“You can’t be here,” Ryan tried to make himself sound big, bad, important. Deep down, he just wanted this grubby kid off his property before Sam caught him on the security cameras. He pushed down the urge to run down the dirt driveway and shove the child into the woods.
Ryan tried screaming with his eyes, PLEASE—before my wife comes out here and rips us both new ones.
The young fellow in bare feet with tangled hair down to his shoulders didn’t seem to catch that part, though. Too simple.
“Y’all took down the trinkets.” At least, that’s what Ryan was pretty sure the boy said. Everyone local sounded like they spoke through a wad of tobacco regardless of their age.
“You mean the kitchen ware you people strung up on our property line?” Sam’s shrill voice echoed off the maples lining the drive.
There’s still time to run, kid, Ryan grimaced at the boy to no avail.
“Cheese graters, colanders, stupid freakin’ spoons.” As Sam came alongside Ryan, he could feel the fury radiating off her. Shoulders hunched, face red, brow sweaty, his wife was ready to punt this local across the holler. “Very cute stunt. How much more of this mountain mumbo jumbo are you people going to pull before you leave us the hell alone? Do I need to call my representative?”
Ryan flinched, squeezing his eyes tight. Ever since the sheriff dismissed Sam’s concerns regarding decreased property value due to the locals’ bizarre hijinks on the perimeter of their soon-to-be rustic getaway haven, she’d resorted to threatening these folks with Congressional intervention. It meant nothing to them. Not a single senator had stepped foot in these parts since—well, probably ever. Still, Ryan cringed each time the phrase left her mouth. His beloved was becoming a Karen faster than her mother.
He tried to understand Sam’s ire. Opening a bed and breakfast had apparently always been a dream of hers, though Ryan hadn’t heard much about it before she lost her consulting job in D.C. In the wake of that blow, Ryan had been unable to talk Sam out of the notion that they should take advantage of the low housing costs in the wilds of West Virginia before the developers snatched up all the property. Sam’s end game was a secluded countryside retreat for weary urbanites and upper-class retirees.
Think ‘cottagecore’ Sam rattled off daily as they prepared to open their doors. Ryan still had no idea what the hell that meant but had gotten very good at pretending otherwise.
“You took down the horseshoes.” The boy nodded once toward their two-story farmhouse on the edge of Nelson’s Hollow (Sam refused to call it a ‘holler’ on principle; it wouldn’t attract the right clientele if they put that nonsense on their website).
“Damn right,” Sam spat. “And the railroad spikes you people jammed in the ground last week, and—”
“You painted the porch.” The child’s face was firm, but his voice was almost indifferent.
“What does it matter to you?” Sam screeched.
“‘sposed to be blue. Haint blue.”
“Listen to me,” her voice shook as she leaned down to stare the boy in his dull gray eyes. “I don’t care what color your memaw wants my porch to be. It doesn’t matter how Jim-Bob and Mary-Sue kept this place before they passed on. We don’t give a damn whether or not you people like what we’re doing here.”
Ryan didn’t appreciate the ‘we’ part. The last thing he wanted was to be pulled into another spat with their neighbors down the road.
“So, you scoot on home and tell your little clan to stay the hell away from our property. And don’t let me catch you here again, you little shit! Do you understand? You aren’t the only ones carrying guns around here anymore.”
Ryan grimaced. This wasn’t Sam. She had always been so kind, so warm. He’d fallen in love with her big heart and sharp mind. Fear had stolen that now—fear of this place and its inhabitants, but more importantly, fear of economic collapse, fear of their decimated 401k’s, fear of the political turmoil consuming the world, fear of being irrelevant, fear of becoming these people. His wife had permitted terror of that which she could not control to infect every facet of her personality, and now, she was sounding much like the same monsters she detested back home.
The youngster’s expression didn’t change, not even in the face of Sam’s rage. He cast one stoney look toward Ryan, then back to Sam. Ryan’s chest tightened, afraid of what other buttons the child may push on his wife’s fritzing nerves, but to his surprise, the kid turned around and began walking away. Sam stood up again, breath shaky as her pulse slowed.
Before he reached the end of the drive, however, the child paused and looked back at the couple.
“I’m real sorry about tonight.” Then, he shot off down the dirt road.
“Did he just threaten us?” Sam whipped her head toward Ryan, her baby blues wide with indignation. She took one step forward as though she planned to chase after the boy, but Ryan caught her wrist.
“Let him be. I’m sure it’s just another prank. Let’s get back to work.”
#
They didn’t speak much at dinner. Ryan and Sam didn’t talk afterwards either. Instead, she snatched her laptop from the office, bemoaned the crappy internet connection, and click-clacked away on another home renovation forum. Ryan plopped on the couch with a tumbler of whiskey and tried to watch whatever streaming service wasn’t glitching every five minutes. This had become their new normal, though it was one neither particularly enjoyed.
