get out of bed. I was very concerned to say the least, so I called our family doctor and asked him to come to the house. After Dr. Edwards looked the boys over, I could tell that it was more serious than he was letting on in front of them. He asked me to step outside the bedroom to talk about it. Nothing would have prepared me for what he was about to tell me. Dr. Edwards was a very serious older man, and his bedside manner was typically not the best. He looked me straight in the face and told me that he believed it was malignant small pox. He advised me to keep the boys in the bedroom for the time being, and to not allow anyone near them, since it was highly contagious.
I buried both boys on the property just before Labor Day. It was by far the worst of what the curse had thrown at me since it started. I thought losing Amanda was difficult, but a parent losing their children was pain beyond compare. The nightmares got worse. I was seeing Elijah and Christopher in my dreams as little undead monsters, following Rosemarie, like a growing army of my worst fears. It was terrible.
I stayed up for days on end, wishing that the curse would take me too, but it did not. I was hardly eating and shuffling through life, barely able to keep the business going. As 1927 came to a close, I was down to only five employees, since most had either been let go due to decreasing business, and the rest fled for fear the curse would strike them too. I honestly couldn’t blame them. Strange things kept on happening around the property, and rumors were going around throughout the county. My life continued on as if I were in some strange dream-like state. The years rolled by, and slowly, everyone I knew died. Before I realized it, I was all alone. I cursed the day I had ever met the beautiful Rosemarie, and wondered what my life may have been like had I not set eyes on that face.
6
The year was 1945 when I first noticed the Jesus Tree and the others had moved. I know it sounds insane, but they were getting closer to the house. It was a very slow process, but looking out my second story bedroom window, I could see them moving a little more each day. As the monks had said, the Jesus Tree did resemble Christ on the cross, if you looked at it the right way. It now towered at almost 30 feet high. The priest and monks had been wrong about the power of the Jesus Tree, because it did not ward off the curse. If anything, it seemed to make it worse, bringing small pox to my two sons. I wondered if them swimming in that polluted water of Oak Grove Pond was the reason for the disease, and couldn’t rule out that maybe Rosemarie took offense to them swimming where her body had been so callously thrown away like garbage. No matter the reason, they were gone, and now with all my staff gone, I was all alone in the large home. I moved my bedroom to the second floor when I realized the trees were moving closer, for fear they were coming for me. Rosemarie didn’t miss a 4th of July to come to me. Her midnight visit was the one thing I could count on in the miserable existence I was enduring. No matter how many times I begged for her to kill me – she would only laugh. It was that high-pitched maddening cackle that always preceded her visit.
By 1955, the trees were now within twenty feet of the house. They made a perfect rectangular shape around my home. No one else ever came to the estate to visit, so there would not have been anyone else to show. Not that they would have believed me anyway. I know it sounds like the rambling of a crazy man, battling dementia into his old age, but it’s the truth. All 13 trees now towered over the three story house, and I moved my bedroom up to the third floor, in hopes of escaping their eventual destruction of whatever I had left. As I entered the 68th year of my life, I wondered how many more years I would have to endure. With no health problems that I could detect, it seemed like Rosemarie would have me live on forever. The mere thought of that challenged whatever remained of my sanity.
As 1965 approached, the house was beginning to deteriorate. The once great Manville estate, built solidly of brick and mortar, was now starting to crumble. Year after year of harsh east coast winters and blistering hot summers had begun to take their toll. Time’s dark captains would continue to march upon the three-story structure and humble it into ruin. Most people say that the years fly by as you get older, but nearing 80 years of age, I can say that they were creeping by at a glacier’s pace. Day after day of sitting by my window and watching those cursed trees, planted so many years before by the monks of St. Bede Academy, inching ever closer to me. By now, the branches were starting to touch the house on all four sides. During the spring and summer months, I could barely see the sun through their dense foliage, as the trees were growing at an alarming pace. Still, Rosemarie would come for her yearly visit, taking great joy in my eternal misery. Every night in my dreams, I could see those bubbles in the pond, as the black tarp sunk ever so slowly into the water. I could see her rotting flesh sway back and forth as she stood before me and laughed at my predicament. I would see Amanda, Elijah, and Christopher, wandering around the house like ghosts of my past that refused to let me forget it was me that caused them to depart the living so early. Yet there I sat, day after miserable day, waiting for death to come and take me far away from the cursed ground I called home.
