Who doesn't love a good short story, more importantly a story that will get you thinking. That's what this story is about.

As I sat awkward at my table, rubbing my sprained ankle, I looked around the bar. There was something strange that was occurring, and I couldn't quite figure it out, but, as I continued to rub my ankle a short man with an odd mask approached the table and placed a small green apple then walked away without saying a word to me.

"That's odd." I said out loud.

"Not really, he is from the carnival that is across the road." The bartender said as he wrapped ice around my ankle before twirling me around in the chair to see across the road. " Don't go over there." The bartender continued with a warning.

"Why?" I asked with genuine concern and intrigue.

"There is a lot of controversy surrounding the carnival." He paused before continuing, " Some juveniles went in there one night and they never came out. They've been missing for the past decade and a half. In fact, you can still see their missing posters all over town, even by the front door of the bar."

"Why did he give me an apple?" I asked while nodding towards it still on the table.

"What?" He exclaimed. His eyes found the green apple and quickly snatched it from the table and threw it into a glass of leftover beer that was still on the counter. Suddenly the oxidation of the apple with the beer started to take shape, and my voice was gone in that moment. And a sense of dread and excitement began to form in my head as I continued to apply pressure to the ice that was wrapped around my ankle.

"It comes from a very bad garden that is guarded by a group of sassafras trees. No one knows where it is, but no one wants to know anyways." He said as he begun to dump out the remnants of the apple and beer into a container.

But I did, I wanted to know. But how will I get to this garden?