Piper and the Gren - Part 1

For the children of Banner Street, there was no holiday bigger than Halloween. This truth had developed through the years at least in part due to Banner’s convenient shape. An almost perfect ankh…if you were willing to ignore the short stub of a glorified driveway called Blair Street that jutted off the circle at an irregular angle, which most adults were willing to do. The children, however, could think of little else as the autumn air turned crisp.

Parents from surrounding subdivisions congregated once a year to allow their children to make the trick or treat circuit around the closed course of Banner Street. The entire street took on a festival atmosphere of costumed children and outrageous yard displays against the backdrop of the vibrant colors of an Ozark autumn. So, it was inevitable that each October, as the excitement of the upcoming holiday grew, the children of the neighborhood would once again become fascinated by the gren that lived in the gnarled hollow under the oak tree behind Old Man Medry’s house. And it was equally inevitable also that in such an environment, the events set in motion by Toby Cooper’s attempt to test his bravery against the wicked little creature would become part of the Halloween lore of the neighborhood...despite the fact that the gren’s attack occurred a week before that date…despite the fact that even the resulting funeral was held days before All Hallow’s Eve.


Wednesday October 11, 1995

“Just take two steps past the edge of his house, Toady!”

“And then get out of there!”

The loud whispers of multiple children overlapped as they gestured their frozen friend onward. A small crowd of neighbor kids had swarmed the sidewalk in front of Old Man Medry’s place to watch the sixth-grader the children called Toady press two steps past the safe zone. It was widely understood through rules past down from older siblings that the Medry front yard was safe, the back yard was purely off limits, but the side yard was an area of overlap where a young man could test his bravery. The gren might make its presence known, might threaten…but it had never harmed a child in the side yard.

Medry’s was the only house on the dead end street marked Blair and the road’s only destination save for the old Blair cemetery. Jutting off Banner’s circle and tucked behind a small grove, the house demanded attention for its stubborn refusal to join the other houses in the perfect circle drive. In addition, its fieldstone exterior and arched windows were completely out of step with the subdivision’s modest but modern esthetic. The house dated to a time when the Blairs had owned the entire ridgeline Banner Street followed and had once been used to house the grave yard’s caretaker. These days, most people simply chose to forget that there was a house and a cemetery lying unnoticed among the trees. The children, however, could never forget, drawn unfailingly to the bizarre and the mysterious.

Piper stood quietly to the far side of the crowd by the crooked mailbox marked “William Medrier.” She twisted her sandy brown hair around her fingers in an attempt to quell her nerves, to give her hands something to do as she watched her schoolmate stand motionless in Old Man Medry’s front yard. Toady’s eyes were locked on the darkened opening at the base of the oak tree, waiting for any sign of the little troll inside. He had made it most of the way across the lawn, his eyes on his feet at a friends’ suggestion, but had looked up a few steps shy of the side yard. He hadn’t moved since.

Piper scanned the thick-curtained windows of the old house. Nothing moved...nothing ever moved when the kids gathered to play this game. Old Man Medry kept to himself and he never opened his blinds. He rarely left his home and kept his face to the ground when he did venture out. No one visited except for the equally strange Oliver Blair, the town’s undertaker and eccentric descendant of the otherwise respectable Blair family. And despite the noise and commotion the children’s game inevitably caused just outside Old Man Medry’s windows, never once had he seemed even remotely aware of the twenty-two years worth of children that had snuck across his yard.

Piper, witnessing her first October on Banner Street, found the whole thing a little silly. “So, um, what is the gren exactly?”

“We don’t really know,” replied Simon, a tall eighth grader toward the back of the crowd. “It’s just a little monster that lives in there. Why it’s there depends on who you ask.”

“My sister says Old Man Medry and the gren are really the same thing,” added a green-eyed girl beside Piper. “He can change shape to scare kids away from the tree.”

“No way,” interrupted another child. “Medry’s a dead man. He escaped from Hell through that portal in the tree. The gren guards that hole to keep the devil from finding the Old Man and dragging him back.”

Piper considered this. “Then why doesn’t Medry just move? I mean…it’s kinda silly to live right next to the portal to Hell if you’re hiding from the devil, isn’t it?”

Simon laughed from the back of the group. “They say he can’t leave. He has to stay close to his body and tombstone there in the graveyard.”

“Is there a tombstone with his name on it?” Piper asked, suddenly intrigued.

The girl beside Piper shook her head. “The gren cast a spell so you can’t see it.”

“Except at midnight on the anniversary of his death,” finished a little boy Piper didn’t recognize. “But we don’t know when that is…so we check a lot.”

