I've never posted anything like this before but I can't get it
out of my head. Maybe writing it down will help.
I don't care if you believe me. Hell, part of me still doesn't
believe it myself. But something followed us in the
woods last weekend and whatever it was, it wasn't human and it
damn sure wasn't an animal either.
I'm a senior in college, pre Med.
I grew up in western North Carolina, about 40 minutes from
the Tennessee border. My parents still live in a small
house tucked off a gravel Rd. about 15 minutes from the
Appalachian Trail. We're used to isolation, spotty
power, no Internet unless you're lucky enough to park near the
library, no neighbors for miles. It's the kind of place people
think is peaceful until the sun goes down.
Anyway, Between school and work and stress, I hadn't been home
in months. When I saw a break in my
schedule, I jumped on it. And when my girlfriend Anna said
she was free that same weekend, I figured why not take her
somewhere real? Somewhere without traffic or
phone notifications. Just quiet.
Anna grew up in Atlanta. She's the kind of person who's
never had to check for ticks or hang a bear bag.
But she's adventurous. I told her I wanted to take her
on a backpacking trip. Just a short 2 nighter on an old
loop that connects to a forgotten spur of the
Appalachian Trail through this place my granddad always warned
me to avoid called Walker's Hollow.
She thought the name was creepy in a fun way.
I figured it'd make the trip more memorable.
We parked at a barely marked pull off late Friday afternoon.
There was one other car there, older model with dust all over
the windows. No people insight.
I double checked the topo map, shouldered my pack, and we
headed in. The trail was overgrown in
parts, like it hadn't been maintained in years.
Oak and Poplar trees pressed in tight from either side, and
thick patches of rhododendron arched over the path like
tunnels. The further we walked, the
quieter it got. Not in the peaceful way either.
More like the woods were listening.
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to freak Anna out.
We passed a couple weird markers nailed to trees, planks of faded
wood with what looked like white paint or maybe old chalk
markings. Most were too worn down to read.
One had what looked like a symbol carved into it, a
triangle with a circle in the middle.
Someone had scratched it out with a knife.
I told myself it was just an old forestry mark, nothing unusual.
After about 5 miles we reached a decent campsite near a little
Creek. There was a fire ring someone
had built years ago, half collapsed and full of soggy
leaves. I cleaned it out while Anna
unpacked and we managed to get a small fire going before dark.
Dinner was basic dehydrated chili Mac and two lukewarm
granola bars, but the air was clean and the forest smelled
like wet leaves and wood smoke for a little while.
It felt good to be out there again.
Anna said the woods were way quieter than she expected.
She asked if there were coyotes out here and I laughed.
Then I showed her my old party trick.
When I was younger, I used to mimic coyote howls to see if I
could get them to respond. Not exactly useful, but I was
good at it. So I stood up, cupped my hands,
and let out a long, shrill howl across the Creek bed.
She rolled her eyes. That was loud as hell.
I grinned. Wait for it.
We stood in silence, listening. Nothing.
Just the hiss of the Creek and a breeze shaking the branches
overhead. I tried again, this time
throwing in some yips at the end for good measure.
Still nothing. Maybe they're all curled up in a
den somewhere. I said, shrugging.
And then it came. A sound echoed back to us, but
it wasn't a coyote. It started low, like a whistle
caught in the wind, and then climbed into this piercing,
unnatural screech that seemed to stretch too long, like it didn't
need to breathe. It came from up the Ridge behind
us, not far, and a stiffened. What the hell was that?
I froze. Bobcat, maybe, I said, but I
knew that wasn't right. I've heard Bobcats.
This sounded higher, like metal tearing, like a scream that
didn't know how to stop. Anna backed closer to the fire.
That was not a bobcat. I didn't answer.
I just scanned the trees. That part of the Ridge is dense
with undergrowth, especially in fall.
The fog had started to roll in, heavy thickening between the
trunks like smoke. My skin prickled and I could
feel the warmth of the fire. Only in theory, we didn't stay
up much longer. We doused the fire, zipped into
the tent, and lay there, listening.
I kept my headlamp and my knife by my side.
Anna fell asleep eventually. I didn't because I kept hearing
something moving just past the tree line, something that
clicked when it walked, something that stopped moving
every time I held my breath. And sometime after midnight, I
swear to God I saw two pale eyes watching from just beyond the
trees. They didn't glow, they just
reflected. I don't know when I fell asleep.
Must have been sometime after three when the movement outside
finally stopped. Or maybe it didn't.
Maybe I just passed out from pure exhaustion, adrenaline
finally giving up on me. Either way, I woke up with a
start just before dawn. That hazy blue light was barely
bleeding through the nylon of our tent, and my mouth felt dry,
like I'd been grinding my teeth all night.
Anna was still asleep beside me, but she was twitching, her legs
jerking under the sleeping bag like she was dreaming of
running. And then I heard it again, That
clicking. It was faint this time, slower
than the night before, like hooves gently tapping against
stone or wood. I held my breath.
It was circling us. I didn't dare look through the
mesh this time. I just lay there, paralyzed,
trying to convince myself it was a deer, maybe a curious buck,
maybe something explainable. Then I heard a voice.
It sounded like Anna, but it was coming from outside the tent.
It was soft, almost whispering. Hey, come out here.
Her exact cadence, her exact tone.
But Anna was still asleep next to me.
I watched her breathing, her lips slack and pale in the cold.
I didn't move, I didn't make a sound.
I just waited. The voice repeated, same words,
same softness. Come out here.
And then everything went quiet again.
No birds, no wind, not even the Creek.
I don't know how long I lay there, but when Anna finally
woke up, she said she had the worst dream of her life, that
she saw me standing over her in the woods, asking her to follow
me into the trees. Only I wasn't wearing a shirt
and my chest was covered in blood.
We broke camp in silence. No jokes, no breakfast.
We didn't even talk about going home.
We just knew this wasn't just a creepy night in the woods.
Something was wrong here, wrong in a way I can't fully explain.
We started hiking fast, packs bouncing, barely checking the
map, but the trail felt off. Places I remembered weren't
where they should have been. A footbridge that should have
crossed the Creek was gone. We found stone piles, Cairns
stacked neatly in rows beside the trail.
Dozens of them, some small, some tall.
Some had bones placed carefully in the center, little ones.
And then we saw the tree. It was maybe 50 yards off trail,
a big Poplar, gnarled and dead. Nailed into the side of it was
an old iron horseshoe. Hanging from the horseshoe was a
rope, and tied to the rope, no BS, was a deer skull.
