We grew up by an old patch of woods in New England, and if we had to walk through the forest, Mom always insisted on these three things.
Stay on the path at all times.
Keep walking, never stop.
And never go near the tall, skinny trees.
Up until I was around 8, we lived closer to downtown, and we really didn’t know anything about the woods or ever go near them. But then my parents split up, and we were forced to move in with Nana, who lived alone by woods that I know now is considered primeval forest.
The original settlers in New England had cut down most of the old forest within a few decades, but here and there, patches remained for one reason or another.
By the time I was a teen, most of my friends started hanging out in the woods.
Drinking beer, smoking weed…you know how it is. Some were into fishing and hunting.
But I wanted no part of that, for reasons you’ll soon understand.
Like I said, we moved when I was 8. Nana had had strokes, and though she was pretty healthy and could take care of herself, it affected her speech, so she said few words.
The old woods came right up to her yard, and we had to walk through them to get to the school bus. Not far. Only about a quarter mile. It was really beautiful, actually, especially in the Fall. The path followed a narrow river where sometimes a beaver could be spotted. Early in the morning we’d spot dear, Canadian geese, foxes.
But every day, as we left, Ma told us to stick to the path, don’t stop…and for the love of God, stay away from the skinny trees.
Why just the skinny trees?
For a long time we didn’t know. As I walked along I’d be checking out sprawling pines and majestic oaks, and there’d be young trees. Wasn’t a skinny tree just a young tree?
When you’re a kid you can dwell on things like that. Like, are there trees that are old, but just stay skinny?
How thin does a tree need to be to be skinny?
I was prone to daydreaming while walking, and sometimes I’d catch myself slowing down, wandering too close to the patches of trees along the edge of the path, and I’d remember Mom’s warning…stick to the path and keep moving.
After a few weeks of living in Nana’s house, she managed to spit out some words like she’d been chewing on them a while, struggling to form them, but had to say them.
“Don’t go near the branches,” she said, as Mom handed us our lunches and pushed us out the door.
My sister was a year younger than me but already smarter. She didn’t try to dig into the meaning of any of this. For her, she trusted Nana and Mom, they knew something important, so whatever danger was out there, just listen to them. No need to think too hard on it.
But as for me, my mind ran wild, and though I was afraid, I just had to know.
Nana herself scared me. Probably just because she couldn’t form words easily, yet we knew that her mind was sharp as a razor. That combination can be unsettling. Always thinking, and seldom saying anything. It created an air of secret knowledge.
Nana’s side of the family went back to the Mayflower. I guess they believed things the regular church didn’t want them believing, so they came over here to a new land where they could do their own church and tell other people what not to believe.
I don’t know if Nana was like that. It was more about things she had knowledge of. She wasn’t at all religious. Never went to church, no religious symbols around the house. But there were just things she knew. Like how to make a hot toddy that would put you to sleep and all but cure your cold. How to make tomatoes grow in the shade. And how to avoid being marked for death by a Skinny.
What’s a Skinny?
I can’t say for sure. Mom wouldn’t talk much about em, and Nana couldn’t. At first Mom refused to recognize them as true creatures. It was Nana that broke the seal on that one.
Thinking back on it, and both Mom and Nana are now long gone, so I can’t ask, but thinking back, I believe the reason they didn’t want me to know about the Skinnies was because they were afraid I’d try to find one. I wouldn’t be able to help it. Yes, I’d be terrified, and I was, but they knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge.
So what are they?
Very tall creatures that are quite thin and have superhuman patience. When I say tall, while descriptions vary, I was told they could be more than three or four times as tall as a man. Yet much thinner than a human being. Standing still, they might resemble a pole, but quarter the width of a telephone pole. Except they aren’t straight, like a pole, but somewhat bent. Usually they bend in the direction of a thin tree they use to shield themselves. To hide right in front of.
They can stand motionless for hours. If you watch long enough, at most you might see their eyes slowly blink. Which you might notice, because they’ll be staring straight at you. Watching. They are patient watchers.
The Skinnies are human like. Arms, legs, faces…upright. But hard to say much more because they almost completely camouflage themselves, taking on the texture and shape of the tree they stand against, like an octopus, and they only move from one tree to another if they’re sure you aren’t looking.
But Mom and Nana were terrified of them because of the mark of death. According to legend, if you were touched by one of them you were marked. Your days were numbered, and the number was small.
If you stood too close to the skinny trees along the path, one could reach out with a long, slender arm and touch you. And you were marked. Your clock was ticking.
However, as long as you kept moving and kept your eyes peeled, you were fine, not so much because they’re slow, but because they don’t like to be seen.
Once I learned about the Skinnies, naturally I wanted to know if they were real, and the best way was asking other kids at school. At first no one I asked had heard of em, so I figured it was all bullshit.
But then I asked Lazarus.
