The Haunting of Black Hollow

They told stories about Black Hollow when Evelyn was a child—whispers of shadows moving without wind, of children who went missing, of a woman in white who screamed at the moon.

But stories, Evelyn believed, were just that.

Until she went back.

Her grandmother had passed in early October. A quiet death in a quiet town. Evelyn hadn’t seen her in years, not since she'd left Black Hollow at seventeen, vowing never to return.

But the will was clear. The house, the land, everything—it was hers now.

She arrived on a Thursday. Fog clung to the trees like cobwebs. The town hadn’t changed. Same cracked sidewalks. Same crooked church. Same hollow silence that wrapped around your bones.

The house sat at the edge of the woods, half-swallowed by ivy and time. The paint had peeled to gray. The windows stared blankly, like eyes long blind.

Evelyn unlocked the door with a rusted key. The air inside was cold, musty, and filled with the scent of old paper and dust.

On the mantle was a photograph: her grandmother, stern as ever, with Evelyn as a girl—smiling, unaware of what the years ahead would bring.

That night, the whispering began.

At first, it was soft—like wind slipping through cracks in the walls.

Then louder.

Voices. Distinct. Arguing. Crying.

She searched every room, checked the attic, the basement. Nothing. No one.

She blamed the pipes. The wind. Her own exhaustion.

But deep down, she knew better.

By the third night, Evelyn had stopped sleeping.

The voices came closer now. Calling her name.

“Evelyn...”

She heard footsteps when she was alone. The scent of lavender—her grandmother’s perfume—would bloom and vanish without warning.

And the mirror in the hallway? It began fogging over from the inside.

One night, unable to bear it, she shouted into the darkness.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

Silence answered.

Until the next morning, when she found a name scrawled in the condensation on the bathroom mirror:

“Annabelle.”

Evelyn asked the town librarian about the name. The old woman paled.

“Annabelle Cray,” she whispered. “A child. Vanished in ’53. Last seen near your woods.”

Evelyn’s stomach twisted.

Her grandmother never spoke of that. But she had always warned her: “Never go into the woods after dark.”

That night, Evelyn dreamt of a little girl, barefoot and crying, standing just beyond the tree line. Behind her, shadows moved like smoke.

She woke with scratches down her arm.

She started digging—into the town’s records, her grandmother’s journals, newspaper clippings yellowed with age.

A pattern emerged: every few decades, a child went missing near Black Hollow. Always near the woods. Always without a trace.

And every time, her grandmother lived nearby.

In the oldest journal entry, dated 1953, Evelyn found this line:

“The woods hunger. We give to them, or they take.”

It wasn’t madness.

It was confession.

Determined to know the truth, Evelyn ventured into the woods at dusk.

The air grew colder the deeper she went. The trees leaned too close. The silence was wrong—dense, watching.

Then, she heard it: a soft giggle, high and hollow.

“Annabelle?” she called out.

The girl stepped into view.

But it wasn’t a girl anymore.

Her dress was soaked in soil. Her eyes were too wide, too dark. And her mouth... smiled too far.

“Help me,” the girl said. “She made me stay.”

Behind her, the trees shifted. Shadows rose. Dozens of them. Children. Men. Women. All pale and broken and silent.

“Who made you stay?” Evelyn whispered.

The child pointed behind her.

Evelyn turned.

Her grandmother stood among the trees. But not as she remembered.

This version was taller. Paler. Her eyes black as coal. Her mouth stained red.

She stepped forward, voice low and sharp:

“I kept the balance. You broke it.”

Evelyn ran.

Branches clawed at her. Whispers swirled in her ears. Her heart thundered. The woods didn’t want her to leave.

But she burst from the trees just as the last light faded—and the voices fell silent.

Back in the house, Evelyn packed to leave. She didn’t care about inheritance anymore.

But on the front step sat a box she hadn’t seen before.

Inside: a locket with Annabelle’s picture. A bundle of teeth tied in twine. And a note.

“If the Hollow is not fed, it will come for all.”

It wasn’t just sacrifice. It was containment.

The Hollow was alive. And her grandmother had kept it dormant.

Now it was awake.

That night, Evelyn made a choice.

She returned to the woods with a matchbook and gasoline.

She poured it across the forest’s edge, her hands trembling.

“I won’t let you take anyone else,” she said, voice breaking.

The flames roared to life, bright and angry. Screams echoed from deep inside the trees—hundreds of voices, rising in fury.

The fire burned until sunrise.

The house was ash by dawn. The woods, blackened.

But the whispers were gone.

Evelyn left Black Hollow and never returned.

But sometimes, when the wind is just right, she dreams of the little girl again.

And wonders if the fire was enough.

The Haunting of Black Hollow

Some ghosts don’t want to be remembered.

Some demand it.