Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most,

and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This tasty tale story club members might make you run away from your nearest trees in terror.

It's one I call apples to apples dust to dust.

Fiona Corman didn't mind helping her grandfather Roger out in his apple orchard.

She just wished that it wasn't so freaking early.

Why did they have to get up so early in the morning?

Trees aren't cows that need milking or anything like that.

They're plants. They don't sleep or have a schedule.

Fiona's grandfather told her it was to beat the heat of the day.

It was supposed to be a scorcher, so getting up and picking fruit at first light was best.

Fiona spent summers with her grandparents, usually late summer, which seemed to coincide with the harvest.

Her gramps had a shortage of pickers this year, just like he did every year.

Fiona knew Grandpa Roger used her as cheap labor, but hey, what's family for?

As they were driving up to the orchard to kick off the long day of harvesting, there was a special news bulletin on the radio.

The announcer reported that radioactive dust from a comet

that had passed by Earth over a three-day trajectory

was apparently making certain kinds of plant life

become animated and even hostile.

Before Fiona could hear more of the report,

...