WolvesTale

Some Songs Should Never Be Sung

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Part I — The Woods Beyond Black Pine Creek

The deeper the teenagers drove into the East Texas wilderness, the more the world behind them seemed to disappear.

The highway had vanished nearly forty minutes earlier. Then the gravel roads faded into narrow stretches of cracked dirt winding endlessly between towering walls of pine. Branches scraped across the roof of the old Chevy Suburban with long, fingernail shrieks that made the vehicle sound as though it were being dragged deeper into the forest against its will.

Dylan Mercer leaned forward over the steering wheel, squinting through drifting bands of fog illuminated by the headlights. Dense black pines crowded both sides of the road, their trunks impossibly tall, their upper limbs vanishing into darkness.

Behind him, Kayla Bennett groaned from the back seat.

“Tell me again why we couldn’t camp somewhere normal.”

“Because normal campgrounds suck,” Dylan replied without taking his eyes off the road. “Too many tourists. Too many cops.”

“And because Trevor watched one survival documentary and now thinks he’s a wilderness expert,” Marcus added.

Trevor Grady grinned from the passenger seat and raised a lazy middle finger.

“When civilization collapses, y’all are gonna regret mocking me.”

Kayla folded her arms tighter.

“When civilization collapses, I promise this exact forest is where people get murdered first.”

The Suburban slammed into another deep rut. Empty cans rattled beneath the seats. Noah Pike cursed softly as his phone slipped from his hand.

Outside, East Texas pressed against them like something alive.

Humidity clung thick against the windows. The woods smelled of wet bark, black mud, and stagnant water hidden somewhere beyond the trees. Every mile deeper into the forest felt older somehow, as though the modern world had stopped existing beyond the curtain of pines surrounding them.

Six teenagers. One final trip before summer scattered them into separate lives.

Dylan carried the quiet confidence of someone people naturally followed. Trevor lived for recklessness and treated danger like entertainment. Marcus Lee rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying, though the camcorder balanced constantly on his knee captured nearly everything around him.

Kayla only came because Marcus convinced her.

Jenna Holloway sat silent in the third row, staring out into darkness with growing unease.

Beside her, Noah kept refreshing the dead GPS signal on his phone.

“No service,” he muttered again.

Trevor laughed.

“Buddy, if we had service out here, I’d ask for my money back.”

The road ended without warning.

The headlights spilled into a wide circular clearing surrounded by enormous pines that stood motionless beneath the moonlight like silent witnesses.

Dylan killed the engine.

Instantly, the forest swallowed them.

Not silence.

Never silence.

Cicadas screamed in the distance. Frogs croaked somewhere beyond unseen water. Wind whispered softly through thousands of pine needles overhead.

Yet beneath those familiar sounds lingered something else.

A stillness too deep to feel natural.

Jenna felt it immediately.

The woods were listening.

Trevor climbed out first and stretched dramatically beneath the trees.

“Welcome to paradise.”

Humid night air wrapped around them as the others stepped from the vehicle. Moonlight filtered weakly through the canopy above, painting the clearing in pale silver and deep shadow.

Marcus swept his flashlight around slowly.

Half-buried stone markers ringed the campsite.

Old.

Weathered.

Deliberately placed.

“Those definitely weren’t made recently,” Marcus said.

Trevor glanced at them casually.

“Probably some abandoned tribal site.”

Jenna shot him a sharp look.

“You should maybe not say that so casually.”

“What? I’m just saying.”

Dylan opened the rear hatch.

“Can we set up camp before the woods become officially haunted?”

Thunder rumbled faintly somewhere far away.

Beyond the clearing, a narrow creek cut through the forest like a ribbon of black glass tangled with cypress roots and drifting fog. Past it, the woods thickened into complete darkness.

No cabins.

No lights.

No roads.

Nothing human for miles.

Exactly what Trevor wanted.

They unpacked beneath flashlight beams while the forest slowly darkened around them. Kayla and Jenna wrestled with tents while Marcus gathered fallen branches near the edge of the trees.

That was when he noticed the carvings.

Symbols etched deeply into the bark of several massive pines.

Circles.

Vertical lines.

Shapes resembling antlers spreading outward like crowns.

Marcus traced one carefully with his fingertips.

The grooves felt old.

Ancient, maybe.

“What language is this?” he asked quietly.

Nobody answered.

Jenna stepped closer, studying the marks with visible discomfort.

“These don’t look random.”

Trevor cracked open another beer.

“Maybe it’s Blair Witch stuff.”

Kayla rolled her eyes.

“You’re not helping.”

Darkness settled fully by the time Dylan lit the fire.