When Sam bolted upright, glaring out the window, however, Ryan craved the quiet distance they’d established. Whatever was about to come out of her mouth was certain to derail the evening’s tenuous peace. He bit the inside of his cheek hard and braced himself for a tirade.
“They’re out there,” she hissed.
“Honey, I really don’t—”
“No, Ryan,” she enunciated each syllable with venom. “Get off your butt and look. There are flashlights in the trees.”
With a groan, Ryan rose and followed the direction of her quivering finger. He didn’t want her to be right. That would derail any hope of an early bedtime along with the promise of one conflict-free night. Yet, when his eyes traveled to the tree line at the edge of their property, Sam’s paranoid accusations couldn’t be denied. Thin beams of light bounced and wobbled in between the dark pillars of tree trunks, disappearing beyond the brush, then reappearing seemingly brighter than before.
“I’m grabbing the Glock.”
“What?” Ryan’s voice rose and cracked in one breath. He thought she’d been kidding about the whole firearm thing. For God’s sake, they’d donated to the ACLU for years. Now, Sam was packing heat like a card-carrying NRA member?
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “When in Rome, remember?”
He instantly regretted using the term whenever Sam complained about the thirty-minute drive to the closest grocery store.
“Would you just wait a minute?” Ryan held up a cautionary hand to his partner. “I’ll go out there and—”
“Are you kidding me?” Instead of her former endearing and full-bellied giggle, this laughter was riddled with bitter malice. “Ever seen Deliverance, dear?”
Ten minutes later, Ryan was stomping through the tall grass of their backyard with Sam bringing up the rear. The pistol dangled at her side, but her finger was coiled around the trigger.
“Excuse me,” Ryan called a hundred yards from the forest’s edge. Best not to sneak up on hillbillies who’d be carrying a hell of a lot more than one 9-millimeter. “Whatever is going on, we need you to take it somewhere else.”
At once, the balls of light froze in place. So too did Ryan. His flesh rippled with goosebumps, dozens of unseen stares landing on him at once. In the next moment, each bulb snapped off in unison.
“Oh, hell no!” Sam hissed and stormed past him. “You’re not fooling anyone! Why don’t you come on out and face us like adults? Or are you too coward?”
“Sam!” Ryan cried in a strangled voice.
Something felt off, and it wasn’t just the prospect of facing down a gaggle of his redneck countrymen. The full moon was shining bright overhead. Even through the thick maze of trees, he should’ve seen at least the shape of a few trespassers as they wandered with their bright lights. But there had been nothing—no shadows, no glimpses of camo as the fools darted for cover. Hell, Ryan hadn’t even heard a twig snap. As he shined his own flashlight into the brush, there was no sign of the angry citizens his wife was convinced were there. And if these fine folks didn’t want to be seen, Ryan didn’t want to seek them out.
His wife was of a far different opinion. Without hesitation, Sam charged into the woods, her newly acquired gun raised. He watched in stunned horror as she disappeared into the darkness, never sparing one look back.
#
Ryan wasn’t an outdoorsman, certainly not a mountaineer. Having grown up in St. Louis, he was accustomed to flatlands and the occasional tornado warning, but that was the closest he came to flirting with Mother Nature. ‘Wild, Wonderful West Virginia’ wasn’t exactly his version of paradise, but he’d tried to find its quiet beauty. Yet, any admiration for this woodland solitude Ryan forced evaporated the moment he stepped into the trees.
The forest floor was uneven, the weeds and roots snagging around his bare ankles. Twice, his toe caught the edge of a stray rock and sent him crashing to the ground. Still, he persisted, doing his best to ignore the fear of ticks scuddling up his calves towards his nethers. Not once had he gone into the untamed edges of their property without a thick coat of deep-woods bug spray. Now, he was the moron stumbling through wildlife, asking for Lyme Disease or even a snake bite.
All this, and still no sight of the neighbors that vexed his wife. No hint of Sam either, for that matter. If she’d left a trail, he saw no trace of broken branches or bushes swaying in her aftermath. There was still no noise in this damned place either, an oddity that had begun to wear at his paper-thin calm. Even when he stepped on a vine or skid on loose rock, it seemed the motion was muffled. Perhaps it was adrenaline warping his mind, but Ryan had begun to feel as though this place was a vacuum where the normal rules of physics did not apply.
“Come on, now,” he grumbled to himself as his light source quivered.
Ryan was tougher than this. He despised scary movies but was mature enough to know they were merely inventions of a creative mind. The last thing he needed was his wife to emerge from the shadows and find him trembling like a small child. He’d never live it down.
“Sam!” he bellowed into the darkness, hoping against hope that she’d respond from nearby. Still nothing.
Yet again, his foot landed on something hard and unyielding, and soon, Ryan was tumbling. On the way down, he dropped his flashlight. Upon landing, his head smacked against the ground, stars exploding behind his eyes. He let loose a torrent of expletives but did his best to recover quickly. One swipe, and Ryan retrieved his light source from beside him. He sat up, dirty debris rolling off his back.