Piper, convinced all the children on her new street were insane, pulled her attention away from the quiet windows and back to the motionless boy in the Old Man’s front yard.

“You can do it, Toady. Just look back down,” reassured Simon.

Piper glanced at her watch and hoped Toady made his move soon. She needed to get back home before her mom got home from work.

“Come on, Toady!” called Ryan, a stocky boy who wore a Batman sweatshirt and a look of self-importance. “My brother went all the way into the back yard, you friggin’ wuss!”

Simon looked over the shorter heads in front of him. “That’s crap, Ryan, and you know it.” He focused past Ryan and called, “You’re doing fine, Toady! Just take your time,” before looking back to the boy at the front of the crowd. “Your brother just about wet himself one step past the edge and I don’t see you out there. Besides, no one’s ever made it to the back yard.”

“Shut up,” snapped Ryan. “Like you would know, Nerdman”

Simon smiled, used to the rhyming nickname his last name had inspired. “I know a lot more than you. My pop lived here when the gren first showed up…”

Ryan whipped around with a harsh whisper. “I know there ain’t no gren. Save it for Toady, ya geek.”

“Geez, Ryan. Isn’t Toady supposedly your friend?” interrupted Piper. She didn’t really know why she stood up for Toady. He had certainly never done so for her. More often than not he would simply chuckle along with Ryan’s cruelty. But it was difficult to hold it against poor Toady as he faced his terror, so clearly desperate for approval.

Ryan glared at the girl. “Well, maybe Toady could do it if you’d just sell him some pills to make him braver, Crack Piper.”

“Maybe I could sell you some pills to make you less of a jerk.” Her fists balled and she fought the urge to take a swing at the smirking boy.

“Toady’s moving!” interrupted Simon and the argument died as all eyes watched Toady take a tentative step toward the house. He paused at the end of that first step but then mustered his confidence and took another.

“Alright, Toady!” someone called. That bolstered the young man’s confidence even more. He dropped his eyes back to his feet and stomped his way to the edge of the house and then pushed into the side yard. The childen watched in hushed silence, eyes darting back and forth between Toady and the looming oak tree. Toady took the required two steps into the side yard and slowly stepped forward again.

“Toady, you did it…come back,” urged Piper

“Keep going!” dared Ryan.

Simon moved his way silently toward the front of the crowd, his focus intently locked on the ominous hollow beneath the tree.

Toady, his eyes still to the ground, took a deep breath and then took two more quick steps. He was only a foot or two from the center of the side yard and Piper had heard of no one who had made it this far. He smiled to himself and raised his head to look back at his friends but caught sight of the gren’s tree as he did.

Piper watched from the sidewalk as Toady’s body went rigid. While she could no longer see his face, the shriek that escaped his mouth and filled the street left little doubt of the terrified expression that must have been etched on his features. He dropped to his knees and swatted the air as if trying madly to block his view of the tree as he continued to scream. Toady fell to a sitting position and kicked himself away from the tree until his back was against the Medry house. Terror-filled legs continued scraping against the ground but could not achieve motion. Wide, tear-flooded eyes remained locked on the tree as his heels began digging twin trenches in the grassy lawn.

Panic swept through the children on the sidewalk. Some grabbed hold of on another, some stepped back into the street, and some ran. Piper, Ryan and Simon pressed themselves forward into the front yard.

“Run!” called Ryan.

“This way!” shouted Piper, but Toady seemed oblivious to all but the oak tree as he continued to cry and press himself against the wall.

Simon never took his eyes off the tree.

“You just have to crawl this way, Toady,” called Piper.

Piper waited a second or two more, hoping either Ryan or Simon would rush to help Toady…but no one did anything more than call to their terrified friend.

“I’m coming to get you!” Piper yelled to her stricken friend as she ran across the grass to the edge of the house. She kept her eyes on the ground, but her feet stopped near the imaginary line between the front yard and side. She could feel the tree. Even without looking, she was aware of a crushing darkness pressing on her from the looming tree trunk. She imagined that a black fog emanating from the hollow of the tree had surrounded her and was pressing against her chest. Her breath came in short gasps and she could feel a pressure pushing her backwards…toward the sidewalk. She wanted to run and hide and never see the tree again, never seen any tree again. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to cry. She couldn’t remember why she had decided to rush to Toady’s aid. He hated her. Everyone hated her. It was a hopeless attempt to rescue someone who would just call her names afterwards.

She looked up.

Old Man Medry’s oak tree towered over the rooftops. Its branches curled toward Piper like skeletal fingers and the sky that had been blue only minutes before had turned gray and oppressive. Just as she had imagined, black mist swirled around her like ghostly tendrils from the small opening at the base of the tree.