7
So now we find ourselves on July 4, 1975 – exactly 50 years since the murder of Rosemarie. At the beginning of my tale, I was hiding up in the attic, hearing the frame of
my house cracking under the tremendous pressure of the Jesus Tree and the 12 disciples of terror. Their branches were intertwined around the house, pulling it into their grasp. From outside the home, you could barely see anything but the branches. The roots had dug down deep and were choking the house at the foundation, the branches squeezing the life out of the old estate from every side and now even the roof. I was slowly being buried alive inside my own house.
As I stated before, I had nailed down the attic access hatch in a futile attempt to keep Rosemarie away. With my arthritic hands, that was no easy task. The last few years started to wear on me, as I felt like my body was slowly giving out. I could only pray for death to put me out of my misery. I knew midnight was coming. I was concerned that on this 50th anniversary of her death, that she just might have something extra horrible in store for me. The cracking of the boards became more pronounced as the nails crumbled under the intense strength of the trees. The wind howling became louder as I strained to listen for that insane laugh that would warn me that she was coming to visit. I could hear it ever so faintly, amongst the wind and the snapping and cracking as the house began to crumble, sending me hurling down into the blackness. I was plunged head first into nothingness. I knew Rosemarie would be waiting for me in the end.
8
When I awoke from my fall, I wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead. I wasn’t sure if it was reality or a dream, since the past 50 years my life seemed like one long, never ending nightmare. Everything around me was completely black. I couldn’t see sun, stars, or anything resembling light whatsoever. My eyes attempted to adjust themselves, but still I could see nothing. I had no idea where I could have been, but I hoped that I was dead.
That’s when I heard the laugh that I had learned to dread a little more each time I heard it. With the laughing came that miasma of rot that always told me that Rosemarie, the undead nightmare, was coming to call. This time, I could not see her rotting flesh, but I could feel her ice-cold hands grabbing me by the arm pits and dragging me away. Where she was dragging me to, or from, I had no idea. I still couldn’t see a thing. Maybe the fall had made me blind? Maybe this is what death is like? I called out to her, but she only laughed and kept dragging me along. It felt like I was being taken through grass, brush, and a variety of surfaces as she kept pulling me further and further away.
It was then that I felt wetness. She was pulling me into water of some sort. I still couldn’t see anything, which made the sensation of being dragged into the water that much more horrifying. It was then, as I floated on the surface, partially submerged, that I realized where I was. The smells and the sounds were eerily familiar. We were out at the old hunting cabin in Oak Grove Pond. She was taking me out in the water just like I had done to her 50 miserable years before.
As I was falling slowly into the water, I was no longer able to breathe. My lungs were burning. For some reason, I was now able to see. I could see sunlight above the water, but looking through the murkiness, I couldn’t see it clearly. I could see Rosemarie, just as she looked 50 years before, with her beautiful angelic face and sparkling blue eyes. She was smiling at me as my body fell deeper and deeper into the pond. Bubbles rising from my mouth were percolating at the surface of the water in the hot 4th of July sun.
9
It’s hard to believe ten years have passed since that day Rosemarie dragged me into the pond. I now find myself emerging from the water, the smell of my own rotting corpse, sickening even to me. I walk the grounds, devoid of purpose. The Jesus Tree and the twelve other trees completely engulfed the old house. To look at the plot of land where it once stood, you would never know a house ever existed. There is not even a splinter of wood left behind. I wonder what happened to the pages of my tale, that I spent all that time compiling, but I’m sure it was destroyed and digested with the rest. Unfortunately, no one will ever know what happened on this cursed ground.
The Jesus Tree and the twelve other oak trees are back to where they were the day the monks from St. Bede Academy planted them. Of course, no one will ever believe that they moved hundreds of feet to destroy my home. There is no trace of their movement. Only I know what happened here. I am as lonely in death as I was in life. The beautiful Rosemarie has moved on, while I am sentenced to an eternity wandering the grounds in rural Putnam County, in the shadow of the Jesus Tree.
