The bright yellow Ryder truck threaded its way through the quiet suburban streets of Sun
Terrace. It was an early Sunday morning in late August, and most of the members of the
quiet community still slept. Somewhere a mower droned its way through the morning,
causing some of the residents who wished to forget about the chores of the approaching day
roll over and pull their covers close.

The Ryder truck pulled into the drive at 9202 Thacker Way. The occupants of the truck,
a couple and a young boy, bounded out of the high seats. They were thankful that the long
ride was over, and spent a moment stretching their limbs and warming in the sun. The
woman went up the walk to the front door of the house while the little boy and the man went
to the back of the truck to roll up the truck’s heavy back door and unfurl the built-in loading
ramp.

The man winced at the loud sound the ramp made as it slid out on its rollers, and
looked around at the neighboring houses with embarrassment. The unloading was hard
work, especially for the little boy, but their moods were light despite the strain on their
bodies and the sweat that was called forth by the humid morning.

They were oblivious to the gnarled old man who watched them from a second-story
window, and his deep-set eyes which pulsed green with a vegetable brilliancy.

*

Billy Thomas sighed in exasperation and set down the heavy box he had been carrying
on the floor.

"I’m bushed," he declared simply, sprawling out on the carpet.

"C’mon, champ. They are only a few more," said Mr. Thomas with a wink.

"Geez. I never knew we had so much stuff before we moved."

"C’mon sport. We’ll get these last few then break for some Big Macs. What do you say?"

"Great!" exclaimed Billy, his eyes sparkling up at his dad as he bounded up and down
with excitement.

They walked out together to the truck.

"Damn!" exclaimed Sharon Thomas, bending down in her loose work jeans to pick up
the broken pieces of china which littered the driveway.

"Relax, honey," said Mr. Thomas as he ambled down the walk, "It’s nothing some crazy
glue won’t fix."

"Charles Thomas! How can you say such a thing! Don’t you know that this set came
from my mother?"

"All the more reason not to worry about it," said Mr. Thomas, throwing Billy a wink.

Billy covered his mouth to hold in the giggles which threatened to spill out of it.

"Honestly, Charles, that’s a truly horrible thing to say! Especially in front of Billy!"

"Alright, alright, I apologize. It was just a joke. You knew I was only kidding, didn’t you
Bill?"

Billy nodded and covered his mouth again to stifle another eruption of giggles.

Soon they were all laughing, and then guffawing wildly, their heads spinning with heat and
exhaustion.

Charles Thomas was the first to sober up. "Okay, Okay, party’s over. Let’s finish this up
so we can eat."
They all moved around to the back of the truck where five or six boxes rested on the

driveway. Charles Thomas bent down and picked up a box which had been crudely labeled
BILLY’S NINTENDO.

"Okay, Bill, this is your Nintendo. Think you can handle it?"

"Yeah!" said Billy enthusiastically, wrapping his arms affectionately around the box as
if it were a family pet.

Billy stepped up the slope of the front lawn towards the sidewalk. Once inside the house
he set it down on the floor of the living room with the others. His scrawny, 12-year old arms
were aching from the labor and he didn’t want to move any more boxes, so he walked out to
the lawn to look for bugs. He bent down and spied a caterpillar winding its way up a lean
blade of grass.

Billy felt something on his back. At first he thought that he had been stung, but then he
realized that the sensation was primarily one of coldness, as if he had been struck by and ice
cube shot from a wrist rocket. Instinctively he whipped his head around.

Over the hedge which separated their lawn and the house next door, a face peered down
at him from a second story window. The face seemed incredibly old to Billy, even older than
his grandfather’s face had looked just before he passed away. There was something about
the eyes; they were of such an intense green, a solid green with no pupil, and they were
looking directly at him. It gave Billy the creeps.

Then a long, contorted thing (Billy figured it had to be an arm) reached out in front of the
face and drew down the shades.

Billy stood completely still for several moments.

Then he rushed down to his parents.

"Mom! Dad! Did you see it?" he yelled.

Charles Thomas looked up in alarm and tripped over his own feet. He and the box he had
been carrying spilled to the ground, and several issues of Playboy slid out onto the grass.

"Gosh!" said Billy in amazement.

Two hands immediately closed down on his eyes.

