u/loganc-2020

[Part 3]

The ground didn't just shake it split. Deep, jagged fissures spider webbed across the parched soil of the scrap lot. A thick, sickening plume of dust blew out from the crevasse, reeking of ancient marsh water and ozone.

Mayor Vance and the council members didn't even try to run. They dropped to their knees, weeping and pressing their faces into the dirt as the trees at the edge of the woods began to snap like toothpicks.

Out of the widening trench came the real Hollow Men.
The things we’d seen before were just workers scouts. What crawled out of the deep earth were towering, grotesque leviathans made of gnarled black oak roots, ancient peat, and petrified bone. They had no faces, only massive, yawning chasms in their torsos that rattled with the dry, terrifying hum of millions of cicadas.

My dad hauled Nic over his shoulder like a sandbag while I laid down a wall of buckshot into the treeline. The lead buried itself uselessly into the thick wood and mud, barely slowing them down.

"To the truck! Get in the truck!" my dad screamed, his voice raw over the thunderous roar of the collapsing woods.”

We sprinted across the gravel lot as the scrap metal stacks around us collapsed like tossed jackstraws. The creature that used to be my Uncle Mikey didn't chase us. It just stood at the edge of the pit, watching us with those milky, dead eyes as the giant root beings rose around it.

We threw Nic into the back seat of my dad’s Ford F-250, slammed the doors, and my dad floored the gas just as a massive, wooden limb smashed down onto the hood, crushing the grille like aluminum foil.
We tore down Main Street at eighty miles an hour, the truck grinding and spewing steam from the damaged engine.

What we saw through the windshield made my blood run cold. The breach hadn't stayed at the tree line.
All across Blackwood Creek, the earth was vomiting up soil. Deep sinkholes were opening in the middle of paved roads, swallowing streetlights and parked cars whole. The dry summer grass on the town lawn was bursting into spontaneous, blueish green flame the same color as the burning ledger.

Air raid sirens began to wail across the valley, a high, panicked scream that echoed off the hills. People were running out of their homes in their pajamas, screaming as tall, shadowy figures stepped out from the cornfields surrounding every neighborhood, blocking the roads out of town.

"They're harvesting," my dad whispered, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "The contract wasn't just a promise for crops, Jackson. The ledger was a levee holding them back. You didn't break a deal... you opened the floodgates."

Suddenly, the back seat rattled. I whipped around. Nic was sitting upright, his hands clawing desperately at his face. The hemp twine stitched through his lips was snapping on its own, dry corn silk spilling from his mouth like blood as he gasped for air.

"Jackson..." Nic rasped, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "They aren't looking for grain anymore. They're collecting the town's interest."

My dad slammed the brakes, skidding the truck sideways into the gravel parking lot of the old Blackwood Creek High School. The building was a heavy, poured concrete shelter built in the 1950s the only structure in town with a basement set deep into bedrock rather than topsoil.

Over a dozen cars were already parked outside, headlights shining wildly into the dusty air. Dozens of townsfolk our neighbors, my high school teachers, the grocery clerk were shoving their way inside through the heavy steel double doors, seeking cover from the chaos in the streets.

My dad grabbed a crate of shotgun shells from the truck bed while I helped Nic walk. Nic’s eyes were bloodshot, his skin unnaturally cold, but he was lucid enough to stumble inside.

We crammed into the windowless gymnasium with nearly fifty other survivors. Sheriff Miller my dad's second cousin was trying to maintain order, shouting over the commotion of crying children and buzzing cell phones. None of the phones had service; the cell tower on North Ridge had already gone dark.
Then, the lights in the gym flickered and died, plunging us into pitch blackness.

A collective gasp echoed through the room. And then, from directly beneath the hardwood basketball court, came three slow, heavy, rhythmic thuds.

The floorboards began to warp upward.

We're trapped in a concrete basement with fifty terrified people, the floor beneath us is turning into mud, and my dad just realized the school was built right on top of the 1980 council's original burial ground how do you fight an enemy when you're standing on their roof?

Part Two

Friday morning came with a sky the color of bruised slate. The drought was so thick you could smell the parched earth through the window screens dry, sour, and suffocating.

