Chapter 1: The Call

Chapter 1: The Call

The only sound in Hollow Creek General was the tired hum of the beverage cooler. Dust motes, ancient and undisturbed, danced in the single beam of fading sunlight slanting through the grimy front window. Jamie Thorne watched them, his hand frozen mid-swipe as he wiped down the counter. It was 8 PM, closing time, and the bell above the door hadn't rung in over four hours. It might as well have been welded shut.

Hollow Creek was a town defined by what it had lost. The mill had closed a decade ago, the diner last year, and now even the silence felt thin, stretched taut over empty storefronts and cracked pavement. At thirty-eight, Jamie felt like another fixture slowly succumbing to the town’s decay. His store, his life, was a museum of dwindling inventory and forgotten hopes.

He finished his wipe-down, the damp rag leaving a clean streak on the worn Formica that was already starting to evaporate. A final lock-up. He checked the bolts on the front door, turned the sign to ‘CLOSED,’ and trudged up the creaking stairs to the small apartment he’d lived in since taking over the store from his father.

The place was spartan: a couch, a small television that mostly played static, and a kitchen table buried under a week’s worth of unopened mail. He tossed his keys into a ceramic bowl on the table, the clatter unnaturally loud in the stillness. He was just reaching for a beer, the promise of its cold bite the only thing he’d looked forward to all day, when the phone rang.

The shrill, piercing sound ripped through the quiet apartment, making him jump. No one called this late. His sister, Sydney, would text. Salesmen gave up at five. For a wild moment, he thought it might be Jason, calling to drag him out for a drink at the one remaining bar on the edge of town, the one with the flickering neon sign and watery beer. A smile touched his lips before the second ring killed it. Jason wouldn’t call this late either. He was a family man, a creature of routine. He’d be at home with Sydney, probably reading to their daughter, Maya.

Jamie picked up the phone, a knot of unease tightening in his stomach. "Hello?"

"Jamie?"

It was Sydney. But it wasn't her voice. This was a choked, shattered version of it, a sound so broken he barely recognized it.

"Syd? What is it? What's wrong?" He gripped the phone tighter, his knuckles turning white. He could hear a strange sound in the background, a wail that rose and fell. It took him a second to realize it was his sister, trying and failing to stifle her own sobs.

"Jamie... it's Jason."

The world tilted. The humming from the cooler downstairs seemed to roar in his ears. "Jason? What about him? Was there an accident?" He imagined a car crash, a work site injury. Jason was a contractor, always surrounded by heavy machinery and unseen dangers.

"No," she gasped, the word splintering. "He... he was home. The police... they said he fell. Down the stairs."

Fell. The word was small, stupid. It didn't fit Jason. Jason Miller was a mountain. He was the one who had co-signed the loan for this failing store without a second thought. He was the one who’d taught Jamie how to throw a baseball, how to drive a stick shift, how to not give up on himself. Men like Jason didn't just fall.

"Syd, that doesn't make any sense," Jamie said, his own voice sounding distant, hollow.

"He's gone, Jamie," she sobbed, and the finality in her voice hit him like a physical blow. "He's gone. I need you. Please, I need you to come."

The line went dead. Jamie stood there, holding the silent phone to his ear, listening to the dial tone’s indifferent drone. Gone. The word echoed in the empty apartment. Jason. His best friend. His brother. The bedrock of their small, fragile family.

A cold numbness spread through him, a merciful shield against the roaring grief that was waiting just beneath. Action. He needed to act. Get to Sydney. That was the only thought that could cut through the fog.

He moved on autopilot, grabbing his keys from the bowl. His wallet. His gaze fell on a hook by the door where a red and white baseball cap hung. A simple, cheap thing, the logo of some long-forgotten minor league team on the front. Jason had given it to him for his birthday last month. "To keep the sun out of your weary eyes, old man," he'd said with that easy grin, clapping Jamie on the shoulder with a hand as solid and dependable as the earth itself.

Without thinking, Jamie snatched the cap and jammed it onto his head. It felt like putting on a piece of armor. A piece of his friend.

His old Toyota Corolla started on the second try, its engine sputtering to life in the back alley. He didn't remember the drive through Hollow Creek’s deserted streets, the stop signs he ran, or the potholes he hit. His world had shrunk to a single, desperate objective: get to Sydney’s house on the other side of Blackwood Forest.

The main highway was a river of unmoving red lights. Far ahead, the flashing blue and red of emergency vehicles painted the night sky. A jackknifed truck, according to the radio. The road was closed. Indefinitely.

A primal scream of frustration built in Jamie's throat. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel, the horn blaring once, a pathetic sound lost in the vast, indifferent night. He couldn't wait here. He couldn't sit in this metal box while his sister was falling apart.

His mind raced, clawing for a solution. And then, a memory surfaced, dusty and unused, from a childhood spent exploring the county with his father. An old service route. A shortcut.

Sparrow Road.

It hadn't been maintained in twenty years, maybe more. Most people had forgotten it even existed. It was a treacherous ribbon of cracked asphalt that cut straight through the dense, unnerving heart of the forest. "You don't go down Sparrow Road after dark," his father used to say, a strange seriousness in his voice that Jamie had always dismissed as local superstition.

But tonight, superstition was a luxury he couldn't afford. Sydney needed him.

With a lurch of decision, Jamie wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right, bumping the Corolla over the gravel shoulder. He swung the car around, his headlights sweeping across the faces of the other stagnant drivers, their expressions a mixture of boredom and mild curiosity. He gunned the engine, heading back the way he came for half a mile until he saw it.

It was barely an opening in the trees, more like a scar in the landscape, marked only by a rusted, bullet-riddled sign that was no longer legible. The darkness beyond the entrance was absolute, a solid wall of black that seemed to swallow the light from his high beams.

His father's warning echoed in his mind. But the image of Sydney's grief, the sound of her broken voice, was louder.

He took a shaky breath, the red and white cap low on his brow, and turned the wheel. The tires crunched over fallen leaves and broken asphalt as the Toyota Corolla plunged into the waiting mouth of Sparrow Road, leaving the world of red tail lights and rational decisions behind.