Whispers in the Pines

1. The Road to Nowhere

State Route 173 didn’t just wind through the San Bernardino Mountains—it suffocated them. The asphalt coiled like a black serpent around cliffs that dropped into nothing, guardrails bent and skeletal from years of catching drunk drivers and runaway trucks. Locals called it "The Throat"—a road that swallowed the reckless whole.

Clara’s hands clenched the wheel as her headlights carved through the fog. The moving truck’s radio had died an hour ago, replaced by a low, oscillating hum that made her teeth ache. She told herself it was just static.

Then she saw the first cross.

A wooden marker, rotted and tilting, crowned with sun-bleached flowers. Then another. And another. Dozens lined the ravine, a cemetery of white crosses glowing in her high beams.

Her GPS flickered: "Welcome to Pine Hollow. Population: 287."

The sign beneath it, hand-painted and flaking, read: "STAY ON THE ROAD."

2. The Hollow Kind

Pine Hollow wasn’t a town. It was a scar.

Clustered around a gas station and a shuttered diner, the houses hunched like old men with bad spines. Porch lights buzzed behind moth-swarmed screens. Faces peered through curtains, then vanished.

The schoolhouse where Clara would teach stood at the town’s edge, its bell tower strangled by ivy. Keys in hand, she froze at the door.

The lock was already broken.

Inside, desks sat in perfect rows, chalkboards covered in scribbles—not lessons, but the same phrase, over and over in childlike cursive:

"They sing at night."

3. The First Whisper

Mrs. Driscoll, the librarian, handed Clara a mug of tea that smelled like wet earth. "You’ll hear stories," she said. "About the Nnúyumey—the ‘Hidden Ones.’ Natives claimed these mountains were hollow. Full of tunnels. Full of... things that mimic."

Clara laughed. "Mimic what?"

The old woman’s knuckles whitened around her cup. "Voices. Shapes. Especially when the fog rolls in."

That night, Clara woke to scratching at her cabin’s walls. Not animal claws—fingernails. Dragging. Testing the wood.

Then, clear as daylight, her mother’s voice called from the trees: "Clara? Baby, I’m lost..."

Her mother had been dead for ten years.

4. The Clearing

The sheriff found Randy Meyers’ dog first—or what was left of it. Nailed to a pine tree, its belly split open, packed with pinecones and wet leaves. Like something had arranged it.

Clara followed the whispers deeper into the woods, flashlight trembling. The trees grew denser, their bark split with deep, vertical grooves. Claw marks.

Then she found the clearing.

A perfect circle of blackened earth, the soil churned as if something had burrowed up. At its center lay a deer skull, antlers wrapped in barbed wire, its hollow sockets staring at her.

And around it, pressed into the dirt: child-sized handprints.

5. What Came Up from Below

The town meeting erupted when Clara showed the photos. Old Tom Pritchett smashed his flask on the floor. "They’re back. Just like ’78!"

No one explained.

That night, the power died. Clara’s cabin groaned, the walls breathing as pressure changed. Then—knocking. Not at the door.

From under the floorboards.

Something scraped up through the cracks. Not insects. Not rats.

Fingers. Bone-white and too long, probing the air like blind worms.

The radio crackled to life, broadcasting a chorus of whispers—not in panic, but welcome.

And from the woods, a hundred voices echoed:

"We’re home.