But the skull had carvings in it, weird symbols like spirals
and claw marks etched into the bone.
Anna wanted to turn around right there, but I was too stubborn.
I kept thinking if we just kept going, we'd hit the old trail
shelter I remembered from years ago, a small A-frame near the
ridgeline where we could get our bearings.
So we pushed on. The fog got thicker, The trail
got thinner. At one point I swear we passed
the same tree three different times, one with a split trunk
and a slash of orange lichen across the side.
That's when I started to think maybe we weren't just lost.
Maybe something was leading us, or worse, circling us.
When we finally stumbled into the clearing, I almost cried
from relief. The old trail shelter was still
standing, barely roof, half caved, Moss all over the N wall
and some raccoon poop in the corner.
But it was shelter. It was a place.
We huddled up inside, ate some protein bars with shaking hands
and tried to get warm. I told Anna to rest while I
checked the area, didn't want to admit I was looking for signs of
whatever that thing was, tracks, fur, anything.
But there was nothing. Just the quiet again.
I climbed back into the shelter and must have drifted off
because the next thing I remember is Anna screaming.
She was standing outside the shelter, staring at the ground.
No, no, no. What is that?
At her feet was a perfect circle
of stones. We hadn't made it.
It hadn't been there when we arrived.
Inside the circle was her boot, one of the ones she was wearing
the night before. It was dry clean, the laces
perfectly tied. She checked her feet.
Both boots were on. I've never seen her that pale in
my life. She couldn't stop crying.
She kept asking me how did it get that?
How did it know? I had no answers.
I just knew we couldn't stay. We packed and left that shelter
without looking back, but even then I had the feeling we were
still being watched. Not haunted exactly, more like
studied. Like something out there was
learning us. By the time we left that
shelter, I'd given up on the map.
Nothing made sense anymore. The landscape felt like it had
folded in on itself. Trees were repeating.
I'd walk 30 feet and swear we were back where we started.
Even Anna noticed it. She stopped asking if we were
going the right way. We both knew we weren't.
I don't think there was a right way anymore.
The fog was thicker than ever, rolling low across the forest
floor, coiling around the trees like it was alive.
The light never changed. Morning never really became day.
There was just this dull Gray half light filtering through
bare branches that looked wrong, like we were trapped inside a
dream where the sun never quite rose.
We didn't speak much, just walked fast, packs bouncing.
Every few steps I'd check over my shoulder and eventually I saw
them. Figures.
Not close, not even fully visible.
Just dark shapes slipping between trees up on the Ridge,
always just out of sight. Too thin to be human, moving too
fast, but always upright, always 2 legged.
The air started to smell like wet fur and decay, like
something had died days ago and never cooled.
At one point Anna gagged and dropped to her knees.
Her nose started bleeding. I pulled her up and we kept
moving. Somewhere around late afternoon,
if that even means anything in that place, we reached a small
rocky clearing. It looked like a dried up Creek
bed, maybe 20 feet wide. There was a tree in the center,
completely stripped of bark. Around it were piles of bones,
big bones. Some looked like deer, but
others, others looked human. Long, pale femurs, rib cages,
jaws, but not fresh. These had been picked clean,
arranged, even laid in spirals, patterns.
Some were buried upright in the dirt like markers.
Anna whispered. This isn't random.
And she was right. Something had put them here.
Something had made this. That's when we heard it again.
The clicking. Not from One Direction, from all
around us. Then the shriek.
Only this time it was louder, closer, and it didn't echo.
It just hit us like a pressure wave that made our ears ring and
our stomachs flip. Anna clutched my arm and
screamed, and I grabbed her and ran.
We didn't look back, we just bolted.
Branches clawed at our faces, Mud sucked at our shoes.
Somewhere behind us I heard another shriek, then another,
and another, higher and higher, all overlapping.
They were calling to each other. We tore through the woods until
the fog broke and the trees thinned, and suddenly we were
standing on a rocky overlook. Below us, winding like a ribbon
through the valley, was the trail, the real trail,
switchbacks and all. And far down, near the base of
the Ridge, was the goddamn parking lot.
We didn't even stop to breathe. We just scrambled down, sliding,
grabbing branches, half falling the whole way.
At the last switch back, I looked back and there it was,
standing alone at the edge of the tree line.
Tall, gaunt, its limbs too long for its frame.
Legs bent backward, hooves sunk into the dirt.
Its torso heaved slowly, like it was panting.
The skin was so thin I could see its ribs rising and falling, and
its face still twisted into that horrific, almost human snarl.
Look straight at me. The eyes were clouded like
cataracts, but I felt them lock with mine.
Then it opened its mouth and in my voice it said Don't leave me.
Anna heard it too. I felt her grip my hand tighter.
Then more of them stepped out from the trees. 5-6, maybe more,
all identical yet slightly off, wrong in different ways.
One with a crooked neck, one with broken antlers, 1 missing a
jaw entirely, all of them watching.
We ran. We reached the car, shaking and
filthy, and I barely got the keys in the ignition.
As we drove away, I glanced in the rearview mirror.
They were still standing there, just watching.
We didn't stop driving until we hit Asheville.
I didn't sleep for two days. Anna hasn't spoken about it
since she dropped the class we shared and hasn't returned my
texts. I tried reporting it.
The Ranger I spoke to looked at me like I was insane.
Said that section of trail had been closed years ago after a
wildfire. No maintained shelters up there,
no known campsites. I asked him if he'd heard of
Walker's Hollow. He paused.
Said that name hadn't been used in decades.
Then he told me quietly that the last time someone reported going
up there, it was a rescue mission.
A couple of hikers had gone missing.
Their gear was found, their boots were found, but not them.
No bodies. It just bones arranged in
spirals. I'm not saying you have to
believe me, but if you're ever on the Appalachian Trail and you
see a tree marked with a triangle and a circle inside,
turn around. Don't answer the call.
And if you hear your own voice echoing from the woods, it's
already too late. This happened in the fall of
2021, somewhere between Max Patch and Hot Springs on the
Appalachian Trail. I haven't told many people about
it, partly because I still don't understand it myself, and partly
because I know how insane it sounds.
There were five of us, me, Liam, Caroline, Josh, and Ray.
We were all experienced hikers, not just weekend warriors.
We'd planned a 10 day section hike aimed for early October to
avoid the crowds and the worst of the bugs.
