The sun bled low on the horizon as a battered silver Corolla weaved up the narrow forest road, its tires crunching over gravel like bones. The woman behind the wheel, Juliette Merrin, hadn't seen Blackridge in over fifteen years. And she never intended to. Not after what happened the summer of 2010. Not after the woods took her sister and left nothing but a boot with blood in it. Not after everyone in town said she must have imagined it.
But Blackridge had a way of pulling people back.
Whether by guilt, grief, or the whispers of unfinished business, the town clung like rot under your fingernails. And now, Juliette was back. A funeral brought her — her father's, found dead with his eyes scooped clean out and his mouth sewn shut.
"Foxes got him," the coroner said.
"Foxes don't sew mouths shut," Juliette muttered under her breath.
The town sign came into view. Old wood, chipped paint.
WELCOME TO BLACKRIDGE Population: 1,402 (Temporarily)
Juliette slowed the car. That sign hadn't changed. But the word "Temporarily" painted in red wasn't there before. It looked like someone dipped their finger in blood and scrawled it over the number. It smeared slightly in the breeze, sticky and wet. Fresh.
She parked near the motel, the only one still running since the fire took out the Eastwood Inn. A flickering neon sign buzzed overhead: "Ridgeview Lodge — Vacancy." Everything in this town flickered. The lights. The memories. The truth.
The manager looked like he was born behind the desk. Wrinkled, gray, skin like tissue.
"Merrin girl," he said without looking up. "Heard you were coming."
"Small town grapevine?"
"More like the town listens when it wants to."
Room 6 smelled like mothballs and mildew. Juliette tossed her bag on the bed and pulled out the file. Photos. Her dad's body. The autopsy. The coroner's weak explanation. A note tucked into her dad's coat pocket they never mentioned in the report:
"The Ridge wakes hungry. Blood must be paid. You left it unpaid. It remembers."
Juliette lit a cigarette. She didn't smoke. Not since she was nineteen. But she needed something. Anything. She leaned against the wall, looking out the dusty window, her breath fogging the glass. Something moved in the trees.
A shape. Gone too fast to describe. But it watched her. She was sure of it.
The diner still sat at the center of town like a rotting tooth. Same cracked leather booths. Same waitress, too — Marlene, with hair like pink insulation and arms full of faded tattoos.
"You got taller," Marlene said, pouring her coffee without asking.
"You got older."
"Everyone does in Blackridge. Some of us don't stop."
Juliette stirred her cup. "You ever hear of foxes sewing mouths shut?"
Marlene's hand froze for a second, then kept pouring.
"You shouldn't ask things like that. Ridge hears you."
Juliette smirked. "Let it hear. Maybe it wants a conversation."
Marlene didn't smile back. "It doesn't talk. It takes."
Juliette's eyes scanned the diner. Everything was too still. Too silent. The jukebox in the corner played a crackling version of a song from the '70s — "Season of the Witch."
Outside, the trees bent slightly in the wind, even though the air was still.
A teenager ran by the window screaming bloody murder. No one moved. Not a single head turned. Just the sound of dishes clinking and forks scraping plates.
Juliette turned to Marlene. "What the hell was that?"
Marlene wiped a glass clean and said, "Welcome home, sweetheart. Welcome to the countdown."
Day One: Monday
The next morning brought cold light and silence. The kind of silence that had weight. Juliette stepped out of the motel, her boots crunching dead pine needles. She hadn't slept. Not really. Dreams had teeth. She couldn't remember the faces, but she remembered the feeling: being hunted.
At the sheriff's office, the windows were covered in duct tape and cardboard. The bell above the door didn't ring. Instead, a small red light blinked from a camera in the corner. The man at the front desk wore a badge, but barely looked up from his crossword.
"Juliette Merrin," she said.
"We know who you are," the man grunted.
"I want to see the official case files on my father."
"There is no case."
"He was found with his mouth sewn shut. That's not natural causes."
The man finally looked up. He had one glass eye and the other was full of something worse than indifference.
"You came back. That was your first mistake. Asking questions? That's your second."
Outside the Office
Juliette stepped into the sunlight. It felt colder than the shade. She looked at the file again. The handwriting on the note was shaky, familiar. It wasn't her dad's. It was her sister's.
Isabelle.
The one who went missing all those years ago.
Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn't said Isabelle's name out loud in over a decade. No one in town did. It was like saying it invited the woods in.
She decided to go back. To the place it happened.
The Old Trail
The forest had swallowed it over the years. Vines, branches, the stink of wet rot and moss. But Juliette remembered every step. The rock her sister slipped on. The weird stone carving they found half-buried under leaves. The laughter.
Then the silence.
She knelt beside a tree with a mark on it. An old, crude symbol.
Three vertical slashes and a circle.
It hadn't faded. Not even after fifteen years.
Suddenly, the air went still. Even the bugs stopped.
And then, footsteps. Heavy. Slow.
Juliette turned, but saw nothing. Then a voice whispered behind her.
"You left her behind."
She spun around. Nothing there. Just woods.
She ran.
Branches cut her face, roots grabbed at her boots. But she didn't stop until the motel was in sight. She slammed the door shut, locking it twice. Her hands trembled.
She checked her back pocket.
The file was gone.
And in its place, a photo she hadn't seen in fifteen years.
Her. Isabelle. The woods. The day she disappeared.
But in the background was a shadow.
Tall.
And wearing her father's face.