Where the Trees Watch – Chapter 12
The Recording in the Woods
The shaky footage continued playing across the tiny screen while the four of them stood motionless beside the hidden trail. Wind brushed softly through the towering pines overhead, but beneath that sound Ryan could only hear the terrified breathing from the damaged camera speaker.
The flashlight beam in the recording jerked wildly through darkness between trees. Whoever filmed it had been running.
Ryan Mercer turned the volume higher carefully while static crackled beneath the voice on the recording.
“No… no, this isn’t the same trail…”
The camera swung violently toward a cluster of trees illuminated briefly by the flashlight beam. Ryan noticed symbols scratched deep into the bark — circles carved repeatedly into the trunks like someone marking paths in panic.
Then the person filming whispered again, breathing harder now.
“I know this wasn’t here before.”
The footage shook violently as branches snapped somewhere nearby in the darkness.
Claire stepped closer beside Ryan watching the screen with growing uneasiness. Mason, meanwhile, kept glancing toward the fog-covered downhill trail like he expected something to emerge from it at any moment.
The recorded flashlight suddenly focused on another hiker standing farther ahead between the trees.
A woman.
Backpack.
Red rain jacket.
She looked terrified.
“Emma!” the cameraman shouted through the recording. “Wait!”
But the woman didn’t respond.
She just stood motionless beneath the flashlight beam facing away from the camera toward deeper darkness in the forest.
Ryan felt cold crawl beneath his skin immediately.
Something about the posture looked wrong.
Too still.
Then the cameraman moved closer.
Branches cracked loudly beneath his boots while the flashlight beam bounced violently through the trees. The woman in the red jacket remained motionless the entire time.
Finally, only a few feet away, the cameraman reached toward her shoulder.
And the woman slowly turned around.
Claire physically flinched beside Ryan.
The face on the screen looked almost human.
Almost.
Pale skin stretched too tightly across sharp cheekbones while the mouth curved upward into a stiff unnatural smile. The eyes reflected the flashlight brightly like an animal caught in darkness.
Then the thing wearing the woman’s face whistled softly.
The footage exploded into static.
Ryan stared at the dead screen for several seconds after the recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Cold fog drifted slowly through the hidden trail beside them while the forest remained unnaturally silent around the group.
Finally Claire whispered, “That has to be fake.”
No one answered her.
Because every person standing there knew the fear in the recording had been real.
Ryan looked back toward the hidden downhill trail disappearing into fog between the black pines. Suddenly the trees there seemed closer together than before, their branches woven tightly enough overhead to block most of the daylight completely.
Then he noticed movement.
Far down the trail.
A figure standing partially hidden between the trees.
Red jacket.
Motionless.
His heartbeat stopped for a second.
The same jacket from the recording.
Ryan slowly lowered the camera screen.
The figure remained there.
Watching them silently through the fog.