Content warning: strong language, violence, depictions of child abuse and its lasting effects, and a prolonged medical emergency.

Mud slapped against the side of John’s SUV as he pushed the gas pedal to the floor, but the vehicle only sank further down. He could feel gravity pulling him toward the backseat as all of his father’s old junk shifted and popped against the windows.

After another minute of the hood continuing to tilt upward he lifted his foot and switched off the engine.

“Way to go, Junior,” he said to himself, doing his best to put on his father’s deep south Alabama accent. “You act like you ain’t never driven in the deep woods before.” He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror and hated how much of his dad’s face stared back.

He threw open the door and stepped out, his old sneakers struggling to maintain a grip on the soft, wet ground. Mud and small bits of twigs slid between his fingers as he guided himself along the SUV’s side.

Only the top of the wheel wells reached above the ground.

“Goddammit,” he said, pulling out his phone. It was just after 5 p.m. “And zero bars. Great.” John grumbled.

What little sunlight had shone through the overcast sky was fading fast. He looked down the barely visible pathway cut by a single vehicle over the course of fifteen years. It vanished into the treeline.

Behind him was his father’s stone cabin. It was probably older than the country, but it still stood. Held together by sheer grit and stubbornness. But even it was slowly being consumed. Cracks had formed on the outside walls, from the ground to the roof. The foundation was all but fully hidden beneath the soil.

“Guess I’m crashing here tonight,” he said with a deep sigh. He slammed the SUV’s driver door and made his way back to the old wood door. He turned the rusty doorknob. Behind him a loud crack rang out, then echoed all around; the trees calling and responding.  

John snapped around. His eyes traced up and down the path. The trees swayed in the increasing wind, almost in unison. Cracking branches echoed all around the cabin as if in conversation with each other.

Aching hinges screamed when John pushed the door open and then slammed it shut. His breath caught tight in his chest between puffs on his inhaler. He took one deep breath before turning around.

The cabin’s faded and distressed walls were mostly bare. Bright squares and rectangles sat where old picture frames had been for decades. The Obama and Hillary makeshift dartboards sat crumpled in the trash alongside about a year’s worth of empty snuff cans.

But the dead animal heads were right where they’d always been. Looking down on him through glassy black eyes. Their mouths gaped open, some showing teeth, others outstretched tongues, all of them teeming with hate and fear. John felt the hair on his neck stand on end.

“God, I hate it here,” he whispered to himself as he exhaled and set his keys on the living room table.

A loud thump came from upstairs. John paused for a moment and watched the staircase. Another thump followed by a loud crack echoed down the staircase.

John kept his eyes locked on the stairs as he inched his way to their base. The second floor was a loose formation of dark shapes. John tried to slow his breathing, but the boom of the next hit jarred his chest and rattled his teeth.

“Stop being a pussy and go see what it is,” he said, tightening his jaw and forcing his legs to climb. He waited at the top of the stairs; hoping it wouldn’t happen again. His father’s bedroom door rattled against its frame as if someone had slammed a fist against it.

“What the fuck,” he whispered as the door slid open at his light touch.

Old burgundy curtains fluttered in the wind in front of an open window. Dense fog rolled downward as if dropping a sheet over the house. One of the window’s loose shutters slammed against the cabin with a loud thump.

John almost cleared the entire floor in a single leap from the door to the window. He reached out to pull it shut, but the ground drew his eyes. As if on cue, the fog pulled back just enough to show him what he’d tried not to see. The ground indented where something heavy had fallen and sunk down several feet before it was found. He could feel his father looking up at him.

Tightness in his chest pulled John back from the window before his feet were ready. He tumbled backward into the twin bed at the small room’s center, sending it careening into an antique cabinet. Its doors cracked from the impact; the hinges released them like hands whose knuckles had just been wracked by an old, stiff leather belt.

John’s hands burned from his fall, but still managed to pull him upright once his feet were planted firm. His face burned as he heard his father’s voice laughing, “Hell’s the matter with you, boy? Your feet don’t work?”

“God, fuck off you old, dead piece of shit!” John yelled as he grabbed a pillow and threw it against one of the loose cabinet doors.

He closed his eyes and tried to take calming breaths for a moment. Everything went quiet.

When John opened his eyes they struggled to adjust in the even darker room. He put on his glasses, but he was still unsure of his footing. His first step left him with a sense of confidence his next snatched away as it kicked something toward the doorway.

He swept his phone’s flashlight across the room, jagged shadows darting side to side as he searched frantically for what he had kicked. He forced his hand to steady. The light caught a dull, aged leather cover wrapped around a book that was probably older than him.

“Since when did you bother reading anything, old man?” John muttered as he lifted the book.

No title or inscription on the cover. The interior pages were all in his father’s hand-writing. Each page dated, going back about fifteen years.

Nearly all of the entries covered supply counts and logged the best places for hunting and trapping. A few mentioned how much he missed Mom. The ones from about 2019 through 2024 were just streams of consciousness with lots of epithets directed at anyone different from him. Not even those entries mentioned his son.

But some of the 2025 entries took on a different tone.

July 3, 2025

Heard them again today. Running around and hiding in the treeline. About tired of damn kids wandering around here. Gonna find out what No Trespassing means the hard way if they keep it up.

July 18, 2025

They’re coming at night now. Used to just be during daylight but they’re getting brave. I shot out the window last night. Hope I hit one of ‘em. Piece of shit, tree-fucking hippies trying to run me off my daddy’s land. Let ‘em have the rest of the country, but they best leave me in peace.

August 4, 2025

Swear one of those little shits must have gotten in here while I was asleep. All my supplies was tore up and the door left open for the critters. I never heard a thing. Gonna set some nastier traps in the morning. See how they like that.

August 5, 2025

Went to town today to get some replacements. Told a sheriff’s deputy about the kids but he ain’t give a shit. Some old lady at the general store overheard me and started talking crazy. Said the forest feeds on emptiness or some other such nonsense. Reminded me of how Daddy got toward the end…

September 20, 2025

They’re here all the time now. I can’t see ‘em, but they’re in the trees. They’re hiding on the path. I hear ‘em saying the most awful things. Telling me to come out or they’ll come in. They’re so hungry…

October 28, 2025

DO NOT GO OUTSIDE NO MATTER WHAT! LOCK THE WINDOWS AND DOORS! STAY INSIDE! THEY CANNOT COME IN!

John set the book down next to his father’s old keychain — a single deer antler, worn smooth.

“He lost his fucking mind.” A soft knock at the front door sent John to his feet.

To be continued…