Al kept his mouth shut. He had been allowed to tag along with the older kids, so he tried to remain invisible. If he spoke up, Reggie would probably tell him to get lost (maybe with a swift kick), and that would end any future outings with them.
       The four of them were in the city park, down at the end, away from the highway. Here the city-maintained grass stopped in a jarring straight line, and the wild weeds of a field took over, stretching to woods beyond, a dark fence of unknown on the horizon.
       Standing like a guardian between these worlds was the largest tree in the universe. Its bark was plated armor. Cracks ran its length deep enough to take fingers up to the knuckles--not that Al would do such a fool thing.
       He would no more stick his fingers in the gnarled tree than he would grab a spinning saw blade.
       Its roots were as thick as its branches. They curled and humped out of the ground; eighteen crooked spider legs covered in knots. They made caves for animals to den, trash to collect, and on memorable occasions, the homeless to shelter.
       Wild and undulating branches--some wide as cars, some skinny as skeleton fingers--radiated in every direction. They looked like a child's drawing of sunrays and octopuses and spaghetti. Some of its arms leaned, some curled, some even doubled back on themselves in twisted Gordian Knots of impossibility. Seven were low enough to step on. Dozens of knotholes made fly's eyes that looked everywhere at once.
       Al's father told him this was an Angel Oak Tree, but Al knew the truth despite its classification. Every kid knew the truth. It was a haunted tree. A devil tree.
       All four of them stared at it, captivated. They hadn't spoken about coming here; it just happened. The tree pulled them with its gravity.
       "I wonder . . ." Myra did not finish her statement. She didn't have to. She pushed her hair behind her hair, a thick ebony flow that glinted auburn in the sun.
       Everyone knew what she was talking about. It was the single strangest thing about the tree. Every Halloween morning, the tree was decorated with realistic-looking corpses hung high in the branches. Some were lashed to the trunk. All were held by vines, ropes, even shreds of clothing. They hung upside down, sideways, right-side up. Some were fastened face-first into the bark as if they were ghosts who got stuck halfway through.
       No one could figure it out. Was it a Halloween prank? Did the city do it the same way they hung Christmas decorations from the streetlights, those angels and presents and stars? Was it some kook who worked under cover of night for his own amusement? Who would hang fake bodies in a tree for Halloween?
       The bodies that hung were different every year. Some were complete skeletons of ivory-colored bone, some mummified corpses with eye sockets pulled into leather teardrops. There were wet zombies and fresher bodies still drooling red gore.
       Last year Al saw a kid in a white jersey with intestines hanging from a glistening hole thick with flies. He wondered if any adults complained. The bodies were disturbingly realistic.
       "Where do they come from, Reggie?" Myra asked.
       Myra was the prettiest girl Al had ever seen (even prettier than Jurnee Smollett, and he secretly clipped pictures of her), but he could never speak to her. He was sure if she turned those brown eyes on him, he would puff into flame like a magician's trick tissue paper. Instead, he snuck quick peeks when no one was looking. Being near her was half the reason he wanted to come out with Reggie today.
       The other half was Reggie, of course. Everyone wanted to hang with Reggie, just like they were all waiting to hear him answer Myra's question. He was a natural leader. No one called him that, but the proof was in the way Myra stared while she waited. Al wished she would look at him that way. But you couldn't be jealous of Reggie. That was crazy. That was like being jealous of a movie star.
       Reggie didn't answer immediately. He pondered the question. The sun cascaded off his glasses, and for a moment, Al couldn't see his eyes.
       Then he moved his head and spoke. His speech was slow and sure. "Bigger kids, maybe. Teenagers." He shrugged, and that closed the subject.
       Al noted how Reggie segregated teenagers from the four of them even though he was thirteen himself. That made him feel a little less apart from everyone. They were together in staring up at the tree, all speaking in almost-but-not-quite whispers as if afraid of waking it.
       "It's so big," Myra said. Her breath was husky, and its tone made Al feel funny. He shivered.
       Then Jackie had to ruin it. "I've seen bigger." He grabbed his crotch and hee-hawed laughter. No one took the bait, though, so he hushed. He snapped off the Red Vine in his mouth, smacked on it, but kept his eyes on the tree.