"Charles! Charles, you pick those up immediately! I hardly think the neighbors will
consider your nudy magazines proper lawn decorations!"

"Yes, dear," grumbled Charles, quickly stuffing the magazine back into the box.

Billy’s mother removed her hands from his eyes and spun him around.

"Now what is it that has got you so excited?"

"The old man next door," stammered Billy, "he was looking at me. It was creepy!"

"Listen, Billy, that man next door is our neighbor, and I don’t think he’d appreciate being
called old, even if it’s true."

"But—"

"Your mother’s right, Bill," said Mr. Thomas sternly, "remember how me and your mother
had to work to get into this neighborhood."

"Yeah, but—"

"No buts, champ. Understood?"

"Yeah," said Billy glumly.

"Good. Then let’s eat. The rest of the stuff can wait."

They piled into their Dodge Caravan which they had driven down to the house the day
before. Soon the talk had turned to fries, hamburgers, and milkshakes, but Billy couldn’t
shake the feeling that he was being watched.

Finally he turned around to look at the old man’s house as they turned the corner, but only
the house stared back at him, shuttered tightly from the outside.

*

The next day was Monday at Billy’s first day at his new school. He had no time to think
about the strange old man with the cool green eyes (although he walked on the other side of
the street on his way to the bus stop to avoid walking in front of his house.)

By Wednesday he had assembled a small group of friends at school, including Steve
Atkins, whom he considered to be his new best friend. Things were going well for Billy’s
parents as well. His dad had been assigned a big case at the new law firm he now worked
for, and had even managed to find a tennis partner. His mother enjoyed her new teaching
job at the local community college, and was thrilled by her student’s willingness to learn and
generally warm attitude. In fact, the first week in their new house was the perfect picture of
suburban bliss.

Then Billy had the dream.

It was a Sunday night, and the breeze had picked up outside so that it covered the noise
of the crickets. Billy had been tossing and turning restlessly, unable to sleep because his
parents had allowed him to stay up with them and watch the movie Jaws. He couldn’t stop
thinking about the poor captain, how Jaws had bit him right in half so that blood had filled
his mouth. Finally he drifted off into slumber.

Billy imagined that part of the reason the dream was so terrible was that at first he didn’t
know if he was awake or dreaming.

In the dream he walked over to the window which looked out over the hedge and the
house next door. The moon was round and fat in the sky, what Billy knew was called a full
moon, and in the tall distant trees which delineated the woods at the bottom of the street
huge, hunched-over bird-creatures waited on the branches. There was no breeze, but from
somewhere down below the sound of rustling leaves could be heard.

Billy looked down, and saw with horror that the hedge was growing, towering upwards
into the night in a tangle of vines and branches. It wasn’t growing straight up, but towards
Billy. There was something underneath the hedge, some hidden form that grew and stretched
right along with it.
It was then that Billy noticed the eyes, cool and green, pulsing like emeralds as they rose swiftly towards him. Soon he could make out the rest of the old man, where his legs joined
the wood at the bottom of the hedge, where his fingers stretched forth into sinuous
appendages.

Silently the windows shattered. Billy screamed, but screamed silently. The hedge
clutched him with its cold, oaken grasp, lifting Billy high into the night, lifting him high as
on offering for the bird-creatures which no longer waited by the woods but which were
spiraling down him, talons outstretched...

*

Billy brought the old man up at breakfast the next morning.
"Did you guys over notice that the man next door never comes out of his house?" asked
Billy tentatively with a mouth full of frosted flakes.

"Billy—" his father began.

"I think he’s evil. Maybe a vampire or something, maybe that’s why he always keeps his
shades down."

"Billy, we’ve been through this. That man is our neighbor, and as eccentric as he may or
may not be, I will not have you saying such things about him," said Billy’s father, glaring
down at him from over the newspaper.

"What’s eccentric mean?" asked Billy.

"It’s another word for weird, dear." said Mrs. Thomas.

"Sharon!"

"Well, I’m sorry Charles, but that’s what it means!"

"Okay, Okay. That was a poor choice of words. What I mean to say is that whatever our
neighbors do is their business, as long as they’re not breaking the law."

"Is blood-sucking against the law?" asked Billy.

Mr. Thomas threw down his paper in disgust and held his head in his hands for several
moments. Mrs. Thomas was biting her lip, trying hard not to crack-up. Mr. Thomas looked
at her with hostility then turned back to Billy.