No one brought GPS. We were trying to keep it old
school paper maps, compasses and instinct.
We were about 3 days in when this happened.
We camped on a flat shelf just off the trail.
It had rained the night before, so we expected a bit of morning
mist. What we woke up to was something
else entirely. The fog was thick, but it wasn't
moving. It didn't roll or lift with the
sun. It just sat there, still and
dense, like it was pinned in place.
I couldn't see more than 15, maybe 20 feet in any direction.
No birds, no bugs, no wind. Just the damp and the silence.
Even when I called out to Liam, who was only 10 feet away, my
voice sounded muffled, like we were talking through insulation.
He was poking at the fire pit, trying to get a flame going.
Caroline stood near the edge of camp, watching the trees like
they might start moving. We all tried to play it cool.
Mist happens, right? We packed up slow, hoping it
would clear. That's when we heard it.
Laughter, high pitched, definitely kids at first, just
one giggle, then a few more, like a group playing tag just
out of sight. We froze.
I mean, we were deep in the woods, miles from any road or
shelter. There shouldn't have been anyone
else, let alone children. Ray said.
Maybe it was a scout group. Josh shrugged.
Weird, but not impossible, he said, but even he sounded
uncertain. Then the kids appeared, 8 of
them pale, silent, walking in a line with one tall figure behind
them that I assumed was an adult.
They didn't say anything at first, just moved past us, right
through our camp, like they didn't see us or didn't care.
Their clothes were old fashioned, muted Grays and
Browns buttoned up all the way to the neck.
No bags, no water, no gear. They didn't look dirty, just
off. One of the girls stopped and
turned to us, her head tilted a little too far, like she wasn't
used to how necks were supposed to work.
Where are you going? She asked Liam.
Always. The smart ass said, heading
north through hiking the AT. The girl blinked, her lips
twitched like she was trying to smile but didn't remember how.
This isn't the Appalachian Trail.
She said. Then she turned and kept
walking. The rest followed.
The tall figure, hooded face hidden brought up the rear and
then they were gone, back into the fog.
We just stood there. No one said anything for a long
time. Eventually Ray muttered OK, that
was messed up. Caroline wanted to pack up and
go back. S Liam said we should keep
going. I didn't know what to think.
Part of me figured it had to be some kind of elaborate prank, or
we'd stumbled into a film crew or a live action thing.
But deep down something didn't feel right.
We voted 3:00 to 2:00 to push ahead.
So we did. We hadn't gone a mile before we
started seeing strange stuff. First it was the trees.
Some of them had markings, white stick figures scratched into the
bark, not like trail blazes. These were crude.
One tree had a spiral, another had a row of slashes, 8 vertical
lines, 1 long, one crossing them all out.
Then we found the dates. One tree had a series of
carvings spaced about a foot apart, 194119511961.
It kept going. The last one was 2021, our year.
I don't scare easy, but that made my stomach drop.
No one talked much after that. We kept moving, but the air felt
heavier, like the forest was holding its breath.
It never got brighter. The fog stayed with us the whole
day. And the worst part?
Every so often, faint and distant but unmistakable, we
kept hearing that laughter just behind the trees, never ahead of
us, always behind. By late afternoon, none of us
were talking. The fog hadn't let up at all.
We kept waiting for it to burn off like normal, but it just
hung there, thick, still, and cold.
The kind of cold that settles into your clothes and never
leaves. We hadn't seen another blaze in
ours. No mileage markers, no trail
junctions, nothing. It felt like we were walking in
circles, even though we stuck to a straight line as best we
could. We tried checking our compasses,
but they were all giving slightly different bearings.
Josh said it was probably a mineral deposit, but even he
didn't sound confident. Around dusk, we heard the kids
again. Laughter.
Same pitch, same cadence, too close.
It was different this time, closer and sharper.
It would pop up to the left of us, then to the right, then
straight ahead. Like they were circling us,
following us, not playing anymore.
Josh stopped and pointed at a tree ahead.
Carved into the bark was a spiral, not a normal one.
It was jagged and uneven, almost like it was scratched in with
something sharp. Inside the spiral were eight
small stick figures. Liam leaned in close, then
backed away fast. They're all missing eyes.
He muttered. We were losing it.
Caroline wanted to set up camp before dark.
Ray agreed. Said hiking blind in fog was a
bad idea. We found a spot near a Rockwall.
Not ideal, but at least we had our backs covered.
We set up quickly and agreed to keep watch in pairs.
That night I barely slept. I was on 2nd watch with Ray.
Around 1:00 in the morning we realized we hadn't heard Josh in
a while. His tent was zipped but empty.
No gear, no pack, no sign of him walking off.
He didn't snore like usual, wasn't even rustling around.
We started calling for him, first quietly, then louder.
No response. Caroline joined us, barefoot,
flashlight in one hand, knife in the other.
We didn't go far, just 20 yards from camp.
When we saw him. He was standing perfectly still,
in the middle of a small clearing, surrounded by 8 tiny
piles of rocks. Each pile was stacked exactly
the same, 3 stones on the bottom, one small flat stone on
top, the same ape pattern from before.
Josh wasn't moving, eyes open but blank, pale.
He looked right through us. When I called his name, he
finally spoke. They showed me the real path.
That's all he said. Then our flashlights all cut out
at once. No flicker, no warning, just
dead. Everything went pitch black and
the fog got thicker. I swear to God I heard something
exhale. Not a person, not an animal.
It was low and long and sounded wrong, like it didn't come from
lungs. Branches snapped all around us.
Ray grabbed Josh and we dragged him back to camp, stumbling the
whole way. Liam was standing by the fire
pit, holding a flare he hadn't lit yet.
We got the tent zipped, huddled up, knives out.
No one slept. When the light started coming
back the next morning, I unzipped the tent.
We were right back in that same clearing, same piles of rocks,
but now one of them had a small rotted child's shoe placed
neatly on top. That's when Caroline lost it.
She sat down, shaking, muttering that we needed to get off this
trail immediately. Liam said we should retrace our
steps, but that was impossible. We had no idea where we were.
Josh didn't say a word, he just stared at the shoe.
We tried to move fast that morning, no breakfast, just
slammed energy bars and started hiking downhill.
