The Fog of Pine Hollow

The Fog of Pine Hollow
The morning fog clung to the streets of Pine Hollow like an old curse. Sheriff Elsie Hartman stepped out of her patrol truck and into the quiet of Main Street, the usual bustle muffled by the dense mist. The call had come in just after dawn: a body had been found in the old Blackridge Theater, boarded up since the town's golden era in the '60s.

Pine Hollow wasn’t used to trouble. A traffic ticket here, a neighborly squabble there. But a dead body in a long-abandoned building? That was something else.

Elsie adjusted her hat, her instincts twitching. She'd been sheriff for ten years, ever since the town voted out the old man who never took his job seriously. She was thorough. She was respected. And she had a personal history with the Blackridge Theater.

The building loomed, its faded marquee still bearing the letters “CLOSED FOR REPAIRS,” half-hung and rusted. As Elsie entered, ducking under the yellow tape the responding deputy had thrown up, the smell hit her—mildew, old velvet, and something far more bitter.

The victim was a man in his early sixties. Slumped in the front row, head tilted back as though watching a show that no longer played. Blood had dried at his temple. No weapon visible. No sign of forced entry. Elsie noted all of it with calm precision.

“Who found him?” she asked.

Deputy Lenny, young and overeager, gestured toward the entrance. “Local kids. One of them dared the others to go inside. You know how they are.”

She did. But something felt off. The body didn’t look like it had been there long—no more than a few hours—and it was too clean. Too... staged.

“Any ID?”

“Yeah,” said Lenny. “Name’s Charles Weaver. Lives up on Greystone Hill. Retired film projectionist, believe it or not.”

Elsie turned sharply. That name meant something.

Thirty-five years earlier, Elsie had snuck into the Blackridge Theater with her older brother, Joey. They'd sat in that very front row watching a horror double-feature. Joey had made faces at the actors and tossed popcorn at the screen. Elsie had screamed and laughed in equal measure.

Two weeks later, Joey disappeared.

It had been a long-standing wound in the town's history, reopened each time another missing poster went up. Joey had been the first, but not the last. Between 1990 and 1998, four children vanished in Pine Hollow, all between the ages of eight and twelve. The cases went cold. Locals whispered of something dark beneath the town’s charm.

No bodies were ever found.

Now, a man who once worked at the theater had turned up dead, right where it all began.

Elsie drove up to Greystone Hill that afternoon. Charles Weaver’s house was a small brick colonial, surprisingly tidy. A neighbor, Mrs. Renshaw, hovered on the porch next door, her knitting needles clacking nervously.

“He was a strange man,” she said as soon as Elsie approached. “Always quiet. Never had visitors. But he kept his yard like a painting. I liked that about him.”

“Did you know he worked at the Blackridge Theater?”

Mrs. Renshaw’s needles paused. “Back in the day, yes. But something happened, didn’t it? He quit one day and never stepped foot there again.”

“Do you know why?”

She looked over her shoulder, then back at Elsie with narrowed eyes. “They said he saw something. Something backstage. But that’s just old town gossip.”

Inside the house, Elsie found few clues. Everything was orderly—too orderly. A calendar hung in the kitchen with yesterday’s date circled in red ink. No message. No note. Just a crimson ring that seemed to pulse under the fluorescent light.

In the bedroom, an old wooden box sat on the dresser. Inside it were photographs: children at the theater, staff smiling for grainy snapshots, show posters, and tucked in the back—a Polaroid.

It was a photo of Joey.

He was standing by the theater screen, arms crossed, smiling that crooked grin Elsie remembered too well.

The photo was dated August 14, 1990—two days before he disappeared.

Elsie’s hand trembled.

Back at the station, Elsie spread the evidence on her desk. Her mind whirled.

Why would Charles keep a photo of Joey? Why now, after all these years, did he return to the theater?

She reviewed the coroner’s preliminary report: cause of death was blunt force trauma. Likely a hammer or heavy object. No defensive wounds. Which meant Weaver probably knew his killer. Or never saw them coming.

Elsie stared at the photo again.

There was something in the background. Barely visible in the dim light near the backstage curtain. A figure—tall, slender, watching. She squinted. It wasn’t human. Not exactly. Something was wrong about the proportions, the posture. The image blurred as she tried to focus, like it didn’t want to be seen.

She shivered.

That night, Elsie returned to the Blackridge Theater.

She told no one.

It was a risk—she knew that—but something deep inside told her the answers lay in that building. She carried a flashlight, her sidearm, and a recorder.

The theater groaned as she stepped inside. Dust danced in the beam of her light. She walked past the rows of faded red seats, pausing where Charles Weaver had died. She turned toward the stage and climbed the creaking steps.

Backstage was a maze of ropes, old set pieces, and catwalks. She searched carefully, methodically.

Then she saw it.

A trapdoor, partially hidden beneath a rolled-up carpet.

With effort, she pried it open.

A ladder descended into darkness.

Elsie hesitated only a second before climbing down.

The air below was damp, metallic. Her flashlight flicked across the space—a basement, or perhaps a storage area. But what caught her breath was the wall.

Photos. Dozens of them, pinned haphazardly. Children. Missing posters. Handwritten notes in smudged ink. Timelines. It was a shrine, or a record.

And then there were the tapes.

Film reels, labeled by date and name. One read: JOEY HARTMAN - 08/14/90.

Elsie’s heart pounded as she found an old projector in the corner. She loaded the reel with trembling fingers.

The footage flickered to life, grainy and colorless.

Joey appeared, laughing with a group of children on stage.

Then—screams.

The image shook violently. The children turned to something behind the camera. A shadow moved across the screen—elongated, wrong.

Then, blackness.

Elsie stood frozen.

Behind her, the sound of footsteps.

She turned, gun drawn.

A figure emerged from the shadows—a man, older than her, eyes sunken and hollow.

“Sheriff Hartman,” he said softly. “I wondered when you’d come.”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I was the theater’s owner. Marcus Denton. I knew your brother. He was brave.”

Her grip tightened. “Where are the others?”

“Gone,” Denton said simply. “The theater… it feeds. It always has. I tried to stop it, tried to close it down, but it doesn’t want to be forgotten.”

“You killed Charles Weaver.”

Denton nodded. “He was going to tell. He remembered what he saw. The deal we made.”

Elsie didn’t lower her weapon.

“I buried the others,” Denton said. “Below the stage. Their bones are still there. The theater won’t let them go.”

The walls around them creaked. The air grew heavy.

“Burn it,” he whispered. “It’s the only way.”

The fire started just before dawn.

Locals gathered, horrified, as flames engulfed the old Blackridge Theater. No one saw Elsie slip away, soot on her hands, eyes dark with memory.

The town mourned the loss of history. They held a vigil for Charles Weaver. But no one spoke of the bones found beneath the stage. Elsie buried them quietly, finally giving names to the nameless.

The missing had been found.

Pine Hollow began to breathe again.

And Elsie Hartman, for the first time in thirty-five years, slept through the night.