The ravine sucked the light out of their flashlights.

  It swallowed every beam, turning the trees into towering silhouettes with fingers that clawed the sky. The deeper they went, the quieter it got. No crickets. No wind. Just the crunch of leaves under their feet and the occasional crack of a branch behind them.

  Beau hated every second of it.

  He trailed Cassie closely. She moved with the confidence of someone who had never been afraid of the dark. Her flashlight swung side to side like a sword through shadow. Beau did not mean to stare at her, but her hips moved in ways that made it impossible not to notice. There was a hardness in his jeans. Hormones. Nerves. The primal kind of fear that made every sense fire at once.

  Cassie kept swinging her flashlight back and forth, the beam slicing through underbrush and roots. Kayla followed close behind, recording with her camcorder like this was some found footage horror movie. Denny drifted off the path, flicking his knife open and shut. Trey brought up the rear again, still swigging from the flask, quieter now.

  The trees pressed in closer. Branches reached lower, almost like they wanted to catch on hair or clothes, maybe even skin.

  Then Beau saw the first one.

  “Stop,” he said. “Look.”

  Cassie turned. “What?”

  He pointed at a tree just ahead. Something was carved into the bark. Deep slashes, a strange looping pattern. Circles within triangles. Crude eyes with too many lashes. Jagged lines that looked almost like letters but not in any language he knew.

  Kayla stepped forward. “That’s not graffiti.”

  “No kidding,” Beau said. “Looks old. Like really old.”

  “They’re all over,” Denny said, his voice hushed now. “Look at the trees.”

  Beau looked. He saw more markings. Dozens. Some high, some low, cut deep into the trunks. The bark around them looked swollen, like the trees had tried to grow over the symbols but failed.

  “What the hell is this place?” Cassie asked.

  “No idea,” Trey said. “But it’s starting to feel spooky.”

  They moved on.

  Deeper into the ravine.

  The next thing they found stopped them all.

  A clearing. Small, ringed with mossy stones. In the center were bones. Not buried. Arranged.

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  Long bones and small ones, all laid out in concentric circles like some lunatic had built a clock from them. The bones were yellow and dry, but not ancient. A few still had bits of blackened tendon clinging to them.

  Kayla did not hesitate. She crouched and aimed the camcorder like she had struck gold.

  “This is insane,” she whispered, grinning. “This is the best night of my life.”

  Cassie did not smile. Her skin had gone pale. “Those aren’t human. Right?”

  Beau squatted beside the circle and shined his light closer. “Probably not. Could be dogs. Deer. Hard to say.”

  “Why would anyone do this?” she asked.

  “Teenagers being witchy,” Denny offered. “Trying to scare people.”

  “These aren’t new,” Trey said. “Some of these bones are old. Look at the moss.”

  Kayla moved toward a tree on the edge of the clearing. Her flashlight beam caught something carved into it. She stopped and stared.

  “Guys,” she said. “You need to see this.”

  Beau stepped up beside her. Carved into the trunk was a face.

  It was wrong.

  Long features. A stretched mouth pulled wide in a grin that looked more like pain. Huge eyes bulging with carved pupils. Horns curled from the forehead. Not devil horns. Goat horns.

  Beau felt a sharp twist in his gut. Recognition. Not memory. Something deeper.

  “I know that face,” he said. “That’s Pan.”

  Cassie came up behind him. “Pan?”

  “Pagan horned god. Wildness. Fertility. Lust. He’s got the legs and horns of a goat." Beau studied the face. It was old. Really old. "The settlers didn’t all come with crosses. Some brought older things with them. Things they didn’t talk about.”

  Kayla gave a low whistle. “Knew this place was haunted.”

  Trey kicked at the ground. His boot hit stone. Something wet clung to it.

  “Hold up,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

  They all came closer.

  At the edge of the clearing, half-sunken in moss and mud, was a stone slab. Flat and wide, about the size of a kitchen table. Its surface glistened like it had been greased. Beau shined his light on it and saw streaks of something dark. Not red. More like black. Thick and sticky.

  Denny ran a finger over it and sniffed.

  “Blood,” he said. “Old. But not too old.”

  Cassie stepped back. “That’s an altar.”

  “No shit,” Trey said. “We need to get out of here.”

  They turned. And froze.

  A beam of light cut through the trees. Then another. Then came the voice.

  “Hands where I can see them.”

  Sheriff Ellis Brandt stepped into the clearing, flanked by two deputies. His flashlight lit up the kids like a spotlight. His face was red with fury. He looked like a man who had been waiting all night to explode.

  “What the hell do you think you're doing?” he barked. “I told you to stay the fuck out of these woods. This is restricted land.”

  “No signs,” Denny said, but his voice had no edge now. Just nerves.

  Brandt glared at him. “You think that’s gonna matter when I have to scrape what's left of you off a rock? You want to wind up like those kids in eighty-five? You want to make the same goddamn mistake?”

  His eyes settled on Beau. “You. Beau Miller. You’re supposed to be the smart one. Going to college, right? What are you doing out here playing ghost hunter with these idiots?”

  Beau swallowed hard. “Sorry, Sheriff.”

  Brandt stepped into the clearing and looked down at the altar and the bones. “What the hell is this satanic garbage? I thought you kids gave this up decades ago.” He turned, sharp. “And you. Turn that camera off.”

  Kayla lowered her camera slowly, muttering "pig" under her breath.

  “Get in the car,” Brandt growled. “Every one of you.”

  “You can’t arrest us,” Trey slurred, but his voice cracked halfway through.

  Brandt walked up to him slow. “You want to bet your teeth on that?”

  Trey shut his mouth and nodded.

  The deputies moved in. Hands behind backs. Cold steel on wrists. Nobody resisted. Not even Kayla. The ravine watched silently as they were led away.

  Beau looked back one last time. The trees stood still.

  The altar glistened.