The Hollow in the Pines

The memory has always been a splinter in my mind, but it wasn’t until I was much older that it started to fester. It happened when I was six, during a summer trip to a remote cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. My father, my aunt, and my two older brothers were there. The cabin belonged to a friend of my aunt’s, a woman who had passed away the previous winter. It was a squat, weather-beaten structure made of rough-hewn logs, tucked into a grove of ancient pines so dense that the sun barely touched the forest floor. Behind the cabin, the ground sloped down to a dark, still lake, its surface always covered in a thin layer of green scum. My aunt warned us repeatedly to stay away from the shore, saying the mud were like quicksand and the water was too cold to swim in. But the warning only made the lake more alluring.

My father and I shared a tiny bedroom at the back of the cabin. The walls were so thin I could hear the scratch of pine needles against the roof, and there was a knot hole in the wall right by my cot, through which I could see the sliver of the lake as if through a peephole. One night, I woke early, the room still dark. The air was heavy with the smell of pine and dampness. I heard a faint sound, a rhythmic splashing, like something dragging itself through water. Intrigued, I pressed my eye to the knot hole. The lake was silver in the pre-dawn light, and there, at the water’s edge, stood a figure. It was tall and impossibly thin, with long, bony limbs that moved in a way that wasn’t quite natural. It wasn’t a person; it was more like a scarecrow made of wet bark and moss, its head cocked at an unnatural angle as if listening. And it was staring straight at the cabin, at my window, as if it knew I was watching.

I held my breath, my heart pounding so loud I thought it would wake my father. The thing stood there for what felt like an eternity. Then, slowly, it raised one arm, pointing a long, gnarled finger directly at the knot hole. I felt a cold dread seep into my chest. I scrambled away from the wall, burying my head under the pillow. When I finally dared to look again, the figure was gone. The lake was still, the only sound the soft lap of water. I told myself it was a dream, a trick of the light, but I couldn’t shake the image.

The next morning, I tried to tell my father about what I had seen. He laughed, saying it was probably a fog bank or a deer. My aunt grew quiet, her face pale. She said the lake had a history. A child had drowned there decades ago, and the mother had gone mad, wandering into the pines. They never found her body. She told me not to worry, that the old stories were just that, stories. But I noticed she avoided looking at the lake for the rest of the day.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my cot, watching the knot hole, listening to the forest sounds. The wind picked up, and I heard the splashing again, louder this time. I forced myself to look. The figure was closer, standing just beyond the tree line, its form barely visible among the pines. It was moving, but not walking; it glided, its feet not touching the ground. It stopped at the edge of the clearing, and I could see its face, or what passed for a face: a smooth, featureless surface like a mask of moss, with deep, empty pits where eyes should be. It raised its arm again, pointing at the cabin, and I swear I heard a voice, a low, guttural whisper that seemed to come from inside my own head: ‘Come to me.’

I screamed, thrashing in my cot, and my father woke. He held me, asking what was wrong. I pointed at the window, but when he looked, there was nothing. He shone a flashlight into the dark, the beam cutting through the pines. Nothing. He stayed with me the rest of the night, his hand on my back, but I could feel his tension. He didn’t go back to sleep.

By morning, I had convinced myself it was a nightmare, especially since nothing had happened. But then, my aunt went missing. She had gone down to the lake early to ‘clear her head,’ as she did sometimes, and she hadn’t come back. We searched the property, called out her name, but all we found at the water’s edge was a single shoe, half-sunk in the mud. The police were called, divers went into the lake, but they found nothing. My aunt was declared lost to a tragic accident, but I knew better.

We left the cabin that day, but the image of that thing stayed with me, haunting my dreams. Years later, I returned to the area with a friend, determined to confront whatever it was. The cabin was still there, but the pines had grown thicker, the lake darker. As I stood on the shore, I felt a cold presence, and I saw a ripple in the still water, moving toward me. But it wasn’t a fish. It was the shape of a woman, her hair like wet weeds, her skin like bark, her eyes like the void. She rose from the water, water dripping from her, and she pointed at me with a finger that was a twisted root. ‘You came back,’ she whispered, and her voice was the wind, the water, the pines. ‘Now you can take my place.’

I turned and ran, crashing through the underbrush, not stopping until I hit the road. I never looked back, but I know she’s still there, waiting. And sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear that splashing sound, and I know she’s coming for me, because I saw her, and she won’t let anyone see her and live.