“SAM!” he yelled once more, and yet again, she failed to reply.
Ryan had done enough, been enough for his wife. This was too far. He hadn’t asked to become a watch dog, pursuing trespassers in the night. The police were there for a reason, and though he wasn’t their biggest fan, he certainly couldn’t argue with their advantage in situations such as these.
He pushed himself to his knees. “I’m going back, Sam!” he shouted.
It wasn’t the most heroic thing, he knew, nor the smartest. Announcing his departure could very well put his wife in further danger. But Ryan also wasn’t the one who’d made it his life’s mission to subdue the local population. He scanned the woods ahead of him one last time for a glimpse of his bride, and still nothing.
“I’m gonna call the cops!”
Perhaps this would bring Sam back to her senses and, with any luck, scare off some of the trespassers. Even if the sheriff had little time for Sam’s stupid lamentations regarding their homeowner rights, Ryan was fairly certain they’d still scan the area for a wild woman roaming the woods with a gun.
But that was when his beam caught a flash of silver and gleamed. At first, he thought it was just another tin kitchen utensil his weirdo neighbors had littered the trees with since they’d arrived the month before. An odd recognition came over him, however, as he looked at its shape and pattern. Only a few seconds passed before it clicked that Ryan was not gazing upon some random chunk of metal, but the thick band he’d slipped onto his wife’s finger the day they exchanged vows.
On hands and knees, Ryan scuttled toward the ring. Gut twisted, he already knew something was terribly wrong. Sam had lost her cool, but not her mind. That ring was worth more than the house they’d purchased at her whim. If it was lying here, that meant . . . well, something had happened to her that he couldn’t fathom—
—until he realized the ring was still attached to a crooked finger that had already begun to swell and darken with pooled blood.
“SAMANTHA!” He tripped over himself as he scurried through underbrush.
Dear God, if they’d chopped her finger off . . .
But they hadn’t. The rest of her was still attached though how Ryan wasn’t certain.
The four other digits were curled onto her palm like withered petals. Her right arm from fingertip to elbow was stretched across the ground, protruding from the base of an oak. In between the tree’s mighty roots, Ryan saw more glimpses of white, compressed flesh. He followed the tangled branches and vines upwards until his light illuminated two glassy orbs implanted in the heart of the tree’s trunk.
Sam. Samantha. His wife. She was somehow, incredibly, horrifically trapped in this oak’s embrace.
Her muscles rippled beneath the pale skin, and as Ryan tried to steady the beam, he saw her eyes roll in their sockets. Now, those gorgeous blues were on him, wide and alarmed. A muffled cry stung his ears despite its low volume. She was alive.
“Ryan,” a voice rang out through the silence.
For a moment, he thought it was his wife’s, but it was too clear, too loud given her position. Somehow, the call was both near and far. Further, there was an edge to the sound he couldn’t quite describe—not robotic, but not entirely human.
“Who are you?!” he shrieked and wheeled around.
But that is precisely what one should never do when they happen to hear their name echoing through the deep in Appalachia. Should one hear their name or even a simple ‘hello’ in the silence, it’s understood by locals to keep pressing forward without acknowledgement. Only outsiders answer the call of the beings that lurk in those trees, and only fools turn to find their source.
Such was a lesson Ryan learned that fine July evening in Nelson’s Hollow, along with many other fun factoids about the region. Firstly, as Ryan faced the open maw of antiquity, he realized there were things far more frightening than one’s tanking investments. The things lurking in our shadows do not calculate one’s dividends.
Second, as moss-laden vines stretched down his esophagus and invited ants into his belly, Ryan realized it is not merely progress so-called outsiders bring that troubles Appalachia’s residents. It’s the bravado, the boldness, the audacity to presume domination over the divinely incomprehensible. It is the belief that one may blithely cast a middle finger toward beings that do not differentiate between the cost of one’s hiking gear versus another’s.
Finally, while his heartbeat fused with that of the ancient forest’s thrum, he understood that it is better to trust one’s neighbor, no matter how poorly their teeth are aligned, than to vest hope in the puppeteers pulling the strings of polite society.
Because all they see is the value listed on the ‘For Sale’ sign outside a farmhouse on a backroad in Nelson’s Hollow, West Virginia. And all the wilds see is fresh prey.
END
Allison Gunn is a professional researcher, writer, and educator with a penchant for all things whimsical and strange. Currently attending Shepherd University in the Appalachian Studies program, she has extensively studied marginalized communities as well as folklore. Nowhere, her debut novel about an Appalachian family’s struggle with personal demons and an eldritch darkness, was published by Atria Books in March 2025. Allison is represented by Logan Harper (Jane Rotrosen Agency). Her forthcoming book is titled Hive Mind.
Instagram / Twitter / TikTok: @GunnAndPen
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**Featured image credit: Mihail Tregubov, Unsplash