       The sun appeared to sit in the upper branches. Al was sure the tree was a million miles high and thicker than anyone could spread their arms. Its bark was multicolored, brown, gray, black, even red. There was color behind the bark, a mottled sea-green the same shade as the first crayon he always threw away in a new pack.
       Reggie began to circle the tree. They formed a line behind him. He stepped over a root that had broken free of the soil, a giant's humped finger topped with a gnarled knuckle-like knot.
       Al bent and removed a Reese's wrapper caught in its skin.
       "It's so old," Myra said.
       Al wanted to agree with her. He wanted to tell her that trees could be hundreds of years old, but this thing must have been here when the dinosaur roamed. He could imagine some Tyrannosaurus Rex rubbing against its bark. The image made him smile. He hid it quickly, but Jackie rolled his eyes and swallowed the rest of his candy.
       Then, a nasty gleam flashed in Jackie's eyes. "I hear it's ghosts," he said, looking at Al. He continued. "Ghosts hang themselves in the tree. Haven't you heard that, Reg?"
       "No such things as ghosts," Reggie said.
       "Really?" Myra asked.
       Reggie nodded.
       Jackie sighed.
       "Maybe we should stake out the tree and see what happens," Al said. "The bodies appear, but no one knows how. On November first, the bodies are gone again, and it's the same. No one knows how they go."
       They all turned to him. Al could not believe he spoke up. Was he crazy? He committed the ultimate sin! He stepped out of the background. Now Reggie would tell him to get lost. Myra would see him cry, and that would break him into a thousand pieces.
       "That's a good idea, little man," Reggie said. He smiled at Al, even rubbed his head, and Al thought he might just float away.
       Then Myra smiled at him too, and Al felt his feet leave the ground.
       "That's a stupid idea," Jackie said.
       "Then don't come," Reggie replied.
       Silence.
       Then, Jackie asked, "When?"
       "The decorations are always here Halloween morning," Reggie said. "Everyone sees them on the way to school, right? But not the evening before. They must show up on Halloween Eve. That's tonight. Let's hide in the park after dark and find out where they come from."
       Al's mouth wasn't quite finished betraying him. "Let's come to the Skeleton Tree."
       Again, everyone looked at him, but no one spoke this time. The name hung on the air. Myra shivered. Al was sorry he scared her, but it was a true name. They all felt it, so it stuck.

       Al closed his backpack. It bulged, but the clasps held. He didn't know how long they would be out tonight--no one knew what time the decorations appeared--but better to be prepared. He had never been a Boy Scout, but he dug their motto. Most important in the pack was a wax sleeve of chocolate chip cookies, Myra's favorite. He hoped to get a smile all his own and maybe--in his wildest fantasies--a kiss on the cheek. The possibility made his stomach flip. It hurt so good.
       Downstairs his mother shelled beans at the kitchen sink. In the window, the radio pumped out her favorite station, giving CCR's "Bad Moon Rising." She hummed and bopped her hips in rhythm. Momma always danced after Daddy came home.
       Daddy got a week off this time before another delivery came around. He was hauling a load to Florida now. In his eleven-year-old way, Al understood Daddy made Momma happy before leaving. He stood on the bottom stair, wondering how Daddy did it and if he could duplicate the process for Myra. He didn't know much about love, but he knew he'd like to see Myra shake her hips like Momma. Al resolved to ask his father about it when he returned.
       Then his grandmother called from the table. "You look like you going somewhere, boy."
       "Yes, Ma'am," he said. "If Momma says it's okay. Gonna meet some friends in the park."
       "You a little young to be going out so late, Alfonso," his mother said. "What friends you meeting?"
       He shuffled his feet but answered, listing the names.
       "That Reggie," she said. "He seems like a good boy. You not going anywhere near that BP gas station, right? Promise your mother."
       "I promise." Al was practically hopping because he saw she was going to allow his exit.
       But Grandma stopped him again. "You got to watch out for that tree, boy. Don't get too close to it at night. Especially this night. You hear me?"
       "Oh, mother, don't scare the boy."
       Grandma ignored her daughter and leaned close to Alfonso. "You know, don't you? That tree is special."
       He nodded.
       "Respect that tree, boy."
       He thought of the name he gave it. The Skeleton Tree. It was an ominous name, but it fit. It fit because he feared it. He respected it, too. That's why he pulled the candy wrapper from its root. It was easy to tell his grandmother he would do as she asked. He already had.

