the road to pine hollow
Rain hammered the windshield like it had a personal grudge against Zack Harper.
Which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise him. Everything else in the world seemed to.
The wipers squeaked across the glass as he drove his beat-up black Charger down the empty backroad, a single yellow line guiding him toward the town of Pine Hollow—population 4,000, currently hosting one (1) monster problem.
He flicked his blinker for absolutely no reason.
“No one else on the road,” he muttered. “Just me and the rain and the impending doom. Classic Friday night.”
A small folder sat in the passenger seat. Inside it: a police report, a blurry photo, and a sticky note with a name on it.
Elias Harper, written in shaky ink.
Zack stared at the name too long and forced himself to look away. He cranked up the radio instead. Static. He wasn’t sure if the station was dead or if something supernatural was blocking it again.
Both were possible.
Pine Hollow’s sheriff had left a voicemail three days ago—nervous voice, shaky breaths, saying words that immediately caught Zack’s attention:
“We have… uh… something out here. Something I don’t want my deputies dealing with. Three missing. Please. If you’re still doing your, uh, work… we need help.”
Translation: They’ve got a monster and they don’t want to admit it.
Zack had almost ignored it. Almost. Until the sheriff mentioned something else:
“There was a symbol… carved into one of the trees. Looks like a circle with a line through it. Same as the one they found when your uncle died.”
Zack pulled onto Pine Hollow’s main street just as a bolt of lightning cracked across the sky.
“Perfect,” he said dryly. “A creepy small town during a thunderstorm. What could possibly go wrong.”
The sheriff’s office was too quiet. Too clean. Pine Hollow looked like the kind of place that should be full of gossiping neighbors and friendly bakers—not missing people and forest symbols.
Sheriff Dalton was waiting for him inside—a tall, tired man with dark circles under his eyes and a hand that shook slightly as he offered Zack a reluctant handshake.
“You Harper’s kid?”
“Nephew,” Zack corrected. “But sure, close enough.”
Dalton swallowed. “Thought your uncle was the last of your kind.”
“He was,” Zack said. “Until he wasn’t.”
The sheriff grimaced. “You really think this is… one of those things?”
“You called me,” Zack reminded him. “So either you believe in monsters or you’re really desperate for attention.”
Dalton sighed and motioned him into his office. “Three missing. All taken near the same hiking trail. And we found this.”
He slid a photo across the desk.
Zack stared.
A tree trunk, split open like something clawed it apart. And carved into the center—not by hand, but burned in with heat—was a symbol he knew too well.
A circle, a single vertical line, and an angled slash.
The same symbol from his uncle’s death site.
Zack’s jaw tightened. “Where exactly was this?”
“The Black Pine Trail,” the sheriff said. “Locals don’t go there anymore. Not after the sounds people claim they hear at night.”
Zack pocketed the photo. “I’ll take a look.”
Dalton hesitated. “Listen… Harper… Zack… just be careful. People who go out there don’t come back.”
Zack gave a half-smirk, the kind that didn’t reach his tired eyes.
“Sheriff, I hunt things that don’t even have a name. I’ll be fine.”
Two hours later, Zack stepped out of his car at the trail entrance, flashlight in one hand, silver-edged hatchet in the other. The rain had slowed to a mist, but the forest was still soaked and silent in a way that forests shouldn’t be.
“Okay, Pine Hollow,” he muttered. “Show me your ugly side.”
He walked deeper into the woods.
Snap.
A twig broke behind him.
Zack lifted his flashlight. “If that’s a raccoon, congratulations—you just scared the crap out of me. If it’s not a raccoon… well, join the club.”
Another sound. This time ahead of him.
A low, almost… clicking noise.
The kind creatures made when they were deciding if you were food.
Zack tightened his grip.
Then he saw it: the symbol, burned across a fallen tree. Still smoking.
“Fresh,” he whispered.
The clicking got louder.
Something moved through the darkness—tall, wrong-shaped, bones bending at angles no living thing should bend. Its eyes glowed like dying embers.
Zack’s sarcastic tone didn’t fail him even now.
“Oh great. A clicker demon. My day just keeps getting better.”
The creature lunged.
Zack swung the hatchet.
The forest roared with the sound of their collision—and for a split second, Zack saw something carved into the creature’s chest, glowing beneath its skin.
The same symbol.
It wasn’t random.
It wasn’t a coincidence.
Whoever—or whatever—killed his uncle was marking their monsters.
And now it wanted Zack, too.