Toady’s cries urged her onward as she reminded herself over and over that no one had ever been attacked. She took another step forward, into the mist. From the shadows inside the tree two yellow eyes opened, glowing coldly through the haze. She froze again and fought the urge to scream, to cover her face, to curl into a ball and never open her eyes. Through the dark fog, the eyes of the gren ripped through her until her bones felt frozen. Her thoughts slowed and she could focus on nothing but the eyes of the unseen beast. She could hear Toady crying and was aware of calls from behind her, but they seemed far away and very small…dwarfed by the icy force of the eyes that glared from the sinister tree.

“I…” she stammered. “I just want to get Toady. I just want to get him away from your tree.”

A blast of anger swept from the gren and nearly knocked Piper backward. She could feel tears run down her cheek but had not been aware of crying.

“Please,” she whispered to the gren, to herself, to anyone or anything that would listen.

The eyes cocked to an angle, as if regarding Piper for the first time. For a split second, her vision blurred, two images muddled together. She could see Toady on the ground in front of her, but she could also see her own tear-streaked face as if from somewhere outside her body. She had barely enough time to be confused by this vision before the sinister yellow eyes slipped back into the darkness. The mist that had wrapped itself around her chest relaxed and the fog that had enveloped the entire side yard parted to form a path to the whimpering, scrambling Toady.

Terror still coursed through Piper’s body, but it was manageable terror. She tore her eyes away from the tree and rushed to Toady’s side.

“Come on, Toady,” she said as she dragged him to his feet and toward the safety of the sidewalk. He blinked as he suddenly became aware of her presence. Toady took lead-footed steps with Piper’s assistance and stared blankly ahead as he mumbled something that sounded to Piper like, “The eyes…I couldn’t move.”

“Holy crap!” called Ryan. “Did he wet himself? I bet he did! That was awesome!”

“Cool it!” snapped Simon as he met Piper and helped the two frightened sixth-graders to the sidewalk.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Piper with her hand on Toady’s shoulder, Simon kneeling reassuringly beside them, and Ryan smirking a few steps away. Piper risked a quick glace at the tree. The branches no longer seemed as menacing as only moments ago. The yellow and orange leaves swayed gently in the warm breeze and danced in the sunlight. The sky was a cloudless blue. If not for the way the sunlight refused to enter the shadowy opening at its base, Piper could almost mistake it for a normal oak tree.

“What happened?” asked Simon finally.

“What do you mean?” replied Piper. “Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see the eyes and the mist?”

Simon’s eyebrows raised. “Is that was you saw, Toady?”

Toady meekly nodded his head, “What do you mean…didn’t you see it?”

Simon shook his head. “We just saw you guys freaking out…that’s it.”

“You guys were hilarious,” laughed Ryan. “Boogetty! Boogetty!” he sang as he did his best impression of a little troll.

Piper sighed as she looked past the mocking boy and saw her mother rushing across the street.

“What’s going on? Are you two alright?”

“Yeah, Mom,” Piper replied.

Toady, who had regained some of his composure spoke up, “I’m fine, Mrs. Bishop. Really. I just…had a…I think you call it a panic attack.” He pushed himself to his feet to show that he could stand without assistance.

“I’m sure none of your parents would approve of you pestering poor Mr. Medrier. There’s no reason to…actually, what are you even doing here, Piper? You’re supposed to be grounded.”

“I…” Piper stammered but knew there was nothing to say.

Piper’s mother looked from her daughter to Toady and back again, unsure of which situation to handle first.

“I’ll get Toady home, Mrs. Bishop,” said Simon.

She nodded, “You should wash those scrapes on your hand when you get home, Toby.”

Toady looked at his hand and for the first time noticed the damage he had done to his palms. He hid his embarrassment with a smile. “Thanks, Mrs. Bishop.”

Putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, Mrs. Bishop frowned. “Say your goodbyes, Pipe…it might be awhile before you see your friends again.”

“That’s ok, Piper, we’ll see you tomorrow at school…oh wait…no we won’t,” mocked Ryan, “drug-free zone and all.”

Mrs. Bishop shot Ryan a warning glance and crossed the street with her daughter in tow. Piper glanced back to smile at her friends. Toady mouthed a silent “Thank you,” and as Piper smiled in response, she noticed the silhouette of Old Man Medry watching from the bay window of his house.


That night, Piper dreamed that she perched atop Old Man Medry’s house and stared across the street at her own bedroom window.





...Continued in Part 2