"Let me put it this way, champ. Do you want people coming into our house and watching
the way we live?" Billy shook his head. "Of course you don’t. And they don’t want us
watching them, understand?"

Billy nodded.

"Good. Gotta go, champ," said Mr. Thomas, wiping his mouth with a napkin and
throwing on his suit jacket. He pecked his wife on the cheek and a second later was out the
door.

"You do understand what your father is trying to tell you, don’t you honey?" asked Billy’s
mother.

"Sure, mom." answered Billy.

But Billy didn’t understand, and that morning on he way to the bus stop he was more
careful than ever to stay away from the house next door.

*

That night the Thomases were invited to dinner by the Middletons, an older couple on the
block.

Billy wasn’t looking forward to the dinner. His father had mentioned that the Middletons
were retired, and although Billy didn’t know exactly what that meant he knew it had
something to do with them being old. Besides, going to dinner would mean he would have
to wear his "nice" clothes which always made his neck itch around the collar. His mom
would probably even make him take a bath.

Billy turned out to be pleasantly surprised by the Middletons. Although they were old,
they had a comfortable air about themselves which was very infectious, and Billy had been
thrilled to learn that Mr. Middleton had flown a B-17 in World War II.

The dinner was delicious, and Billy concentrated on the juicy strips of roast beef and
heaping mound of mashed potatoes on his plate while the adults engaged in conversation.
Finally, as the plates were being cleaned for desert, Billy could no longer contain himself.
"Mr. Middleton, do you know anything about the old man that lives next door to us?"

Billy’s mother gasped and his father sternly mouthed "No" at him from across the table.

"Now, now, no reason to be hard on the boy. He’s asking a perfectly legitimate question.

Your neighbor—Judd Brown’s his name, by the way—is the sort of man who raises eyebrows.
The way he keeps himself locked up in that house as if he were dead makes one wonder how
he passes his days."

"I think he’s a vampire," quipped Billy.

"Well, now, that certainly would explain a few things," chuckled Mr. Middleton. "He
used to be a friendly enough fellow when we moved here. He was a night watchman at some
museum downtown, so he would spend most of the daylight hours sleeping. He and his wife
had divorced, but he had a daughter which came by once or twice to see him." Mr.
Middleton shook his head slowly.

"Even back then—that was around 1965, you understand—he seemed old. Real old. I can’t
imagine him now. Most be in a wretched state, poor fellow. Some of the other old timers
in the neighborhood have suggested that he may have as much as a 110 years on him, but
when you get to be their age you tend to get your facts all mixed up."

Billy stared at Mr. Middleton with shocked concern.

"Now don’t you go worrying about me, Billy," said Mr. Middleton laughing deeply, "I
still got all of my functions."

"How does he get his food?" asked Mr. Thomas.

"It’s delivered, I suppose. I’ve seen people over there mowing the lawn, so I know he’s
still alive and kickin’."

"I saw him in the window," chimed in Billy.

"That so?" asked Mr. Middleton, "What did he look like?"

"He had glowing green eyes, and—"

"Billy, remember our discussion." boomed Mr. Thomas.

"Go easy on the boy," said Mr. Middleton, "I’ve sure old Judd was quite a sight." Mr.
Middleton paused before going on. "Strange thing is the attention he gives to that hedge of
his. People come over once a month to take care of it, you know, lay some new soil over the
roots and such. Strange thing is, I don’t recall ever having seen it trimmed. It’s as if the
hedge maintains itself."

"Perhaps it’s a certain species which only grows to a certain height?" suggested Ms.
Thomas.

"No, I’ve seen it up close," stated Mr. Middleton, "it’s your run-of-the-mill hedge alright,
and it should be a big tangled mess by now, unless that crazy old geezer is going out there
to cut it at midnight."

"Honestly, George!" declared Martha Middleton.

George shrugged and everyone laughed, breaking the ghostly silence which had hung over
the table as George talked about Judd Brown.

Martha Middleton retreated to the kitchen, and soon emerged with generous slices of
apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream. It was clear that the two families had become fast
friends, and before the night was through the four adults had finished off a bottle of
champagne. Shortly before midnight the families bid one another good night, and the
Thomases walked through the cool summer night towards home.

