Stuff That Scares Me

fiction, history · EN-US

I heard something move in the dark. And I wanted to hear it again. That's the problem. That's always been the problem. Some people hear a sound in the woods and walk the other way. I'm the kind who stands still and listens. I'm Wallace Cole. I grew up in the mountains of West Virginia, where the old folks knew things they wouldn't say out loud. Not because they didn't believe them. Because they did. I carried that with me. Into the hollows and the abandoned places. Into the fog that lays long and doesn't lift when it should. Into rooms where I was absolutely alone — until something moved at the edge of what I could see, and alone stopped being the right word. I collect the stories that people carry but don't tell. Appalachian folklore. Unsolved disappearances. Encounters that never made it into a report. Warnings that have survived for generations without anyone remembering why. I've followed