We figured if we kept going down, we'd hit a road or a
stream, something. We didn't say it out loud, but
we all knew the truth. We weren't on the Appalachian
Trail anymore, and whatever trail we were on, someone had
put us there. We didn't talk much that
morning, not because we were tired, none of us had slept, but
because we were scared. Josh still hadn't said another
word. He just followed us, eyes down,
like he was being LED. We moved fast, choosing the
steepest downhill we could find, hoping it would lead us to
water, a forest, Rd. anything. We tore through brush, tripped
over roots, didn't care. Compass needles kept twitching.
Phones were still dead. Fog pressed in tighter the lower
we went. And that feeling like we were
being watched, It hadn't left. About an hour in, Ray spotted
something ahead. A structure.
We thought maybe it was a trail shelter or a Ranger outpost.
Turned out it was an old half rotted lean to with a collapsed
roof and Moss covering half the frame.
We stepped inside anyway, just to breathe.
Inside were drawings, dozens of them nailed to the wooden walls.
Crayon, charcoal, blood colored paint.
All of them were the same stick figures walking in a line into a
spiral. In one drawing, 5 stick figures
were colored red, the rest were black.
There was also a Polaroid tack to the back wall.
It was us standing at Springer Mountain two weeks earlier.
Same clothes, same gear, same smiles.
None of us remembered anyone taking that photo.
The moment I saw it, the nausea hit me.
Not the kind you can walk off. The kind that comes from deep,
like your body knows something before your mind does.
Then we heard the dragging sound.
Metal scraping over stone, slow, heavy, right outside.
Liam whispered for everyone to shut up.
We backed into the far corner, behind a stack of old crates.
Through the cracks in the wall we saw them.
The children. Same 8 kids, same dead
expressions, same clothes. They weren't walking this time.
They were standing still in a semi circle, humming something
tuneless. Their mouths didn't move.
Behind them was the tall figure, the adult, still hooded, still
silent. He stepped forward and unrolled
a massive piece of paper. A map.
Our map. Same trail route, same
campsites. But now there were new marks,
symbols we didn't recognize, loops and slashes and spirals.
The trail didn't lead to Hot Springs anymore.
It LED right back to that clearing with the stone piles at
the center of the spiral. Written in black ink was one
word. Return.
Josh stepped forward like he was about to walk out and join them.
Caroline grabbed him. Ray flicked a lighter.
That tiny flame felt like our last defense.
We ran. Didn't look back, just booked it
through the trees, slicing through thornbush and
undergrowth. I don't know how long we ran,
maybe an hour, maybe 3. At some point the fog started
thinning. The air felt lighter.
Sound returned. Birds, leaves rustling, distant
water. Then the trees opened up and we
hit gravel, a fire road. 5 minutes later a green US Forest
Service truck pulled around the bend.
The Ranger inside gave us a weird look when he saw our
condition. Torn clothes, dried blood, no
packs, but didn't ask many questions.
Just radioed for backup and drove us to the station near Hot
Springs. We told them we got turned
around and lost our gear. That's all we said.
No one mentioned the kids, no one mentioned the map.
A few days later I went back online and looked up missing
persons reports. Found 8 cases from the last 40
years, all from that same stretch of trail.
All unsolved ages ranged from 6 to 12.
A few were listed as runaways, most weren't.
I also checked the lean to not on any map.
Rangers said no such structure existed there.
Josh still won't talk about it. He barely talks at all now.
The rest of us don't hike together anymore.
But sometimes when I can't sleep, I think about that girl's
voice, the way she said it. Calm.
Sure. This isn't the Appalachian
Trail. I believe her now.
And if you ever find yourself lost in the fog on that section
of trail and you hear laughter, don't look for where it's coming
from. Just keep moving.
And whatever you do, don't answer them back.
The trail register at Massey Gap felt colder than the air.
The metal box beaded with a dawn frost so fine it looked like
powdered glass. I signed my name, Evan Mallory,
Asheville, NC, then scribbled a note for my fiance. 7 days of
quiet, 10 miles a day back with a clearer head and better
stories. I shut the lid.
The clang echoed through the high meadows where wild ponies
pawed at frosted grass, their breath foggy plumes in the dim
blue light. If there was a more peaceful
place to put a restless mind right, I hadn't found it.
For the 1st 2 miles, the world felt brand new.
Hooves clipped stone behind me, and a chestnut pony trotted
close enough that I could stroke its shaggy mane.
Beyond the bald summit of Wilburn Ridge, spruce needles
glittered under a rising sun, and somewhere to the east, a
pileated woodpecker hammered out a rhythm that matched my
heartbeat. I breathe deep, tasting wood
smoke on the wind. Odd because campfires were
banned until winter rains returned, I told myself.
A hunter down in the lowlands was burning crop stubble and
pushed on. By late afternoon, I reached a
sheltered saddle below Buzzard Rock and pitched my tent on
ground padded with needles. While the Jetboil hissed, I
filmed a quick GoPro diary. Day one.
Easy Miles. Strange hint of smoke all day.
Probably nothing missing. You already, Jules.
The stove clicked off. Silence reclaimed the forest,
save for an occasional pop hiss, like damp logs flashing to steam
inside a distant blaze. I lay there afterward, headlamp
off, letting darkness settle. But as night thickened, that
firecrackle seemed closer, drifting between Ridge Pines and
slow pulses, as though someone were coaxing reluctant coals
back to life. Cold pulled me from sleep just
after midnight. My breath floated white in the
tent. Then a soft scrape, fabric
brushing against something rough, and my vestibule wall
flexed inward, pressed by an unseen hand.
I froze. Another pop.
Hiss sounded inches from my ear, the unmistakable snap of SAP
boiling. I fumble for the zipper, yanked
it open, and shone my headlamp into the trees.
Nothing except a faint orange glow hovering 20 yards away.
A single ember, brightening, dimming, brightening again like
a Firefly trapped in a bell jar. I tried to fix my eyes on it,
but the light winked out the moment I focused.
Wind eased through spruce crowns, yet the air smelled
sharper, the smoke thicker. With no courage to investigate,
I zipped the door and lay stiff until dawn washed the Ridge in
Gray. Morning revealed something I
couldn't explain. The rain fly, once Moss green,
bore a streak of soot the width of a hand that smeared down from
the apex to the stake loop. I touched the mark and the
residue blackened my fingertip. Somehow, a burning ember had
brushed the fabric without melting it.
I packed quickly, eager to leave Buzzard Rock.
The trail climbed toward Mount Rogers under a sky thin as milk,
and every switch back delivered the same scent, wood smoke, but
layered now with the sour note of singed hair.
At Wilburn Ridge, I paused to drink and spotted hoof prints.
