Chapter 3: A Carving in the Bark

Chapter 3: A Carving in the Bark

Panic is a physical thing. It has a taste, coppery and sharp like old blood, and a sound, the frantic, high-pitched roar of his own pulse in his ears. Liam stood frozen between his ransacked tent and the indifferent lake, the two points of his personal horror. The wet footprints, leading from the water and vanishing at his tent flap, had created a logical paradox that his mind couldn't solve. The theft of his knife was a declaration: I was here. I can touch you.

He had to get out. But the thought of packing, of turning his back on the lake or the woods for even a moment, was paralyzing. He felt like a mouse cowering in the open while the shadow of a hawk circled overhead. He needed to think, to force the gears of his analytical mind to turn, to grind this raw terror into something manageable.

A walk, he thought, the idea surfacing like a gasp for air. Just a short walk. Clear your head.

It was a flimsy excuse, an attempt to impose a mundane activity on an insane situation. There was a trail that looped around the north side of the lake, a path he and his father had walked a dozen times. It was familiar. It was real. Maybe walking it would anchor him back to reality, prove that this was just a place of dirt and trees, not a stage for some impossible nightmare.

Clutching the heavy flashlight like a club—his only remaining tool that could double as a weapon—he forced his legs to move. He left his gear scattered, an offering to the violation that had already taken place. The trailhead was marked by a weathered wooden sign, its letters long faded. He plunged into the woods, the canopy of leaves immediately swallowing the morning light, plunging him into a world of green-tinted twilight.

The forest felt different now. The familiar scent of pine and damp earth was heavy, cloying. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was watchful. Every snap of a twig under his boots sounded like a gunshot. He found himself scanning the dense undergrowth, his eyes playing tricks on him, turning gnarled roots into grasping claws and the shadows between trees into tall, slender figures. The feeling of being observed had returned with a vengeance, a constant, oppressive weight on his shoulders. He was being herded, toyed with.

He walked for maybe ten minutes, the path winding deeper into the old-growth forest. He recognized a cluster of birch trees, their peeling white bark like ghostly skin, and remembered his father explaining how to use it as a fire starter. The memory brought a fresh pang of grief and terror. This place of sanctuary had been poisoned.

Up ahead, something was wrong. A splash of pale color against the dark, furrowed trunk of a massive, ancient oak tree that stood like a gnarled sentinel beside the path. Liam slowed his pace, his heart beginning to thud a heavy, nervous rhythm. The oak had always been a landmark for them, the halfway point of their usual walk.

As he drew closer, the color resolved into fresh wounds in the bark. Raw, deep gashes that hadn't been there on any previous trip. They weren't random marks from an animal; they were deliberate. They were letters.

He stopped dead a few feet away, his breath catching in his throat. His entire world narrowed to the monstrous graffiti carved into the ancient tree.

LIAM HAYES

His full name. Dug into the wood in crude, angry capital letters. They were deep, gouged with a furious strength. Some of the cuts were still weeping a sticky, translucent sap that glistened in the gloom. This was new. This was fresh. This had been done for him.

A wave of nausea and vertigo washed over him. The anonymous terror of the watcher, the illogical horror of the footprints—it had all just become chillingly personal. The thing in the woods, the thing from the lake, knew his name.

His gaze fell from the last letter of his desecrated name to the base of the tree. There, stabbed into the soft earth and moss at the root, was an object that made his blood freeze solid.

It was his camping knife. The one that had vanished from his tent. The handle was slick with dirt and sap.

The air left his lungs in a ragged gasp. It hadn't just stolen his knife to disarm him. It had used it. It had taken his tool and carved his name into this tree like a tombstone, a claim of ownership. Then it had left the knife here for him to find. This wasn't a random haunting. This was a message.

The last vestiges of his rational mind shattered. This was real. This was happening. A frantic, new instinct screamed through the terror: proof. He needed proof. A picture. Something to show the police, a park ranger, anyone. Something to prove he wasn't losing his mind.

His phone.

The thought was a bolt of lightning in the darkness of his panic. His phone was his lifeline, his connection to the outside world, his camera.

He ripped the knife from the ground, not even bothering to wipe it clean. He turned and sprinted back the way he came, his clumsy city-dweller’s feet stumbling on roots and rocks. He didn't care. He crashed through the foliage, branches whipping at his face, the flashlight a useless weight in his hand. The forest was no longer just watching; it felt like it was actively trying to trip him, to hold him back. The silent, watchful pressure was now a gleeful, malevolent hum.

He burst back into the clearing, gasping for breath, his eyes wild. He saw his campsite and skidded to a halt.

It was worse than he’d left it.

His backpack, which had been zipped shut near his tent, was now wide open, its contents strewn across the dirt. Clothes, his first-aid kit, his bag of trail mix—all of it tossed about in a clear, deliberate search.

“No,” he whispered, the word a dry crackle in his throat.

He fell to his knees beside the backpack, his hands scrambling through the mess, tossing aside his belongings with frantic energy. He dug into every pocket, every compartment, his desperation mounting into a silent scream.

It wasn't there.

His wallet was there, cash and cards untouched. His car keys were still in the side pouch. But his phone was gone.

Liam sat back on his heels amidst the wreckage of his campsite. He was holding his own knife, which had been used to carve his name into a tree by a thing that came out of the lake. He looked at the ransacked gear, the proof of an intelligent entity that had anticipated his every move. It had let him discover the carving. It had known he would run back for his phone. And it had taken it.

It hadn't just disarmed him. It hadn't just terrorized him. It had systematically, intelligently, and patiently severed every single connection he had to the outside world. The trap wasn’t just set; it was sealed. He was cut off. He was alone. And the sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky. Night was coming again.