Cross To Bear
1
Watching his wife die slowly was not easy, but it was Carson Dillon’s cross to bear. He knew everyone had something - that one thing in their life they had to deal with. No matter how well off or happy a person appeared to be, Carson knew there was always something lurking in the shadows. There were always skeletons in the closet, and somehow Carson was able to pinpoint what those dark secrets were, despite not knowing the person. It was his gift. His neighbor across the street in their quiet upper middle class subdivision, who drove the nice sports car and the wife easily ten years his junior, had his own cross to bear. His teenage son was addicted to pain killers and had been through rehab four different times, nearly bankrupting the family. The young intern at his office who bragged about all the cute college girls he was having sex with every weekend – he too had an albatross swinging from his neck. His father had a thing for young girls and was doing a 20-year-bit in state prison. The shame it brought upon the family was devastating. No matter who it was, they all had their cross, and for Carson, it was his dying wife.
Miriam had been dying a little bit at a time now for the past year, and he was helpless to do more than watch and hope it would be over soon. He didn’t know what was worse: the incessant coughing, the moaning, or the wheezing while she slept. Those were the sounds of cancer as it slowly crept through her body, devouring everything good in its path. She didn’t sleep much anymore, and neither did he. Miriam slept in short naps for a half hour at a time, so she was sleep deprived and cranky much of the time.
Carson loved to read, and despite having more free time as her medical condition kept them homebound, it was nearly impossible for him to concentrate with all the noise. The coughing and wheezing was almost maddening, not to mention the endless hum of the oxygen concentrator she was connected to with an air hose. There was no escaping the noise, no matter where he went in their 3,000 square foot home. His only solace was going to work, but as his retirement loomed large in the next year or so, Carson couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch her die around the clock. As a busy architect, he didn’t really have any hobbies. They never had children, as they both devoted their lives to their careers. Miriam was a college English professor before she got sick. Now that was a faded memory, since her home office was untouched for the past year at least.
A year ago they got the diagnosis from her oncologist. It was lung cancer – stage four and inoperable. Thirty plus years of smoking had finally come home to roost. The cancer had metastasized, and there were dozens of tumors throughout her now frail body – four in the brain alone. She was given the choice of an extremely aggressive chemo regimen and radiation, but that would only buy her a few more months. Miriam didn’t want that. She wanted to enjoy the final few months of her life at home with her husband, and not be stuck in a cancer center with an IV drip, her hair falling out in clumps, and puking into a bucket. She didn’t even want to quit smoking. Carson told her it was her decision to make, and he would stand by her no matter what. Yet that was before he saw her in the current state she was in – a gaunt agonized face, coughing day and night - slipping away with the urgency of a glacier moving uphill and an ashtray heaping over with cigarette butts.
Now he stood over her while she slept. He had a large pillow in his hands and knew that it was time to put Miriam out of her misery – and his. The wheezing and heavy congestion in her lungs was like grating nails across a chalkboard to Carson. He wanted to end this. His vows for better or worse certainly didn’t pertain to this torture of watching the woman he loved die a little bit at a time. He shoved the pillow into her face, and in her e
maciated state, she barely put up a fight. There was a little resistance, yet he pushed harder. Tears were streaming down his face, and despite his resilience in putting her down, he turned his head to the side, so as not to watch her final death throes - bony arms swinging back and forth to no avail. It was over in less than two minutes.
Carson shut off the oxygen concentrator and marveled at the quiet. No hacking or wheezing and no purring of the concentrator. He then went back to his recliner and watched her for a few minutes, making sure she wasn’t coming back to life. She looked peaceful – like she was sleeping - and Carson felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest. Miriam could finally rest, and he finally had quiet. He looked at the bookcase next to his chair in the living room and picked out a book to read, basking in the silence.
The following day Carson realized that he had to do something with Miriam. He covered her with a blanket but knew before long she would start to smell, and he had to act quickly. He was afraid to call the police. Carson had seen enough of the police shows on TV where the husband was always the first one they assumed killed the wife. That’s when he realized he really hadn’t given it enough thought. Smothering his wife with a pillow was probably not the smartest thing. The police would know she didn’t die naturally. They would likely think he had a girlfriend on the side or was trying to get rid of his wife for insurance money. It was true that he had a policy for her, as well as one on himself, through his job at Whelan and Whelan. He knew of course there was no girlfriend. Carson was nearing retirement age and didn’t need another woman in his life. The thought of it made his head spin. He also knew that the insurance policy was the furthest thing on his mind right now, but the police would think that way. It was their job to think of that sort of thing. There was no way he could call the police. There would be too many questions.