Yet several were scorched black edges, crisp as cookie cutters
burned into the turf. Steam curled from one as though
it had cooled only moments earlier.
A pony herd grazed 100 yards off.
None limped or seemed hurt. Still, unease crawled up my
spine like cold drizzle under a collar.
Late light slanted gold between rhododendron thickets.
When I found a level spot beneath 2 hemlocks, their trunks
lean together like conspirators, shielding me from bitter wind.
I gathered dead twigs, careful not to break the fire ban, and
settled into my sleeping bag. Twilight painted the tent walls
amber, then Violet. Sometime in the black hours, a
shape loomed against the fly, kneeling, shoulders hunched.
Lightning, silent and distant, flashed on the horizon,
illuminating A silhouette whose head was cocked as though
listening to my heartbeat. I slapped the knife clipped to
my ridgeline, unzipped the door, and jabbed my light forward.
The figure was gone, but on the ground lay a neat pile of cedar
shavings. They formed an arrow, it's
barbed point aimed S deeper into the wilderness.
The shavings smoldered at their tips, tiny curls collapsing into
Gray dust without flame. I scooped A handful, still warm,
and scattered them in the wind. Sleep deserted me.
With each hour the air grew warmer, my breath no longer
visible. Condensation beaded on the map
inside my journal, and when I turned the page to tomorrow's
date, the ink bubbled and ran, the paper itself curling as if
held above a candle. I wanted to believe dawn would
make sense of it, that daylight would blow away childish dread.
Instead, sunrise lit the forest in bruised purple, and every
step S felt like descending into a kiln.
My pulse drummed in my ears. Sweat traced icy rivulets down
my ribs, though the thermometer red 42 Around me, SAP bled from
spruce knots and sizzled on the bark.
I quickened my pace, repeating a quiet litany. 7 days, 10 miles.
Clear head. But behind that mantra, another
thought clawed for attention. Something out here is burning
and it wants me to follow the smoke.
The fallen hemlock looked as if a colossal hand had twisted it
from the soil and slammed it across the white blazed
corridor. It's shattered crown blocked the
trail so completely I could not even snake under the branches.
I studied my map and spotted a faint dotted line.
Devil's Ladder, an unofficial connector said to shave a mile
off the Ridge if you were willing to endure knee busting
grades. At that moment the main trail
felt like a chimney spewing smoke straight at me, so I chose
the detour and plunged into the understory.
Almost at once the forest temperature leapt.
My breath no longer steamed, instead a damp heat pressed
against my skin, warm enough that sweat pooled under my pack
straps even though the thermometer on my watch still
insisted it was 45°. SAP blistered from spruce trunks
and dripped to the Duff with a hiss, as though the trees
themselves were cooking from within.
I checked my phone to mark the side trail, but the bars dropped
to 0 before the screen faded to black.
Battery dead, I told myself I could navigate by compass just
fine. Yet something about the phones
abrupt silence felt like a door closing behind me.
Devil's Ladder earned its name with every step.
The path pitched downwards so steeply I have skied on loose
needles. Around me, the air grew thicker,
shimmering in waves that made the nearest boulders wobble like
mirages. Then I smelled it again.
Burning hair mixed with scorched cedar and my pulse pounded high
in my throat. I rounded a switch back and
halted. 5 paces ahead, half concealed by rhododendron
leaves, stood the man from last night.
He faced away, shoulders hunched.
Blackened skin cracked in flakes that revealed depths of glowing
red, as if he were forged iron left too long in the coals.
His clothes had melted to his flesh.
Tatters fluttered in wind that I could not feel.
Smoke curled from his scalp in thin blue threads.
He turned, and those ember eyes fixed on mine without blinking.
I wanted to scream, but the air in my lungs tasted of ash.
The figure stepped forward. Every branch he brushed ignited
in a brief tongue of flame that vanished the instant he passed,
leaving needles intact yet smouldering at the tips.
Their green turned ghost white. He extended a hand.
Sparks pinwheeled off his fingertips and died before
touching the ground, as if the fire existed only for him.
Reflex broke the trance. I stumbled backward, boots
skidding on gravel, and the sudden movement seemed to
startle the thing. Its head tilted, cracking skin
along its neck that glowed brighter, hotter.
Without warning, the image fragmented.
My vision wavered and ripples of heat distortion and the GoPro
strapped to my pack beeped in arrow tone, its display filling
with static bands. Even though it was powered off,
my nostrils flooded with the chemical Tang of melting
circuitry. I turned and ran.
The grade was so steep I barely controlled each stride,
careening off trunks, branches whipping my arms.
Behind me came slow, deliberate footsteps, charcoal crunching
under burned feet. No matter how wildly I
zigzagged, the cadence never quickened, but it never paused
either. It sounded patient, inevitable,
like the tick of a metronome marking the moment the forest
would ignite. By the time dusk bled through
the canopy, I had lost the tread of Devil's Ladder and found
myself in a narrow hollow choked with hemlock.
Skeletons. Dead man's draw, if the locals
warnings were right. Even here the ground sweated
heat. I slashed at vines to clear a
flat patch no bigger than a coffin and threw up my tent,
hands trembling so badly the poles clicked like chattering
teeth. Night sealed the hollow, and at
once the forest began to breathe.
A low, rasping inhale, then a bellow, soft exhale, again and
again, each breath exuding A faint red glow that rolled over
the hillsides like banked coals stirred by wind.
Inside the tent, darkness pressed against the nylon.
My watch read 92°, though outside it had to be near
freezing. Sweat soaked my base layers.
Then the footsteps returned, shuffling in a widening spiral,
circling. I heard skin crackle with every
step, like ice shifting on a thawing lake.
The thing whispered my name, drawn out syllables stretched
thin as if exhaling through shredded vocal cords.
Even each time it spoke, the temperature spiked and my water
bladder ballooned with expanding air until seams creaked.
Hours dragged past. I held my multi tool like a
charm that could fend off fire. Just before dawn, the footsteps
stopped. Silence settled so suddenly my
ears rang. Then something pressed against
the tent wall, directly over my heart.
A hard, irregular shape, smaller than a fist yet impossibly hot.
Nylon sizzled. I jerked away, stuffing my
sleeping bag into the corner. The object slid down the outside
and thumped to the ground with a sound like wet ash falling
through the thin fabric. A faint red glow pulsed.
I forced myself to unzip the door.
