The Hollow Creek Incident

My name is Daniel, and for the past decade, I’ve been haunted by an experience that defies all logic. It began in the autumn of 2013, when I moved to a remote town in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. The town was called Hollow Creek, a name that felt as ominous as the thick, misty forests that surrounded it. I was staying with two friends, Marcus and Felix, in a newly built house on the edge of town. We were all in our early thirties, single, and leading ordinary lives—no drugs, no occult dabbling, no reason for anything strange.

The house itself was modern, with large windows that overlooked a dense pine forest. The first week was uneventful, but then, late one night, I felt something. I was lying in bed, half asleep, when a pressure clamped onto my lower back, so strong that it lifted me off the mattress. My body convulsed, and I gasped, but when I turned, there was nothing there. I dismissed it as a muscle spasm, but it happened again the next night, and the next. The touch was cold, like a hand made of ice, and it left a tingling sensation that lingered for hours.

I didn’t tell Marcus and Felix at first. I thought I was imagining things. But soon, they started experiencing it too. Marcus was in the kitchen making coffee when he felt a sharp poke between his shoulder blades. Felix, while showering, felt a wet, grasping hand on his ankle. We sat in the living room, pale and shaken, trying to rationalize it. “It’s the house,” Felix said, but the house was new, built on land that had been cleared only two years prior. We searched for drafts, for faulty wiring, for anything that could explain the touches, but found nothing.

One evening, I decided to explore the forest behind the house. The trees were tall and the ground was covered with a thick blanket of moss. I walked for about twenty minutes until I stumbled upon a clearing. In the center lay a large, flat stone, half-buried in the earth. It was covered in strange carvings—spirals and symbols I didn’t recognize. I felt a prickling sensation on the back of my neck, as if someone was watching me. I hurried back, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had disturbed something.

That night, the touches intensified. I was thrown from my bed, landing hard on the floor. My body was wracked with tremors, and I could feel something pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I heard a faint, low humming, like a distant swarm of bees. I called out for Marcus and Felix, but when they burst into my room, the pressure vanished. They looked at me with fear in their eyes. “We heard you screaming,” Marcus said, but I hadn’t screamed.

The next day, we decided to investigate the stone. We brought shovels and a crowbar, thinking we might dig it up. As we approached the clearing, we saw that the stone was now covered in a thin layer of frost, despite the mild temperature. The carvings seemed to shift as we moved, like they were alive. Felix touched the stone and immediately recoiled. “It’s freezing,” he said. We tried to pry it loose, but it wouldn’t budge. As we worked, I noticed a strange symbol carved on the underside of a nearby tree—a crude drawing of a hand reaching out of the ground.

That evening, Felix acted strangely. He claimed he saw a figure lurking at the edge of the forest, a tall, thin shape with long arms. Marcus and I saw nothing, but we didn’t doubt him. The touches continued, but now they were accompanied by scratching sounds on the walls, like someone dragging their nails across the drywall. We began to feel watched, even inside the house. We tried to sleep in the same room, but the presence followed us.

On the third day, I was in the bathroom when I felt a hand on my shoulder, spinning me around. I came face to face with nothing, but in the mirror, I saw a distorted reflection of myself—my eyes were black pits, and my mouth was stretched into a grotesque grin. I screamed and turned, but the mirror showed my normal face. The reflection faded, but the feeling of dread remained.

We decided to leave Hollow Creek. We packed our bags, but as we drove away, the car’s engine died. It wouldn’t start again. We were stranded. That night, as we sat in the dark, the touches became a barrage. We were slapped, pinched, and shoved. We huddled together, terrified. Then, in the stillness, we heard a voice—a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It said, “You’ve found my resting place. Now you stay.”

We later learned from a local historian that the stone was part of a native burial site, desecrated by the construction of the house. The spirits of the dead, disturbed and angry, were clinging to us. They had latched onto us, following us wherever we went, like a curse. For ten years, I’ve moved from town to town, trying to escape, but the touches never stop. I’ve seen doctors, psychiatrists, shamans—none can help. I’m writing this now, sitting in a motel room, with my back pressed against the wall, because I know that even now, something is waiting to touch me again. And this time, it might not let go.