The Hollow Bark

I spent my childhood in the endless green of the Pacific Northwest, a place where the forest pressed against the edges of our small town like a living thing. My father, a stoic outdoorsman, taught me to read the woods as others read books. He knew every bird call, every rustle of leaves, every shift in the wind. We often camped with our neighbors, the Hendersons, and their son, Leo, who was my age. This is about a trip when we were barely six years old, a memory that still wakes me in cold sweats.

We set up camp near a dried-up riverbed, a place my father called ‘The Hollow’ because of the way sound seemed to be swallowed there. Even our laughter felt muffled, as if the forest itself was listening with a hand cupped over its ear. That night, as the fire crackled, I heard a sound that didn’t belong. It was a bark, but not from any dog or fox I knew. It was low, almost a human cough, coming from the dark beyond our circle of light. My father’s jaw tightened. He told us to stay by the fire and went to investigate, rifle in hand. He came back after a long while, his face unreadable. ‘Probably a raccoon,’ he said, but his eyes scanned the treeline like he expected something to move.

We all settled into our tents, the adults in one, Leo and I in another. I couldn’t sleep. The silence was too deep, too complete. Then I heard it again, that odd bark, closer now. Leo whispered, ‘Did you hear that?’ Before I could answer, our lantern flickered and died. The tent went pitch black. I felt a cold draft that smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves. A scratching sound started on the tent fabric, slow and deliberate, like claws tracing a pattern. Leo started to cry. I wanted to scream for my dad, but my voice was caught in my throat.

The scratching stopped, and a voice, low and raspy, whispered from just outside the tent. It wasn’t my father’s voice. It said, ‘Hello, little ones. May I come in?’ Leo let out a terrorized shriek, and that broke my paralysis. I scrambled out of the tent, dragging Leo with me, and ran to the adults’ tent. My father emerged, face pale, rifle ready. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. I pointed back at our tent, babbling about the voice, the scratch. He walked over, shone his flashlight, and found nothing. The tent was intact. He muttered about nightmares and sent us back to sleep, but he stayed awake, sitting by the dying fire with his gun across his knees.

I didn’t sleep. I watched the firelight play on the trees, counting the hours until dawn. Just before sunrise, I saw something move at the edge of the clearing. It was tall, humanoid, but its limbs were too long, its joints bent like a spider. It stood there, perfectly still, watching the tent. I couldn’t make out a face, just a dark hollow where one should be. Then it turned and slipped into the forest. I woke up screaming, and this time, my father didn’t dismiss it. He saw the terror in my eyes. But when he looked where I pointed, there was nothing. He eventually suggested we leave early, and we packed up as the first light filtered through the canopy. As we trudged back to the car, I looked over my shoulder and saw it again, standing between the trees, a silhouette with no face. It raised a hand, as if waving goodbye.

We never spoke of it. The Hendersons moved away a year later, and we lost touch. I tried to convince myself it was a dream, a child’s fear. But every time I walk through the woods now, even in the safety of a city park, I feel that hollow stillness, and I hear that impossible bark. I found out recently that Leo took his own life ten years ago, and in his journal, he had drawn a faceless figure that matched my memory exactly. He wrote about hearing that voice every night, whispering to him, even in his apartment in the city. He called it ‘The Hollow One.’ Now I know it followed us home, waiting for the moment we’d be alone enough to listen.