EAGLE CREEK by Alan Ealy

They called themselves “The Elite Eight” back in college—eight inseparable friends bonded by youth, love, and secrets. Time had stretched them thin, but when Alan invited them to a secluded weekend retreat at an old family cabin deep in the Oregon woods, nostalgia pulled them back together like magnets.

Tee and Alan had always been the closest—best friends since freshman year. Jessica and Steve were high school sweethearts, now married. Kenneth, who they all called “G,” had an on-again, off-again thing with Sherry. Shannon and Brandon were the wildcards—chaotic and inseparable. But everyone trusted Alan. He was quiet, smart, a little dark—but dependable.

The cabin was ancient, inherited by Alan after the passing of his estranged uncle. Weather-beaten wood, dusty corners, and a thick scent of mildew clung to the place like memory. But it had charm. A creek whispered just beyond the treeline. The fire crackled. Drinks flowed.

On the first night, Shannon disappeared.

They searched the forest with flashlights and hoarse voices until sunrise. No signs. No footprints. No blood. But the next morning, her phone was found in the basement—screen cracked, battery dead, and covered in something brown and sticky.

By nightfall, Steve vanished. Brandon was found screaming in the woods, clawing at his own face, muttering nonsense about “red eyes” and “a voice from the walls.” They sedated him, but come morning, he was gone too.

Then it hit Tee.

Something was wrong with Alan.

He was calm. Too calm. When Sherry went missing and G found her torn shirt nailed to a tree, Alan didn’t flinch. When Jessica accused him of lying, he just smiled and said, “It’s just the woods. They get in your head.”

That night, Jessica and G were dragged from their rooms.

Tee tried to run. She didn’t make it far before the blow to her head came. When she awoke, the basement was dark, damp, and humming with muffled sobs. She was tied at the wrists and ankles, duct tape over her mouth. Around her lay the mutilated bodies of their friends—Brandon strung from a hook, Jessica barely recognizable, Steve’s wedding ring still clinging to his broken finger.

Alan stood above her, wearing a tattered black coat, eyes glassy.

“It’s the bloodline,” he whispered. “My uncle taught me. The cabin takes what it’s owed. Every generation must feed it. You should be honored.”

But Tee was smart.

When Alan left to prepare “the final ritual,” she broke a pipe loose and used the jagged end to cut her bindings. She fled through the cellar door, into the forest, and stumbled upon an old ranger station. She screamed until someone listened.

By the time help arrived, the cabin was ash and cinders.

No trace of Alan.

No bodies.

Only Tee’s bloodied clothes and a rusted knife in the basement.

The police didn’t believe her. No records of Alan Ealy inheriting the cabin. No family deaths in the area. No Elite Eight. The photos she had were “clearly fabricated.” They said her trauma had fractured her sense of reality.

She was diagnosed with acute dissociative psychosis and institutionalized.

Years later, a new nurse found a drawing in Tee’s cell. A sketch of a cabin. A creek. Eight figures in a circle. One shadowed figure above them all.

At the bottom, in jagged handwriting:

“The cabin lives. Alan waits.”