"Salt Flat":
I had just finished packing my bag for the holidays when my phone rang. It was Jason, my old college roommate. He sounded relieved, like someone finally exhaling after months underwater.
“Hey, man! I’m on the road,” he said, his voice buzzing with excitement. “Can’t wait to crash at my parents’ place. You heading out soon?”
“Yeah, tomorrow morning,” I said. “Drive safe, though. Roads get sketchy at night.”
We talked for a while—classes, the endless grind of remote exams, what came next. He said he’d stopped for gas in San Marcos, mentioned how empty everything felt since the pandemic. “It’s weird,” he said. “The whole town looks asleep.”
Then his voice shifted a little. “Hold on—this map app just rerouted me. Says to take this side road instead of the highway.”
“You sure that’s smart? Those country roads can get tricky.”
He chuckled. “Relax. Just a shortcut. Smells like oil out here, though. Real strong.”
He kept me on speakerphone. I could hear the steady hum of his engine, the faint echo of tires over gravel. He started rambling about a documentary he’d watched on spirituality, something about hidden energies and what happens when people vanish. “You ever think there’s more to life? Stuff we don’t see?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” I said. “But you should probably keep your eyes on the—”
He cut me off. “Wait… there are lights behind me. Big ones.”
“Another car?”
“Yeah. Maybe a truck.” A pause. “Huh. It’s gone now. Weird.”
I brushed it off. He sent me a selfie—his grin lit by the dashboard, eyes bright despite the darkness outside.
Then his tone changed. “Whoa! Shit—what was that?”
“What happened?”
“I hit something. I’m pulling over—no, I think I crashed. Damn it.”
“Jason? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Front end’s wrecked though. Windshield’s cracked.” He opened the door; I heard wind rush in. “Middle of nowhere. Signal’s weak but the call’s still up.”
“Call the cops. Or I can call for you—just tell me where you are.”
“Salt Flat Road, near Luling. Hang on, I see my backpack over there.”
Rustling, footsteps. Then: “Hey… is someone out here? There’s a light. Hello?”
My stomach dropped. “Jason, get back in the car.”
He didn’t answer right away. “There’s a guy walking up. Older man, beard, heavy jacket. He’s shining a flashlight.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Something about the road. Hold on.”
I heard muffled voices.
Jason: “Hey, sir, you see the crash?”
The man: “Boy, what happened here? You alone out here?”
“Yeah. Just me.”
“That’s dangerous. Rough folks use these roads. You hurt?”
“No, sir. Just need to call for a tow.”
“Let me take a look.”
Their voices faded for a second. My heart was pounding. Something felt off—like the man’s voice had no warmth, just curiosity.
Jason came back on. “He says he lives nearby, can give me a ride into town.”
“Don’t,” I said quickly. “Jason, stay in the car. I’ll call the police.”
“He seems nice enough.”
“No. It’s too isolated. Please—just wait.”
The man spoke again, his tone sharpened. “Who you talking to, boy?”
“Friend,” Jason said. “He’s just worried.”
“Tell him not to worry. I’ll get you where you need to go.”
Jason’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Okay… maybe you’re right. There’s something wrong with his eyes. They look… cloudy.”
“Get back in the car. Now.”
“I can’t—the door’s jammed. Wait, he’s coming closer. Hey! Back off, man!”
“Jason?”
Scuffling, breathing, a dull thud.
The man’s voice, low: “Easy now. Don’t fight it.”
“Jason!” I shouted.
The line went dead.
I called 911 immediately, told them everything. They said units were being sent, but I couldn’t just sit there. I grabbed my keys and drove. Luling was over an hour away, but I barely felt the distance. All I could hear was Jason’s voice in my head—and that other man’s calm, wrong voice.
The further I drove, the darker it got. No houses, no lights—just endless oil fields, metal pumps creaking in the night. The smell of sulfur hung thick in the air. Locals always said strange people lived out here—drifters, old oil hands, people who never left when the work dried up.
When I turned onto Salt Flat Road, my headlights sliced through fog and trees. Then I saw it—Jason’s car, nose crumpled against a tree, headlights still glowing into the woods.
I stopped. “Jason?” My voice barely left my throat.
No answer.
The driver’s side door hung open, glass scattered like ice. His phone sat on the seat, screen cracked, still warm. His backpack lay a few feet away, ripped open. His laptop, wallet, and charger were spilled into the dirt.
