The lanterns always went out first. That's what they whispered around campfires at Pine Ridge, their voices trembling like the flames. Ellie traced the peeling sticker on her brother's old flashlight, the one he'd left behind when he vanished last summer.
"Dead Man's Hollow isn't haunted," said Mark, poking the fire with a stick. Sparks flew up like fleeing fireflies. "It's just some dumb rock formation."
Ellie's fingers tightened around the flashlight. She could still see Jamie's face when he'd joked about the hollow's legend: "They say if you hear whispering in the dark, you've already been chosen."
A gust of wind made the lanterns swing. One by one, they flickered. Then went dark.
Ellie woke to the sound of canvas flapping. The tent door was unzipped, though she'd secured it herself. Outside, Mark's footprints led toward the tree line... then stopped abruptly, as if he'd been lifted straight up.
Her breath came in white puffs as she followed the trail. The flashlight beam cut through the mist, catching on something metallic. Jamie's scout knife, wedged in the bark of a pine tree. It hadn't been there yesterday.
Something rustled in the underbrush. Ellie spun around, the beam illuminating a figure standing too close, too still. Not Mark. Not human. Its head tilted with a wet, cracking sound.
"Run," it whispered in Jamie's voice.
The camp was deserted when Ellie stumbled back. Sleeping bags lay abandoned, marshmallows charred black on sticks. Only the lanterns remained, their glass fogged with something that wasn't dew.
She grabbed the camp radio. "Hello? Anyone?" Static hissed back, but beneath it, whispers. The same ones Jamie had described before he disappeared.
A thump came from the supply tent. Ellie armed herself with a hatchet, hands shaking. "Mark?"
The canvas bulged inward. Something dragged itself across the ground with a sound like snapping twigs. When she lifted the flap, Mark's backpack tumbled out. It was soaked through with something dark and warm.
Ellie ran toward Dead Man's Hollow, the flashlight beam bouncing wildly. The rock formation loomed ahead, its mouth-like opening exhaling mist. Jamie's pocketknife vibrated in her grip.
Inside the hollow, the air tasted like wet stone and copper. The whispers grew louder, resolving into voices she knew: Mark pleading, counselors from summers past... and Jamie, always Jamie.
"They're hungry," her brother's voice echoed. "But they can't take you unless you're afraid."
Something multi-limbed scuttled along the ceiling. Ellie closed her eyes and thought of Jamie teaching her to skip stones across the lake. The whispers faltered. The thing above her made a sound like a sob.
Dawn painted the hollow in gray light. Ellie emerged clutching Jamie's knife and Mark's lucky bandana. The lanterns at camp flickered back to life as she passed, their light steady now.
At the firepit, she built a pyre from the abandoned gear. The flames consumed Jamie's old flashlight, its plastic curling like a dying hand. She didn't need it anymore.
New campers would come next summer. They'd whisper about Dead Man's Hollow, about the lanterns that sometimes go out. And Ellie would walk the tree line after dark, her own lantern burning bright, listening for the whispers that meant it was time to be brave again.
