Stories Keep the Dark Away

The woods never feel empty. Not really.

Even in silence, something is always listening.

The fire crackles, low and steady. Each ember shifts with a slow, deliberate crunch, like bones grinding against each other beneath skin. The breeze carries scorched sugar and damp soil, and something thinner, more brittle—something like fear but quieter. The dark presses in, and the fire swells, all teeth and glow, pretending to be bigger than it is.

But it’s not scary.

Not really.

Definitely not.

For sure.

Not scary.

The camping chairs are coming apart at the seams—unraveling in stubborn, threadbare ways—but they still hold. They’ve held for five years. They’ll hold one more. The tent’s no better, duct-taped like a body after a bad fall. Not heroic-wound stuff—nothing cinematic. Just the kind you get from falling out of a tree because someone dared you to. The kind that scabs over crooked. The kind that leaves a scar shaped vaguely like California.

This is year five. The Annual Sister Camping Trip. An invention of pandemic boredom and three restless teenage girls stuck in the same house with nothing to do but scream at each other and eat pretzels at 3 a.m. They’re older now. Supposedly adults. But still they come, hauling in barely-working gear and too many bags of chips. Like tradition. Like gravity.

“Lila, where did you put the snacks?” Frankie’s voice cuts through the quiet like a matchstrike. She leans halfway out of the tent, already wearing that tired, worn-smooth expression she’s had since sixteen. The one that says I am your older sister and therefore above your nonsense.

“I don’t know,” Lila replies, tone sweet and awful. “You’re the one with a fiancée, Francesca. You tell me.” She sticks out her tongue like she’s just planted a flag.

“You are technically a legal adult, Delilah, so—”

“Found them!” Juniper’s voice comes from the dark. There’s a metallic clunk as the car door slams. The noise rolls through the trees, and something in the woods holds its breath. She reappears with a half-melted chocolate bar in one hand and a crinkled bag of snacks in the other. “They were under someone’s sock. So, that’s concerning.”

Lila drops into her chair with all the grace of a queen in exile. “I’m bored. Tell a story, Junie. Something gross.”

Juniper Cassidy, child terror, infamous cousin-traumatizer, reigning queen of psychological warfare, flicks her flashlight on and angles it just right. Shadows bloom over her face like bruises. The fire crowns her in flickering light. If someone took her picture right now, it would definitely be the last photo in a found-footage horror movie.

“Creepy-creepy or campfire creepy?” she asks, smiling like she knows where your body is buried.

“Oh God,” Frankie mutters. “Let’s at least pretend we want to sleep tonight.”

“Surprise me,” Lila says, hoodie pulled up like armor. “But not the lake one. You know I still can’t swim in dark water.”

Juniper frowns, exaggerated and disappointed. “You’re no fun.”

The wind sighs against the treetops like a warning. Somewhere deeper in the woods, something cracks. Maybe a branch. Maybe not. Maybe just the fire shifting its weight.

“Okay, so this one’s not a ghost story. It’s better!” Juniper wiggles her fingers like she’s summoning something.

“Serial killer?” Frankie asks.

“You know me too well.”

She clears her throat. Flashlight under her chin now. All angles and shadow. A little too gleeful.

“Ever heard the story of the Woodsman? Of course you haven’t. I made it up ten minutes ago. But we’re following proper scary story protocol, so shut up and listen.”

Crickets.

A rustle.

Lila rolls her eyes.

“So. The Woodsman used to be a hunter. Elk. Deer. Bears. Anything dumb enough to step into his woods. And he was good. Like, uncomfortably good. Never missed. Always the heart. Always fast. Some people said it was the gun. Others said he had… something else. Something extra. Like he could smell fear. Like the bullets could.”

Juniper’s voice drops.

“But animals got boring. Predictable. Too easy. He wanted a challenge. Something clever. Something terrified.”

“Let me guess,” Lila says. “People.”

“Bingo.”

Juniper’s eyes go glassy. She’s not looking at them anymore. She’s somewhere else. Something else.

“They say he doesn’t use bait. Doesn’t need to. He just sits in the trees and waits. Watches. Campers. Hikers. Anyone who thinks they’re alone when they’re not.”

Frankie shifts. Not because she’s scared. Her leg was asleep. That’s all.

“He lives in the branches now. Builds nests like a bird. You won’t hear him. You won’t smell him. You won’t even feel it until it’s too late. Just this sudden sense that something’s watching you. And if it is… pray it’s a bear.”

Lila reaches for a marshmallow and doesn’t notice her hand is shaking.

“He always waits until you’re laughing,” June says. “Until you’re warm. Until you forget. And then—”

“Okay, no,” Frankie stands up. “I’m sleeping in the car.”

“Oh, come on. You haven’t even heard the part where he drags your body into the trees.”

“Nope. I have a fiancée. I’m not dying in the woods.”

Lila, through a mouthful of sugar: “Tell it anyway.”

Juniper leans in.

“And the thing is,” she says, eyes flicking between them, voice gone soft, “you won’t even know it’s coming.”

She grins.

“Your brain won’t register the crack of the gunshot until you feel the blood—warm and fast—pooling in your shoes. You’ll look down and think Huh. That’s weird. And by then…”

A pause.

“…it’s already too late.”

The fire pops. Lila screams. The marshmallow dies in the dirt.

“God, Junie!” she snaps. “I literally just peed a little.”

But Frankie doesn’t laugh. Her eyes are locked on the treeline behind Juniper.

“This one feels off,” she mutters.

“Too real?” Juniper grins.

“No,” Frankie says. “It’s the setting. You could’ve picked anything. A haunted school. A cursed Pizza Hut. But you chose this. Right here.”

June shrugs. “Atmosphere.”

Then the woods go still.

The kind of still that feels personal.

“Did it… just get quiet?” June asks.

“Nope.” Frankie is already halfway to the tent. “Nope. Not falling for this. If someone jumps out, I’m punching them in the throat.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Juniper says.

Lila’s hand pauses mid-poke in the fire. “Guys…”

Snap.

A single twig. Maybe a footstep. Maybe not.

The flashlight flickers. Then steadies.

Juniper smiles, just a little too wide.

“Well,” she says, almost fondly, “if he is out there, we just made it really easy for him.”

“I hate you both. I’m going to bed,” Frankie says, zipping up the tent.

Lila follows, a little faster than she wants to admit.

Juniper is alone. Muttering to herself, loading snacks into the trunk. “Oh, yes, Frankie. Let me clean everything up. Totally fine. Love it.”

The trunk slams shut.

CRACK.

A gunshot splits the night. Pure, exact violence.

A scream follows—raw and real and ragged.

Frankie bolts upright. “June?”

Another scream. A collapse.

Lila lets out a half-laugh. “Okay, she’s really committing to the bit—”

CRACK.

Closer.

Frankie’s voice drops. “Lila. That wasn’t fake.”

June’s crying now. Not cute crying. Not acting. Wet, jagged sobs. Her voice is broken glass.

“I—I got hit—my leg—”

CRACK.

Another scream.

Frankie pulls Lila down to the dirt. “Get down!”

They hit the ground beside the firepit, breath jagged. The flames roar too bright. Too loud.

“She got shot,” Lila whispers. “Actually—”

“And again,” Frankie hisses. “That was her arm. Or her side. I don’t know.”

Silence.

True silence.

Like the forest swallowed its own tongue.

Frankie fumbles for her phone. Her hands are shaking too hard to unlock it.

“We have to get to her.”

“We don’t even know where she is.”

The firelight stutters.

A shadow moves.

Click.

That soft, awful sound of a rifle being reloaded.