Chapter 32: Eyes in the Trees

The metallic tang of the flare hadn’t even cleared from the back of Elias’s throat before the first set of yellow eyes winked open in the canopy. They weren’t animal—not in the way a wolf or a panther was animal. They were too steady, too wide apart, and they hummed with the same sickly bioluminescence of the spores they’d found in the basement of the clinic.

"Nobody move," Elias whispered, his hand clamping down on Sarah’s shoulder. His fingers found the frayed seam of her denim jacket, feeling the frantic, sparrow-beat of her pulse through the cloth. 

"Elias, they're everywhere," Sarah breathed. Her voice was a thin wire, vibrating with the effort not to snap. She gripped the mag-lite so hard her knuckles were bleached bone-white against the black casing. The beam was shaking, cutting erratic arcs through the rising mist of Cypress Bend. "They aren’t just in the trees. Behind us. Look."

Elias didn't look back. He couldn't. He kept his eyes fixed on the branch of the ancient, moss-draped oak directly in front of them. The creature there shifted, a wet, sliding sound like a heavy hide being dragged over smooth stones. It was long—longer than a man—with limbs that seemed to have too many joints. As it moved, the bark of the tree wept a dark, viscous sap that smoked where it touched the forest floor.

"Deep breaths, Sarah. Shallow and quiet," Elias said, his own voice sounding like boots on gravel. He slowly reached for the heavy hunting knife holstered at his hip, the leather creaking in the suffocating silence of the swamp. "We need to reach the iron gate. Silver doesn’t work on these things, but the cold iron might slow the transition."

"We're a mile from the gate," she reminded him, her gaze darting toward the thicket to their left where the undergrowth was snapping. *Snap. Crunch. Slide.* It was the rhythm of a predator that knew it didn't have to hurry. "Maybe more. The fog is changing the landmarks."

She was right. The geography of Cypress Bend had begun to warp three days ago, but out here, in the deep silt of the marsh, the woods were breathing. The trees seemed to lean in, their branches interlocking like skeletal fingers to blot out what little moonlight managed to pierce the cloud cover.

A low, guttural chittering vibrated through the air. It wasn't a vocalization; it was a frequency, a thrumming that Elias felt in his teeth. 

"On my mark," Elias murmured. He shifted his weight, feeling the mud suck at his boots. "You run for the clearing. Don't look at the trees. Keep the light low—don't give them a target for their eyes."

"I'm not leaving you," she snapped, the terror finally giving way to the stubbornness that had kept her alive during the 1998 outbreak. She adjusted her grip on the mag-lite, holding it like a club. 

"I'm right behind you. Now—go!"

Sarah bolted. She didn't scream, saving her air for the sprint. Elias spun, his knife catching the dim, filtered light as he faced the darkness behind them. Three of the shapes dropped from the cypress knees, hitting the mud with heavy, sickening thuds. They were grey-skinned, hairless, and their faces were a nightmare of evolution gone wrong—no noses, just vertical slits that pulsed with every breath of the toxic air.

One lunged. It moved with a staggering, jerky speed, its clawed hand reaching for Elias's throat. Elias stepped inside the arc of the swing, the smell of rotting swamp lilies and copper hitting him like a physical blow. He slid the knife upward, burying the blade into the soft tissue beneath the creature’s jaw. 

Instead of blood, a spray of luminescent blue fluid coated his arm. It burned. Elias hissed through his teeth, kicking the creature back. The thing didn't die. It stumbled, clutching its throat, its yellow eyes narrowing into slits of pure, incandescent rage. 

"Elias!" Sarah’s voice echoed from the fog ahead. It was distant. Too distant.

He turned and ran, his lungs burning. The forest was no longer a collection of trees; it was a rhythmic, pulsing entity. Every time his boot struck the ground, the earth felt softer, more like flesh than soil. He leaped over a fallen log, only to realize the "log" was covered in the same grey skin as the creatures. It twitched as he cleared it.

He tore through a veil of Spanish moss that felt like wet hair against his face. Up ahead, the yellow glow of Sarah’s flashlight flickered against the trunks. 

"Sarah! Stop!" he yelled, noticing the shift in the air. 

The temperature had plummeted. The mist was no longer white; it was a bruised purple, swirling in patterns that defied the wind. Elias skidded to a halt as he broke into the clearing. 

Sarah was standing in the center of the iron-gate perimeter, but the gates weren't closed. They had been ripped from their stone pillars, the heavy iron twisted like discarded tinfoil. She was staring at the ground, the flashlight beam fixed on a patch of earth that was boiling.

Elias caught up to her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He wiped the stinging blue ichor from his arm onto his pants, but the skin underneath was already beginning to blister. 

"Look," Sarah whispered, pointing the light.

In the center of the clearing, where the town’s founding stone should have been, was a sinkhole. But it wasn't a geological cave-in. The edges of the hole were lined with the same yellow, lidless eyes that permeated the trees. Hundreds of them, all blinking in a horrifying, synchronized rhythm. 

"It's a nest," Elias said, the realization settling in his gut like lead. "The trees aren't the problem. They're just the limbs."

Suddenly, the chittering stopped. The forest went deathly silent. Even the wind died, leaving the Spanish moss hanging like nooses in the stagnant air. 

From the sinkhole, a hand emerged. It was human-shaped, but the skin was translucent, showing the pulsing blue veins beneath. It gripped the edge of the pit, followed by another. A figure pulled itself up—slowly, painfully. 

Sarah gasped, the flashlight slipping an inch. "Is that... is that Miller?"

