The Pines Behind the Gate

It was the autumn of 2013, and I was in my second year of boarding school, though the term ‘boarding’ was a generous description for a place just a twenty-minute walk from my own front door. My parents, convinced that I was a wayward soul in need of discipline, had enrolled me in St. Aldric’s, an institution that loomed on the edge of our small town like a grey stone monument to obedience. I was neither a saint nor a troublemaker, just a boy fond of the flickering glow of the cinema and the warm hum of a console in a friend’s basement. That friend was Elias, and his home was a sanctuary I sought every chance I got.

Elias’s house sat at the end of a long, gravel driveway that wound through a dense plantation of spruces and pines, rows upon rows of them, like soldiers standing in silent formation. The grounds were immaculate, with a lawn that seemed to be mowed every other day, and a small soccer pitch with white wooden goalposts that looked almost toy-like. There was a swing set and a sandbox, but as we grew older those held little interest. What drew us was the promise of digital adventures in his basement, the glow of the television, the smell of popcorn, and the thrill of sneaking out after lights-out.

That particular evening, I had climbed over the school’s low wall—more of a decorative fence, really—and jogged through the back alleys until I reached the tree line. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. Elias was waiting for me at the edge of the pines, his silhouette barely visible in the dim light of the security lamps that dotted the driveway. ‘You’re late,’ he said, his voice a little too tight. I shrugged, but something in his manner felt different, a nervous energy that didn’t match our usual routine.

We headed inside, past the grand foyer with its heavy oak staircase and the living room where his parents often sat, but tonight the house felt oddly empty. ‘They’re at some charity gala,’ Elias explained, as if reading my mind. He led me down to the basement, a cavernous space lined with paneled walls and shelves of board games and old VHS tapes. We settled into the familiar ritual: the click of the console, the chiptune music, the hours melting away. But around midnight, as we were deep into a racing game, the lights flickered. Not just once, but in a rhythmic pattern, as if someone was playing with the switch.

‘That’s odd,’ Elias muttered, craning his neck toward the stairs. ‘The power’s usually stable.’ He paused the game, and a heavy silence settled in. Then we heard it: a soft thumping, like a heavy ball being bounced, coming from the yard. Elias went pale. ‘That’s… that’s not possible,’ he whispered. He walked to a small basement window that framed a view of the lower field, and I joined him. Outside, under the pale moon, a figure was standing near the goalposts. It was too tall, its proportions wrong—limbs too long, head too small, and it was holding something. A ball, perhaps. But as it bounced the ball, the sound reached us with a delay, like an echo from a deep well.

I wanted to laugh, to make a joke about a prank, but Elias’s face was a mask of terror. ‘That’s my father’s old scarecrow,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘He put it up years ago to keep the crows off the lawn. But it was taken down last spring… and burned.’ I squinted at the figure. It indeed looked like a scarecrow, but its movements were fluid, almost liquid. It turned its head—if it had a head—toward the window, and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. The thumping stopped.

We backed away from the window, and for a moment nothing happened. Then the lights went out entirely. The basement was plunged into darkness, save for the faint glow of the moon through the window, now revealing the scarecrow had moved closer, its form distorted, limbs bending at unnatural angles. I fumbled for my phone, turning on the flashlight, and the beam cut through the dark to reveal Elias’s face, pale as paper. ‘I need to show you something,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. He gestured to a corner of the basement where, behind a stack of boxes, there was a hidden door I’d never noticed. It was ajar, and a faint, sickly light seeped through the crack.

Without waiting for my agreement, he pushed it open. The door led to a narrow staircase that I hadn’t known existed, descending further into the earth. The air grew musty, and a low, rhythmic hum vibrated through the walls. At the bottom, there was a small, stone-lined room lit by a single bare bulb. In the center stood a wooden table, and on it, an old, leather-bound journal. Elias opened it with trembling hands, the pages yellowed and brittle. It was his grandfather’s diary, from the 1950s, when the plantation had been used as a winter storage for the town’s grain. The entries were mundane at first, but then they turned frantic. ‘The pines are deep,’ one entry read, ‘they feed on the soil, but they hunger for more. They whisper at night, when the wind dies.’ The final entry, dated October 31st, 1958, was a single line: ‘The scarecrow walks, and it takes the shape of those who sleep too close.’

I laughed nervously, but Elias didn’t. ‘My great-uncle disappeared here,’ he said. ‘They found his jacket in the pines, torn to shreds. And every autumn, for the last few weeks before Halloween, I’ve seen things. Shadows moving between the trees. A figure standing at the edge of the lawn, watching the house. I thought it was my imagination. But tonight, it’s closer.’

We hurried back up the stairs, but when we reached the basement, the window was shattered. Shards of glass lay on the floor, and the scarecrow was standing just inside, its burlap face split into a grotesque smile, straw spilling from the seams like dried entrails. It took a step forward, and the floorboards creaked. I grabbed Elias’s arm and we bolted up the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the back door, not daring to look behind us. The cold night air hit us, and we ran across the lawn, past the swing set, past the sandbox, until we plunged into the embracing darkness of the pines.

The trees closed around us, their branches clawing at our faces. We ran deeper, the sounds of our footsteps muffled by layers of fallen needles. We knew the plantation was vast, but we had no idea how vast until we were lost. We stopped after what felt like an eternity, lungs burning, and looked back. Beyond the treeline, we could see the distant silhouette of Elias’s house, the lights flickering. And in the yard, the scarecrow was still there, but it was smaller, as if it had shrunk. No—it was watching us, but it did not follow. It simply stood, a sentinel, as if it had accomplished its task.

We walked for hours, eventually finding a road. I never went back to Elias’s house. He moved away a few months later, and we lost touch. But sometimes, late at night, I think about that scarecrow, and I remember the last thing Elias said before we parted ways that night, his voice hollow and worn: ‘It only comes when you leave the gate open. And we left it open.’

I still don’t know what that means. But every autumn, when the wind rustles through my hometown’s trees, I catch a glimpse of a shape that might be a figure, standing at the edge of the woods, waiting for someone to wander too close. And I wonder if the pines remember what they’ve taken, and if they hunger still.