Orange flames crackled upward, throwing warm light across their faces while long shadows stretched between the trees beyond camp. The fire should have made the clearing feel safer.

Instead, it only made the forest beyond the light appear deeper.

Hungrier.

Marcus lifted the camcorder toward the woods.

Static flickered briefly across the screen.

He frowned and smacked the side.

The image stabilized again.

But for a single instant, Marcus could have sworn something impossibly tall stood motionless between the trees.

Watching them.

Then it vanished.

“You guys hear that?” Jenna whispered suddenly.

Everyone froze.

At first, all Marcus heard were cicadas and wind.

Then something else drifted faintly through the trees.

Singing.

Low.

Rhythmic.

Far away.

The sound barely resembled music. It rose and fell unevenly, carried through the forest like an echo from somewhere impossibly distant.

Trevor smirked uneasily.

“Coyotes maybe?”

Jenna shook her head slowly.

“No.”

Her voice had gone pale.

“That sounded human.”

The singing vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

Dylan tossed another branch into the fire.

“Well, if ghost forest people show up tonight, Trevor’s definitely the sacrifice.”

Trevor placed a hand over his heart.

“I accept this honor.”

Laughter broke the tension briefly.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone except Jenna.

She stared into the darkness beyond the firelight where the towering pines stood utterly still beneath the moon.

And somewhere deep within the East Texas wilderness, something ancient listened to their voices for the first time in generations.

Part II — The Recording

Rain arrived just after midnight.

Not a thunderstorm. Not the violent kind of downpour that bent trees and flooded roads.

Just a slow, cold drizzle drifting through the pines like mist breathed from the forest itself.

The fire hissed softly beneath the falling rain. Smoke curled low across the clearing instead of rising upward, hanging strangely between the trees.

Marcus ducked beneath a sagging tarp beside the Suburban while searching through old camping supplies Trevor had thrown together from his grandfather’s shed.

Most of it was junk.

Rusted fishing hooks.

Mildewed blankets.

A lantern that flickered weakly even with fresh batteries.

Then Marcus found the box.

It sat buried beneath a stack of yellowed newspapers inside a cracked wooden crate pushed deep into the back corner of the truck.

Dust coated the lid so thickly he could barely make out the faded lettering burned into the wood.

PROPERTY OF BLACK PINE ARCHIVE

Kayla leaned closer beneath the tarp.

“That sounds extremely cursed.”

Trevor immediately grinned.

“Open it.”

Marcus hesitated only a moment before lifting the lid.

Inside rested dozens of cassette tapes wrapped carefully in brittle paper sleeves stained dark with age.

Jenna stepped closer, visibly uneasy.

“Those things look ancient.”

“No kidding,” Marcus muttered.

He picked one up carefully. Most of the labels had faded beyond recognition, the ink nearly erased by time and moisture.

But one remained legible.

SONG OF THE SLEEPING SPIRIT

The moment Marcus read the words aloud, a sudden gust of freezing wind tore through camp.

The tarp snapped violently overhead.

The fire outside dimmed low enough that shadows swallowed half the clearing.

Jenna immediately turned toward the forest.

“Okay. Seriously. Put it back.”

Trevor reached for the tape instantly.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“Trevor—”

“This is amazing.”

Marcus dug deeper into the crate and froze.

“There’s more.”

Beneath the tapes sat an old portable cassette recorder wrapped in cracked leather. The plastic casing had yellowed with age, but when Marcus pressed the power button, a faint red light blinked alive.

Trevor laughed in disbelief.

“No way that still works.”

“Apparently it does.”

Rain tapped softly overhead as everyone crowded closer beneath the tarp. Even Dylan looked interested now, though unease had begun creeping into his expression.

Trevor slid the cassette into place.

The recorder clicked loudly.

Then he pressed play.

Static erupted from the tiny speaker.

Sharp.

Violent.

The sound crackled through the clearing like electrical fire.

Then silence.

A few soft pops.

And finally—

Singing.

Every person beneath the tarp froze instantly.

The voices drifting from the recorder sounded old beyond comprehension. Low chants layered over distant drumming echoed through heavy static, sung in a language none of them recognized.

But language didn’t matter.

The emotion inside the recording came through clearly enough.

Fear.

Grief.

Warning.

The melody rose and fell in unnatural patterns that made Marcus feel physically uncomfortable. Certain notes stretched too long. Rhythms staggered unpredictably. The song sounded wrong in ways he couldn’t explain.

Like something attempting to imitate human music without fully understanding it.

Jenna’s face paled almost immediately.

“Turn it off.”

Trevor ignored her.

The recording continued.

The chanting deepened.

