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Hollow Pines Gas & Market (Part 2)

 I don’t remember moving to Hollow Pines. No cross-country drive, no half-empty moving boxes, no new job excitement or nervous breakdowns over IKEA furniture assembly. Just one day, I was here—with a job, an apartment, a few friends, and a very judgmental cat named Chairman Meow. Everyone acts like I’ve always lived here. Emily waves at me from across the street like we’ve been besties since third grade. The guy at the bakery gives me “my usual” every morning, even though I’ve never actually ordered anything. And Greg?—well, Greg? once brought in a Tupperware full of something that may or may not have been live crickets and called it “an old family recipe,” so I try not to ask too many questions there. I’ve got a key to my apartment. My name’s on the lease. There’s even a photo on the fridge of me and a group of strangers posing in front of the Hollow Pines town sign like we just survived summer camp together. I don’t remember any of their names. Or taking the photo. But I look hap...
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The Three Crosses (Part 1)

 I returned to Ashwood in March when the ground was frozen solid, and the sky hung low like wet wool. The town hadn’t changed much—peeling paint, shuttered windows, the same rust-bitten water tower with “JESUS SAVES” barely legible beneath a graffiti dick someone never bothered to scrub off. They said winter ends in March here, but they lied. It just shifts shape. The snow melts into mud, and the mud freezes into hard, bitter ruts that crack your tires and your bones. March isn’t spring. It’s a funeral the world refuses to attend. I didn’t return to Ashwood out of fondness. No one fondly remembers Ashwood unless they're carrying a burden. I came back because my mother had passed away, and the responsibility of clearing out the house, a duty I couldn't escape, fell on me. No siblings. No caring cousins. Just me, Ruth Harper, the solitary branch on a withered family tree. The Harper house, a looming presence at the edge of town, past the grain elevator and the burned-down dairy, ...
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Hollow Pines Gas & Market (Part 1)

I guess this is the only website that works out here. I'm not even joking. Whenever I try to check anything else, it either times out or shows me a page that just says "Access Restricted By Local Infrastructure" in Comic Sans. Yes. Comic Sans. So here I am, talking into the void, trying to maintain my sanity behind a gas station counter that seems to have materialized out of thin air. The counter is a worn-out, chipped piece of wood, and the gas station is a small, isolated building surrounded by darkness. I work the night shift. My coworker is a possibly stoned goth girl named…well, I don’t know if I ever got her actual name. I just call her “Dude.” Her perpetual state of chill is both baffling and entertaining. Our other coworker is Greg?. With a question mark. That’s not me being weird. It’s literally on his name tag. Greg? is…Greg? I think he’s made of bugs. But he’s nice about it. Anyway, this is where I’ll be chronicling my slow descent into either madness, supernat...
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The Huntsman

 The road to the cabin was older than I was. A narrow strip of dirt, carved between towering pines, the kind of road that never stayed tame. Every year, Dad would clear the worst of the overgrowth, smooth out the deeper ruts, and scatter fresh gravel where he could—but the forest always took it back. The woods had a way of reclaiming what belonged to them. Now, with him gone, it felt like we were trespassing. “You sure this is the right way?” Ryan asked, peering through the windshield. The trees pressed in close, their skeletal limbs arching over the road like fingers reaching for something just out of grasp. The truck’s headlights carved out brief tunnels of visibility before the darkness swallowed everything whole again. “Yeah,” I said. “It just looks different.” Ryan exhaled through his nose, shifting in his seat. "Dad used to say you could blindfold him, drop him anywhere in these woods, and he'd still find his way back to the cabin." I didn’t answer. I’d heard that a...
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The Binding

 The air was thick with the scent of roasting corn and burning pine, the smoke curling into the dusk like a slow exhale. Lanterns hung from the wooden posts that lined the village square, their glow swaying in the breath of the evening breeze. Children ran between the tables, bare feet kicking up dust, their laughter carrying high into the gathering night. Tonight was The Binding, and the village was alive with it. I stood at the edge of the square, where the road turned from packed dirt to the first tangled fingers of the woods. From here, I could see everything—the clusters of families passing plates, the elders seated at their long, knotted table, and Lena at the center of it all. She sat among the other girls, hands folded neatly in her lap, her white dress catching the lantern light. She wasn’t like the others—wasn’t giggling nervously or casting quick glances at the thickening treeline. No, Lena was calm. Too calm. She was smiling. I crossed the square, the earth packed firm ...
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