The Whisperman of Black Hollow

 They say the Appalachian Mountains hum if you listen long enough. A deep, subtle vibration that snakes through the trees, like the forest itself is exhaling. Locals call it “the breathing of the  Earth.” Poetic, maybe. But in Black Hollow — a dying coal town buried deep in the folds of the  Appalachians — they know better. They don’t wax poetic. They whisper. They whisper about him. The Whisperman. 

It started in 1972. A family of five vanished from their cabin on the edge of the hollow. Food was still warm on the table. Lights on. The dog tied to the porch barked itself hoarse until it bit through its leash and ran wild into the woods. No signs of a struggle. No blood. No footprints. Just... gone.  Over the next few decades, hikers disappeared. Campers. Hunters. A couple of Forest Service guys, too. All in the same general area. No pattern to their backgrounds or routines. Different  ages. Genders. Times of day. Seasons. The only link: each one vanished without a sound. No scuffle. No call for help. Not even a damn boot print in the dirt. And always — always — just before someone disappeared, there would be that stillness. The forest would go unnaturally quiet.  The bugs would stop buzzing. The birds would vanish. The wind would die. Then the whispering would start. 

At first, it was indistinct. Like the rustling of leaves. But then people began to report hearing their names. Spoken softly. Sometimes in their own voices. Sometimes in the voice of someone they loved — a dead grandmother, a missing brother, a childhood friend long gone. One woman,  a local named Maisie Turner, tore off both her ears with garden shears. When the sheriff found her, she was sobbing, “He keeps sounding like my baby. My baby’s dead. He knows that.”  The story might’ve died out if it weren’t for Darren Collins. In 2003, he was a rising true crime  podcaster — smart, cocky, the kind of guy who called ghost stories “hillbilly bedtime tales.” He announced a new series called Whispers in the Hollow and took a solo hike into the woods,  camera and audio recorder strapped to his chest. He never came back. 

Three days later, a package arrived at his sister’s place in Pittsburgh. No return address. No note.  Just his camera, his audio recorder, and a rock from Black Hollow stained with something dark and sticky. The video cut out after two hours of uneventful walking. But the audio kept going.  For seven hours. The last ten minutes still circulate online, though most copies get pulled for  “disturbing content.” Darren is breathing hard, muttering to himself. Then he says: 

“I see him... I see him... he’s not a man. He’s in the air. He’s... between the sounds. He is the  silence.” Then — a low, animalistic growl. And something... wet. Crunching. Slurping. The tape ends with Darren whispering, “He’s inside me now”. Black Hollow’s been empty for years. Only the desperate and the reckless go there now. But sometimes, on misty nights when the mountain goes quiet, people still say they hear soft voices drifting through the trees.  If you're ever hiking those mountains and the wind suddenly stops —  don’t look around. Don’t listen for your name.  Run. Run until the trees are screaming again.  Because if the forest goes quiet...  he’s already behind you.