       Al headed towards the park, backpack tight to his shoulders.
       He left his house and turned left at the corner, then navigated the destroyed sidewalk's cracks and humps. He had watched the gradual destruction of this pathway all his life, but tonight it gave him pause. Why didn't the city repair it? Collins claimed to be an 'All-American City,' but as soon as he thought the question, he remembered his father remarking that those congratulatory banners had only hung downtown; they never saw them here in Pecan Grove East.
       Standing on a jagged piece of sidewalk, he had his first understanding of his social separation. It soured his mouth. They might live in the city of Collins, but it was obvious his neighborhood was a forgotten part. Even their name felt like a cheat. Pecan Grove was also the name of the projects over in Jericho Falls; the two were differentiated only by East and West as if the city government couldn't be bothered to think up a new name for them and stole an existing one.
       Thinking of Pecan Grove West reminded him of their legend of Daddy Christmas. Was it coincidental both Groves had weird supernatural fixtures? A ghost there, a tree here?
       Al looked back at his block. He strove to see it as an outsider would and glimpsed the reality of his home. His family had a house, true, but they were just a few blocks over from the duplex apartments his mother told him never to go into--what everyone called The Projects. He saw how everything was dirty; nothing was repaired or even maintained. They were forgotten.
       And as easy as it was to forget the environment, the people inside were treated just the same. There was no better example of that than what happened to Miss May. She died over the summer, an old woman living alone in a house at the end of the Grove. She was found only because the smell grew obvious in the July heat. She laid where she fell in her living room.
       Momma said the TV was still on when the police broke inside. That was the part that bothered Al, the idea that the afternoon comedies played, laugh track echoing in a house where only the dead listened. R.L. Stine never wrote about that shit.
       Maybe that's why the Skeleton Tree's decorations get left alone. If the city can forget about us, if an old woman can start to rot before anyone knows to go looking for her, then it's easy to pretend the ugliness of the Skeleton Tree isn't there. It's easy to ignore--to forget. Everything in Grove East is forgotten. Why would that tree be any different?
       The realization was too big, too adult. He didn't want it. He shook it away and continued towards the park.

       Some of the sidewalk squares were completely broken away from the foundation and jutted upward like fangs. Al looked for a better view. It was smarter to watch his environment anyway. Clouds crowded the remaining evening light. A gray gloom varnished everything. Close by, a car boomed bass. He hurried his step.
       He reached the bottom of the hill and turned right. A little further on was the basketball court. A rusted, chain link fence surrounded two net-less hoops on an unmarked cement slab. Shirtless teenagers bounced balls like tribal drums. Each backboard hit was the drop of some rusted machine's blade. Their catcalls were growls.
       He hurried on, thankful he had practiced invisibility.
       Past the court, Old Mrs. Parks sat in a duct-tape-mended plastic chair, holding her weird little dog. Al had never seen it walk. It trembled constantly, forever ripping a throaty growl like it wanted to bark but was too scared. Its eyes were perpetually full of cruddy black gunk. She hollered down to him to get home before the boogers came out. He tried not to run as she repeated the warning, but he failed.
       Leaving Mrs. Parks and her rat-dog behind, he walked alongside the main road that ran through the Grove. It unrolled on his left: old, cracked, with litter ground into the sides. There was so much broken glass it looked intentional. Grass had long since given up trying to grow, so only a thin strip of gray dirt separated asphalt and sidewalk. Across the street, a dollar store, Save A Lot, and an ABC went about quietly decaying.
       At the BP station, thin men slouched and hollered at one another, everybody arguing at once and gesturing wildly. He was so intent on their show, he never heard the footfalls behind him.
       "What you got in the backpack, little man?" The voice was clogged as if the speaker was sick.
       Al turned and saw three boys. They must have come down from the basketball court to sneak up behind him. His stomach dropped into his shoes. He knew them because they were faces to avoid: old bald Vince, Teff with his Mohawk, and Shane. Shane was wearing a think gold chain and held a box cutter. He had used a marker to decorate its plastic housing with skulls. The boys came closer, and smoke blew from a cigarette.
       Shane thumbed the blade and waved it under Al's nose. "Give up the pack, kid. Pockets, too."
