Page 17 of Lost to the Woods

Plus, I’ll take anything over being alone with him.

Ghost tenses. “Your food is ready,” he growls, clearly done with this conversation.

“Calm the heck down,” I huff. “You’re being such a pain. And let me remind you thatyouwanted to do this documentary.”

Then, ignoring his attitude, I show Mark to our table.

I slide into the booth next to him, diving into my burger, while Ghost sets up the camera on a tripod before taking his seat across from us.

Mark watches me eat like he’s enchanted. Men are fucking weird. I swear they get turned on by the weirdest shit—not gonna complain since I make a living out of it, though.

“Bunny, I must say, I love your style,” he compliments my outfit, getting flirty. “It’s adorable.”

“Aww, thank you!” I brush his arm just ever so slightly.

Ghost has zero patience. “Can you get to the fucking point?” he snaps, and I’m positive his eyes are boring into Mark with the intensity of a thousand suns.

I nudge him with my foot under the table. “Don’t be rude.”

Ghost mutters something to himself, visibly grinding his teeth under the mask.

Mark stiffens a bit. “What do you guys have so far?”

“Nothing really specific.” I shrug. “Just a few paranormal encounter stories. Glowing eyes staring in the window. Whistling in the woods. Feral people. That sort of thing.”

“All valid.” Mark chuckles. But there’s something dark there. Like he’s seen some stuff. “Growing up in the Appalachian foothills comes with a set of rules. We know from an early age that once it starts to get dark outside it means we need to haul our asses back home. Then shut all the doors and windows and pull down the blinds. Meemaw always said: If you hear something in the woods… No, you didn’t. If you see something… No, you didn’t. And whatever you do—don’t run. The chase excites them.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Them?”

He leans in, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Cryptids. The watchers. The old ones. These mountains are older than the Atlantic. Older than the rings of Saturn. Older even than bones. They’ve seen everything. Dinosaurs. Blood. War. And something else. Something that doesn’t die just ‘cause people forget its name.”

Goosebumps prick my arms. I try to play it cool, but I inch the camera a little closer toward him.

“Long before white folks ever got here, the Cherokee, the Catawba, and other tribes lived all through these hills. The land was sacred. Alive. But when the colonizers came…” He pauses. “They didn’t just steal the land. They brought hell with ‘em. Slaughter. Famine. Broken treaties. And something about all that suffering—all that blood—it stirred things that shoulda stayed asleep.”

His eyes flick up, scanning the room like the fluorescent lights might be listening.

“Some even believe the Wendigo was born from every ounce of greed and cruelty the colonizers brought with them.”

I blink. “I thought Wendigos were like cannibals from Algonquian folklore. Canada stuff.”

“Well, the Appalachian Mountains extend into Canada. And yes. At least, that’s one of the legends. It’s not just a creature,” he says. “Not really. It’s a curse. A force. The kind of desperation that happened when a man ate human flesh in the winter, that’s just how it starts. It ain’t some random monster. It’s the hunger made flesh. But out here?” Mark taps the tabletop with a thick finger. “Out here, it’s changed. It’s evolved. It’s part of the land. I see it as something more, something much bigger, like Leshy.” He pauses, leaning closer. “You know, the forest deity from Slavic mythology. It doesn’t just crave meat now. It feeds on human urges—lust, pride, gluttony, envy, pain, power. It becomes wantingeverything. You can’t satisfy it. Ever.”

I shiver. “So it’s always starving.”

Mark smiles without humor. “You wanna know what it feels like to be stalked by it?”

I swallow, but don’t answer.

“It feels like longing for something so bad it burns, then realizing it wants you just as bad. But not for who you are—forwhat you are. It wants to consume your entire being. A craving with claws. You can’t fight it. You can’t beg it. You’re already half-digested before it even shows its face.”

I shudder harder, turning my eyes to the windows. I haven’t been this spooked out since Alaska.

Outside, the street looks normal—just a quiet, sunny day in a rural town. But in the distance, the mountains paint the skyline, trees ancient and still, as if they are holding the world’s secrets. And the feeling that something that shouldn’t exist just heard me breathe.

The chill in my spine lingers.

“And then, of course, there are SW,” he adds, catching my attention, and I give him a confused look. His voice drops to a mere whisper now, “Skinwalkers.”

---