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T rying to pretend I have my crap together, I finally step out from the ladies room and head back to the table.

Out of nowhere, I get ambushed.

“Oh no way! You’re Paranormal Bunny!”

A guy, early twenties, handsome face, shaggy dirty blond hair, wearing a vintage horror movie t-shirt, is looking at me like he just ran into the literal royalty or something—if they talked ghosts, danced in cosplay, and ate ramen on camera for money.

I blink, caught off guard. “Um, yeah. Hey, hi!” I say, automatically slipping into cheerful influencer mode.

“Damn, I love you,” he blurts with starry eyes.

Then, realizing how that sounds, he backtracks, “I mean, your videos! I’m a huge fan!

I stalk your TikTok like multiple times a day—wait, not stalk-stalk!

Shit. Sorry, that sounded creepy. I just never would’ve expected to see you here .

” He laughs awkwardly, holding out a hand.

“I’m Mark, by the way.” His southern drawl is just thick enough to melt butter.

I giggle. He probably has a knife collection but cries during dog movies. He’s harmless—just nervous, that’s all.

“Nice to meet you, Mark. Me and a few of my friends are working on a new project.”

“About Appalachians?” His face lights up. “Do I have stories to tell you!”

His eyes go wide suddenly, looking above my head. I don’t even have to turn around to know Ghost is standing right there, menacingly , towering over both of us and everyone else in the diner.

“That’s just this very small YouTuber,” I joke, waving him off. Ghost has thirteen million subscribers—that’s more than I and the rest of our group combined. And if Mark is truly a horror fan, he most likely is Ghost’s fan, too.

“So, Mark—” I start, but Ghost immediately cuts in.

“You’re gone five seconds, and you’ve already got a dude hitting on you?”

I roll my eyes. “He was just saying he has stories to share.”

“We don’t need them,” he replies definitively, his voice ice-cold.

“Anything can be useful,” I argue, though honestly, I don’t care. It’s just way too fun watching Ghost get this crazy-jealous over nothing… and he deserves that after flirting with Kendra.

Plus, I’ll take anything over being alone with him.

Ghost tenses. “Your food is ready,” he growls, clearly done with this conversation.

“Calm the heck down,” I huff. “You’re being such a pain. And let me remind you that you wanted to do this documentary.”

Then, ignoring his attitude, I show Mark to our table.

I slide into the booth next to him, diving into my burger, while Ghost sets up the camera on a tripod before taking his seat across from us.

Mark watches me eat like he’s enchanted. Men are fucking weird. I swear they get turned on by the weirdest shit—not gonna complain since I make a living out of it, though.

“Bunny, I must say, I love your style,” he compliments my outfit, getting flirty. “It’s adorable.”

“Aww, thank you!” I brush his arm just ever so slightly.

Ghost has zero patience. “Can you get to the fucking point?” he snaps, and I’m positive his eyes are boring into Mark with the intensity of a thousand suns.

I nudge him with my foot under the table. “Don’t be rude.”

Ghost mutters something to himself, visibly grinding his teeth under the mask.

Mark stiffens a bit. “What do you guys have so far?”

“Nothing really specific.” I shrug. “Just a few paranormal encounter stories. Glowing eyes staring in the window. Whistling in the woods. Feral people. That sort of thing.”

“All valid.” Mark chuckles. But there’s something dark there.

Like he’s seen some stuff. “Growing up in the Appalachian foothills comes with a set of rules. We know from an early age that once it starts to get dark outside it means we need to haul our asses back home. Then shut all the doors and windows and pull down the blinds. Meemaw always said: If you hear something in the woods… No, you didn’t.

If you see something… No, you didn’t. And whatever you do—don’t run. The chase excites them.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Them?”

He leans in, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“Cryptids. The watchers. The old ones. These mountains are older than the Atlantic. Older than the rings of Saturn. Older even than bones. They’ve seen everything.

Dinosaurs. Blood. War. And something else.

Something that doesn’t die just ‘cause people forget its name.”

Goosebumps prick my arms. I try to play it cool, but I inch the camera a little closer toward him.

“Long before white folks ever got here, the Cherokee, the Catawba, and other tribes lived all through these hills. The land was sacred. Alive. But when the colonizers came…” He pauses.

“They didn’t just steal the land. They brought hell with ‘em. Slaughter. Famine. Broken treaties. And something about all that suffering— all that blood —it stirred things that shoulda stayed asleep.”