My dad spent the whole morning transforming our living room into a staging ground. He wasn't acting like a father handing his son over to a nightmare; he was acting like a man preparing for a siege.
He laid out three hunting rifles, two shotguns, and every box of ammunition we owned on the kitchen table. Next to the firearms were gallon jugs filled with gas and kerosene, rigged with cloth wicks.

"They aren't ghosts, and they aren't demons," my dad said, racking a round into his 12 gauge. "They're earth and rot. When Mikey was taken in '82, my father made me watch from the edge of the cornfield. I saw them touch him, Jackson. They don't bleed, but they dry up. And anything that dry burns."

"Mayor Vance said they hold people," I reminded him, my voice cracking. "He said Mikey is still out there. Nic too."

My dad stopped, his hands trembling over a box of 12 gauge shells. "If my brother is still alive in those woods after forty years... he isn't human anymore. And if we go out there tonight just to trade places, none of us are coming back."

At 10:00 PM, the wind died down completely. The woods behind our house fell dead silent no crickets, no rustling leaves, nothing.

Then came the smell. It rolled off the treeline like a fog: the stench of stagnant river silt and damp, decay blackened corn husks.

My dad threw on his heavy canvas coat, grabbed a rifle and a jug of gas, and handed me the shotgun.
"Time to pay the debt," he muttered.

We walked out to the edge of the property where the scrap yard meets the timber woods. The full moon was high, casting an eerie, pale glow over the cracked, dry soil.

Standing ten feet inside the shadow of the trees was Mayor Vance and three other town council members. They were holding lanterns, their faces pale and drawn in the yellow light.

"You brought guns, John?" Vance called out, his voice thin against the silence. "You think lead stops a hundred years of obligation?"
"I brought what I brought, Arthur," my dad replied, stepping up to the boundary line. "Where's the boy? Where's Nic?"

Vance gestured into the dark behind him.
Two tall, gaunt figures stepped out from between the oak trees. They didn't walk so much as glide, their movements jerky and unnatural.

In the moonlight, I could see what they were made of tightly woven river mud, dried husks, and thick, fibrous roots that twitched like exposed nerves.

Between them, dragging his feet in the dirt, was Nic.
His eyes were wide with terror, but he couldn't speak.

His skin looked pale, coated in a fine layer of dry topsoil, and thick twine was stitched tightly through his lips.

Behind Nic, another figure emerged from the deep shadow. It was smaller than the Hollow Men, hunched, clad in shredded, decayed children's clothes. My dad gasped, dropping his rifle half an inch. "Mikey..."

The small figure looked up. Its face was caked in dried clay, its hair long and matted with pine needles. It stared right at my dad with hollow, milky white eyes.

It didn't recognize him. It didn't recognize anything.

“The trade is simple, John," Mayor Vance said, holding out his hand for the brass bells. "You and Jackson step across the tree line.

Nic steps out. The debt for the 1982 deficit and the 2026 drought is cleared. The soil stays rich for another twenty years."

I looked at Nic, whose tears were cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. I looked at the twisted shell of my uncle.

Then I looked down at my backpack. I unzipped it, pulled out the 1982 ledger, and raised a jug of kerosene in my other hand.

"Wait!" Vance screamed, taking a frantic step forward. "No! Rule one! You burn that book and the contract is broken they’ll take the whole town!"

"Then the town can share the debt," I said.

I doused the leather bound book in kerosene, struck my lighter, and dropped the flame onto the oilskin cover.

The ledger burst into a violent, blueish green fire.

A sound erupted from the woods not a scream, but a massive, deafening roar like a tornado tearing through a dry cornfield.

The Hollow Men shrieked, their wooden limbs thrashing as the air around us turned ice cold.

My dad didn't hesitate. He raised his shotgun and fired straight over Mayor Vance’s shoulder into the darkness.

"Run!" my dad roared, grabbing Nic by his jacket collar and yanking him across the boundary line. "Run back to the house!"

The ledger is ashes, the woods are on fire, and something massive is tearing its way out of the earth beneath Blackwood Creek did we just save ourselves, or did we just end the world as we know it?

[Part One]

Nic’s truck stayed idling in the driveway all night. By 4:00 AM, it ran out of gas, the headlights slowly dimming until I was left sitting in total darkness with a loaded shotgun across my knees.

As soon as the sun cracked the horizon, I didn't call the police. In a town like Blackwood Creek, the sheriff’s grandfather was on the 1982 council calling them was just handing the ledger back to the people who owed the debt.

