The Feeding Ground

Not many know the truth of the Appalachian wilds. These mountains—older than bones—have stood for nearly half a billion years, watching in silence. Waiting.

At dawn, a pale fog swept through the moss-covered trees like breath over sleeping skin, jagged peaks rising like goosebumps. The mist clung to every branch, curling around trunks like memory—like ghosts reluctant to leave.

A pair of worn boots crunched along a narrow trail. Their owner—faceless, unseen—moved carelessly through the green brush, looking for the next place to sink into a drink. The forest pressed in tightly around him, forever closing him in.

Hundreds had stepped into these woods and vanished like whispers in the wind. No blood. No footprints. Just the silence that follows a scream too old to echo.

Scattered among the underbrush, nature had reclaimed what once belonged to man—rotting cabins with caved-in roofs, sunken mines that breathed cold air, broken barns whose animals had long since died. Rusted tools lay where they’d fallen decades ago, untouched, forgotten.

Some trees here remember the birth of the land. Some trails twist in ways a compass won’t follow. Stone paths curve into nothing. And in certain places, there is no birdsong. No chirp. No hum. Only silence—so deep it feels alive, like something is listening.

At the edge of the forest, a dark hole yawned open between the trees—an unnatural gap in the greenery. It wasn’t just a clearing. It was a mouth. And it was always hungry.

They came slowly at first—the ones it took. Drifters. Strangers. Men who hunted alone and never returned. Then neighbors. People others remembered. And when the children began to disappear—drawn into the woods by whispers only they could hear—the town could no longer look away.

They did what no one ever expects a town to do. They burned it all. At dusk, gaunt-eyed men and women piled their belongings into a fire. Homes, heirlooms, memories—all gone, flickering light into an increasingly darkening night. They carved names into stone and buried them in the dirt, gravestones forever yearning for bodies.

It wasn’t surrender. It was sacrifice. One by one, they walked to the forest’s edge. Torches in hand. Axes. Pitchforks. Knives. Eyes hollow. Jaws clenched. They would go into the woods to kill the thing that had taken too much for too long.

The night swallowed them whole. The trees grew tight around them. Whispers threaded through the darkness—familiar voices, like echoes of those long lost and almost forgotten. A man turned toward the sound, his daughter’s name on his lips. Another froze, recognizing his wife’s laugh.

Shadows flickered. Something moved between the trees. Tall. Wrong. Elongated. Some say it was a terrible beast. Others say it was the Devil himself.

A torch dropped. Flames soared. Screams tore through the trees—ragged and sharp. Chaos surged like the wake of a wave and, like a wave, crashed down and softened as quickly as it had risen. Silence.

By sunrise, the forest floor was slick with dew and blood. Light filtered through the canopy like mercy arriving too late. A headless body twitched near the roots of a tree. Limbs hung from branches like broken limbs themselves. A jawbone dangled from a sinewy strand, swinging gently in the breeze. A pair of boots stood in the mud, wishing for feet—filled only with blood.

Beneath the roots of a massive, ancient tree, a lone man lay curled in the dirt. His face was caked in blood, wide-eyed and vacant. A rusted knife rested at his side, discarded. He rocked gently, whispering nonsense to no one.

Behind him, something shifted. A shadow grew. A twig snapped. A face—not human, not quite—emerged from the darkness. Expressionless. Warped. Watching.

The man did not flinch. He was already gone. In one instant, the body his mind had since abandoned was lifted, split in two, and dropped back to the earth. The silence of the forest persisted once more.

They went into the woods to kill the Devil. But the Devil does not die in his own house.