Chapter 1: The Unwanted Guest

Chapter 1: The Unwanted Guest

The silence was the first thing Jennifer had noticed. It wasn't the quiet of the city, that low hum of distant traffic and unseen lives that you could wrap yourself in like a worn blanket. This was the deep, bottomless silence of the country, of old money nestled in older woods. It was the kind of quiet that felt heavy, like it was listening.

For two hundred dollars a night, she could handle being listened to by a bunch of trees. The house itself was ridiculous, a glass-and-cedar monument to someone else's success. Cathedral ceilings soared over a living room filled with sterile white furniture and abstract art that looked like a paint factory had exploded. Jennifer, curled on a sofa that probably cost more than her community college tuition, felt like a grubby little secret in someone else’s pristine world. Her desire was simple: survive the weekend, collect the cash, and go back to her own life, where the noise was honest.

A gust of wind rattled the immense glass door that made up the entire back wall of the living room, and she jumped. She’d been scrolling through her phone, the blue light a small shield against the oppressive dark pressing in from the outside. Beyond the manicured lawn, the forest began—a solid, impenetrable wall of black. Clark’s Creek wasn't a town so much as a collection of wealthy estates pretending the wilderness wasn't patiently waiting to swallow them whole.

She was just about to put on some music, to fill the cavernous space with sound, when she heard it.

Thump.

Not a knock. A heavy, fleshy sound against the glass.

Jennifer’s heart kicked against her ribs. She froze, phone held tight in her hand, and listened. Probably a bird, stunned from a late-night flight. Or a deer. The homeowners had warned her about deer.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

This was no bird. This was frantic. Desperate. An obstacle rising from the night.

She slid off the couch, her bare feet cold on the polished hardwood floor. Her mind raced. A drunk neighbor? A prank? The nearest house was a quarter-mile through the woods. She crept toward the glass door, her reflection a pale, wide-eyed ghost moving against the inky blackness outside.

As she got closer, a shape resolved itself from the darkness, pressed against the pane. A human shape. A face, pale and streaked with something dark.

"Jen!" a voice rasped, muffled by the thick glass. "Jen, please!"

Her breath hitched. She knew that voice.

"Jimmy?" she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth.

She fumbled with the locks, her fingers clumsy with shock. The deadbolt slid back with a heavy clack, and she pulled the massive door inward.

James 'Jimmy' Foster stumbled into the house and collapsed onto the floor in a heap of torn clothes and shivering limbs. The coppery smell of blood filled the air instantly. He was a wreck, a ghost from her high school past she hadn't seen in over a year. Back then, he was just the weird kid who talked to himself, who drew strange symbols in his notebooks, and who everyone gave a wide berth. Now, he looked like he’d been dragged through hell by his hair.

His t-shirt was shredded, his face was latticed with scratches, and his knuckles were raw and bloody from where he’d been hammering on the door. He was clutching a dirty, torn strip of fabric in one hand—a makeshift blindfold.

"Jimmy, what the hell happened?" Jennifer dropped to her knees beside him. Her instinct was to call 911, but his frantic, terrified eyes stopped her.

"No time," he gasped, his voice a ragged saw. "No cops. They can't help." He tried to push himself up, his arms trembling. "They're gone, Jen. The Hendersons. They came looking for me. It got them."

"What got them? Jimmy, you're not making any sense. You're bleeding."

"It doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head violently. Dirt flew from his matted hair. He grabbed the front of her hoodie, his grip surprisingly strong. His eyes, wild and haunted, bored into hers. "You have to listen to me. There's a rule. Okay? One rule. You have to follow it."

This was the obstacle she couldn’t rationalize. Not a drunk, not a prank. This was terror, pure and undiluted. Her action was to listen, to let his panic infect her.

"What rule, Jimmy?"

"It's in the woods," he whispered, his gaze darting toward the open door and the blackness beyond. "It imitates things. Voices. Sounds. It wants you to see it. It wants you to look." He tightened his grip, pulling her closer until his desperate, foul breath was hot on her face. "You can't, Jen. No matter what you hear, no matter what you think you see... you can't look at it. You never, ever look. Do you understand me?"

The sheer conviction in his voice cut through her skepticism. This wasn't the rambling paranoia she remembered from school. This was something new. Something sharp and real. The result of her opening the door was this terrifying, impossible secret now spilled on the expensive floor.

"Look at what, Jimmy?"

He started to sob, a choked, broken sound. "I saw it. Just a glimpse. In the reflection of the creek. It... it doesn't have a face, Jen. It's just... horns."

Before she could process the word, a sound drifted in from the darkness. A faint snapping, like a heavy branch breaking underfoot.

Jimmy’s head snapped toward the sound. The blood drained from his face, leaving it a waxy, corpselike mask. Terror gave way to a chilling, absolute resignation.

This was the turning point. He wasn't staying. He hadn't come for help.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, his grip on her hoodie falling away. "I'm so, so sorry, Jen."

He scrambled to his feet, a sudden, panicked burst of energy. Before she could even react, he spun around and bolted back out the open door, disappearing into the same suffocating darkness he had just escaped. He ran as if the house itself was the danger now, not the woods.

Jennifer was left kneeling on the floor, the cold night air pouring into the pristine living room. The silence rushed back in, heavier than before, suffocating. She stared at the smear of Jimmy's blood on the polished floor, her mind a screaming void. It was a prank. A drug-fueled delusion. It had to be.

She pushed herself to her feet, her legs shaking, and slammed the heavy glass door shut. She fumbled with the deadbolt, the sound echoing in the tomb-like quiet. Safe. She was safe. Jimmy was gone. It was just a horrible, bizarre interruption.

She leaned her forehead against the cool glass, her heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She closed her eyes, trying to force the image of Jimmy's terrified face from her mind. It was just Jimmy being Jimmy. That’s all.

And then, from the depths of the woods, a new sound came.

It was not the snap of a twig. It was not the call of an owl or the cry of a fox.

It was a low, guttural, and impossibly long bleat.

Baaaaaaaaa.

The sound stretched, thin and reedy, like the cry of a dying goat, yet it carried an intelligence, a mocking quality that made the fine hairs on her arms stand straight up. It was a farm animal's call, twisted into a question. A summons. A surprise crawling right out of the dark.

Jennifer's blood ran cold.

The creature in the woods knew she was here. And now, she was alone with it.