Instead, I drove out to the old Hayes homestead.

It’s been abandoned since my Uncle Mikey disappeared in '82. My dad always said the family couldn't bear to live on the land anymore, but looking at the property now, it felt intentional the overgrown brush and rotting timber looked like a perimeter fence kept up to keep people out.

Behind the ruined barn, buried under three decades of dead briars and rusted tractor parts, I found a heavy cellar door. It wasn't locked. In fact, the latch was freshly oiled.

I clicked on my flashlight and went down the steps. The air hit me instantly cold, thick, and smelling heavily of damp earth and decayed vegetation.

At the bottom wasn't a root cellar. It was a chapel.

Rough wooden pews faced a low stone altar in the center of the room. On top of the altar sat a glass jar filled with yellowed river water and a thick stack of index cards. I walked over and picked up the top card.

It was a modern photograph of Nic, taken through his living room window while he was sleeping, stamped with a date from three days ago. Beneath it was my own high school senior portrait, cross-hatched in red ink with three simple words underneath:

DEBT PENDING: JACKSON.

I was so focused on the photo that I didn't hear the footsteps coming down the cellar stairs behind me.

"You shouldn't have opened that box, kid."

I spun around, leveling my flashlight. Standing at the bottom step was Mayor Vance. He wasn't wearing his suit just a stained jacket and muddy work boots, holding a rusted crowbar. He looked exhausted, the bags under his eyes deep and purple.

"Where is Nic?" I demanded, my hands shaking on the flashlight handle.

"Where everyone goes when the soil turns sour," Vance said softly. "The Hollow Men don't take lives, boy. They take time. They hold what's given to them until the debt is cleared. Your uncle is still out in those woods. He hasn't aged a day since 1982 because he belongs to the earth now."

He stepped closer, the concrete grit crunching under his boots.
"In '82, your grandfather handed Michael over to save three hundred acres of corn. This year, the drought is worse. The council met last month. We tried to offer livestock, timber, cash they don't care about paper. They want the bloodline that holds the land."

"My dad would never agree to this," I said.

Vance gave a bitter, dry laugh that sounded like dead leaves scraping across pavement. "Who do you think signed the modern addendum in that book, kid? Your dad didn't sell you out to be cruel. He did it because forty years ago, he was supposed to be the one taken instead of Mikey. He’s just settling an old tab."

Vance didn't try to fight me. He just laid the crowbar down on the altar and handed me a small, brass bell the kind teachers used to use in old one room schoolhouses.

"You have until the full moon on Friday," Vance said, turning back toward the stairs. "If you ring that bell at the tree line near the old water tower, they’ll take you and give Nic back. If you don't, they take both of you, and they'll harvest the rest of your family to cover the interest."

I drove home in a daze. When I pulled into my driveway, my dad’s pickup was parked out front.

I walked into the house, the ledger heavy in my backpack. My dad was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, staring at a framed photograph of him and Uncle Mikey as kids on the farm. He didn't look up when I walked in. He just kept tracing his thumb over his brother's face.

"You found the book, didn't you?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

I didn't answer. I just took the brass bell out of my coat pocket and set it heavily on the table right in front of him.

He looked at the bell, then up at me, and for the first time in my life, I saw my father cry. But he didn't apologize. He just reached into his pocket, pulled out an identical brass bell, and set it next to mine.

"There's two of them because they need two," he rasped. "And I'm not letting you go alone."

Tonight is Thursday night, the full moon is tomorrow, and my dad is loading three rifles in the living room are we about to sacrifice ourselves, or start a war with something that can't die?

If you grew up anywhere near eastern Ohio, you know every small town has its monster.

In Blackwood Creek, population 1,800, ours were the Hollow Men.

When we were kids back in the late 2000s, the story was standard campfire lore stuff: tall, impossibly thin figures made of dry corn husks and river silt that walked the perimeter of the timber woods after dark. According to the kids at school, if a Hollow Man tapped three times on your bedroom window, it meant your family owed the town a debt, and you’d wake up with your lungs full of topsoil.

We laughed it off. We used to dare each other to sprint into the treeline past the old water tower at midnight. Standard midwestern rust belt childhood stuff.

Until last weekend.