More voices joined in somewhere far behind the original singers, layered so faintly beneath the static they almost sounded imagined.

Marcus felt goosebumps spread slowly up both arms.

Kayla wrapped her hoodie tighter around herself.

“Nope,” she whispered. “I hate every second of this.”

Dylan forced a laugh that didn’t sound convincing.

“It’s probably some old ceremony recording.”

Then another sound emerged beneath the chanting.

A scream.

Not singing.

Not part of the rhythm.

An actual human scream buried deep within the tape.

Everyone went perfectly still.

Trevor stared at the recorder.

The scream faded back into static.

Then the chanting continued as though nothing had happened.

Trevor stopped the tape abruptly.

Rain filled the silence around them.

Nobody spoke for several long seconds.

Finally Noah swallowed hard.

“What the hell was that?”

Marcus reached slowly for the recorder.

“Play it again.”

Trevor rewound the cassette with visibly shaking fingers.

The haunting melody returned.

Low chanting.

Distant drums.

Then—

The scream again.

Longer this time.

More desperate.

Almost drowned beneath the song itself.

Jenna stepped backward immediately.

“I don’t like this.”

Kayla nodded.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Even Trevor’s grin had faded now.

Marcus turned the cassette over carefully beneath Dylan’s flashlight.

Tiny symbols had been carved directly into the plastic casing.

Circles.

Vertical marks.

Antler shapes.

The exact same symbols carved into the trees surrounding camp.

Noah noticed movement first.

“Guys…”

Everyone turned toward the woods.

Beyond the tarp, rain drifted through endless black pines.

Nothing moved.

Nothing visible.

But the feeling remained.

Someone standing just beyond sight.

Watching.

Trevor laughed nervously.

“Okay, that’s officially creepy.”

Marcus replayed the tape again despite Jenna’s protests.

This time Dylan noticed something else beneath the chanting.

Breathing.

Slow.

Heavy.

Wet.

Not close.

Enormous.

Like something massive standing directly beside the original recording device while the song was captured.

The breathing continued for several seconds.

Then the tape stopped with a loud mechanical click.

Silence returned.

Rain tapped softly against canvas overhead.

Trevor forced another laugh, weaker now.

“Well. That’s definitely cursed.”

Jenna folded her arms tightly.

“Put it back in the box.”

“Why?”

“Because whoever hid it here probably had a reason.”

Trevor smirked faintly.

“Or maybe they wanted somebody to find it.”

Lightning flickered far away through the trees.

For a single instant, Marcus saw shapes standing motionless among the pines beyond camp.

Tall silhouettes.

Too tall.

Then darkness swallowed them again.

The cassette recorder suddenly crackled on its own.

Everyone jumped.

Trevor stared down at it.

“I turned it off.”

Static hissed softly from the speaker.

Then, beneath the distortion, a voice whispered faintly through the machine.

“…sing…”

Jenna backed away immediately.

“Nope. Absolutely not.”

Dylan grabbed the recorder and shut it off completely.

“That’s enough horror movie nonsense for tonight.”

Nobody argued.

But long after the rain stopped, none of them slept.

Because somewhere deep in the woods beyond Black Pine Creek, the melody continued drifting faintly through the trees.

And this time, it sounded closer.

Part III — The Campfire Song

By two in the morning, the fire had burned down to a bed of glowing embers.

Rainwater still dripped steadily from the pine branches overhead, hissing softly whenever it struck the coals. Smoke drifted low across the clearing, wrapping around tree trunks and tents like wandering spirits.

Nobody spoke much anymore.

The excitement from earlier had dissolved into something quieter.

Something uneasy.

Kayla sat wrapped tightly in a damp blanket near the fire while Noah stared constantly toward the dark tree line as though expecting movement at any second. Marcus adjusted the focus on his camcorder for the tenth time, though static still crawled intermittently across the tiny screen.

Jenna hadn’t sat down again since hearing the whisper from the recorder.

She remained near the Suburban with her arms folded tightly across her chest, watching the woods.

Watching the darkness breathe.

Trevor finally broke the silence.

“We should learn the song.”

Jenna looked at him instantly.

“No.”

Trevor smirked.

“Oh come on.”

“I’m serious.”

“What, you think chanting into the woods is gonna awaken an ancient curse?”

Jenna’s expression never changed.

“I think mocking things you don’t understand is stupid.”

Trevor spread his hands dramatically.

“And I think this is exactly how people become local legends.”

Marcus snorted softly.

“That’s because you want to die in a documentary.”

Dylan tossed another branch into the fire.

The flames rose briefly before settling again.

