Seven Iron Spikes
by P. G. Streeter
Damien Jeffers did not plan to pull off of the main highway, to wind his car through Kentucky backroads, to stop at this particular crook in the road. He had no intention of entering the woods, scrambling through the ravine, and standing at the foot of this monumental tree.
Yet, here he stands, as if bidden, in a pocket of the world he hasn’t occupied in twenty years.
Plywood boards lie warped and splintered at the tree’s base. Seven iron spikes line the trunk like metal vertebrae. The seventh is crooked, and a jagged radial scar mars the bark around it.
Damien puts his hand on the trunk—and remembers.
How many hours had Dame and Jack spent exploring those woods, that summer when they were seventeen?
Which of them first discovered their tree, had first felt its magnetic pull?
It was certainly Jack who got the idea for the clubhouse. With his usual nonchalance, he announced that he had “come upon” several rail spikes—sturdy, footlong iron nails—which he proposed they drive into the dense gray trunk, creating a series of handholds for scaling the forty-plus feet to the tree’s lowest branches.
There, they would place the platforms, salvaged lumber to be set in a series of cantilevers that made Dame nervous.
Still, Jack had a certain mystique about him. He seemed otherworldly to Dame—just like their tree. Jack knew every arcane fact about the world—snippets of history or theoretical physics that Dame took, faithfully, as truth.
So, if Jack McCannon said the plan would work, it would.
Getting the spikes to penetrate the dense trunk, however, proved challenging. They wailed at that first spike with all their strength, taking turns at it with a heavy mallet. It didn’t yield.
After an hour, Jack let out an animal roar. He swung again, missed, and fell on his ass. Dame broke into astonished laughter, and soon his friend followed suit. Something in the air relaxed.
Smiling, Dame leaned back against the tree. Its outer layer of bark seemed softer—more supple than before.
So, he tried again. This time, Dame was able to drive in the first handhold, just a bit. It wasn't easy, but it was no longer impossible. Soon, they’d fully embedded the first two.
Dame couldn’t shake the feeling that the tree had subtly changed, had allowed them to breach its exterior.
The next afternoon, Jack threw piles of lumber at the tree’s roots. He pulled out a notebook with sketches he'd made, replete with cryptic equations in the margins.
Dame could not describe the joy he felt as the two worked together, even as the task got more difficult. The lower holds, after all, had at least been easy to reach. Now, they had to balance on those lower rungs and keep their footing as they drove subsequent spikes into the trunk.
They hammered and talked and laughed and hung on for dear life.
And, once again, Dame couldn’t shake the feeling that the tree was helping them, pulling them into an invisible embrace as they worked.
Soon, in the time it had taken to drive in two spikes on the day prior, they'd nailed in four more.
That night, Dame dreamed of iron and wood and Jack’s easy laughter.
On the third day, Dame practically sprinted through the bramble and underbrush, scrambling along the trodden trail to their clearing. As he approached, he heard that laughter he was so familiar with—met by another, airier voice.
He slunk behind some tall brush and stared into the clearing to see Jack and Nat, standing closely, staring up at the tree.
Our tree, Dame thought, a lead weight sinking in his gut. How could Jack let someone else be part of this?
It was a betrayal of an unspoken trust between them.
Dame hid, breathless and dizzy. He heard their laughter, their muffled words, the other sounds they shared.
After a time, darkness fell.
Later, Jack led Nat through the ridge and away, his hand on her waist.
By the halfmoon’s light, Dame clung to the tree, leaning his weight against its trunk. Teetering, he furiously hammered away at the seventh spike.
A white-hot feeling coursed through him as he struck. The tree resisted, but the sting of betrayal fueled his blows.
Finally, a loud crack echoed. The spike, radiating red as if heated over a fire, stuck out of the tree, which crackled with deep scars at the base of the nail.
Dame climbed down, collapsed to the ground, and wept.
Dame stayed in bed all that next day. He didn’t come out until the sheriff came by.
Jack was missing.
Dame had nothing to say.
That night, he dreamed of a foot catching on a crooked spike, of the feeling of air escaping lungs, the impact of a thirty-foot headlong fall onto root and jagged rock.
He saw it from above. From the perspective of the towering tree, he saw his friend’s broken body.
He felt the tree’s open acceptance of their shared ease and excitement—and then, of something else. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal.
The tree had felt what he felt, and it had acted accordingly.
After Jack’s body was found, everyone took pity on Dame—the dead boy’s best friend.
He never told a soul that it was all his fault.
Now.
The iron spikes, the solitary tree, the plywood wreckage—these alone remain, desolate memorials to the past.
Damien climbs. When he runs out of handholds, the tree creates more. They emerge as he ascends.
He cannot quantify the hours that pass. When he looks down, the ground is impossibly far below him. Above, the trunk stretches unendingly into a gray sky.
He climbs and climbs, until he cannot distinguish where his hands end and the nails begin. Skin becomes iron becomes bark becomes sky.
he world melts away, and an echo of soft laughter lingers in the absence of air.
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About the Author
P.G. Streeter lives with his wife and two sons in Maryland, where he teaches high school English and philosophy. His prior publications include stories in Daily Science Fiction, Pulp Literature, and Cast of Wonders, among others. His goal in writing is to tap into those uncanny—often unsettling—worlds we encounter in our dreams!
