Tree House

The Tree House is a spooky story written by a member of this website called Shadow_of_Darkness. The picture below is a painting by Rob Gonsalves called “Tree House in Autumn” and it contains a clever visual illusion.

It was summertime and three boys named Johnny, Pete, and Lucas were hanging out in their tree house. All of a sudden, they heard a knock on the door and when Pete opened it, there was a little girl standing outside. She introduced herself as Martha and asked if she could come in. Seeing no reason to deny access, the boys agreed and she eagerly stepped inside.

“I like your tree house,” she marveled.

Lucas noticed her eyes were reddish-brown, too red to be maroon, she didn’t have skin pale enough to be albino, and her eyes had a wicked gleam in them.

The next day, Martha came back. She delicately inspected every object like it was pure gold. When she left for dinner, Lucas locked the door behind her, closed the windows and pulled down the shades.

“Guys, I don’t think we should let Martha back in,” he said.

“Why not?” Pete asked. “She seems nice enough.”

“I don’t know”, said Lucas. “All I know is, I’ve got a funny feeling about her…”

His eyes darted to the window. He gently pulled the shade over to the side, and was relieved to see Martha walking away in the distance. She had gone too far already to have heard the conversation.

The next day, Martha tried to invite herself in. The door was locked with an additional bar in front of it. Lucas had gone paranoid.

“Sorry, Martha”, Pete said. “We’re doing homework for a test tomorrow.”

Martha, being only six or so, glared at the boys angrily. “But I wanna PLAY!”, she snapped.

Pete’s eyes narrowed. “We’re STUDYING”, he growled. “Now go away.”

Truth be told, they weren’t studying. They were playing video games with a cheap portable TV.

“No!”, Martha huffed and she sat down on the edge of the tree house.

There was a rope ladder dangling at her feet that could be rolled up whenever it wasn’t needed.

Pete was getting angrier. “We won’t let you come back EVER if you don’t leave now!” he shouted.

“I hate you!” screamed Martha. She was becoming something of a brat by now.

“You hate me, I hate YOU!” shouted Pete and with that, he kicked Martha off the edge of the tree house.

It was a long way down.

Lucas and Johnny were horrified. A sickening CRACK! made the boys cringe. The boys peered over the edge and saw Martha’s body lying on the ground below. Her head was split open and her arms and legs were bent at weird angles. Blood was seeping out all over her white dress.

The boys exchanged nervous glances.

“What have you done?” whispered Lucas. “You killed her.”

“Calm down,” said Johnny. “He obviously didn’t mean to do it.”

“At least it’s dark,” Pete said. “We can just say she slipped and fell.”

“Yeah, yeah,” johnny replied. “She slipped and fell. That’s what happened.”

Lucas was shaking. His eyes were wide with fear.

The other boys kept working on him until he agreed to keep it a secret. Then, they all ran home and tried to pretend that nothing had happened.

That night, as he lay in bed, Pete couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was the twisted expression he had seen on Martha’s face when she had fallen. Heck, even her dark red eyes had rolled back into her head! To add to the situation, he was the one who killed her. Pete tossed and turned, but he eventually managed to fall asleep.

Meanwhile, Johnny was lying in his bed, trembling with fear. He was addicted to horror stories and most things didn’t frighten him, but he was unable to get the sight of the dead little girl out of his mind. it left him terrified.

Lucas wasn’t doing much better. He lay awake, his eyes scanning the darkness, flinching at every little sound.

Just then, the clock struck midnight.

Was it just his imagination, or did he hear a voice?

Yes, he did. It was the voice of a little girl, singing an eerie tune.

“I hate you, you hate me…”

Meanwhile, Johnny and Pete could hear it too.

“I hate you, you hate me, I hate you, you hate me…”

Every minute, the voice seemed to get closer.

“You hate me, I hate you, you killed me, I’ll kill YOU!”

The last thing the boys ever saw was Martha’s bloody, crippled body standing over them.

The next day, the news stations reported a very strange story. Three young boys had jumped out of their bedroom windows during the night and fallen to their death. No one knew it, but it was Martha, coming back for revenge.