My family runs the local scrap and cleaning business. The town council recently voted to demolish the old Blackwood Creek Municipal Building a squat, red brick relic from the 1920’s that had been abandoned since the bad flood in ’97. My buddy Nic and I took the contract to clear out the basement archives before the wrecking ball moved in.

Deep in the storage room, behind rusted filing cabinets full of unpaid water bills from the 70’s, Nic kicked over a heavy steel deposit box. The lock was long rotted away. Inside, wrapped in a oilskin jacket, was a thick, leather-bound book with gold foil lettering on the spine:

TOWN OF BLACKWOOD CREEK  OFFICIAL LEDGER (1980–1985)

We figured it was just tax records or old mayor meeting notes. But when I flipped to October 1982, the neat cursive handwriting changed.

The entries weren't about budget allocations or road maintenance. They were organized in a two column grid: Yield on the left, Designation on the right.

Here are a few exact transcriptions from the fall of 1982:

October 12, 1982

Yield: North Ridge Harvest  4,200 Bushels.

Designation: Standard Quota Met.

Note: The low whistle was heard near the silo at 03:00 hours. The perimeter holds.

October 19, 1982

Yield: North Ridge Harvest 1,100 Bushels (Early Frost Loss).

Designation: Deficit incurred (72% short).

Note: Town Council convened at midnight. The ledger demands balance. Subject chosen: Hayes, Michael (Age 9).

My stomach dropped when I read that name. Michael Hayes was my father's older brother.

All my life, I was told Uncle Mikey ran away in the winter of ’82. My grandmother died believing he’d hitched a ride on a freight train out toward Columbus. I kept reading.
 
October 21, 1982

Designation: Transaction Complete.

Note: Michael Hayes delivered to the tree line at 02:45. The Hollow Men accepted the substitute for the lost grain. Earth was smooth by morning. Next year's soil guaranteed rich.

Every bad harvest year had a name next to it. 1980: Sanger, Clara (Age 82). 1982: Hayes, Michael (Age 9). 1984: Vance, Sarah (Age 17).

They weren't local legends. The town elders weren't just afraid of the Hollow Men they were trading with them.

Nic and I took the ledger back to my truck. We sat in silence for a long time, the engine idling while rain hammered against the windshield.

"This is crazy," Nic said, his voice shaking. "This is just... some sick joke the old council wrote down to scare each other."

"My uncle disappeared that exact week, Nic," I said. "Look at the dates."

Before Nic could reply, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a weather alert for our county: Severe drought conditions warning, crop yield projected 60% below average for the upcoming fall harvest.

I looked up from my phone toward the tree line bordering the scrap lot.

Standing right at the edge of the woods just beyond the beam of my headlights was a figure. It was nearly eight feet tall, unnaturally narrow, its limbs bending at angles no human body could manage. It didn't have a face, just a hollow cavity where the mouth should be, lined with dry, rustling corn husks.

It wasn't moving. It was just waiting.

And then, soft and distinct against the sound of the rain, came three slow taps against my passenger window.

Series Log Note:
I’m writing this from my kitchen with every light in the house turned on. Nic went home an hour ago, but his mother just called me saying he hasn't come inside yet, and his driver's side door was left wide open in the driveway. I think they know we have the book.

The rain stopped, and there’s a tapping on the window, what the hell am I supposed to do?

I used to think the woods were quiet.

Back home, nature was just grids of corn, soybeans, and the occasional state park. It was predictable. But when my dad took a job managing a timber operation in Mason County, everything changed. We moved into a house tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by forests so dense they looked like solid walls of black when the sun went over the horizon.

I’m 17 years old and moving during your senior year sucks, obviously. But I managed to make a few friends pretty quickly. There’s Max, who can fix anything with an engine, and Sarah, his girlfriend, who knows all of the local legends like it's law. They welcomed this outsider with open arms, and for the first few weeks, we spent our summer nights driving down winding back roads, windows rolled down, listening to the cicadas.

I thought I was adapting to my new surroundings. I thought the eerie feeling of being watched was just my city brain adjusting to the rural life.

It wasn't.

It started three weeks ago. We were hanging out in the woods in an old abandoned campground with cabins, and even a pool with no water, of course. Local teens have used it as a hangout for decades, but that night, with just the three of us on the tailgate of Max’s truck, I couldn't get over the strange feeling of being watched again.

