Hollow Eyes

Grandma always told me not to go past the blackberry thicket. “Don’t wander too deep”, she’d say, “the woods got eyes”.

It sounded like something out of a bedtime story, and I never put much stock in it. I was fifteen the first time I saw it. I was the kind of girl who read ghost stories under my quilt with a flashlight and dared myself to walk the ridge path at dusk on my way home. Fear wasn’t something I ran from – I would poke it with a stick just to see if it would poke back.

That night, when the sun bled orange over the smoky mountains and the cicadas started their screeching, I slung a flashlight into my pocket and stepped over the thicket. The woods closed in fast, heavy with shadows. Roots snagged my sneakers, briars grasping and tugging at my jeans, but I pressed on, determined to see the ridge before the light vanished.

That’s when I noticed the silence.

No cicadas. No owls. Not even wind in the leaves. Just a thick, heavy stillness that pressed hard against my eardrums. The shadows devoured any hope of light that wiggled free through the trees. Even the fireflies' light were snuffed out.

My skin prickled. I told myself it was just nerves, but deep down, I knew better. In Appalachia, silence meant something was listening. I should’ve turned back. I thought about it, even shifted my hips.

But I saw it.

At first, I thought it was a deer crouched in the brush. But the longer I looked, the more wrong it became. Arms too long, knuckles dragging in the dirt. A head that lolled to one side like its neck was nothing but broken wire.

I raised my flashlight, and the beam shook in my hand. Two hollow sockets blinked back at me. Not eyelids – just torn pits of cloth folding shut over gaping black holes.

I couldn’t scream. My throat locked up.

It smelled like damp earth, like the mine shafts that caved in years ago and swallowed my granddad’s brother. Coal, iron, and rot. When it shifted forward, its limbs jerked, like it didn’t belong inside its own skin.

And then it spoke. Not in one voice – in every voice I’d ever known. My Momma’ calling me to supper. My Grandma humming her hymns. Even the whistle of the midnight train through the holler.

“Cal-lieeee…”

My stomach dropped and almost took my knees with it.

Every horror story I’d ever read came rushing in about the girl who peeked too far, touched what she shouldn’t, asked the wrong question, and still, I found myself whispering:

“What are you?”

The thing’s head twitched. Something like a grin twisted where its mouth should’ve been.

“Hungry.”

That broke me loose.

I bolted. Branches clawed at my arms, roots grabbing at my shoes. Behind me, heavy footsteps crashed through the undergrowth and thicket. Voices chased me.

My Daddy’s bark, “Come back here, girl!”

Jess’s whisper, “It’s safe, don’t run…”

“Shut up!” I gasped, not sure if I meant it for them or me.

The cabin lights blinked through the trees. Home. Safety. I tore down the path, lungs burning. I burst through the door, slammed it shut, shot the bolt home and heaved a deep breath into the wood. The air smelled like the fried chicken Momma’ left on the stove and smoke dying in the hearth. Normal. Ordinary.

When I turned, the mirror in the hallway ruined that safety.

Coal dust streaked my cheek and on my arm were fingerprints – long, dark, and wrapped all the way around.

I didn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, it whispered outside my window, calling my name. Sometimes in my voice, sometimes in Momma’s. By morning, I told myself it was just fear, just shadows from trees casting images on my wall. I fed the chickens, helped Momma hang laundry, and pretended it never happened. But the silence clung to me.

That evening, Momma’ left on a date with Daddy and Jess came biking up the drive, grinning with her freckles catching the light.

“Movie night, remember?” She said, swinging her backpack down in the living room. I tried to smile, but my face felt stiff.

“Yeah, sure.”

Halfway through the movie, she nudged me, “You’re acting weird, what’s up?”

I told her everything – the hollow eyes, the voices, the chase. I half-expected her to laugh. Instead, she frowned. “My cousin swears he saw something like that up Miller’s Hollow.”

I swallowed.

“Folks call it the Hunger,” she continued, “Old as the mines. Eats coal dust. Eats people too, if it can.”

I shivered. “That’s just stories.”

Jess’s voice was quiet, “So was your grandma’s warning.”

The porch light flickered.

Once. Twice. Out.

The TV snapped to static. We froze.

From the window came Jess’s own voice, “Let me in… It’s movie night…”

Her eyes went wide as her hands shot to cover her mouth, “I didn’t say that.”

“Don’t open the door,” my voice trembled as my heart pounded impossibly loud.

The knock rattled the wood.

“Hunnngryyy…” it crooned, in all voices at once.

Jess grabbed my arm as I lunged towards the kitchen to seize the cast-iron skillet from the stove, knuckles white around the handle. The knocking stopped, the silence swallowing us whole. Neither of us moved for a long time. Finally, Jess whispered, “what if it doesn’t leave?”

Fear throbbed hot in my veins, but under it was something harder.

“Then we don’t either,” I said.

The night stretched on forever, the boards creaking like the house itself was holding its breath. When the sun finally rose, the knocking never came again. I stepped onto the porch, skillet still in hand. The woods were quiet.

Coal-dust prints trailed across the wooden steps, back toward the blackberry thicket. The Hunger wasn’t gone; it was waiting. For the first time, I realized Grandma’s stories weren’t just to scare me – they were rules, instructions, and rituals to survive what goes bump in the night in the Appalachian woods. One day, it wouldn’t just be me out there. And when that day came, I’d be ready.