Her name was Laura. They stood in the kitchen, she distraught, bruised, bloodied from a cut on her forehead, another on her hand, he ridiculously worried about the unwashed plates in the sink, the grubby tea towel draped over the edge of the cutlery drawer, the finger marks on the cupboard handles, the water marks dribbled down the front of the dishwasher. She cradled a cup of hot, sweet tea in her shaking hands because he had heard somewhere that this was what you gave to people in shock.

Few words had been spoken since he led her through to the kitchen, locking the front door behind her. She had mumbled something about a car crash, but he already knew that. He had no doubt that his dream and this reality were one and the same. He didn’t understand how, but he accepted it.

Watching her now, cautiously sipping at the tea, sniffing back tears, he felt himself attracted to her dishevelled long brown hair, the round face grubby from tears, plump lips wet with tea, quivering slightly, and he felt ashamed, guilty.

The police. An ambulance. More guilt that he hadn’t phoned them immediately.

Maybe he wanted to keep her here as long as possible? With her jeans, grubby from the dirt around the tree her car had wrapped itself around, and he had no doubt that it was the tree she had collided with, and her blue blouse, the top two buttons ripped off in the impact, the top of one breast soft and gently curving to the white of her bra if he just moved this way a little...

He turned away, disgusted with himself, feeling as if he had abused her, taken advantage of her distress. He turned away because otherwise she might have noticed the hardness pressing against the trousers he had hurriedly pulled on before answering the door.

“I’ll just go and call...”

The words stumbled out of his mouth as he hurried into the hallway. Had things really got that desperate since he lost Kim? He hadn’t been aware of it. Lonely yes, but desperate?

He lifted the cordless phone from its cradle and froze, puzzled and suddenly, unaccountably frightened.

There was no dial tone.

He pressed the button, tried reseating the phone, lifting it clear again, but still there was only silence.

“The phone’s dead,” he called, trying to keep the fear he felt out of his voice. “Lines must be down or something. I’ll use my mobile.”

He headed across the hallway to his jacket, hanging from the hooks under the stairs. Taking his mobile phone out of his jacket pocket he was about to dial when he saw there was no signal. He stared at it, confused. He had used his mobile in the house many times before. There had never been a problem with the signal.

Laura stepped into the hallway, her own mobile clutched in her small fist.

“I can’t get a signal,” she said, her voice soft, trembling.

They stared at each other, each seeing the fear in the other’s eyes, both knowing that something was happening around them, to them, that was beyond their experience. Beyond their understanding.

It was the tree.

Mark was convinced of it. He had no idea how, but this was all to do with the tree.

He thought of all the flowers, the many crashes, the many deaths and, looking at Laura where she stood framed in the kitchen doorway, the fluorescent light from behind silhouetting her body, he realised that she was the first person he knew of who had survived crashing their car into the tree. She was lucky to be alive.

Maybe the tree was pissed off?

Maybe Laura wasn’t there at all, not really. A ghost? Was her body lying mangled among the wreckage of her car out by the tree? Was the girl before him nothing more than a shade, a frightened remnant of the once living person who had become yet another victim of the tree?

A creaking of floorboards interrupted his thoughts and he saw Laura look to her feet, step backwards. Then he too felt it. The slight lifting of the floor, as though something had slid beneath, swelling the wood in its passing.

Tapping at the window.

He twisted, startled, afraid, as the tapping grew more insistent. The wind roared through rotting gaps, down the old chimney, moaning, whistling, threatening as it grew stronger, wilder.

The floorboards creaked again, visibly bulged in the centre of the hallway as something pushed from beneath.

Laura was staggering backwards, eyes wide with fear, mouth open in a soundless scream, and Mark knew he had to do something, had to take control against his every nature. He was as terrified as the girl, but this was his house and, whether he liked it or not, by letting her in she had become his responsibility.

On shaking legs he hurried across to her and took her hand.

"Come on. We're getting out of here. We'll use my car. Take you to a hospital."

Laura stared at him blankly. The crash and now this had taken her beyond reason. He could see the panic, the fear, the incomprehension in every pale feature of her face as he pulled her towards the door.

