The growl came again closer now. Low and deliberate, it vibrated through the floor like something buried trying to rise. My pulse hammered in my throat, loud enough to drown out thought.


I yanked out my phone. One bar. A wisp of a signal. Just enough to try. I dialed 911, hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped it. The operator answered calm, clinical.


Then came the shriek.


It ripped through the cabin like metal tearing, followed by a thunderous crash. The floor shook beneath me.


My flashlight beam jerked wildly. Shadows stretched and writhed across the walls too long, too alive.


This wasn’t panic.


This was presence.


I stumbled backward and tripped. A board cracked under me as I fell, my flashlight flying into the dark. I landed hard, breath knocked from my lungs, ears ringing with the echoes of silence and something worse anticipation.


My hand scrambled across the wood, brushing something cold. Metal. I grasped it some kind of broken tool or knife, slick with moisture. It wasn’t much, but it had weight. Maybe that mattered.


The sound of a scraping slow dragging like claws pulled along timber with intent.


I flattened myself to the ground, holding my breath. My fingers found the flashlight again. It flared weakly to life.


Gouges. Deep ones. Torn into the wood just feet away then I saw them.


Eyes.


Glowing, molten red. Not reflected. Lit. They didn’t blink. They didn’t waver. They watched.


They were inches from the beam of my light. Too close.


A foul breath rolled toward me hot, decaying, ancient. This wasn’t just a creature. It was something that belonged to the forest like rot belonged to the roots.


Part of it shifted a pulse of muscle beneath shadow.


It didn’t growl. It thrummed. The floorboards under me vibrated as if the sound lived inside the cabin’s bones.


And mine.


It was toying with me.


Feeding on my fear like it had waited years for this flavor.


I edged back, slowly. The makeshift weapon dug into my palm. My flashlight wavered. Its eyes followed every motion.


Then the lights in the cabin flickered briefly. The thing recoiled with a hiss that scraped down my spine like barbed wire.


And the air changed.


Colder now. Pressurized.


It was building toward something.


Strike. Seize. End.


I couldn’t stay.


My eyes scanned the room door blocked. Shadows pulsing.


Then I saw it: a narrow gap at the base of the wall, barely wider than my shoulder.


It would have to do.


I stabbed the tool into the soft, rotten frame and shoved with all my weight. Wood split with a groan. I drove my body against the opening.


A roar split the dark.


I didn’t hesitate.


I tore through the splintering hole as claws snapped just behind me. Wood bit into my skin, but I was already falling out, down, onto the forest floor.


I hit hard but didn’t stop.


I ran.


Branches whipped my arms. Brambles tore my sleeves. The forest blurred around me. I didn’t know where I was going, I just knew that every second counted.


The forest didn’t welcome me. It closed around me.


Every crack of a twig behind me sounded deliberate.


I didn’t dare turn around.


I didn’t want to see how close it really was.


Finally, a clearing.


I collapsed in the middle of it, gasping. Heart racing. Skin scraped. Every nerve alight.


Silence pressed in. Watchful. Expectant.


I was alive for now.


But nothing felt safe.


Hollow Creek wasn’t just a town with stories. It was a predator. And now, it was watching me waiting to finish what it had started.