The Treeline
Dustin Triplett
About the Author:
Dustin Triplett is a writer and narrative designer from Missouri. His work spans fiction, poetry, and interactive storytelling, with recent roles including branching narrative and editorial work in the video game industry. His writing often explores labor, identity, and the quiet surrealism of everyday life. Instagram = @triplettwrites / Bluesky = @dustintriplett.bsky.social
The Treeline
Uncle Ray was already three beers deep when he saw it. Tall, impossibly thin, and standing at the edge of the pines like a shadow that forgot to move with the sun.
"There," he hissed, grabbing the rifle from beside the fridge. "You see that?"
I did. Christ, I did. Something wrong in its proportions, too still, watching the house with a patience that made my skin crawl.
"Call the cops," I said.
"Fuck the cops." Ray was already at the door, and I knew that tone. The one that came out after his mom died, after he got fired, after the world became something that owed him. "This is my property."
The shot cracked the afternoon open. Birds exploded from the trees. The figure dropped.
We waited. Nothing moved.
"Stay here," Ray said, but I followed anyway, my phone clutched like a talisman I was too scared to use. The pine needles were soft under our bare feet, muffling everything except my heartbeat.
He was face-down in the dirt, one arm twisted beneath him. Not tall, but lanky. Not faceless - just Black, wearing a blue vest with an Amazon logo. A phone lay three feet away, its screen shattered. Boxes scattered in the underbrush, addresses I recognized from our road.
"He was just lost," I whispered.
Ray's face did something complicated. Then it went smooth. "He was trespassing. Looked threatening."
"He was delivering packages."
"You didn't see what I saw." Ray was already dragging him deeper into the trees, and I was already helping, because that's what you do for family. That's what you do when the alternative is watching your uncle go to prison, is testifying, and is tearing apart what's left.
We buried him where the old dog run used to be. Ray smoothed the dirt with his boot.
"Never happened," he said.
But it did. Every night when I close my eyes, I see that figure in the treeline. Except now I know what it is. Not a monster. Just a man trying to find his way home, killed by something far more ordinary.