Then I noticed the footprints—two sets. Jason’s, light, sandal marks. The other—boots, deep and heavy—leading into the trees.
I followed the trail. Found his clothes folded neatly by a fallen log—shirt, shorts, even his watch on top, face up, still ticking. A faint dark stain on the fabric. Blood. My stomach turned.
“Jason?” I called again, louder now. Only the wind answered.
Something moved in the trees behind me—a slow, dragging sound. Then a beam of light flashed through the brush, blinding me.
“You the friend?” a voice asked.
It was him—the man. Beard, grime, cracked lips, eyes like fogged glass.
“Where’s Jason?” I demanded.
He smiled faintly. “Boy ran off. Said something was calling him into the woods. Took his clothes off, just walked right in. Crazy thing.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, stepping back. “What did you do to him?”
“Me?” He grinned wider. “Nothing. Tried to help. But these woods... they take people. Old wells, sinkholes. You’d be surprised how many vanish.”
He took a step closer. I saw the bulge in his jacket pocket—a knife handle or tool.
“Stay back,” I warned. “Police are coming.”
He chuckled. “Signal’s bad out here. Might take ‘em a while.”
Every instinct screamed run. I bolted to my car, slammed the door just as he lunged. The engine roared and I tore down the road, gravel spitting behind me. In the mirror, he stood there, watching, flashlight beam flickering like a dying eye.
I didn’t stop until I reached the Luling police station. They searched for days—dogs, drones, even drained parts of the old wells. Nothing. No Jason. No man. Just empty fields and stories. Locals said strange things roamed those roads—oil workers gone mad, vagrants, people who saw lights in the fields and followed them into the dark.
It’s been years. Jason’s never been found.
Sometimes, late at night, I dream of that road—his clothes folded in the dirt, his watch still ticking. And I wake up certain that if I ever drove back there, I’d see that same flashlight beam waiting for me at the tree line.
Because out in the dark, not every helping hand means you’re being saved.
"For Trenny":
I still remember the bus ride up to the Great Smoky Mountains that morning. The sun was just starting to rise over Knoxville, and the highway shimmered with mist. My friends and I were laughing about school gossip, teasing each other about who liked who in class. I was sixteen—same as Trenny—and we’d been close since middle school. She sat a few rows ahead, her brown hair tied back, wearing that soft blue sweater she always loved. She looked out the window, smiling at the fog rolling over the hills. It was supposed to be a fun biology field trip—forty students, a handful of teachers, hiking the trails near Clingmans Dome to learn about native plants and wildlife. Nobody imagined anything bad could happen on a day like that.
When we reached the parking lot, the teachers divided us into smaller hiking groups. Trenny and I ended up together, along with a few others, including Robert—a quiet, older student who sometimes gave people rides after school. He wasn’t exactly friendly, just... watchful. The kind of guy who lingered on people with his eyes a second too long.
“Hey, Trenny,” he said as we started up the path toward Andrews Bald. “You bringing your notes? I might need to borrow them later.”
She smiled politely, but her voice was distant. “Yeah, sure.” Then she turned back toward me, her face uneasy.
The trail was narrow, lined with dense evergreens and moss-slick rocks. The sound of boots crunching on leaves filled the quiet. Students spread out, stopping now and then to look at plants, snapping photos. A few minutes later, Trenny leaned close to me.
“Jenny,” she whispered, “does Robert seem off to you today? He keeps staring.”
I shrugged it off. “He’s always like that. Probably just bored.”
She nodded, but her fingers tightened around the straps of her backpack.
As we hiked higher, she started talking about weekend plans—about Kelvin, her boyfriend her parents didn’t know about yet. She laughed softly, brushing hair from her face. “He said he’s coming over tonight. I told him I’d call after the trip.” But there was something in her voice, like she was trying to talk herself into feeling normal.
When we reached the bald—a wide, grassy ridge with sweeping views of the Smokies—the air felt thinner, quieter. Everyone sat down for lunch. Trenny wandered off with Robert, settling a little apart from the group. I watched them from a distance. He was talking fast, hands gesturing. Her face looked tense, eyes darting toward the trees. After a while, she stood abruptly, brushed off her jeans, and headed back toward the trail.
“I’m going ahead,” she said when she passed me. “Catch up later, okay?”