       Al felt his bones freeze; calcium became ice. He wanted to comply. He carried nothing worth bleeding over. Then he remembered the cookies he brought for Myra. He had promised her, not to her face but to himself. Those he could not give over. He wasn't even completely sure why.
       The blade was getting in the way of thinking. He could see the individual bumps of rust along its edge. What was he going to do? He couldn't take one of them, much less all three.
       "Don't make me ask again, Squirt. I ain't got no patience."
       Al flashed on Reggie. Reggie would know what to do. He needed to be like Reggie.
       What's the smart play here?
       Al ran.

       There was a beautiful moment when the trio was so stunned, they didn't move but watched Al tear away from them. Then they recovered, and the chase began. As he heard them pounding after, hurling promises of pain and destruction, he grew more terrified than ever in his life.
       He ran with no clear idea where he was going; he just moved. His pack punched his back with every stride. His breath turned to a barbed arrow forcing its way down his throat. Terror kept him moving, but he knew he couldn't keep up his pace. They would have him if he didn't find escape. He angled towards the park, hoping that Reggie would be there. He seized that possibility and clutched it. If the park was empty, he was in trouble.
       Should have gave it up! But just as quick, he defended himself. No! Just because they can take from me doesn't give them the right. He would resist however he could.
       Al ran up the hill and into the park. It was empty.
       They swore behind him, screaming if he didn't stop, they'd carve him up and a dozen other threats.
       Al pushed through the swings, throwing them back, hoping to hit one of his attackers. He ran between two merry-go-rounds, past rusted jungle gyms and monkey bars, and headed towards the back.
       The tree! Get to the tree! Perhaps he could climb it and lose them above. It made as much sense as anything in the tornado of his thoughts. Besides, a stitch was beginning to chew his side. He didn't have much left. He had been going flat out for too long. If the tree couldn't save him, he was caught.
       Make it to the tree!
       They were closing in, but Al could see the end of the park, the untamed field beyond, and the Skeleton Tree standing between the two.
       It loomed, a dark tower, his salvation.
       Jump high, so they don't catch your foot!
       The sharp scent of bark assaulted Al's nose. He was so close! Each time his foot landed, it stung because the ground was packed here. He saw the shadows of the tree's roots and then--
       Al tripped.
       It was ugly. He bent forward with arms held out to the side as if playing airplane. He made a sound of torture and fear, a low UHHHHHHH! He started wide-stepping, trying to regain his balance, but it was gone.
       He heard Shane laugh and yell, "There he goes!"
       One of the others catcalled, "Got you now, bitch!"
       Al fell. He took it on his face and shoulder. Dirt raked his cheek, his shirt ripped open, and a root tore a gash in his belly. He tried to rise, and then all three of his attackers screamed.
       Al rolled over, panting, and watched the tree descend on them.
       A thick branch reached for Shane.
       He skidded to a stop. His shoes heaved streaks of dust.
       The branch moved like a twirled ribbon: clean, smooth, strong. Al heard bark pop, crack, and fall as the thing defied physics, and the rigid structure wrapped itself around Shane's head. He dropped the box cutter. It hit a root and bounced into a hollow. Shane reached up, trying to dislodge himself, but the branch did not give him time. It flexed and snapped itself like Al's mom snapped sheets before hanging them on the clothesline. The break of Shane's neck was a gunshot. His legs kicked out in a rigid V, and Shane soiled himself.
       Al smelled shit over the metallic scent of dirt up his nose.
       Shane's body convulsed once and then hung limp in the tree's grip.
       It had many more branches.
       Vince tried to run. He turned tail and fled back towards the park, but the tree sent a pointed branch after him.
       Al estimated it was as thick as his leg.
       It stabbed Vince through with a bass THUNK, a knife buried in a watermelon. He splayed out his arms, his back bowed, and the tree lifted him off the ground. He twisted and slumped to the side. As the tree drew him back towards the trunk, Al saw something red and meaty on the end of the branch jutting from Vince's chest. His shoe fell and nearly hit Al as the body whizzed past him.
       Teff dropped to his knees and held up his hands. He looked at Al with such pleading, Al felt pity. "I'm sorry, man! I'm sorry! Call it off, PLEASE!"
       "I can't," Al said, but Teff never heard.
