CHAPTER ONE
Jared Miller drove in silence on his way through the NC mountains to his Aunt Holly’s house for the holidays. It was Christmas Eve and Jared was in a rotten mood. He’d gotten out of work late that night, and then had to drive 4 hours through the mountains. But it was Christmas and he’d already promised his family he’d be there before they woke up in the morning.
Jared was almost halfway through his road trip when he decided to lighten the mood before arriving. Pulling out his green leaf satchel from underneath the passenger’s seat of his old Buick, Jared unbuttoned the pouch to retrieve his bowl, pot and white lighter. He packed up a bowl, turned up his music and rolled his window down.
Jared had just gotten to the chorus of ‘Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, when the dash on his Buick began flashing. A bright red CHECK ENGINE light popped up as Jared felt the car slowing down. He was confused because his right foot was still on the gas pedal.
“What the fuck?” Jared said out loud in the quiet car. The stereo had turned off along with his car as he nosed the Buick over to the side of the lonely back road. Slamming his fists on the steering wheel, he sighed, reaching for his phone.
NO SIGNAL.
“Of course there’s no signal for me to call anyone,” Jared angrily huffed as he opened his car door. He stepped out, leaves crunching under his black Nikes. Jared walked up to the hood, unlatching it, then lifting up the hood. He turned on the flashlight on his cell phone to see white smoke pooling from the engine. Jared was a 26 year old server at a tavern in town. He definitely was not a mechanic, so he had no clue what to look for or how to fix it.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself. The faint sound of footsteps in the dark behind him on the abandoned road made Jared jump. He turned from his engine, shining the flashlight from his phone to see a skinny, white teenage boy with shaggy brown hair walking by himself on the road. Jared wasn’t sure how old the kid was. If he had to guess, old enough to drive, but not buy alcohol.
“Sup?” he asked Jared. The teenager stood there, standing at him. It was difficult for Jared not to stare at the boy’s face. He had awful looking burns the scarred half of his face. The kid was a few inches taller than Jared, wearing faded blue jeans, and a navy blue T-shirt. The shirt had a white pizza logo under it that said ‘TONY’S’.
“Hey man, my car broke down on the way to my Aunt’s house in Pisgah Forest. I don’t have any signal out here to call my family or a tow truck. Guessing you don’t either?” Jared asked the teen.
“No, sir,” the boy answered. “I’m Billy. I ain’t got no phone with me, but I live just through the woods. Gotta phone there,” Billy told him. He cleared his throat and looked behind Jared, pointing his finger at the trees.
“You can call anyone you need. My place is just through the woods. Got it all decorated for Christmas, too,” Billy assured him..
“AH! Thanks man,” Jared said. He stuck out his hand, offering Billy a handshake. “I’m Jared by the way,” he told him. Billy nodded back at him, ignoring his outstretched hand to turn toward the forest.
“Okay,” Jared muttered under his breath. Shrugging off the kid’s weird demeanor, Jared walked back over to his Buick. He opened the passenger door of the Buick to grab his phone and keys to toss them both into his satchel. Jared jogged through the dense fog leading into the trees to try and catch up to Billy.
“Just down a little bit further,” Billy’s voice echoed back to Jared through the woods. He couldn’t see Billy through the dark woods, he could only hear him crunching on the leaves ahead.
Jared listened for which direction the footsteps went. He couldn’t see Billy at all.. The forest was dark, even with using his phone as a flashlight. He shined the light above him at the hovering trees. He shivered. Jared loved trees, but the ones above him seemed to loom over him- like they were watching him. Jared felt a tickle creep down his spine as he listened again in the night.
Silence.
No hooting owls in the night. No crickets loudly chirping.
“Hey Billy! Where you at?” Jared yelled out. “I think I lost ya!” he shouted again. Looking up, Jared realized Billy wasn’t anywhere near him anymore in the woods. Quickly reaching in his green satchel for his phone to give up and just head back to his Buick, Jared’s heart stopped. He dug his hand down to the bottom of the bag. The green satchel was empty. And worst of all His phone had been inside..
CHAPTER TWO
Jared took off in the woods to chase after Billy. He couldn’t understand why the kid would offer to help him, and then steal his cell phone. Turning his head first to the left, then quickly to the right, Jared listened for any sounds of footsteps running through the trees. Nothing.
Fog surrounded the dark forest and Jared realized it was completely silent. It was like he had just disappeared.
“BILLY!” Jared yelled out into the darkness after him. His voice echoed through the trees and his feet trampled over the dead leaves in the woods. “Where’d you run off to with my phone, you little fuck?!” Jared screamed out again. This time, in the distance he heard Billy’s laugh. “There you are!” he yelled out after him. Jared followed the sound of the laughter through the dark until Billy stopped laughing.
