The Face On The Tree
Chastity, NJ, USA
May 2002
This is a true story that my mother told me years ago that happened to her the year before I was born.
It was in 1985 and my older brother, Ryan , was just five months old. My parents lived in a three family house with my grandparents, which are my mom's parents,and my Aunt Tanya and her daughter, my cousin, Blair.
The first incident that happened was when my mom was coming home from work at night. When she turned into the driveway her headlights hit a big tree that is on our lawn. There on the tree my mom saw a face. The face was of a white male with green eyes and dark brown hair. She was so shocked at the site that she just sat in the car staring at the face. The face seemed to be staring back at her. When the realization of what my mom was seeing finally came through to her she jumped out of the car and ran to the house without looking back and all the while was screaming bloody murder. My father was at the door because he heard my mom screaming and was trying to calm her down because she was hysterical by this point.
When my mom calmed down a few hours later she told my dad what she saw. Of course my dad didn't believe a word she said and told her it was the shadows playing tricks on her. After a while my dad finally convinced my mom that she was seeing things and they didn't talk about it again.
A week passed by since my mom's first sighting and everything was going fine. My mom was now convinced and believed that her mind was playing tricks with her. But that night when she came home and turned into the driveway she saw the face again. My mom ran into the house to get my dad to show it to him but when she went back out with my dad the face was gone. My dad was really concerned about my mother and hatched a plan with my grandfather to scrape the bark of the tree where the supposed face was while my mom was at work.
When my mom came home that night she saw the face on the tree again. The only thing different was that this time the face was covered in blood and it looked very angry. My mom went into the house and told my dad that the face on the tree was bleeding and asked him what did he do to the tree. When my dad told my mom that he and her father scraped the bark off she went crazy and started yelling at him and throwing things at him. After my mom calmed down she didn't remember yelling or throwing things at my dad and still does not to this day.
Finally my grandfather took it into his own hands to do something about that tree. A week after the bloody face incident my grandfather tarred up the tree where my mother saw the face. When my mom came home from work she didn't see the face and never did again after that. Just three months after my grandfather tarred up the tree he died mysteriously. No one still can figure out how he died and the autopsy my family had on him could not explain his death.
My mother to this very day blames his death on the face on the tree.
My mom and dad sold the house and moved away shortly after my grandfather died with the rest of the family living in the house. Even with so many years gone by my mom refuses to pass by the house. I did pass by it with Ryan once and got chills and goose bumps when I saw the tree. It still has the tar on it.