Billy watched the moths congregate around the streetlights, waiting for the scolding
which was bound to come for bringing up the old man next door, but somehow they reached
their house and the scolding never came. That night as Billy drifted off to sleep he thought
maybe, just maybe, they are starting to believe me.

*

The next week workmen came to the house next door in a battered pick-up truck filled
with sacks of peat moss and tanks of insecticide. Billy stopped on his way to the bus stop
to watch them strap the chrome tanks onto their backs like divers. Reluctantly he decided
he would risk treading onto the old man’s property to talk with them.

He had to tug on one of the men’s legs to get his attention. Finally the man turned off his
sprayer and pushed his goggles up to his brow.

"What do you want, kid?" he asked, his jaws furiously working a stick of gum.

"Do you know the man that lives here?"

"No, kid. Never even met him. Don’t want to either." The man looked back at the house
then back to Billy nervously, his eyes filled with a fear.

"You his new neighbor?" he asked.

"Yup." replied Billy.

"Well I better warn you. One of the guys saw him once when he looked down into one
of the basement windows. He thinks the old man has some sort of disease. He said he was
real old-looking, older than he thought anyone should be, and he was hard and twisted like
tree branches, and had long green fingers like blades of grass. Take it from me, kid, the old
man’s a freak. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from him."

The man looked around nervously once again, then slid his goggles down over his eyes
and went back to work.

Billy turned away and ran to the bus stop, his heart racing in his chest as the voice of the
workman played-back in his head: stay away from him, stay away from him, stay away...

*

Billy snapped awake. At first he thought it was the wind that had awakened him, because
the sound had that particular crooning quality the wind sometimes gets when it blows
through narrow spaces. Then Billy heard the feeling behind the sound, and he became sure
that the sound came from something alive. Billy pulled the covers up to his chin, and he
could hear his heart beating in the near-silence like a drum.

Cautiously Billy rose from his bed and moved towards the window. He expected to see
the nightmare creatures of his dream silhouetted in the distant trees by a fat moon.
But the scene was not from Billy’s dream. Tonight’s moon was a slim crescent, and
nothing but leaves hung on the distant trees.

The sound came again, a whimpered sigh rising in the night, and Billy looked down to
the hedge.

The old man stood below, his inhuman features evident even in the darkness. He was
gnarled and bent, like the workman described. His eyes were green like unripe tomatoes; his
long weedy hair and slender fingers the same color. Green, the green of growing things; just
as the rest of him was dark brown, the color of earth and wood. He was pouring the rich peat
moss over his body, moaning softly like a cat.

Billy watched the dark christening from above, spellbound and unable to look away. He
did not know how much time was passing, only that the old man was changing...changing
into something.

The old man grew wilder, his cries more now more like those of a predator, and his eyes
pulsed with a fevered frequency.

Billy watched, knowing that he should get his parents, should prove to them that he was
right about the old man next door. But something was about to happen, and Billy couldn’t
miss it. The old man unwound his sinuous members from the sack of peat moss and let
it fall at his feet. He became still and quiet. Then, with great effort, he lifted one stumpy leg
and took a step into the hedge. The hedge parted and allowed him entrance. There was a
grating creak like the sound branches make in a storm when the other leg moved forward.

Billy watched in fascination as leg become root and arms became branch. The old man
uttered a sigh of final release, like the contented sigh of the dead, and Billy knew that the old
man and hedge were now one. Billy watched for several minutes more as the old man’s form
slowly disappeared into the tangle of branches. Soon there were only his eyes could be made
out, two hovering emerald fireflies trapped in a bottle.

Please stay, Billy wished to himself, please don’t disappear. I’ve got to show mom and
dad I’m right. But then they winked out like the eyes of a jack-o-lantern, and their was only
a hedge sighing in the breeze left for evidence.

Billy awoke to the sound of his parents arguing. By the time he reached the kitchen he
knew what the fight was about. His dad had lost the case, his first court case in the new
town where he had something to prove.

It always hurt Billy to watch his parents fight, but this morning his excitement about the
old man and the hedge numbed the hurt.

"Calm down, Charles, Billy’s probably up. It’s not good for him to hear us fight."

"I don’t give a damn about—" Billy’s father cut off his sentence as he noticed Billy
entering the kitchen.

"Dad?" asked Billy meekly.

"Yeah, what’s up, champ?" replied Charles, forcing a smile.