Outside lay a child's sneaker, or what remained of one canvas,
mostly burned away. Rubber warped and cracked.
The toe melted into a bleak grin.
Inside the blackened sole, numbers blistered through the
char 1986. As I stared, a single ember
flared in the hollow toe, then winked out, leaving the shoe
cold and silent. The sun crested the Ridge, but
dead men's draw stayed dim, as if light itself feared to
linger. I packed in minutes, every
motion punctuated by the thought hammering in my skull.
The fire was following me, and it had just shown me the year it
first learned my name. I ran until my lungs tasted like
copper and the heat behind me faded to the faint rustle of
cooling ash. At a bend in the hollow, the
trees gave way to a rutted service Rd. slick with last
night's rain. Dawn had not truly broken.
Only a dim pewter glow seeped through the clouds, but steam
already curled from the gravel in lazy spirals.
The farther I hiked, the more the air smelled of wet cinders
and something sweeter, like pine pitch boiling on a stove.
An hour later I saw it. A farmhouse crouched at the
road's end, nothing left but black ribs of framing and a
stubborn stone chimney that leaked Gray vapor.
The porch roof had collapsed. Charred rafters lay like snapped
wings across the stoop. Heat still bled from the
wreckage, shimmering in waves that bent the world behind it
out of shape. I wanted to skirt the place
entirely, but my legs buckled at the sight of a black and white
cruiser nosed into the weeds, county emblem flaking from the
door. Emergency lights cold.
I staggered closer With a hiss, the driver's window rolled down
and a woman in a tan uniform leaned out, exhaustion etched in
the creases around her eyes. You all right, Sir?
Her badge read Riddle. The name fit.
The morning words tangled in my throat, but I managed.
Something's after me. It's, it's on fire, and it
walks. Sheriff Ada Riddle studied me
for a heartbeat too long, then popped the passenger door.
Get in, we'll talk where there's water between US and the ruins.
The vinyl seat scorched my palms with residual heat, too hot for
fabric untouched by flame. We rolled forward 30 yards and
stopped beside a rusted stock through half full of rainwater.
Steam coiled from the hood where my gloves had landed.
House went up four nights ago, she said, watching the ruins in
her side mirror. Neighbors smelled burning bacon
at 3:00 AM, and fire brigade found the family huddled near
that back door. Father, mother, teenage boy.
No accelerant, no wiring fault. Just combustion.
Her gaze flicked to the blistered streak across my pack.
You saw someone saw him, heard him.
He followed me down Devil's Ladder.
I described the ember eyes, the skin like cracked porcelain over
embers. The shoe stamped 1986 With each
detail. Her face drained a shade paler.
86. She rubbed the bridge of her
nose. I was 12 that year. 3 hikers
burned to death in a cabin off Green Cove Rd.
Volunteer rescue found only footprints burned into the
floor. Case went cold, folks.
Blame a vagrant who died in his own chimney fire that winter.
Swear his spirit brands anyone intruding on these ridges.
She laughed once brittle. I never put stock in ghost
stories until this week. She flicked the dash Cam on,
just in case, and handed me a lukewarm canteen.
I drank in ragged gulps the instant metal touched my lips.
A hot wind whooshed across the field, curling smoke skyward
from the tree line Beyond the house, a shape unfolded taller
than before, every joint glowing deeper as if stoked to white
heat. The temperature inside the
cruiser jumped. Plastic on the steering wheel
softened. The entity stepped onto the
lane. Grass beneath its feet withered
to Gray stalks that burst into wisps of flame and died.
It's gaze locked on me. Through the windshield.
The cruiser's engine ticked, metal expanding Sheriff Riddle
through the vehicle into reverse, but the tires only
hissed on melting tar. She cursed, then bolted out,
grabbed a canvas fire blanket from the trunk, and hurled it at
the apparition. The fabric unfurled mid air like
a sail, striking the creature's shoulders.
For an instant, the flames dimmed.
The form flickered, edges swimming.
I staggered after her, yanked 1/2 barrel off its stand and
tipped a torrent of cold rainwater across the lane.
Steam roared upward, enveloping us in scalding fog.
Through the cloud I heard the entity howl, wood exploding in a
kiln, and felt the wash of heat surge, then ebb as if something
vital had been banked. When the steam cleared, the
blanket lay smoldering atop a dark man shaped smear on the
asphalt. No figure, only a circle of char
so black at 8 the morning light. The sheriff exhaled A shaky
breath. Let's hope that buys us some
time. We drove 2 miles, felt like 20.
Engine knocking from overheated oil at Sparrow Gap Ranger
Station, she guided the cruiser beneath A corrugated overhang
and killed the ignition. Rangers emerged, radios already
alive with chatter about flare ups on the Ridge, grass fires
that vanished. Ada ordered them to fetch
extinguishers and wet sheets. Inside the cramped office, I
scrubbed soot off my hands. Skin sloughed away in tender
pink sheets, and beneath it new blisters rose, perfect ovals
mirroring the burned fingerprints left on my tent.
I wrapped them in gauze, but heat seeped through a pulse that
matched my own heart. Through the window, I saw Ada
lean against her cruiser's hood. Where my palms had braced
earlier. A black handprint still glowed,
faint threads of smoke curling upward like incense.
A Ranger aimed the hose, but water broke around an invisible
shield. Droplets hissed and slid off,
unable to touch the scorch mark. The sheriff met my eyes across
the lot, and in her expression was the hollow certainty that
what we'd faced had not been defeated, only delayed.
A gust of wind carried the smell of fresh smoke from somewhere
higher on the mountain. The radio crackled.
Control. We've got a new hotspot flaring
above Buzzard Rock. Looks like a column.
Ada's shoulders sagged. I felt the heat blooming under
my bandages, traveling cheek to collarbone, as if mapping the
path of fire yet to come. Somewhere out in the timber, a
slow, deliberate footstep crunched across charcoal, and I
realized the entity was already moving again.
Patient, methodical, unhurried, taking the long way down the
mountain to find me. Seven days, I had promised
jewels, 10 miles a day and back with a clearer head.
But some journeys, once lit, burn far longer than planned,
and some trails once followed never truly let you leave their
smoke behind. I caught the first glint of
sunrise off the Wolf Creek trailhead sign and felt my
nerves twitch. Someone had hammered A
splintered board across the kiosk.
Keep quiet after dark. Then half ripped it away as if
they changed their mind mid warning.