“It’s creepy,” Dylan admitted. “But it’s probably just some old ceremonial recording.”

“Exactly,” Trevor said. “Which makes it interesting.”

Kayla shook her head slowly.

“You guys hear a tape whispering in the woods and your first thought is ‘let’s provoke it.’”

Trevor ignored her completely.

He grabbed the cassette recorder again.

Jenna immediately stepped forward.

“Trevor.”

“One chorus,” he said with a grin. “For science.”

“No.”

“Relax.”

Trevor pressed play.

Static crackled through the speaker.

Then the chanting returned.

The strange melody rolled through the clearing once more, low and warped beneath layers of distortion. The sound no longer seemed distant now.

It felt close.

Too close.

Trevor began mimicking the rhythm badly, stumbling through the unfamiliar syllables with exaggerated dramatic gestures.

Marcus burst out laughing.

“Oh my God, stop.”

Trevor kept going anyway.

Dylan joined in mockingly from across the fire.

Soon Noah added a few awkward words under his breath, laughing nervously as he tried to imitate the recording.

The ancient syllables echoed clumsily beneath the trees.

Wrong sounds spoken by careless mouths.

Jenna stepped closer to the firelight.

“Seriously. Stop singing it.”

Nobody listened.

Trevor raised both arms toward the woods theatrically.

“Oh ancient forest spirits—”

The cassette suddenly shrieked with violent static.

Everyone flinched.

The sound tore through the clearing so sharply it felt almost painful.

Then silence.

The tape had stopped.

Marcus frowned.

“That wasn’t normal.”

Trevor stared at the recorder.

“No kidding.”

Then Marcus noticed something near the edge of camp.

“Guys.”

He lifted his flashlight slowly toward one of the large pine trees bordering the clearing.

Fresh marks carved deep into the bark.

Long vertical gouges.

Not scratches.

Claw marks.

The bark still looked wet and splintered, as though whatever made them had done so recently.

And beneath the gouges sat another set of symbols carved into the trunk.

Different from the earlier markings.

Sharper.

Angrier.

Even without understanding the language, the meaning felt unmistakable.

WARNING.

DO NOT SING.

Jenna’s face drained of color.

“Okay,” she whispered. “We’re leaving.”

Trevor tried to laugh again, but uncertainty had finally entered his voice.

“Noah probably carved that earlier to mess with us.”

Noah shook his head immediately.

“I didn’t touch the trees.”

Wind moved suddenly through the forest.

Only now the woods sounded different.

The insects had grown quieter.

The frogs near the creek had stopped almost completely.

The entire forest seemed to be holding its breath.

Trevor lowered the recorder slowly.

“You guys feel that?”

Cold rolled through the clearing like winter air spilling from an open grave.

Their breath fogged faintly in front of them despite the Texas humidity.

Marcus swept his flashlight toward the trees.

Movement flickered between the trunks.

Tall shapes passing silently through the darkness.

Gone before the beam could settle on them.

Dylan stood slowly.

“Somebody’s out there.”

“At two in the morning?” Kayla asked quietly.

Nobody answered.

The cassette recorder crackled again despite being powered off.

Static hissed softly from the speaker.

Then the whisper returned.

“…sing…”

Trevor swallowed hard.

For the first time all night, genuine fear crossed his face.

Jenna grabbed her backpack.

“I’m staying in the truck.”

“No, wait,” Dylan said quickly. “It’s probably damaged wiring or something.”

Marcus looked down at the recorder.

“Damaged electronics don’t whisper.”

Trevor stared silently at the tape for several long seconds.

Then, because fear often transforms into recklessness before it becomes survival, he forced another grin.

“Fine,” he said softly. “One last chorus.”

“Trevor—”

Too late.

He pressed play again.

The chanting filled the clearing once more.

This time, everyone except Jenna joined in.

Laughing nervously.

Mocking the strange syllables.

Repeating sounds they did not understand beneath trees older than memory.

The melody twisted unnaturally through the forest air.

And somewhere beyond the firelight—

Something answered.

At first the new voices sounded distant.

Almost imagined.

Low chanting drifting from deep within the woods beyond the creek.

Then louder.

Closer.

Ancient voices rising beneath the trees in perfect rhythm with the tape.

Marcus stopped singing first.

His smile vanished instantly.

“You guys hear that?”

The others fell silent.

But the chanting continued.

Not from the recorder anymore.

From the forest itself.

Answering them.

Trevor slowly lowered the cassette player.

“…guys?”

Branches cracked somewhere beyond the clearing.

Heavy footsteps circled slowly through the darkness just outside the firelight.

One side of camp.

Then another.

Too fast.

Far too fast.