Her voice was a little too bright, like she was pretending nothing was wrong. I nodded, but something in my gut twisted.
The rest of us finished eating and started back not long after. Robert rejoined the group near the trailhead, moving quietly.
“Where’s Trenny?” I asked.
He barely looked up. “She wanted to walk ahead. Needed some air.”
His tone was casual, but his eyes didn’t meet mine.
As we made our way down, the forest seemed darker than before. The branches arched over the trail, muffling the wind. At one point, I heard rustling off to the side—heavy, deliberate.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Lisa, the girl beside me.
She hesitated. “Probably a deer.”
But it didn’t sound like a deer. It sounded like footsteps, keeping pace just beyond the trees. Robert glanced toward the noise but said nothing, his jaw tight. “Keep moving,” he muttered.
When we finally reached the buses, Trenny wasn’t there. The teachers started counting heads. “Has anyone seen Gibson?” one called out. We all looked around, murmuring.
“She was ahead of me,” Robert said flatly. “Must’ve taken a wrong turn.”
The teachers searched the area while the rest of us waited, calling her name. “Trenny! Trenny!” But the woods only echoed us back.
Search teams formed, and I joined one. We retraced the trail, shouting until our throats were raw. Near a bend in the path, someone found a crushed beer can and cigarette butts—brands her brother smoked, though he hadn’t come on the trip. It didn’t make sense. “She wouldn’t go off-trail,” I told Lisa. “She knows better than that.”
Robert stayed near the buses, saying he was tired. When someone pressed him, his hands trembled slightly.
By dusk, park rangers had arrived with dogs. The hounds followed her scent down the trail, then veered sharply into the brush toward a small pull-off by the road. And then... nothing. The trail just stopped cold.
“Maybe someone picked her up,” one ranger whispered to a teacher.
But who would be waiting for her out there?
That night, back home, I couldn’t sleep. The phone rang late—Trenny’s mother. Her voice cracked when she asked, “Did she say anything to you? Anything about plans?”
I hesitated, then told her about how nervous Trenny had been, how she’d mentioned Robert acting strange. “They talked alone at lunch,” I said quietly. There was silence on the line, then a soft, “Thank you, sweetheart.”
The days that followed blurred together. Police questioned everyone. Robert’s story kept shifting—first he said they argued about something trivial, then that she walked off angry, then that she seemed fine. They found her hair comb in his car a few days later. “She left it there last week,” he claimed. But no one could remember her ever getting in his car.
Worse, her sapphire ring—the one she never took off—turned up at school, worn by one of Robert’s friends. “Found it on the trail,” she said when asked, but her voice shook.
Calls started coming to Trenny’s house—breathing, then silence. Once, when I called to check on her mom, Robert answered. “I’m helping the family,” he said, voice low. Later, Mrs. Gibson told me she never asked him to.
After that, he started watching me at school. I’d look up in the hallway and catch him staring, expression blank. Sometimes I’d see his car parked near my street after dark. Once, I turned around walking home and thought I saw someone step behind a tree. I ran all the way back, heart pounding.
Months passed. The search was called off. Some said Trenny ran away, maybe with Kelvin. But he was devastated. “She wouldn’t leave without telling me,” he said through tears. I believed him.
Years later, I still dream about that day. About her blue sweater disappearing into the trees. The scent trail ending near the road. The silence after her name stopped echoing back.
Maybe Robert did something—maybe someone else was waiting. Files went missing, reports sealed, leads vanished. His father worked with the park service, had friends in the right places. Too many questions, no answers.
I haven’t gone back to those mountains since. The woods there don’t just hold secrets—they hold people. You can feel it, that stillness in the air, like something watching from between the trees. Sometimes, when the wind shifts just right, I swear I can still hear her laugh carried through the pines—bright, familiar, and cut short too soon.
I’ll never know what really happened to Trenny Gibson. But the fear, the guilt, and that echo… they’ve never left me.
"A Quiet Place":
That November morning, I rose before dawn, breath misting in the cold kitchen light. The woods outside were still black, a low fog hanging over the fields. I was excited—Elmer and I had been planning our deer hunt for weeks, same as we’d done every year since we were young men. Tradition, you could say.
Elmer lived a few miles out, on a stretch of backwoods road that wound through the pines and climbed toward the ridge. His cabin sat on a small clearing, tucked so deep you could drive past it twice before noticing the smoke from his chimney. Usually, Clara would have the stove going by the time I arrived, greeting me with that bright smile and a mug of strong coffee. She always made biscuits too—hot, flaky things that smelled like butter and warmth.