       A new branch grabbed him around the waist. It began to squeeze. Teff made a sound--URK!-- and everything in his face bulged. He turned red, his eyes expanded, then exploded, as the force of the branch capped Teff's internal pressure. Teff howled as gore erupted from his eye sockets. His tongue flopped. His jaw slammed together on that pink meat, and his tongue fell to the dirt. A smaller branch snatched it up, slithering away with its prize.
       RUN!
       Yes, absolutely! Al did just that, bolting away from the tree, not sure which way he was going, just putting the thing at his back, and moving, praying he didn't hear one of those creaking, cracking branches reach for him.
       He made it back to the swings before he stopped screaming.

       As the moon rose half an hour later--long enough for Al to stop hearing the tree burying the corpses under its roots--Myra and Reggie entered the park. They saw him on the swings.
       He was nursing a bottled water and dragging his feet through the dirt in a slow arc.
       When he saw them, he walked directly to Myra and presented her with the sleeve of cookies. "Sorry they're a little beat up, but the package didn't open."
       "Thank you! These are my favorite."
       "You look a little beat up," Reggie said. "You okay? Somebody try and get at you?"
       Al nodded. "Yes. But I'm not finished with Myra."
       She raised her eyebrows in question, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
       "There's something I have always wanted to tell you." Al stood straight and looked Myra in the eyes. He thought he would never have that courage, but tonight had changed him, and he meant for some good to come of it. "I think you are the most beautiful girl in the whole neighborhood."
       "Oh!" His sincerity rendered her speechless.
       "I know I'm just a kid, but I want you to know I notice you." Al swallowed and found that he wasn't completely fearless, but he was determined, and that was also a kind of bravery. He stepped forward and kissed Myra on the cheek.
       She allowed it and then kissed Al on his.
       He grinned.
       Myra responded: "My little cousin is coming next week. I bet she would love to meet you."
       Al surprised them by winking. "If she's as sweet as you, bring her on."
       They laughed together, and then he stepped back to look at them both. "No Jackie?"
       Reggie shrugged. "No big loss. I think he was jealous of your name for the tree. It's a good one."
       "You have no idea."
       Both tilted their heads in question.
       "I know where the tree gets its decorations."

       They sat back from the Skeleton Tree, on Al's blanket, and waited for the decoration appearance.
       "You know it sounds crazy," Reggie said.
       "I know," he said. "But while I was on the swings, I heard it dragging their bodies underground, under its roots. I think that's where it keeps the corpses the rest of the year. Then, the night before Halloween, it takes them out. The Skeleton Tree decorates itself."
       "You're a sweet kid, Alfonso," Myra said. "But it just can't. . . can't. . ." Her words died off. She jumped to her feet and shouted. "TREE! TREEEEEEEE!" She pointed, cookie crumbs falling from her lips. Her eyes grew wide and glowed in the dark. Her finger vibrated.
       Reggie stared open-mouthed. He stood. His words were a rushed whisper. "They're real. They're not decorations. The bodies in the tree are real."
       Al nodded. He watched the tree move. It was okay now. He was with his friends.
       The tree decorated itself for Halloween, pulling bodies from under its roots and hanging them in its heights. Shane and his cronies were the first to swing. Al was able to recognize them because he had just run from them, but their faces, their clothes, were ripped and torn, like the kind of flesh shredding that happens when one climbs a rough old tree--but raised to the thousandth degree. He saw bone and winking teeth. The three bullies were followed by further rotted bodies and then ancient skeletons.
       "The Skeleton Tree is alive," Al said. "Alive. Aware. It's like us."
       "JESUS! JESUS! Sweet Jesus!" Myra danced in place. She hadn't blinked yet.
       "It's okay. It saved me, remember?" Al stopped short of grasping her shoulders.
       "It murdered those guys," Reggie said. "It's a killer, little man."
       "Yeah. But it saved me. And I won't forget that." Al found his anger again, the one that came when he thought about his neighborhood's place in the city. Maybe that's what the tree really was: The Grove's anger.
       He couldn't figure out how to express that idea, so he spoke what he could articulate. "There has been too much forgetting in Grove East." His anger was apparent.
       Myra stopped dancing.
       "So, what do we do?" Reggie asked.
       "We respect it," Al said. "And we remember that it's part of Grove East." He turned to them, sincerity overtaking his anger.
       "It's one of us."