Where the Trees Watch – Chapter 2 The Sound Between the Trees Rainwater dripped steadily from the roof of the ranger station while silence settled uneasily around the group. The forest behind Walter stretched endlessly into darkness beneath the thick evening fog, the towering black pines almost completely swallowing the remaining daylight. Ryan Mercer frowned … Read more
Where the Trees Watch – Chapter 1 The Whistling Beyond Blackwood Rain hammered against the windshield while the jeep pushed deeper along the muddy forest road cutting through Blackwood National Forest. Tall pine trees crowded both sides of the narrow trail, their dark branches bending overhead until the road ahead looked more like a tunnel … Read more
Where the Trees Watch Genre: Forest Horror • Survival Horror • Psychological Horror • Folk Horror • Cosmic Mystery Story Synopsis After a series of unexplained disappearances inside the vast Blackwood National Forest, freelance videographer Ryan Mercer joins a small documentary crew investigating the legend of an abandoned firewatch station hidden deep within the woods. … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS The Captain Frank Delaney had been building his career on a lie for fifteen years. The lie had served him well. He was not prepared for it to stop serving him. Delaney || Police || Corruption || Danger Captain Frank Delaney’s official schedule, which Sara accessed through the CPD’s public calendar that … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS Greer’s Files A journalist’s hard drive is a map of everything they knew and everything they were afraid to say out loud. Greer || Files || Evidence || Investigation Thomas Greer’s apartment was on the second floor of a graystone two-flat in Andersonville, a neighborhood on the north side that had a … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS James There is a version of love that is protective. And there is a version that is controlling. The outside looks the same. James || Marriage || Suspicion || Tension She told James some of it on Saturday night. Not all — she was not ready to tell all of it, and … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS Noah Banks He didn’t want to be a witness. He had no choice about what he’d seen. That’s how it always works. Noah Banks || Witness || Evidence || Danger Pilsen was a neighborhood on the lower west side that had been changing for twenty years in the slow, complicated way that … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS Stateville A man who has spent fifteen years in prison for something he didn’t do has had a great deal of time to think about exactly who did it. Raymond Doss || Prison || Evidence || Alliance Stateville Correctional Center was sixty miles southwest of Chicago on Route 53, a maximum-security facility … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS The 2009 Case Some files are sealed for legal reasons. Some are sealed for reasons that look legal but are something else. Raymond Doss || 2009 || Research || Discovery The Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington branch on South State Street opened at nine on Friday mornings, and Sara was there at … Read more
THE LAST WITNESS The Second Call The phone rang at 3 a.m. She answered it. She would spend weeks trying to decide if that was the right choice. Night || Phone || Threat || Tension The call came at 3:07 a.m. on Friday morning, three days after the alley. Sara was awake — she had … Read more