The tapping on the window had become a hammering, but the front door was silent. Perhaps whatever was there lay in wait, skulking in the darkness, or perhaps it was so busy at the window and beneath the floor that the doorway was clear? He knew there was only one way he would find out.

Surprising himself with his own courage, he pulled open the door, flinching at the gust of wind that slapped into him. The pathway was clear.

Still pulling Laura by the hand, he staggered out into the dark, fighting against a wind that pushed against his chest, tugged at his eyes, dragging tears from their corners.

He risked a glance towards the hallway window, his heart jumping as he saw skeletal fingers clawing at the glass, calming a little as his fear-blurred vision cleared and he saw the bush blowing in the wind.

He hesitated, puzzled, not able to remember a bush ever being there before. And the more he looked, the more it seemed less like a bush and more like the thick branch of a tree that had grown improbably out of the ground near the brick wall of his house.

A crashing to his right, the sound of metal and glass bending and breaking, shattering, and Laura's scream all dragged him away from the strange sight by the window. Before he looked he knew what he would see.

A heavy branch, as thick as many trees, lay embedded in the crumpled roof of his car, the windscreen white with spidery cracks. The right front tire had burst under the impact. It was not that unusual for trees to be blown over, but his car stood in the centre of the concreted driveway, the nearest tree several hundred yards away.

Fear was taking control of him now, pushing the little courage he had mustered further and further into the background.

What to do? Which way to go?

The rushing wind roared through the night air. He had heard people talk of an oncoming tornado sounding like an approaching train, but this was much worse than that. He could hear nothing but the ferocious storm, see little as wind-blown grit and dirt stung his eyes.

He turned to Laura but could find no words as she stood, pleading to him with her eyes, depending on him to save her, flinching as her hair whipped around her face as though it was alive.

"The house," he shouted at her, though he doubted she could hear him. "We'll have to go back into the house."

He pushed her gently towards the still open front door and she seemed to understand. The wind pushed at their backs as if eager for them to return to the farmhouse. Mark leaned backwards into it to slow himself, holding onto Laura as she almost ran ahead of him.

Something felt wrong. He knew it. He just didn't know what.

The hallway floor exploded a moment before they stepped inside, floorboards tearing and snapping, spinning into the air, others peeling back like the dead flesh from a rotting fruit. Grasping fingers of wood pushed into the hallway, thick branches snaking into the air, crashing into furniture. The window shattered as the branch outside finally broke through, joining its companions in their writhing, clawing invasion of the house.

Mark staggered backwards, crying out as a whipping branch tore bloodily across his cheek, barely missing his left eye. Laura, too, fell away from the doorway as the living wood reached for her.

Mark knew this could not be happening. Trees did not attack houses. Branches were not capable of conscious intent. Somewhere there was a rational explanation for all this, but now was not the time to contemplate it. He had to get away, and he had to take the girl with him. She was his responsibility. He could no more leave her here than he could have left Kim. For however brief a time she was his and he had to save her.

And as he thought of the girl, he thought of her car. Perhaps it was less damaged than she thought? At the very least it may be less damaged than his.

He pulled at her hand again, shouting to her as she turned towards him.

"We'll try for your car. Maybe we can use it to get to a phone box or another house."

For the first time the solitude he so liked about his farmhouse was a burden, a problem. He had never wished he lived on a housing estate before. Suddenly it seemed desirable.

He turned and headed into the sharp teeth of the wind once more, moving towards the roadway in the most direct line, across the fields. Against the dark grey of the night sky he could see the silhouette of the tree, its topmost branches flickering in the wind. It looked calm, peaceful in comparison with the tangle of wood now inside his house.

For the first few steps he held onto Laura's hand, but he soon realised he could not continue that way. He had to trust that she would stay close behind him. Neither of them would reach her car if they clung to each other, hindering their movement.

He looked back at her, his heart aching at the fear, the complete dependence on him in her eyes, her tear streaked face.

"Stay close." And then because he felt she needed it, "Don't worry. We'll make it."

The ground was uneven and he stumbled several times, but even against the wind, even through thickening mud and airborne detritus, they made quick progress across the field, spurred on by fear of what lay behind them, of what may be following.