That morning, as I turned down the narrow dirt path toward their place, something felt wrong. The fog was thicker there, and the trees pressed close on either side like they were holding their breath. The first thing I saw was the Cadillac—parked crooked at the edge of the yard, door half open, frost glinting on the windshield. No light in the windows. No smoke. No sound.
I slowed, squinting through the windshield. The stillness was heavy, unnatural. I killed the engine, the silence swallowing the hum instantly. My boots crunched over the leaf litter as I called out, “Elmer? Clara?”
No answer.
I took a few steps closer, heart thudding, and that’s when I noticed the banjo case sitting on the porch steps. It looked out of place—left carelessly, latch open. Elmer would never leave it out like that. He treated his instruments better than most men treat their own children.
The yard was scattered with leaves and early frost, the grass stiff underfoot. Then I saw it—something lying near the big hickory tree, half-hidden by the shadows. At first I thought it was a bundle of clothes, maybe something dropped from the line. But as I got closer, the shape resolved into something terrible.
Clara.
She was face down, her dress twisted, her arms flung out unnaturally. There was blood—dark, sticky, frozen around her hair. For a second, my mind refused to understand what I was seeing. Then the world seemed to narrow, and I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Clara!” I shouted, shaking her shoulder. But she was cold—cold as the earth beneath her. Frost glittered in her hair. There was a hole in the back of her head, small and neat and final.
I staggered back, heart hammering, breath coming in ragged bursts. The woods were so quiet that even the distant crows seemed to hold their calls. Someone had done this—someone close enough to still be watching. I ran to my truck, grabbed my rifle, and moved toward the cabin, every sound in the underbrush making me flinch.
The front door hung open. I pushed it slow, the hinges creaking loud in that awful silence. Inside looked like a storm had passed through—drawers dumped, chairs overturned, papers scattered like snowdrifts. The air smelled of gunpowder and cold ashes.
Then I saw him.
Elmer was on the floor by the fireplace, eyes wide open, mouth slightly parted as if trying to speak. His overalls were soaked in blood. A small pistol lay near his hand, a few spent shells glittering beside it. His old radio was still on, whispering a country tune from the corner, static crackling under the melody.
I froze, unable to move. My best friend—gone.
For a long moment, I just stood there, shaking. Then instinct took over. I stumbled to the wall phone, but the line was dead—the cord cut clean near the baseboard. Later, I’d find the wire slashed outside too.
I turned to leave when I heard a sound from the back room—a rustle, quick and soft. My grip tightened on the rifle.
“Who’s there?” My voice cracked.
Silence.
I inched forward, the boards creaking under my boots. The door to the bedroom was ajar, but when I pushed it open, there was nothing—just the pale curtains stirring from a draft, and the faint smell of gun oil. Still, the feeling didn’t leave me. Someone had been here. Maybe still was.
I backed out slowly, rifle raised, eyes sweeping the tree line. The woods were endless shadows. Every stump looked like someone crouching. Every sound made me jump.
I didn’t wait. I ran for the truck, fired it up, and tore down that road faster than I ever had before.
When I burst through my front door, Betty turned from the stove, startled.
“Good Lord, Harlan—what happened?”
“Call the sheriff,” I said, gasping. “It’s Elmer and Clara. They’re dead.”
Her face drained of color. “Dead? Are you sure?”
“I saw them. Both of them. Shot.”
Her hands shook as she dialed, voice trembling when she spoke to the dispatcher. I just stood there, pacing, trying to keep the images from my head—the banjo case, the blood, Elmer’s empty stare.
The sheriff and his deputies arrived within the hour, lights cutting through the fog as we drove back. They taped off the yard, cameras flashing as they walked the property. I followed behind, numb. One deputy crouched near the tracks leading away from the cabin.
“Another vehicle’s been here,” he said. “Looks like an old station wagon.”
Elmer’s second car—gone.
Inside, they took photos of everything. The cold ashes. The overturned chair. The pistol by the fire. They found hidden pockets in Elmer’s overalls—cash still there, untouched. Whatever the killers came for, it wasn’t money.
That afternoon, word spread through the county like wildfire. By nightfall, everyone at the diner knew. Folks sat in hushed groups, talking over their coffee.