The air felt heavy. You know that static charge you feel right before a big thunderstorm, where all the hair on your body stands up? It was EXACTLY like that, except it was a clear summer night without any storm clouds in sight.

Sarah was mid sentence when the woods went dead silent. No crickets. No owls. Nothing.

“Did you guys hear that?” I asked, looking towards the forest.

Max laughed, tossing a beer cap into the darkness of the night. “It's just a deer, man. Don't let the shadows freak you out.”

That was no deer. Deer make noise moving through the woods. Whatever was out there was dead silent, but yet I could still feel a sort of weight shifting out in the darkness. Then, I saw it.

Two glowing, deep red circles.

They weren't reflecting off of Max's headlights; they were emitting their own dim and angry light, positioned about seven feet off of the ground. They blinked once. Slowly.

A primal and almost suffocating dread settled in my chest. I couldn't breathe. Have you ever had fear so intense that your entire body locks up? My brain was yelling at me to run, but my boots felt like they were filled with lead.

"Max," I choked out.

Before he could answer, the eyes ascended high in the air until they were suddenly nine or ten feet in the air. A massive silhouette detached itself from the oak, and the sheer scale of it made my stomach drop. It looked almost humanlike, but its shoulders were hunched, and a pair of immense, ragged wings spread out from its back.

Sarah shrieked, a sound of pure terror that broke my paralysis.

Max scrambled into the cab and cranked the engine. It roared to life, headlights lighting up the clearing. For a split second, the high beams caught the creature perfectly.

It didn't have a head. Not a real one anyway. Those massive, burning eyes were set directly in its muscular chest. The skin, or hide, or whatever it was, looked like a charcoal gray velvet or fuzz.

It didn't run. It didn't flap its wings to build up momentum. It just vaulted straight into the air with a "zip" sound, like a heavy canvas tarp ripping in a gale force wind.

We sped out of there so fast Max almost flipped the truck on the turn out of the clearing. We were silent on the ride home. What could we say? You can't just casually bring up that you saw a demon of the night.

I tried to tell myself it was a massive owl. A selective mutation. A hallucination from the mix of the alcohol, drugs, and paranoia. I spent hours that night searching the internet for anything that could explain whatever it was away, but deep down, I knew what Sarah was thinking when she kept whispering to herself on the drive home.

The worst part is, it didn't stay in the campsite area.

A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night. I looked at the clock: 3:00 AM. My bedroom is on the second floor with a window that faces the woods that surround our home. The room was freezing, and a bizarre, high pitched screeching sound was echoing outside. It sounded like a broken belt, or a woman screaming in the distance.

I dragged myself out of bed, groggy, and pulled the curtains apart.

It was sitting there on a branch of an old oak tree, barely ten feet from my window.

Its red eyes were staring directly into mine. It didn't move. It just sat there still, just watching, observing, its chest rising and falling in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. I was frozen, staring back into those deep red circles, and a wave of pure, absolute depression washed over me. It wasn't just fear anymore; it was an intense sense of doom, like a physical weight crushing my thoughts.

I don't know how long we were there, locked into each other's eyes. Eventually I blinked, and it was gone. No sounds of it flying away now; leaves rustling and branches snapping it was just gone.

I haven't slept since that night. Every time I close my eyes, I see those eyes burning through my eyelids. Max and Sarah are avoiding my texts; honestly, I don't blame them. We provoked something out there at that cabin.

My dad says we have to go back into the hills this weekend to scout some new timber lines. I'm petrified. Because when I locked eyes with that thing that night, I didn't feel like it was just watching me; I felt like it was waiting for me.

I'll keep you guys updated

What the hell is happening with me

I used to think the woods were quiet.

Back home, nature was just grids of corn, soybeans, and the occasional state park. It was predictable. But when my dad took a job managing a timber operation in Mason County, everything changed. We moved into a house tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by forests so dense they looked like solid walls of black when the sun went over the horizon.

I’m 17 years old and moving during your senior year sucks, obviously. But I managed to make a few friends pretty quickly. There’s Max, who can fix anything with an engine, and Sarah, his girlfriend, who knows all of the local legends like it's law. They welcomed this outsider with open arms, and for the first few weeks, we spent our summer nights driving down winding back roads, windows rolled down, listening to the cicadas.

I thought I was adapting to my new surroundings. I thought the eerie feeling of being watched was just my city brain adjusting to the rural life.

