Elliot didn’t sleep that night.Not really.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that figure again—too tall, too still, too wrong.
And the words.
DON’T LET THEM SEE.
See what?
Or worse—
Who?
Morning didn’t feel like morning.
The sun rose, but it didn’t warm anything.
Gallow’s Creek stayed cold.
Like the light wasn’t welcome.
Elliot sat at his kitchen table, the shoe in front of him, turning it over in his hands.
A kid’s size.
Mrs. Calder’s son.
Or one of the others.
“How many?” he muttered.
He didn’t have to wonder long.
The local records office smelled like dust and neglect.
The clerk didn’t smile when Elliot walked in.
Didn’t greet him.
Just watched.
Same as everyone else.
“I need missing persons reports,” Elliot said.
The clerk didn’t move.
“You don’t need that,” he replied flatly.
Elliot leaned forward slightly. “Didn’t ask what I need.”
A pause.
Then the clerk turned, pulling a stack of files from a cabinet.
He dropped them on the counter.
Hard.
“Take them,” he said. “Won’t help you.”
Elliot flipped through them at a nearby table.
One file.
Then another.
Then another.
His jaw tightened.
This wasn’t a handful of disappearances.
It was dozens.
Going back years.
Always the same pattern.
Last seen near the woods.
No bodies.
No evidence.
Just—
Gone.
Then he noticed something else.
Every victim had something in common.
Not age.
Not gender.
Not background.
It was subtler.
Harder to pin down.
Until it clicked.
“They didn’t fit,” Elliot whispered.
Each of them was different in some way.
Outcasts.
Misfits.
People the town didn’t quite accept.
People the town—
Watched.
Elliot sat back slowly.
A cold realization settling in.
“This place doesn’t ignore people,” he said under his breath.
“It selects them.”
That’s when he felt it.
That same sensation from the woods.
Eyes.
On him.
He looked up.
The clerk was staring.
Not casually.
Not curiously.
Intently.
Like he was waiting.
Watching.
Measuring.
“Something I can help you with?” Elliot asked.
The clerk tilted his head slightly.
And smiled.
Too wide.
Too still.
“You’ve been noticed,” he said.
Elliot stood.
Every instinct screamed at him to leave.
Now.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
The clerk didn’t answer right away.
Just kept smiling.
Then—
“They don’t like being seen,” he said softly.
Elliot’s pulse spiked.
“Who doesn’t?”
The clerk leaned closer.
Close enough that Elliot could smell something rotten on his breath.
“The ones in the trees.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Oppressive.
Elliot grabbed the files and walked out.
Fast.
But not running.
Running would mean fear.
And something told him—
Fear was exactly what they wanted.
Outside, the town felt different.
More people were watching now.
Not hiding it.
Not pretending.
Just—
Watching.
Elliot got into his car, locking the doors immediately.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“You’re imagining it,” he told himself.
But deep down—
He knew he wasn’t.
Because in the rearview mirror—
For just a second—
He saw it.
That tall figure again.
Standing in the middle of the street.
In broad daylight.
And no one else seemed to notice.
Then it tilted its head.
Slowly.
Unnaturally.
And smiled.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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