Elias squinted. The man climbing out of the hole wore the tattered remnants of a Sheriff’s deputy uniform. But Miller had been missing for three weeks. His skin was the color of a drowned corpse, and his eyes—once a dull, kind brown—were now two glowing orbs of sulfurous yellow. 

"Miller?" Elias called out, his voice trembling. He kept the knife level. "Sheriff, if you can hear me, stay back."

The thing that used to be Miller tilted its head. A joint in its neck cracked with a sound like a dry twig. It opened its mouth, and a cloud of the blue spores drifted out, swirling toward them like a living veil.

"Not Miller," the creature said. The voice was a composite—a dozen voices layered on top of one another, ranging from a child’s whisper to an old man’s croak. "The Bend is waking up, Elias. The eyes in the trees are finally seeing you clearly."

"We have the serum," Sarah shouted, her hand diving into her pocket to reveal the small glass vial they’d risked everything for in the clinic. "We can stop the spread."

The Miller-creature let out a sound that might have been a laugh if it didn't sound so much like glass grinding together. It gestured to the forest around them. All at once, the yellow eyes in the trees began to descend. The grey shapes crawled down the trunks, leaping from branch to branch, circling the clearing until Elias and Sarah were surrounded by a ring of glowing, predatory light.

"The serum is for a disease," the composite voice said, the Deputy’s mouth moving out of sync with the words. "This isn't a sickness. It's an eviction."

Elias felt the ground beneath him vibrate. The sinkhole was widening, the eyes within it spinning in their sockets. He looked at Sarah. Her face was set in a mask of terror, but her eyes—those sharp, intelligent eyes—were searching the perimeter for a gap.

"The old well," she hissed, leaning closer to him. "Under the debris of the old gatehouse. If we can drop into the tunnels, we can bypass the perimeter."

"It's a fifty-foot drop into black water," Elias whispered back. 

"I'd rather the water than whatever they’re planning," she said.

The creatures began to close in, their limbs elongated, their movements fluid and terrifying. The Miller-creature stepped forward, its hand reaching out. The skin on its fingers began to unravel, turning into thin, needle-like tendrils that lashed the air.

"Join the marrow," the creature commanded.

"Not today," Elias growled. 

He didn't use the knife. He reached into his vest and pulled the last phosphorus grenade—the one he’d promised himself he’d save for his own end if he got backed into a corner. He didn't hesitate. He pulled the pin and dropped it directly into the sinkhole filled with eyes.

"Run!"

The explosion was a blinding, white-hot roar. The forest screamed. It wasn't just the creatures—the trees themselves seemed to let out a high-pitched, botanical wail as the phosphorus ignited the spores in the air. The clearing turned into a furnace of white light and blue fire.

Elias grabbed Sarah’s arm, and they dived toward the ruins of the gatehouse. Behind them, the Miller-creature was a silhouette of flame, still walking, still reaching. The shockwave tossed them forward, Elias landing hard on the jagged stones of the old well-housing.

He scrambled to his feet, pulling a dazed Sarah with him. The heat was blistering, melting the soles of his boots. He looked down into the maw of the well. It was a dark, square throat of mossy stone, smelling of stagnant water and old earth.

"Together," Sarah gasped, clutching the serum vial to her chest.

Elias looked back one last time. Through the white smoke and the dying screams of the forest, he saw the yellow eyes in the trees. They weren't dying. They were retreating, moving deeper into the woods, shifting their positions as if reorganizing for a different kind of hunt.

And among them, standing perfectly still amidst the fire, was a figure that hadn't been there before—a tall, thin shape in a tattered duster, its eyes not yellow, but a void-black that seemed to drink the light of the explosion.

It raised a hand, pointing a single, long finger at Elias.

"Jump!" Elias yelled.

They threw themselves into the dark. The cold air rushed past them, a sudden, violent silence replacing the roar of the fire. Elias reached out in the blackness, his hand finding Sarah’s just before they hit the water.

The impact was a hammer blow. The water was tectonic cold, slamming the air out of Elias’s lungs. He sank, the weight of his gear pulling him down into the lightless depths. He kicked frantically, his eyes stinging, his lungs screaming for oxygen.

He broke the surface, gasping, treading water in a space so dark he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed.

"Sarah?" he choked out.

A splash to his right. A frantic cough. "Here. I’m here."

They floated there for a moment, the only sound the rhythmic dripping of water from the ceiling of the cavern. High above, the square of the well-opening was a dim, flickering orange, choked with smoke.

"Did we lose them?" she asked, her voice echoing hollowly against the wet stone.

Elias didn't answer. He was looking at the water around them. It wasn't dark anymore. Slow, swirling eddies of bioluminescent blue were beginning to rise from the depths of the well, illuminating the submerged walls.

The walls weren't made of stone. They were made of bone—thousands of ribcages and skulls, fused together by the same grey, smoking sap that wept from the trees.

And then, Elias felt something brush against his ankle. Something cold, smooth, and very, very large.

He reached for his flashlight, clicking it on. The beam cut through the water, revealing a face just inches beneath his feet. It wasn't a creature. It was a mirror. The face looking back at him through the water was his own, except the eyes were already beginning to turn yellow.

"Sarah," he said, his voice trembling as he felt a sharp, needle-like sting in his calf. "Don't let me change."

But when he turned to her, she wasn't looking at him. She was staring at the wall behind him, where the bones were beginning to shift, the skulls opening their mouths in a silent, synchronized yawn.

The eyes weren't just in the trees anymore; they were under the skin of the world.