As he approached the tree, wind-blown grit stabbing his eyes, the leathery palms of dead leaves flapping at his face, he could not make out the wreckage. The thick, gnarled trunk stood deep black against the greyer night around it but he could see no car, wrecked or otherwise.

Perhaps on the far side? Perhaps just a strange angle of view?

So much had happened tonight maybe he shouldn't discount anything, however unbelievable.

"Laura?"

He turned, reaching back to where he knew she followed.

No one was there.

The wind blew harder, pushing him away from the road, away from the tree.

He stared into the night, searching for some sign. Had she fallen? Was she sheltering from the wind? But he saw no body on the ground, no place large enough for Laura to hide.

"Laura!"

The shout was torn from his lips, carried away by the wind, twisting into the night unanswered.

She had gone, leaving no trace, no sign that she had ever been there. With a rising sickness in his stomach he lifted his head, peering back towards the farmhouse. From this distance all looked normal, almost serene amidst the storm. Doubt pecked at his thoughts, insistent, nagging. But if he could not believe his own senses...?

He turned back to the tree, back into the full fury of the wind and the grit and the leaves, leaning into them, dragging one step after another. He had to see what was on the other side of the tree. He had to be certain. He had to know.

A bunch of memorial flowers fluttered into the air — floral birds with the wind beneath petal wings, startling him as they flew towards his hands, quickly raised to protect his face. They were harmless, but the sudden movement had turned his stomach. He felt nauseous.

He reached the tree, grimly aware that each step crushed the memories of someone's loved one underfoot as the night tore the floral tributes apart. With one hand steadying himself against the rough bark, he fought his way to the roadside, staring at the emptiness.

He had known, but he had to be sure.

No car, wrecked or otherwise, was anywhere to be seen.

The wind abated as quickly as it had risen, leaving him breathless and shivering. The night was a dull silence, the total silence experienced only after the loudest of noises.

Staring at the ground, following roots that lay buried and unmoving, he began to wonder if he was, after all, going mad. Had the loneliness, the solitude, the overwhelming sense of loss and his inability to move on finally pushed him over an edge that had often seemed perilously close?

He leaned against the tree, his killing tree, and cried.

The silence shattered explosively, unexpectedly, deafening in its abruptness.

There had been nothing, but now tires screamed, an engine roared, and Mark turned and closed his eyes, blinded by the headlights that slid across the roadway, out of control.

The car bumper slammed into his knees, shattering them against the trunk of the tree. The radiator grill sliced into this thighs, his groin, pulping and crushing. His upper body involuntarily dropped forward, his head splitting against the windscreen with a strangely hollow and wet pop, a windscreen wiper cutting into his mouth, knocking out several teeth, tearing lips and gums. A web of cracks spread through the glass but it held stubbornly together. He was dead before the engine finally stalled.

The night was almost silent again, only the quiet cooling ticks of the engine and the slight hiss of steam contaminating the oppressive stillness.

The driver's door shuddered open with several hard pushes, the metal twisted and jamming the hinges.

Laura Harrison fell from her seat as she finally unfastened the seat belt. The air bag had stunned her but saved her life. Slowly, unsteadily, she pulled herself to her feet with a hand on the top of the crooked door, hardly noticing as ragged metal cut her palm, her fingers. A scream died in her throat, lacking the strength to force its way out, as she saw the body folded across the front of her car, crushed between the metal and the wood of the tree. Staggering away, she searched desperately for help, for some sign of civilisation, and saw the lights of the solitary house across the fields.

As the wind began to strengthen, she stumbled towards the pathway that led to the house and the branches of the tree seemed to twist and turn, following her, watching her. For one brief moment the quickening air through the fingers of wood sounded like a laugh, an eerie chuckle, then a sigh, but she pushed the idea aside angrily. She had crashed her car. A man was dead. She needed help, human help, not the fanciful animation of an ancient tree.

She staggered on as the wind blew harder and a solitary flower from a bunch still near the base of the tree lifted up, twisted and danced and came to rest against the windscreen of the car before the open, lifeless eyes of Mark Moore.