The Quiet Kind

It started with a scream—short, sharp, and swallowed by the dense fog rolling in over the Appalachian pines. Detective Evan Rourke had heard a lot in his twenty years with the Bureau, but this one... this one felt ancient. It wasn’t just fear in that scream. It was recognition.

Three hikers had vanished near Black Hollow, a stretch of forest so deep and tangled locals whispered it was never meant for people. The search party found their gear—torn, burned, soaked in something that wasn't quite blood and wasn’t quite sap. No bodies. No tracks. Just a sigil etched into a tree, spiraling inward like a vortex.

Rourke had seen the symbol once before. In a cave drawing outside Petra, Jordan. Then again on the jawbone of a mummy pulled from ice in Siberia. Different continents, different millennia—same mark. And each time, people had gone missing.

He wasn’t supposed to remember those things. The Bureau had ways of scrubbing memories. But Rourke kept them—hidden behind nightmares and the whiskey he used to put them to sleep.

That night, he returned alone to Black Hollow.

Halfway in, the silence changed. It wasn’t absence—it was suppression, like the forest was holding its breath. Every branch twisted inward. Even the crickets had gone mute. And then, he saw them.

Tall, thin figures, half-shadow, half-shape. Their skin shimmered like oil under moonlight, and where faces should’ve been, there were only smooth curves. No eyes. No mouths. Just that same spiraling mark—glowing faintly where a forehead should be.

Rourke didn't run. He knew that wouldn't help. These were The Quiet Kind.

They had lived among humans since the first fire was struck. They didn't use ships. They didn’t need them. They slipped between folds in space, nested in silence, wore human skin like coats. When ancient hunters painted gods on cave walls, they were painting them. When whole tribes vanished overnight, it was them feeding.

And they were hungry again.

“You remember us,” one of them said—not aloud, but in his mind, the words sliding under his skull like a scalpel.

“Why now?” Rourke asked, voice hoarse. “Why the scream?”

“It wasn’t a scream,” the being said. “It was a warning. One of ours broke the code.”

There were rules, apparently. Take a few at a time. Spread out the hunger. Never leave signs.

But something had changed. A younger one had gone rogue—hungry, impatient. The kind of hunger that would make the world notice.

“The one who screamed saw its true form. That cannot be allowed.”

“What do you want from me?” Rourke asked.

“To remember,” it said.

It reached forward. He flinched, but its touch was cold and calm, like ice over nerves. And suddenly, he saw it all.

Millennia of feeding. Of taking. Of covering their tracks through plagues, wars, disasters. They didn’t just feed on flesh—they fed on fear, on memory, on the edges of human awareness. If someone got too close, they’d whisper thoughts until the person unalived themselves, or disappeared into the woods and never came out.

Rourke fell to his knees, nose bleeding.

“You’ve been our watcher,” it said. “Every few centuries, one of you is chosen to carry the knowing. A human memory cache. A failsafe.”

“Failsafe for what?”

“In case we forget how to be... quiet.”

Another figure appeared—this one wrong. It twitched and crackled like a bad signal. Its skin pulsed red, and its “face” had begun to split open, revealing rows of jagged, wet teeth. The rogue.

“They will come for it,” the leader said. “The others. Your kind. With weapons and fire and cameras. And when they do, we will be forced to reveal ourselves. That would end you.”

“So you want me to stop them.”

“Yes. Make it look like a bear. Or a cult. You’re good at that.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You won’t remember we were ever here.”

Rourke stood. Every instinct in him screamed to say no. But he’d seen the alternative in the memories they gave him: Cities empty overnight. Skies torn open. People walking into the sea, smiling.

The Quiet Kind were not conquerors. They were parasites. And sometimes, parasites are smarter than their hosts.

He set the forest ablaze.

The story on the news read: "Three hikers found dead in suspected animal attack. Local recluse arrested in connection with forest fire."

They scrubbed the footage. The sigil was dismissed as “witchy graffiti.” Rourke disappeared from the Bureau, listed as medically retired.

But every night, in his small cabin far from the city, he feels them watching. He dreams of spiral marks and eyeless faces. And every now and then, he gets a call. A case. A disappearance that doesn’t add up.

He packs his bag. He drinks his coffee black. And he remembers. Because if he doesn’t, they will.

And the Quiet Kind are always hungry.