The Haunting of Hollow Creek

It was the kind of night where the moon barely pierced the heavy clouds, leaving the world cloaked in darkness. Hollow Creek was a forgotten stretch of road nestled between two old, dying towns—places that had long been abandoned by both residents and time itself. A place that was never mentioned in the maps, a forgotten route. Yet, for all its isolation, there were rumors.

Travelers whispered about the curse of Hollow Creek—the road that twisted through the woods like an uninviting serpent, where the trees grew so thick and dark that no sunlight dared to reach the earth. Those who ventured down its path never returned the same. Some disappeared altogether, leaving no trace. Others came back, but they were different—changed in ways no one could explain.

But those were just stories. Right?

At least, that’s what Erica thought when she decided to take the route one chilly evening. She had heard about it from a friend who had dared to cross it with a group years ago, and the tale had intrigued her. She didn’t believe in curses or spirits, but she was a writer, and she saw stories where others saw superstition. She wanted to uncover the mystery, to write the truth about Hollow Creek and put the rumors to rest once and for all.

Armed with her camera, a notebook, and the sharp instincts of a skeptic, she drove into the woods, the headlights cutting through the darkness ahead. The road was narrow, the trees on either side growing closer with each passing mile, their limbs reaching out like skeletal arms.

“Nothing here but overgrown trees and bad stories,” Erica muttered to herself. She wasn’t afraid. In fact, she felt a strange sense of calm. The road was eerie, yes, but it didn’t feel alive—not yet.

But when she crossed the bridge at the end of Hollow Creek, that’s when the change started.

It was subtle at first—a flicker in her rearview mirror, a shadow that seemed too large, too dark. Her heart skipped, but she brushed it off, convincing herself it was the fog. The air around her grew colder. So cold that her breath fogged up the windows. She turned up the heater, but it had no effect.

Suddenly, there was a sound—a soft tapping against the window. She froze, gripping the steering wheel tightly. She looked to the side, expecting to see a tree branch scraping against the glass. But there was nothing. Just the empty road stretching endlessly in front of her.

The tapping grew louder. Louder. And then, like a distant whisper, a voice seemed to echo from within the forest:

“Turn back. Turn back.”

Her pulse quickened. She glanced nervously at the road ahead. The dense forest closed in tighter. Was it her imagination? A trick of the wind? Or was it something else?

Without thinking, she sped up, her tires crunching against the gravel. The eerie tapping stopped, replaced by a sudden silence, an unnatural stillness that settled over the road like a blanket. It was the kind of silence that pressed against your ears, a silence that was louder than any noise.

The trees blurred past her as she pressed on. But then, something else caught her eye—a flicker of movement to the side of the road. A figure, standing still in the shadows. She slammed on the brakes, her heart racing. In the distance, she saw the silhouette of a person.

“Who’s out there?” she shouted, rolling down the window.

The figure didn’t move. It just stood there, staring into the woods, not acknowledging her presence at all. It looked like an old woman—her back hunched, her hands trembling as they clutched something.

Erica couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding crawling up her spine. The woman's silence felt wrong, unnatural. She was no longer in control of the situation. The air had become dense, suffocating. Her fingers trembled as she reached for her camera, wanting to capture this moment, to document her journey and prove she wasn’t imagining things.

But as the lens focused, her breath caught in her throat.

The woman was gone.

One moment, she stood there. The next, she had vanished into the thick fog, as though she had never been there at all.

Erica’s pulse raced as she fumbled for the gearshift. Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator as her eyes darted around, desperate to find any sign of the woman. But the road was empty. Quiet. Too quiet.

And then, the air changed again. The temperature dropped so low that Erica’s fingers began to ache from the cold. Her breath came out in sharp, visible puffs. A chilling wind whipped around the car. She glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping to see something familiar—just to ground her in reality. But that’s when she saw it.

The figure.

Standing directly behind her car, now in the rearview mirror.

The old woman.

Her face was pale, her eyes wide and filled with emptiness. She was staring directly at Erica. Her lips moved, forming words that Erica couldn’t hear, but the unmistakable message was clear: “It’s too late.”

Erica slammed her foot on the gas, pushing the car faster and faster. But the woman kept appearing in the mirrors, first in front of her, then behind, then by the side of the car, never more than a few feet away. The figures surrounded her, until the road seemed to twist into impossible angles. The trees became distorted, leaning in, their branches reaching like claws.

Suddenly, the car’s headlights blinked out.

The world went pitch black.

Erica screamed, but no sound escaped her lips. She felt the cold press in, the weight of the darkness pushing against her chest, suffocating her. Then, the car stopped moving entirely.

When the morning light finally broke through the fog, the village nearby discovered Erica’s car abandoned on the side of the road. But she was never found.

Some say she still wanders Hollow Creek, her spirit caught between the living and the dead, forever trapped by the curse of the road. They say that if you drive down that same path at night, you might see her in your rearview mirror. And if you listen closely, you might hear her whisper:

“It’s too late... you shouldn’t have come.”

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