Laz was a kid who largely stuck to himself, but not because he was picked on. No one dared pick on this kid. I don’t think he ever got into a fight, but there was a sense it would not end well for the other guy, whoever it was. Laz wasn’t older than us, but he seemed it. Every school has a kid like that. You know the-first-kid-to-own-a-dirt-bike kind of kid.
Laz mostly stuck to himself reading comic books, and if you went up to talk to him, he’d talk back, not unfriendly, but maybe a little disinterested. He just didn’t need to the rest of the world.
Laz also came from old stock around these parts, so he knew all the legends and family secrets. So I just asked him, you ever heard of Skinnies.
He lowered his comic book and wore something between a smirk and a frown.
“I heard of em. Seen one too.”
My jaw dropped. Holy shit.
Without waiting to see if we were even talking about the same thing, I asked where he saw them.
“Where else,” he said. “In the woods.”
He explained how he’d been fishing when he had this sense of being watched. Over time, he felt like it was more than just watching. Something was hunting him.
He didn’t get up and go cause he figured it was a big cat, maybe, or a bear. Moving would only make it charge.
But more and more minutes went by, and he heard nothing moving. He had barely moved a muscle for a long time, maybe half an hour, when he finally decided to take off. But right before he did…he saw it.
Up against a skinny birch tree that bent one way, then back the other. At first he didn’t know what he was looking at because the thing was so tall he had to look up to see its face.
Before looking up, he noticed the lines that he thought were part of the birch were unnatural, too vertical. The tree was about 15 yards away, and he made out the creatures knees at about the eye level of an adult human. Little knots from which vertical lines rose. As he kept turning up, the thing never moved an inch, so that he couldn’t be sure if it was carved into the tree.
He spotted super long, spidery fingers, gnarled shoulders, and finally an unmoving face. He had to squint to even make out that it was a face.
Just as he was sure it was just something carved into the tree, the eyes blinked. Laz freaked so bad he found himself sliding down the river bank into the river, until he was in the muddy water and drifting down the stream.
He never even went back for his rod.
The story Laz told wasn’t told like a story like that should be told, around a crowd of kids. Nah, it was just me and him. When he was done telling it, he just went back to reading his comic like I wasn’t even there.
I walked away stunned. They were real.
But what about the whole kiss of death thing? That had to be bull. I mean, mysterious creatures, sure, that’s flesh and blood stuff, so it could be real, but a kiss of death? That sounded like nonsense meant to scare kids. What would be the point of giving a kiss of death even if a creature could?
So I spent Saturday morning doing extra chores for Nana. Meaning she owed me. At lunch, still sweating and tired, I laid it on her. Why the kiss of death?
But she wouldn’t tell me.
Later in the summer, the end of August, when the woods are thick with underbrush, me and my sister walked the path to the bus stop. My sister stuck to the rules of course. Stay on the path, don’t stop, avoid the skinny trees.
I did too, but I was looking around real careful. Suddenly I heard a vicious cry. We ground to a stop. My sister covered her mouth. Whatever it was was close.
We looked around into the woods. Then it came again. I felt, but didn’t see, my sister move back.
I looked into a patch of pines and spotted the wailing victim. A fox held a rabbit in its jaws, and that rabbit was making one hell of a racket.
I clapped my hands together and made a racket of my own to scare the fox, and it worked. The fox let it’s meal go.
But I hadn’t told my sister any of what was going on, I just assumed she was behind me looking over my shoulder. I was about to step into the woods to help the stunned rabbit, when it found its strength and ran off, little worse for the wear.
I turned around, expecting to see my sister relieved in the path behind me, but she wasn’t. She had backed off the path and into the woods on the other side, where she stood next to a tall, dark, skinny tree, having no idea about the liberated rabbit. I gasped. Whispered for her to get back on the path.
She immediately did, but she was rubbing her shoulder.
What is it? I asked.
Something touched me, she said.
I was too stunned to speak. All the way to the bust stop I said nothing, but I kept eying my sister the whole way, making sure she was alright. Up til that point in my life, I guess I only thought of her as a pain in the ass…which she wasn’t really. But at that moment I realized I wanted nothing bad to ever happen to her.
Later at home, I thought about telling Nana. I wish I had. Maybe something could have been done.
A couple of weeks later, on a Saturday, my sister was in the car of her friend’s mom. They were going to the mall. The mom did nothing wrong, but a pick up truck blew through a stop sign. Mostly everyone in the car had minor injuries. But my sister hit her head and died instantly.
Days later, I asked Nana about the kiss of death, and she just shook her head with sadness. Wouldn’t tell me anything else.
So naturally I went to Laz at school. And even he was reluctant. But I looked really lost and down, and I guess it got to him, so he took me aside.
He said the kiss of death was how Skinnies made more Skinnies.
If someone was marked for death, they’d for sure soon die, there was pretty much no escaping it.
And when they died, their spirit would return to the forest, to the place they were marked.
And a process would begin.
A process where they’d become a Skinny.
From that moment on, the seed of an idea took shape in my mind.
I was going to see my sister again.
And I figured I knew where I could find her.