Caitlin: It's so refreshing to read good fiction (no offense to my 8th graders!). Carnivorous trees...quite a creepy oxymoron :)

You describe the setting vividly...beautiful, but haunting. If that was the atmosphere you were going for, you got it. I also like that, although it's a short horror story, we don't get to know the heroine so well that we sympathize too much with her. If we did, the story would be much more disturbing.

Content-wise, the only suggestion I would make is possible changing the point of view from which the story is told. Rather than an obscure third person narrator, why not try telling the story from a fairy tale angle or even a witness' (whether it's a human or fantasy creature...or grandmother trying to scare her grandchildren or it could even be told by a wolf or the one lone vegetarian tree in that forest :)

A few edit suggestions for paragraph 6: I hope this helps:

One of the trees near her had a branch that was just low enough for her to grab onto, and that gave her the idea to climb up so she could (see the road she was seeking) or (regain her bearing). She soon lost the flashlight, which fell with a clatter and sputtered out, sounding like a cannon shot in the quiet woods. As she continued her dark ascent, she nearly lost her footing more than once, only to come to realize all that the perilous clamber up the tree gained her was a view of the moon-washed tops of pine trees. There was no break in the trees for road or path, house or field, only trees."

Owo
I'll never hug a tree again...

Very creepy, but good.