Shadows in the Pines

He pitched his tent where the pines thickened into a black wall, the kind of place

that kills phone signal and makes your own breathing sound loud. Near dusk,

the last sun slanted low and poured long tree-shadows across the ground like spilled ink.

That’s when he noticed it: the shadows weren’t matching the trunks. A branch swayed,

but its shadow didn’t. A pine stood still, but its shadow crawled—slow, deliberate—stretching around his boots

like it was feeling for warmth. He stepped back, and the shadows stepped with him,

not away from him. Not with the light. With him. He told himself it was uneven ground,

wind, his eyes adjusting. Then the forest went quiet in that unnatural way,