“Can’t be real,” someone said. “Elmer never hurt nobody.”
“Maybe a robbery gone wrong,” another whispered. “Heard he didn’t trust banks.”
I just sat there, staring at my untouched plate. The chatter around me felt far away, like I was underwater. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Days passed, each one worse than the last. I couldn’t sleep without seeing Clara in the frost or hearing the faint twang of Elmer’s banjo echoing through the woods.
A week later, the sheriff came by with news—they’d caught them. Two young cousins from a town thirty miles off. Drunk, desperate, looking for cash they’d heard Elmer kept hidden. They broke in while he was out, waited in the dark. When Elmer came home, he must’ve grabbed his pistol. Shots were fired. Clara ran. They chased her down.
At the trial, one of them sat there in shackles, blank-faced, and said, “We didn’t mean to kill nobody. He came at us first.”
The other nodded. “She screamed. I just wanted her to stop.”
The judge gave them life. But no sentence could make the horror fade.
I went back to the cabin one last time before it sold. The place was quiet, stripped of life. The porch sagged, and the banjo case still sat where I’d found it, latch rusted shut. For a moment, I could almost hear Elmer’s laughter, Clara humming in the kitchen, the faint rhythm of music drifting through the pines.
The woods around me were still as ever, hiding their secrets under frost and shadow.
Since that day, I’ve locked my doors at sundown. I keep the rifle by the bed. Because out here, even in the quietest places, evil can walk right up your driveway and smile before it kills you.
And every November morning, when the air smells of frost and old leaves crunch underfoot, I remember that day—the Cadillac askew, the blood, the silence—and wonder how close I came to being the third body in that cabin.
"The Devil’s Acre":
As the pastor of a modest church in Eufaula, Oklahoma, I’d known the Lawson family for several years. Robert Lawson was a tall man in his mid-forties with a quiet, deliberate way about him—one of those men who always seemed to be carrying some private weight. He worked odd jobs around town, fixing fences, patching roofs, never saying much unless spoken to. His wife, Cheryl, was softer, more open—a homemaker with kind eyes and a habit of bringing little Emily to Sunday school early so she could help set out crayons for the other children. Emily was six, bright, always smiling during service like the world hadn’t yet shown her its dark corners.
They lived on the edge of town, where the pavement gave way to gravel and then to fields that slowly thickened into the forests leading toward the eastern hills. I’d driven past their place many times—an old white house with peeling paint and a swing hanging lopsided from a tree branch. I never imagined that one day, that image would come back to me in nightmares.
It began with a phone call on a Tuesday afternoon in early October of 2009. My desk was cluttered with sermon notes when the phone rang.
“Pastor Gary,” a voice said. It was Robert—steady, but there was something in it, something strained. “I need to talk. Can I come by?”
“Of course, Robert,” I said. “Door’s always open.”
He arrived within the hour. The air was cool and gray that day, leaves rustling across the church parking lot as he climbed the steps. His jacket looked worn, his hands shoved deep into the pockets. When he sat down across from me, he kept his eyes low, fixed on the floorboards between us.
“What’s going on?” I asked gently.
He hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice dropped. “It’s my father. We’ve had trouble for years. Last November he ran me down with his car during an argument—broke my arm.”
I blinked, stunned. “Good Lord, Robert. Did you report it?”
He nodded faintly. “Police came. But nothing stuck. He’s smart—always just on the right side of the law. Now he’s making threats again. Says he’ll come after us—me, Cheryl, even Emily. I think he’s into something bad… meth, maybe. He’s got people behind him. The kind that don’t forget.”
I tried to keep my voice calm. “You need to go to the authorities again.”
“They can’t help,” he said flatly. “I just wanted someone to know. In case something happens.”
We talked for nearly an hour. He spoke of his father’s cruelty, of debts and grudges stretching back decades. He mentioned he’d found a plot of land up near Red Oak, deep in the San Bois Mountains—forty acres of peace, he said. “A fresh start,” were his exact words.
Before he left, we prayed together. His handshake was firm, but his eyes… they carried a look I can still picture—half fear, half resignation, like a man who already knows he’s being followed.
Two days later, Cheryl called me. Her voice trembled. “Pastor, Robert told me he spoke with you. Could I come by? Alone?”
When she arrived, she looked exhausted, her hair hastily tied back, a crumpled tissue clenched in one hand.
