Inappropriate contact

It is almost as if these were creepers that in the course of a night engulfed the ladder which belonged to the old hermit living in the house behind. His last vague words to the mailman the previous day were about his ominous feeling that nature had suddenly taken against him. Inside the house he will be found with these small branches wound around his legs and arms with one branch tight around his neck.

The rookie deputy says to the hard bitten sheriff: "Why didn't he escape, sheriff?" The sheriff with gimlet eyes narrowing even more replies: "Looks like the branches got his legs and arms first while he was asleep then he woke to see the last branch slowly creep up his chest to his neck"

Cue the music from the "Twilight Zone"