"I saw something last night. Something scary. It’s about the old man next door! He goes
into the hedge at night, and his hair becomes leaves, and his legs branches!"

Billy’s father broke into a fit of maniacal laughter.

"You know what, champ? I was just telling your mother that part of that hedge is on our
property, and that I was going to use my day off to cut it down."

"Please, Charles, that man has never done anything to us," pleaded Sharon Thomas.

"Two against one. I want it down. Billy wants it down. Majority rule." he replied
snidely.

"Let’s burn it down. We have to kill it!"

"We’ll start with trimming it, champ. We’ll see how it goes from there. Who knows? "
said Billy’s father, staring defiantly at Sharon, "Maybe we will burn it down."

"Go to hell, Charles," she said coldly, and stormed upstairs.

Outside the sky was grey as slate. Mr. Thomas went to the shed and brought back the
clippers.

"Do you want to do the honors, Sport?" asked Charles, playfully sniping the clippers in
the air.

Billy backed away from the hedge. He could feel that it was alive, sentient.

"Okay, here goes nothing." Mr. Thomas raised the clippers and approached the hedge.

He clipped off a thin branch and a high pitched scream arose from the interior of the
shuttered house next door.

"What the hell?" muttered Charles, stepping back from the hedge in confused awe.

Suddenly the hedge came to life, its limbs lashing out like whips and wrapping around
Billy’s father. A vine snaked around his neck. Billy’s father dropped the clippers, and
struggled to get his fingers under the vine.

Billy sprang to the ground to retrieve the clippers. A searing pain erupted from his ankle
where a thin tendril had began to gouge its way into his flesh. Still he groped for the
clippers, and almost had them, when a thick branch coiled itself around his torso and began
to drag him towards the interior of the hedge where thousands of quivering vines awaited
him.

His father fell to his knees, and the veins on his forehead stood up on the blue face. Tears
sprang hot to Billy’s eyes as he desperately tried to free himself. Dozens of the vines had
latched themselves onto his thin body, and a thick branch danced in front of his face, waiting
to coil around his neck.

Amid the chaos Billy heard the screech of tires on the pavement. As he was drawn
towards the interior of the hedge Judd Brown’s gnarled face filled his vision, and the pulsing
eyes pulled him forward with their gaze.

Suddenly the face was stretched into a scream, an ear-piercing shriek like that of a
thousand gulls wheeling above the sea. Then it faded in its agony. The smell of smoke
entered Billy’s nostrils and he looked around in amazement as the vines and branches
reluctantly loosened their hold.

George Middleton stood in front of a blazing section of the hedge, shaking the last oily
streams out of a gasoline can. His eyes were the eyes of a warrior, not the eyes of an elderly
man who told old war stories from his rocker.

Billy finally shook off the last pieces of growth and ran over to assist his father. Once
freed, they walked over to stand next to George, content to say nothing, content to watch it
burn.

*

George and Charles knew they didn’t have much time. The fire department would soon
arrive, and they would ask questions.

Their forced their way inside with the house next door with a crowbar. It was filled was
heady vegetable stench. They found the remains of the old man in the cellar, hard and
blackened as if he were mummified. They wrapped the carcass up in a blanket from one of
the upstairs bedroom, and carried it out to from the back door and left behind a pile of bricks
in the Thomas’ back yard.

The various authorities arrived and asked about the fire and the disappearance of the old
man, but the Thomas’ played dumb. Late that night George and Charles heaved the hard,
woody thing into the back of George’s van. They drove to a deserted road in some nearby
woods. There the burned the corpse, watched as its scent of wood rot and hickory drifted
through the trees. They watched until there was nothing left but ash. That they scattered.

The authorities came again and again, and for a short time the old man’s mysterious
disappearance was a hot media topic. The woods surrounding Sun Terrace were searched
extensively with no results. Finally the story lost its fifteen minutes of fame, and things
began to cool down in Sun Terrace.

*

A year later a new couple decided to move into the house next door. The wife had an
interest in gardening, and discovered that the strip of land between the two houses was
especially fertile.

One night in the early spring Billy was awakened by sounds beneath the window,
crooning sounds of delight or relief. Looking down from his window, he saw the two lovers
embracing under the moon. He realized his father had been right.
Sometimes folks needed their privacy.

The end