“Robert’s worried about his father,” she said quietly. “But it’s more than that. We’ve been getting calls—late at night. No one says anything. Just silence. Last week, someone drove past the house slow… real slow. I keep my handgun close, but…” She trailed off, glancing toward the window.
“Do you think it’s him? His father?” I asked.
“Maybe. Robert says he’s mixed up with dangerous people. We even found a note on our door once—‘Stay out of it.’ No name. No explanation.”
She told me about their plan to move into the mountains—forty acres of isolation and safety. Emily, she said, was thrilled, drawing pictures of cabins and pine trees. When she spoke her daughter’s name, her voice broke. “I just want her safe.”
We prayed together too. She hugged me before leaving. “Thank you, Pastor. You don’t know how much this means.”
That was the last time I saw any of them alive.
A week passed, then two. I noticed their seats empty at Sunday service. The following afternoon, I drove out to their house. Their truck was gone, curtains drawn. The yard looked normal at first—but as I stepped onto the porch, an uneasy stillness hung in the air. Through a window I saw dishes left in the sink, a toy lying on the floor. It felt as though the family had vanished in the middle of life’s routine rhythm.
I called the sheriff the next day. “The Lawsons haven’t been around,” I told Deputy Harris. “Robert said his father was threatening him.”
“We’ll check it out,” he replied.
Days turned into more. Then the rumors began—some said they’d fled the state, others whispered darker things.
On October 17, search parties formed. I joined one, driving into the San Bois Mountains under a low ceiling of clouds. The roads wound like veins through dense, silent woods. Cell service vanished. We split into small groups, calling their names into the trees.
By late afternoon, a hunter radioed in: he’d found their truck on a dirt trail south of Kinta. We hurried there. The white pickup sat half-sunk in mud, door ajar. Inside, their dog Maisie whimpered weakly, ribs showing. Someone handed her water, and she drank like she hadn’t in days.
“Look here,” one searcher said, pointing to the back seat. There were their wallets, IDs, phones—all untouched. Under a blanket lay a thick stack of cash. We counted later—thirty-two thousand dollars.
“Why would they leave that behind?” someone muttered.
No one answered. Cheryl’s handgun was missing, along with a brown briefcase she’d told me held their important papers. The GPS showed they’d driven straight there. Then… nothing.
As dusk fell, I told the deputy I’d scout a nearby trail. “I won’t go far,” I said.
The woods swallowed me almost immediately. Branches clawed at my sleeves. The air was heavy and still, the silence pressing against my ears.
“Robert? Cheryl?” My voice carried but didn’t return.
Then—a snap. A twig, close. I froze.
Another sound—rustling, faint but deliberate, like footsteps shifting just out of sight. My flashlight beam cut through the gloom, catching glimpses of brush, tree trunks, and shadow. Then I saw it: a torn scrap of pink fabric caught on a thornbush. I knew that color. Emily’s jacket.
My hands trembled as I picked it up. “Emily?” I whispered.
The woods didn’t answer. Just another crack—a branch breaking. Closer this time.
I turned in circles, the light shaking wildly. I saw nothing, yet I knew I wasn’t alone. The air changed, grew colder, heavier. My pulse thundered. I backed away, then broke into a run, stumbling back to the group, clutching that pink scrap like a lifeline.
“There’s something out there,” I gasped to the deputy. “Something—or someone—watching.”
Searches went on for weeks. Helicopters circled, dogs combed the ridges, volunteers scoured the hills. I went back several times myself. Once, standing on a ridge at dusk, I thought I saw a tall figure far down the valley, motionless, facing me. When I blinked, it was gone.
Robert’s father denied everything, his alibi thin as paper. Nothing was ever proven.
Four years later, in November 2013, hunters found skeletal remains three miles from where the truck had been. Two adults, one child. DNA confirmed it: the Lawsons. No gunshot wounds. No clear injuries. Just bones scattered by animals and time.
The case was closed as “undetermined.”
But I still wake some nights, heart racing, hearing those phantom footsteps in the dark woods of my mind.
Sometimes, when I drive those mountain roads and the fog drifts through the trees, I swear I see a figure just beyond the pines—tall, still, waiting. Watching.
And I remember Robert’s last words before he left my office.
“If anything happens, Pastor… promise you’ll remember us.”
I do. Every night.