It wasn't.

It started three weeks ago. We were hanging out in the woods in an old abandoned campground with cabins, and even a pool with no water, of course. Local teens have used it as a hangout for decades, but that night, with just the three of us on the tailgate of Max’s truck, I couldn't get over the strange feeling of being watched again.

The air felt heavy. You know that static charge you feel right before a big thunderstorm, where all the hair on your body stands up? It was EXACTLY like that, except it was a clear summer night without any storm clouds in sight.

Sarah was mid sentence when the woods went dead silent. No crickets. No owls. Nothing.

“Did you guys hear that?” I asked, looking towards the forest.

Max laughed, tossing a beer cap into the darkness of the night. “It's just a deer, man. Don't let the shadows freak you out.”

That was no deer. Deer make noise moving through the woods. Whatever was out there was dead silent, but yet I could still feel a sort of weight shifting out in the darkness. Then, I saw it.

Two glowing, deep red circles.

They weren't reflecting off of Max's headlights; they were emitting their own dim and angry light, positioned about seven feet off of the ground. They blinked once. Slowly.

A primal and almost suffocating dread settled in my chest. I couldn't breathe. Have you ever had fear so intense that your entire body locks up? My brain was yelling at me to run, but my boots felt like they were filled with lead.

"Max," I choked out.

Before he could answer, the eyes ascended high in the air until they were suddenly nine or ten feet in the air. A massive silhouette detached itself from the oak, and the sheer scale of it made my stomach drop. It looked almost humanlike, but its shoulders were hunched, and a pair of immense, ragged wings spread out from its back.

Sarah shrieked, a sound of pure terror that broke my paralysis.

Max scrambled into the cab and cranked the engine. It roared to life, headlights lighting up the clearing. For a split second, the high beams caught the creature perfectly.

It didn't have a head. Not a real one anyway. Those massive, burning eyes were set directly in its muscular chest. The skin, or hide, or whatever it was, looked like a charcoal gray velvet or fuzz.

It didn't run. It didn't flap its wings to build up momentum. It just vaulted straight into the air with a "zip" sound, like a heavy canvas tarp ripping in a gale force wind.

We sped out of there so fast Max almost flipped the truck on the turn out of the clearing. We were silent on the ride home. What could we say? You can't just casually bring up that you saw a demon of the night.

I tried to tell myself it was a massive owl. A selective mutation. A hallucination from the mix of the alcohol, drugs, and paranoia. I spent hours that night searching the internet for anything that could explain whatever it was away, but deep down, I knew what Sarah was thinking when she kept whispering to herself on the drive home.

The worst part is, it didn't stay in the campsite area.

A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night. I looked at the clock: 3:00 AM. My bedroom is on the second floor with a window that faces the woods that surround our home. The room was freezing, and a bizarre, high pitched screeching sound was echoing outside. It sounded like a broken belt, or a woman screaming in the distance.

I dragged myself out of bed, groggy, and pulled the curtains apart.

It was sitting there on a branch of an old oak tree, barely ten feet from my window.

Its red eyes were staring directly into mine. It didn't move. It just sat there still, just watching, observing, its chest rising and falling in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. I was frozen, staring back into those deep red circles, and a wave of pure, absolute depression washed over me. It wasn't just fear anymore; it was an intense sense of doom, like a physical weight crushing my thoughts.

I don't know how long we were there, locked into each other's eyes. Eventually I blinked, and it was gone. No sounds of it flying away now; leaves rustling and branches snapping it was just gone.

I haven't slept since that night. Every time I close my eyes, I see those eyes burning through my eyelids. Max and Sarah are avoiding my texts; honestly, I don't blame them. We provoked something out there at that cabin.

My dad says we have to go back into the hills this weekend to scout some new timber lines. I'm petrified. Because when I locked eyes with that thing that night, I didn't feel like it was just watching me; I felt like it was waiting for me.

I'll keep you guys updated

What the hell is happening with me

I used to think the woods were quiet.

Back home, nature was just grids of corn, soybeans, and the occasional state park. It was predictable. But when my dad took a job managing a timber operation in Mason County, everything changed. We moved into a house tucked away in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by forests so dense they looked like solid walls of black when the sun went over the horizon.