I pried it loose and slipped it into my pack, telling Jenna I
wanted it as a souvenir. Truth was, I hated leaving omens
behind me. The air smelled of wet stones
and cold pine SAP. Fog lay so thick across the
switchbacks that each exhale bounced back against my cheeks.
Jenna's trekking poles clicked a steady rhythm beside me.
But everything else, wind, birds, distant Rd. noise had
been muffled to nothing. We climbed in silence until the
damp reached through my shirt and tightened across my
shoulders. Just past the first saddle, the
fog thinned enough to show the trails dirt spine, and that was
when I noticed the boot prints, one set deep and alone in the
mud, Size 13 at least. They stretched maybe 50 yards,
veered to the left, then vanished where the path cut
across bare rock. I searched for the next print in
the leaf litter beyond, but the earth there looked untouched.
No crushed twigs, no skid marks, nothing.
My stomach nodded. Whoever made those tracks walked
off trail into brush so dense even deer left obvious tunnels.
Yet he or it left no trace. I told myself a hunter and
lightweight boots might manage that, But I kept glancing over
my shoulder for the next half mile.
By early afternoon the sun punched holes through the
whiteout and we stopped by an unnamed seep the guidebook
promised was year round. Water trickled out of Moss
cloaked limestone, clear as glass, but when Jenna knelt to
fill the filter bag she froze. Alex, look.
A latticework of sharpened twigs lay wedged beneath the surface,
each stick shaved to twin points.
Crisscrossed like an amateur catcher's trap, they stank of
sweetness gone rotten, fermented fruit and wet mulch.
I lifted one with my knife tip. The bark sloughed off, slick as
eelskin, exposing pale wood riddled with pin holes the size
of sewing needles. I dropped it and tasted copper
in my mouth. We camped a little uphill where
the ground leveled off a narrow bench just wide enough for the
two person tent. I forced a laugh while tying the
last guy line. Bear cans 30 yards that way.
Exits over here. No problem.
Jenna nodded and squeezed my hand, but I felt the pulse in
her fingers racing faster than mine.
Night sealed the forest by 9. Fog drifted back in, thicker
than before, and moonlight flickered like a dying bulb
behind the clouds. I woke with a start, to a sound
that did not belong. Crunch, pause, crunch, not
leaves. Rustling footfalls, deliberate
and measured. Circling my watch read 2O3 in
the morning. Jenna's eyes shone in the dim as
I unzipped the tent halfway and slid the headlamp strap around
my wrist. The beam pierced maybe 20 feet
before the vapor swallowed it. But in that cone of light, 3
shapes crouched among the laurels Scarecrow, thin limbs
wrapped in what looked like burlap ribbon clotted with Moss.
Their heads turned flatly, no bobbing like people adjusting
balance, just a single fluid pivot toward me.
Eye sockets reflected nothing, matte and dull, as if someone
had sculpted faces from river stones.
I stepped forward, instinct scream to drive them off.
Hey. My voice cracked and the figures
flinched. 1 uncoiled to its full height, at least 7 feet, and
raised 2 dead branches in each hand.
Click, click. The sticks met perfectly,
mimicking Jenna's laugh from dinner, brittle and bright in
the stillness. My skin crawled so hard it
almost tore. Leave.
I shouted, taking another step, but the headlamp trembled in my
fist and the beam jittered across tree trunks.
In that strobe, the figures scattered.
No stumbling, no snapping brush, only a blur of Gray limbs
melting up slope. Then absolute silence.
Even the creak we'd heard all evening had gone mute.
I backed inside, zipped the flap and pressed my shoulder against
Jenna's. We sat like that until dawn
turned the fog a dingy silver. Outside, the dew heavy ground
around the tent was pocked with prints, bare, narrow, each foot
6 toes wide and ending in tiny claw points.
They formed a perfect circle, toes aimed inward, as though the
three had stood equidistant all night, simply watching the nylon
walls breathe. Jenna whispered.
We're leaving now. I nodded, unable to answer.
As I shouldered my pack, the souvenir board shifted against
my spine. I almost hurled it into the
woods, but I couldn't bring myself to let it go.
We hiked out without breakfast. The forest gave nothing but the
hollow echo of our own footsteps, and every so often I
swore I heard sticks tapping together.
Click, click. Deep in the fog behind us.
The fog never quite lifted, only stretched itself thinner as we
hustled South by what I guessed was late morning.
My watch kept skipping minutes. We had chewed through nearly 20
miles of switchbacks. The pack straps sawed at my
collarbones, but I refused to slow.
Every birdsong perched above us in the canopy, as if the
warblers were escorting our flight but wouldn't dare land on
the trail itself. Whenever I stopped to sip water,
the woods went pin drop still, then resumed the moment I moved
again, like a show restarting after the critic leaves the
room. We gained the spine below
Chestnut Knob just before noon. Gray clouds stacked like stone
blocks overhead, and the forest floor bled a sour metallic
scent. Wet pennies baked in sun that
never reached the ground. Along a mossy Cut Bank we found
pine trunks skinned of bark. The strips had been trimmed into
human shapes and nailed head high, all of them facing the
Cliff wall, as if some deranged sculptor wanted the effigies to
watch the rock instead of the trail.
Rust streaked under every nail, but when I touched the streaks,
my fingers came away clean. The red was embedded in the wood
grain itself dark as dried liver.
Jenna's breath started a quick cadence between her teeth.
I tucked an arm around her pack and guided her forward,
promising that two more ridges would drop us onto the service
Rd. I no longer believed my own
words. By deep afternoon we found a
sliver of level ground pressed tight against a shale Cliff, no
approach possible from behind and only a 5 foot mouth for
entry. We pitched the tent there, doors
out, rain fly cinched low. I loaded both pistols and placed
them within an easy reach. Jenna threaded our last length
of paracord across the only entrance, hitching it to her
titanium stakes and dangling my titanium mug so it would clang
if anything brushed the line. Sunset never brightened, the
clouds merely thickened until day and night became the same
dark slate sometime past midnight.
I know because my phone pinged once, then died.
We both jerked awake to the faintest tink of metal, my mug
shivering against itself. I rolled onto 1 elbow, pistol in
hand, listening. Something crouched just outside
the fly, breathing slow as a diver, conserving air.
The paracord twanged again, quieter, as though fingertips
traced its length. Then a voice spoke, inches from
the nylon. Why'd you bring the gun?
My own voice tone timber the hitch on the word gun I'd made
earlier that day when coaxing Jenna downhill.