Jenna’s voice trembled.

“We need to leave. Right now.”

Nobody argued anymore.

Dylan stood immediately.

“Pack everything.”

Then the cassette recorder began playing backward on its own.

The chanting reversed into distorted shrieks and warped screams.

And from somewhere deep among the pines—

Something screamed back.

Part IV — The Silence

The scream rolled through the forest like thunder beneath the earth.

Not human.

Not animal.

Something older.

Something vast.

The sound vibrated through the clearing and into their bones, shaking the breath from their lungs. Trevor dropped the cassette recorder into the dirt as the noise echoed endlessly between the trees.

Then—

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Not gradual.

Instant.

The cicadas stopped first.

Then the frogs near the creek.

Then even the wind vanished from the pines.

Every natural sound inside the East Texas wilderness disappeared all at once.

The sudden stillness felt physically wrong.

Pressure built inside their ears.

Inside their skulls.

Kayla whispered first, barely audible.

“Why is it so quiet?”

Nobody answered.

Because every one of them already understood something terrible had changed.

The forest no longer felt alive.

It felt aware.

The fire crackled weakly behind them, but beyond its light the woods had become an endless wall of unmoving darkness.

Marcus slowly lifted the camcorder again.

Static flooded the screen immediately.

Violent distortion warped across the image while the speaker emitted a low mechanical whine.

Then the interference cleared for half a second.

And Marcus saw it.

Standing between the trees.

A figure so tall its antlers disappeared beyond the top of the frame.

Marcus inhaled sharply.

The image snapped back into static.

When the screen stabilized again, the figure was gone.

“What did you see?” Dylan asked quietly.

Marcus lowered the camera slowly.

His voice barely worked.

“I don’t know.”

But deep down, he did.

A rotten smell drifted suddenly through camp.

Wet soil.

Decay.

Old blood.

Noah backed slowly toward the Suburban.

“We need to leave. Right now.”

Then came the footsteps.

Not from one direction.

From everywhere.

Heavy crunching movements circled beyond the firelight, slow and deliberate through wet pine needles and dead branches.

Something moved through the woods surrounding them.

Something enormous.

Trevor grabbed a flashlight and swept the beam wildly between the trees.

Nothing appeared.

But the feeling remained.

A presence lingering just outside the reach of the light.

Watching.

Waiting.

The fog thickened unnaturally fast.

White mist poured between the pines in twisting ribbons, swallowing entire sections of forest within seconds. The clearing seemed smaller now.

The darkness closer.

Then came the voices.

Soft whispers drifting through the fog.

“Dylan…”

Dylan froze instantly.

The voice sounded exactly like his father.

“Kayla…”

Kayla’s face went white.

“That’s my sister.”

Marcus felt his stomach collapse inward as another voice drifted through the mist.

His grandfather’s voice.

Dead three years.

Calling his name softly from somewhere beyond the creek.

Noah turned slowly toward the woods.

A woman’s voice whispered gently through the darkness.

“Baby…”

Noah began trembling immediately.

His mother’s voice.

Impossible.

Jenna stared at him in horror.

“She’s dead.”

But Noah kept staring into the trees.

Another whisper floated from the fog.

Closer now.

“Come here…”

Noah took a step forward.

Dylan grabbed his shoulder instantly.

“No.”

The footsteps circled faster now.

Branches snapped high overhead.

Not at ground level.

Above them.

Something massive moved through the treetops with impossible speed.

Marcus raised his flashlight toward the canopy.

For one horrifying second, enormous antlers passed silently above the pines.

Far too high.

Far too large.

Then darkness swallowed them again.

Trevor’s bravado finally shattered completely.

“What the hell is happening?”

Nobody answered.

Because somewhere inside themselves, all six teenagers already understood the truth.

The song had awakened something.

The woods around them no longer felt connected to the world they knew. Reality itself seemed thinner here now, stretched open like torn fabric beneath the trees.

The carved symbols surrounding the clearing glowed faintly red beneath the drifting fog.

Pulsing.

Breathing.

And somewhere far away in the darkness came another sound.

Breathing.

Slow.

Heavy.

Approaching.

The fire dimmed suddenly.

Not naturally.

As though the darkness itself had begun swallowing the light.

Jenna moved closer beside Dylan.

Her voice trembled.

“We shouldn’t have sung it.”

No one argued.

Then another voice echoed from the trees.

Clear this time.

Perfectly human.

Using Trevor’s voice exactly.

“Run.”

The forest fell silent again afterward.

No insects.

No wind.

No movement.

Only the breathing beyond the fog.

And somewhere deep within the East Texas wilderness, something ancient smiled in the dark.