I’m 17 years old and moving during your senior year sucks, obviously. But I managed to make a few friends pretty quickly. There’s Max, who can fix anything with an engine, and Sarah, his girlfriend, who knows all of the local legends like it's law. They welcomed this outsider with open arms, and for the first few weeks, we spent our summer nights driving down winding back roads, windows rolled down, listening to the cicadas.

I thought I was adapting to my new surroundings. I thought the eerie feeling of being watched was just my city brain adjusting to the rural life.

It wasn't.

It started three weeks ago. We were hanging out in the woods in an old abandoned campground with cabins, and even a pool with no water, of course. Local teens have used it as a hangout for decades, but that night, with just the three of us on the tailgate of Max’s truck, I couldn't get over the strange feeling of being watched again.

The air felt heavy. You know that static charge you feel right before a big thunderstorm, where all the hair on your body stands up? It was EXACTLY like that, except it was a clear summer night without any storm clouds in sight.

Sarah was mid sentence when the woods went dead silent. No crickets. No owls. Nothing.

“Did you guys hear that?” I asked, looking towards the forest.

Max laughed, tossing a beer cap into the darkness of the night. “It's just a deer, man. Don't let the shadows freak you out.”

That was no deer. Deer make noise moving through the woods. Whatever was out there was dead silent, but yet I could still feel a sort of weight shifting out in the darkness. Then, I saw it.

Two glowing, deep red circles.

They weren't reflecting off of Max's headlights; they were emitting their own dim and angry light, positioned about seven feet off of the ground. They blinked once. Slowly.

A primal and almost suffocating dread settled in my chest. I couldn't breathe. Have you ever had fear so intense that your entire body locks up? My brain was yelling at me to run, but my boots felt like they were filled with lead.

"Max," I choked out.

Before he could answer, the eyes ascended high in the air until they were suddenly nine or ten feet in the air. A massive silhouette detached itself from the oak, and the sheer scale of it made my stomach drop. It looked almost humanlike, but its shoulders were hunched, and a pair of immense, ragged wings spread out from its back.

Sarah shrieked, a sound of pure terror that broke my paralysis.

Max scrambled into the cab and cranked the engine. It roared to life, headlights lighting up the clearing. For a split second, the high beams caught the creature perfectly.

It didn't have a head. Not a real one anyway. Those massive, burning eyes were set directly in its muscular chest. The skin, or hide, or whatever it was, looked like a charcoal gray velvet or fuzz.

It didn't run. It didn't flap its wings to build up momentum. It just vaulted straight into the air with a "zip" sound, like a heavy canvas tarp ripping in a gale force wind.

We sped out of there so fast Max almost flipped the truck on the turn out of the clearing. We were silent on the ride home. What could we say? You can't just casually bring up that you saw a demon of the night.

I tried to tell myself it was a massive owl. A selective mutation. A hallucination from the mix of the alcohol, drugs, and paranoia. I spent hours that night searching the internet for anything that could explain whatever it was away, but deep down, I knew what Sarah was thinking when she kept whispering to herself on the drive home.

The worst part is, it didn't stay in the campsite area.

A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night. I looked at the clock: 3:00 AM. My bedroom is on the second floor with a window that faces the woods that surround our home. The room was freezing, and a bizarre, high pitched screeching sound was echoing outside. It sounded like a broken belt, or a woman screaming in the distance.

I dragged myself out of bed, groggy, and pulled the curtains apart.

It was sitting there on a branch of an old oak tree, barely ten feet from my window.

Its red eyes were staring directly into mine. It didn't move. It just sat there still, just watching, observing, its chest rising and falling in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. I was frozen, staring back into those deep red circles, and a wave of pure, absolute depression washed over me. It wasn't just fear anymore; it was an intense sense of doom, like a physical weight crushing my thoughts.

I don't know how long we were there, locked into each other's eyes. Eventually I blinked, and it was gone. No sounds of it flying away now; leaves rustling and branches snapping it was just gone.

I haven't slept since that night. Every time I close my eyes, I see those eyes burning through my eyelids. Max and Sarah are avoiding my texts; honestly, I don't blame them. We provoked something out there at that cabin.

My dad says we have to go back into the hills this weekend to scout some new timber lines. I'm petrified. Because when I locked eyes with that thing that night, I didn't feel like it was just watching me; I felt like it was waiting for me.

I'll keep you guys updated

What the hell is happening with me