The first time Clara heard the whistle, she was knee-deep in the creek, her fingers curled around a rusted key. The sound sliced through the fog—high, thin, and wrong. Not the call of a train or a bird but something else, something that made her pulse thrum like a trapped moth. She dropped the key into the water and ran, splashing through the shallows as the whistle faded, leaving only the rasp of reeds and the distant caw of a crow.
The town of Black Hollow had always been quiet, but lately, it felt like a held breath. Clara’s brother, Eli, had vanished three weeks ago, his last known location a logging trail that ended in a tangle of fallen trees and unanswered questions. The sheriff had given her a hollow look and said nothing. The townsfolk mumbled about the woods, their eyes darting toward the pine-covered hills as if the trees themselves might swallow her whole.
That night, Clara pored over Eli’s journal in the dim glow of a kerosene lamp. The pages were stained with dirt and something darker, a liquid that smelled like iron and regret. She traced the scribbles—”They’re watching. The whistle isn’t a sound, it’s a signal.” Her throat tightened. She’d never heard Eli speak of such things, not in all the years she’d known him.
The next morning, she found the map. It was tucked inside a hollow in the old oak behind her father’s house, wrapped in oilcloth and sealed with wax. The markings were crude but deliberate: a winding path through the pines, a cluster of symbols she didn’t recognize, and a single word scrawled in red ink—”Beware.”
Clara didn’t sleep that night. She sat on the porch, her fingers numb from the cold, listening for the whistle. When it came, it was louder this time, closer. She gripped the rusted key and stepped into the darkness, her boots crunching over frost-bitten leaves. The woods were alive with whispers, voices just beyond hearing, and the air smelled of damp earth and something metallic, like blood.
She followed the map until the trees thinned, revealing a clearing choked with overgrown structures. A barn, its roof collapsed, stood at the center, its walls scarred with deep gouges. Clara’s breath hitched as she stepped inside, her flashlight cutting through the gloom. The floor was littered with remnants of a life—dust-covered tools, a rusted chainsaw, and a child’s doll with one eye missing.
Then she heard it: the whistle again, but this time it was joined by a low hum, like the vibration of a distant engine. Clara froze. The flashlight flickered, casting jagged shadows on the walls. She reached for the key, her hands trembling, and pushed open a rusted door at the far end of the barn.
Inside was a tunnel, its walls lined with wires and strange symbols. The air was thick with the scent of oil and decay. Clara’s pulse roared in her ears as she descended, each step echoing like a heartbeat. At the end of the tunnel, she found a room lit by a single bulb, its walls covered in photographs—faces blurred by time, some missing entirely. And in the center of the room, a figure sat at a desk, their back to her.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the figure said, their voice a rasp. Clara’s grip tightened on the key. “Who are you? What did you do with my brother?”
The figure turned. Their face was gaunt, their eyes hollow. “Eli wasn’t the first. And he won’t be the last.”
Clara’s breath caught. The room seemed to close in, the walls pressing against her ribs. She reached for the key, but the figure lunged, their hands grasping at her coat. The flashlight died, plunging them into darkness.
When she awoke, she was back in the clearing, the key clutched in her fist. The whistle was gone. The barn was empty. But on the ground, near the entrance, lay a single photograph—her own face, blurred and distorted, with a red X marked over her eyes.
Clara didn’t go back to town. She stayed in the woods, hiding in the ruins of the old mill, waiting for the next whistle. She knew now what Eli had found, what he’d tried to tell her. The town wasn’t just quiet—it was dead, and the voices in the pines were its last breaths.
She waited. And she listened.
The whistle came again, but this time, Clara answered it.