His eyes flick up, scanning the room like the fluorescent lights might be listening.

“Some even believe the Wendigo was born from every ounce of greed and cruelty the colonizers brought with them.”

I blink. “I thought Wendigos were like cannibals from Algonquian folklore. Canada stuff.”

“Well, the Appalachian Mountains extend into Canada. And yes. At least, that’s one of the legends.

It’s not just a creature,” he says. “Not really. It’s a curse.

A force. The kind of desperation that happened when a man ate human flesh in the winter, that’s just how it starts.

It ain’t some random monster. It’s the hunger made flesh.

But out here?” Mark taps the tabletop with a thick finger.

“Out here, it’s changed. It’s evolved. It’s part of the land.

I see it as something more, something much bigger, like Leshy.

” He pauses, leaning closer. “You know, the forest deity from Slavic mythology. It doesn’t just crave meat now.

It feeds on human urges—lust, pride, gluttony, envy, pain, power.

It becomes wanting everything . You can’t satisfy it. Ever.”

I shiver. “So it’s always starving.”

Mark smiles without humor. “You wanna know what it feels like to be stalked by it?”

I swallow, but don’t answer.

“It feels like longing for something so bad it burns, then realizing it wants you just as bad. But not for who you are—for what you are. It wants to consume your entire being. A craving with claws. You can’t fight it. You can’t beg it. You’re already half-digested before it even shows its face.”

I shudder harder, turning my eyes to the windows. I haven’t been this spooked out since Alaska.

Outside, the street looks normal—just a quiet, sunny day in a rural town. But in the distance, the mountains paint the skyline, trees ancient and still, as if they are holding the world’s secrets. And the feeling that something that shouldn’t exist just heard me breathe.

The chill in my spine lingers.

“And then, of course, there are SW,” he adds, catching my attention, and I give him a confused look. His voice drops to a mere whisper now, “Skinwalkers.”

“Wait. Aren’t they from Navajo lore?” I crane my neck to look at Ghost. “You live near the reservation in Arizona, right?”

That’s one story he never told, no matter how many people begged.

He’s got firm boundaries when it comes to cultural and religious themes—he just doesn’t entertain that kind of content.

I’ve always admired that about him. But hey, he’s been in the business long enough to know how to play the game when there’s a paycheck involved. No drama. No controversy.

He nods, silent. I can see he’s seething, his knee bouncing under the table, long fingers tapping against the wood.

“It’s dangerous to even speak about them,” Mark says, cutting through the silence.

He seems to be on the same page as us. “But what we’ve got out here…

it ain’t exactly that. There are many different names for them.

Fleshgaits. Ghouls. Mimics. Shapeshifters.

My Meemaw calls them Hollows. But most folks tend to identify them as Appalachian Skinwalkers, though we understand they are very different from the Navajo legends.

What we’re talkin’ about are spirits. Twisted, angry, evil things that change forms. They copy voices.

Lure you out. Sometimes they look just like someone you love—until it’s too late. ”

Ghost is fidgeting so much now that the whole table starts to shake. He’s like a wild animal in a cage, seconds from snapping. And it surprises me because he rarely loses his temper.

On a whim—or maybe a dare to myself—I grab my old-fashioned strawberry shake, swirl the straw, and slurp it like it’s the only thing I care about. Then I dip a finger into the whipped cream and drag it slowly into my mouth.

As expected, it’s a perfect distraction as they both pay attention to me.

For a moment, Ghost doesn’t look like he’s about to commit a homicide. But Mark must have a suicide wish—or he’s thinking with his other head entirely right now—because he makes a move.

“You know, if you need a tour guide, I’d be very happy to take care of you…” His words getting a little too smooth, eyes darting from my lips to my boobs.

I notice but don’t react.

It’s a little uncomfortable, but honestly, it’s part of the gig. When you’re a girl online, it happens all the time. Men get flirty, they get creepy, they assume too much. It’s easier to pretend not to notice. Even better, to embrace it.

I’m used to it.

Ghost? Yeah, not so much.

I feel the shift before I even see him move. One second, he’s sitting across from me, rigid and silent. The next, he’s standing, his massive frame blocking out the light. Then, he lunges.

Mark barely has time to register what’s happening before Ghost grabs him by the collar and yanks him clean out of the booth.

The restaurant falls dead silent. A few chairs scrape against the floor as people turn to find what’s causing the commotion.