The forest was silent once again as Jared came to a halt. He tilted his head through the fog. He smelled something familiar.
The smell of pot.
“Marco!” Billy’s voice yelled out from above Jared’s head. Quickly looking up, Jared saw Billy perched on a tree branch smoking a bowl. His bowl.
Billy’s legs dangled down from the branch. The backlight of Jared’s phone shined across Billy’s face. Jared angrily watched from below as Billy waved the phone back and forth above him., taunting him.
“Cut it out, man! Give me my phone back before I beat your face in for smoking my pot, too!!” Jared yelled up at him. Billy laughed out again. Jared could see the burns covering his face from the back light of the screen. Billy was smiling down at Jared, his eyes had a blank, evil look to them.
“FINE! You wanna play punk?!” Jared screamed up into the tree. “I can play monkey in the tree if that’s how you wanna play!” Jared yelled. Tossing the empty satchel onto the dry forest floor, Jared reached out and wrapped his palms around the lowest branch to climb. As his body got further up in the tree, Jared watched Billy stare down at him. Billy still wore the same creepy ass smile on his ugly face. Reaching for the next branch above his head, Jared continued climbing up until he could reach one of Billy’s dangling legs.
“Gotcha!” Jared yelled, sticking his hand out to grab the bottom of his jeans to yank him down from the tree. Instead of feeling the denim fabric between his fingers, Jared watched as his hand slide through Billy’s leg. He felt nothing when he tried to grab onto him.
Everything was happening in slow motion for Jared now. As his hand tried to grab Billy, he realized he’d put too much of his body weight into the attempt to catch the ghost in the tree, that Jared fell from it..
His terrifying scream filled the woods as his heavy body hit the ground with a THUD. Billy watched as the sickening crack of his skull smashed against the rock beneath him. Jared’s eyes glanced up into the tree one last time before the life left his body. Billy the ghost innocently smiled down at him as he died.
CHAPTER THREE
It took the local police 6 hours that next morning to find Jared’s abandoned Buick on the side of the road. His mom and Aunt Holly immediately called the police when Jared hadn’t shown up in Pisgah Forest by that morning. His mom began to panic when they realized no one in the family had heard from Jared since he’d left around 10pm.
Officer Luther Thomson and his partner, Officer Tim Harton called for a search party in the area a little after 9:30am. The hounds were also called and sent out into the thick fog to search for Jared’s scent in the woods.
Sadly, Officer Thomson had been the one to discover Jared Miller’s body underneath the trees at 10:42am. His body lay dead in the ground, his head saturated in the pool of dried blood under him, spreading across the dead forest leaves.
“Not sure, but if I had to guess Mr. Miller’s Buick broke down en route to the Aunt’s house and he went looking for help. Poor fella probably tripped over a tree root and smashed open his head,” Officer Thomson told Harton.
“Sad thing is, if he’d only went further down the road he would have made it to the gas station,” he told Harton.
“Hey, isn’t this the woods that 19-year-old kid lived in? You know, the one that died in the fire at Tony’s Pizzeria on Christmas Eve back like ten years ago?” Officer Harton asked Thomson.
“Yep, same one. Billy Wilton was his name,” Thomson replied. “My babysitter worked there. I remember her telling me how the other servers whispered about rumors of him being a troubled teen that lived alone in the
woods. Said he the fire that night was no accident,” he added. Harton looked back at his partner.
“I remember that fire,” Harton began. “My dad hunts in the area with some buddies and they will not go into these woods. Word around town is that this forest is haunted by the ghost of that kid.”
Jared overheard the police officers below him talking about the ghost. His ghost body was perched next to Billy’s on the tree branch above them as Jared glared irritatingly at Billy.
“You fucker,” Jared said, punching him in the shoulder. “Give me that!” Jared yelled as he snatched the lighter and bowl from Billy’s grasp. Passing the lighter and bowl back to Jared from the branch, he smiled. “Merry Christmas!” Billy said to Jared through his evil laughter.
THE END
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About
I’m Jill, mom, wife, pet lover, and recently published murder mystery author. I am a very low-key person. I stay at home with my toddler and write when she’s asleep. I love reading other thriller/mystery books and doing yoga at home 2-3 times a day when I’m not playing with my daughter. Every morning we begin our day getting an energy tea, do our daily errands, and sometimes go to the library for story-time. Been happily married to my husband for going on 5 years now. We are truly meant for each other. We like to have date nights with each other, sometimes that’s just us staying up and playing Rummy together after the toddler is asleep or staying overnight with my brother.
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