A perfect mimic whispered with the warmth leeched out of it.
The same sentence repeated, but now in Jenna's tone, fragile and
cracking. She clamped a hand over her
mouth. I felt her heartbeat banging
through her wrist. I cleared my throat.
We're armed, I said, voice low but steady.
Step away now, or I will shoot. The forest exhaled.
Cicadas, crickets. Everything that had been humming
went dead. A2 count later.
Footsteps retreated. 2 measured paces.
Pause 2 paces, like a drill squad marching in felt slippers.
The cadence faded, but the hush remained, an oppressive vacuum
that pressed against my eardrums until they rang.
We lay awake until dawn seeped through the fly in a colorless
smear. When I crawled out, my boots
slid on damp shale. The paracord was gone, every
inch of it, yet the stakes still stood.
My mug lay on its side, handle threaded by a braided loop that
hadn't existed the night before. Boot laces.
Our boot laces had been sliced from both pairs of boots while
we slept and woven into an elegant hangman's noose.
A Gray clay fingerprint smeared the tent zipper, flecked with
grit that glittered like bone dust.
Jenna stared, then turned the color of paste.
We didn't speak. We broke camp in 6 minutes flat.
No coffee, no filter. Stop.
As we shouldered our packs, the clouds above the Cliff tilted,
and for the briefest heartbeat I thought I saw a thin figure
perched on the rock face itself, limbs folded like a mantis.
A blink later, only wet shale remained.
We started downhill, the trail slick and narrow.
Behind us. Far up the Ridge, 2 sticks
clacked together. Talk, talk.
In perfect imitation of Jenna's laugh, I tightened my grip on
the pistol and kept walking, counting each breath until I
lost track of the number entirely.
Wind scratched the Ridge like sandpaper, but Thunder refused
to crack, just a low, endless growl that chased us down slope.
GPS bars winked on and off even though the sky stayed open.
Every time the screen froze, the mileage ticked backward, chewing
away our progress toward Burke's Garden.
My watch claimed mid morning, yet the air tasted of
approaching night. We power walked the narrow spine
until the forest thinned into scrubby grass.
That was where we saw it, the silhouette waiting on the next
rise. Tall, too thin, shoulders draped
in something that fluttered without wind, its head listed to
one side like a dog trying to puzzle a strange sound.
Then, with brutal deliberation, it raised one impossibly long
arm, no bend at the elbow, and pointed downhill, the same
direction we were already moving.
Jenna whispered. It's hurting us.
I could not disagree. We cut left onto the faint
connector trail, racing the slope.
Minutes later, a sharp digital click broke the hush behind a
Maple trunk, followed by another farther uphill.
When I searched the bark, I found a black cube, an old
Bluetooth speaker wedged in a knothole red light blinking.
A delayed echo of our own footfalls spilled from it. 3
seconds behind. The tiny cadence ricocheted
through the hollows, multiplying until it felt like dozens of
boots closing in. I smashed the speaker with a
rock. The moment the plastic cracked.
A whistle erupted from somewhere beyond sight.
An elk bugle pitched far too low, vibrato so deep my ribs
hummed. Birds pinwheeled from the
canopy, some dropping stunned, onto the Duff.
We had two trails left on the map, both through Dead Oaks
Hollow. The first dissolved beneath a
landslide, so we plunged into the second.
A drainage choked with limestone and slick leaves halfway down
the ground, opened under Jenna's boot.
She yelped, flailing, and I grabbed her pack just in time,
pulling her back from the lip of a sinkhole, maybe 15 feet across
and twice that deep. Its floor looked like a trophy
dump. Deer mandibles, bare jaws, a
Mountain Lion skull bleached white human teeth, molars.
Incisors glinted among the bones like seashells on dark sand.
A fresh pair of upper incisors rested on a Flat Rock, the roots
still pink. I gagged.
Above us, voices began to chant in unison, neither loud nor
hurried. Coordinates read out in
monotone, descending numbers. Between each line, 131211
figures ringed the sinkhole rim. A full circle of pale watchers
crouched so low their wrists dangled past their knees.
They rocked together, synchronized, until their joints
popped like breaking sticks. Lightning finally tore open the
clouds. In the flash, every watcher
stood at full height, arms spread ragged bark, capes
snapping like cloth. Thunder hammered the basin.
A slab of limestone sheared off the lip and crashed into the
sinkhole, tilting high enough to form a rough ramp.
Move. I shoved Jenna up the rock and
scrambled behind her. Limestone rang beneath our
boots. Something, someone, slid after
us, bare feet slapping in counter rhythm.
But the next lightning strike blinded my night vision and all
I saw were after images. We broke into a downhill Sprint,
branches clawing our packs, the slope steep enough to tumble if
we missed a step. Behind us, the coordinated stomp
of many feet burst into a run. No shouts, no barking dogs, only
that same precise cadence, driving faster.
At the service Rd., a Hunter's truck idled, tailgate open,
decoys rattling in the bed. I waved both arms, gun still in
my hand. The man's eyes went wide.
He thumbed the safety off his shotgun but didn't raise it.
Jenna collapsed beside the bumper, sobbing.
Gravel dust rose behind us, but nothing emerged from the tree
line. Forest Ranger Hal Teague arrived
10 minutes later in a green pickup.
He listened in silence while I poured out the story, leaving
out nothing this time. When I finished, he rubbed the
brim of his hat and asked only one question.
You 2 crossed Dead Oaks Hollow. We nodded.
Locals call them Ridge watchers. He said, voice soft enough I
almost missed it. They follow noise.
Don't let a thing go that rattles the Ridge after dark.
He offered hot coffee in a paper cup.
I wrapped trembling fingers around it, then froze.
The cups handle was looped by a neat braided string, my boot
lace, though I had replaced the laces with paracord that
morning. Three weeks later, back home in
Richmond, a padded envelope arrived with no return address.
Inside lay the splintered warning board from the kiosk and
a micro SD card labeled 2 O 3:00 AM.
In cramped graphite, I slid the card into my laptop.
A single audio file played. My own voice whispered, Why'd
you bring the gun? 13 times?
Flawless and cold, each repetition tailed by a wet
exhale that fogged the laptop microphone.
Somehow, on the recording itself.
When the loop ended, a faint click click echoed like sticks
tapping out Jenna's laughter. I keep the board locked in the
attic. Some nights, quiet nights after
dark, I swear I hear that distant whistle, impossibly low,
threading through the rafters while the house holds its
breath.