2026 Farthest North Fiction Contest Winner
The Hollow Man
Written by Kaci Collins
Cassidy sat in the lookout tower, watching the clouds drift by. She had been here for two weeks now, alone on the side of this mountain. Fire season was slow right now. No storms, no smoke columns, just the occasional rainfall that left the forest smelling of wet pine and cold soil. The only company she had was her red golden retriever, Lucas, and the occasional cackling of the radio from dispatch. Lucas lay beside her on the deck, taking his midafternoon nap. He lifted his head for a moment, ears twitching toward the treeline before settling back down with a sigh.
The clouds rolled over the sun, casting a shadow upon the tower and the valley beneath it. Cassidy brought out her binoculars, scanning the horizon for wildlife – or hikers who’d wandered off the trail. Hikers getting lost is fairly common, so Cassidy guides them back to the trail and moves on with her day.
The pine trees cast shadows on the ground, and the sun, hidden behind the clouds, made it even darker. A flash of movement to the left caught Cassidy’s eye. She whirled the binoculars back in that direction, slowly as if searching for something. She couldn’t be sure – but for a second she thought she saw the outline of a man standing motionless among the trees. She lowered the binoculars for a second and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, whatever she had seen was gone.
Night came quickly on the mountains. Cassidy had long forgotten about what she had seen in the treeline as she prepared dinner for her and Lucas.
She set his bowl down, “Lucas, come here, boy, dinner time.” But Lucas remained on the edge of the deck, staring into the darkness that now surrounded them.
“Lucas, come on, buddy!” Cassidy called. Reluctantly, Lucas walked to his food bowl.
Cassidy shut the door behind him. They ate quietly, the only sound coming from Lucas’s food bowl scraping across the floor. Then, Cassidy’s radio crackled loudly. They both jumped, not expecting a call this late at night.
“Go ahead,” Cassidy called out over the radio. Only static answered. Beneath the crackling, Cassidy swore she could hear something, like a voice trying to push through the noise.
Cassidy quickly changed the channel, tried to get a better signal, and finally, she made it through.
“Dispatch, did you call Tower Five?” Silence.
“Negative, Cassidy. Radio’s been quiet all evening.”
“Copy that,” Cassidy said, setting the radio onto the table. She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling, so she grabbed her flashlight and went out onto the deck. She scanned the nearby woods and the clearing leading up to the tower, but she saw nothing.
Cassidy shrugged her shoulders, looking over at Lucas, who was now lying on his dog bed, “Probably just radio interference, happens sometimes.”
Lucas gave a sigh as Cassidy locked the door and pulled her makeshift curtains shut. Then she snuggled up with a lamp and a book, trying to take her mind off the evening.
Cassidy wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep when Lucas started growling. It was a low growl, one that shook her from the inside. She quietly got up, assuming he was startled by a distant owl, but the woods remained silent. That’s when she heard footsteps.
They circled the base of the tower, leaves crunching under every step. The footsteps stopped on the stairs. For a moment, there was nothing. A slow creak came from outside—the sound of someone stepping on the tower stairs. Cassidy lowered herself back onto her bed, pulling the covers up to her eyes. Lucas stood beside the door, rigid and silent.
A step. Then another. Cassidy slid out of bed and crept toward the window. Her hands trembled as she reached for the curtain. She threw the curtains open. The staircase was empty. Only the wind moved the trees. Slowly, the woods came back to life. The cicadas resumed their chirping, and the owl began singing again.
The next morning, Cassidy stepped out onto the deck with a mug of coffee in her hands. She let out a yawn. Sleep didn’t come easily after last night, and she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Lucas thumped his tail on the deck, ears pinned back, still cautious as if he were still listening to the woods. She rubbed his head and turned toward the stairs. Cassidy’s heart sank.
There were muddy footprints on the stairs. They stopped halfway up and then disappeared. Lucas stiffened at her side, and Cassidy sighed.
“It’s just our imagination, we’ve been away from civilization too long,” she let out an uneasy chuckle. “I’m sure it was just an animal.”
She went about her day, scanning the horizon with her binoculars and listening for a dispatch call over the radio. It wasn’t until she looked out over the valley that she saw it, there, between the trees. A tall, thin figure stood, unmoved. She blinked, and when her vision cleared, it seemed closer. It stood there as if studying her while she studied it, then its head tilted slightly to the left, unnaturally angled.
“What in the–,” she lowered the binoculars. Lucas stood, hair standing on end, growling at the figure. Cassidy’s hands trembled as she raised the binoculars back to her face. It seemed even closer, and now she could make out its facial features– except it didn’t have any. No eyes, no mouth, nothing. Just a blank face that reflected the afternoon sun. Cassidy became sick to her stomach, and her breath became ragged. Every instinct she had told her to run, hide, move away, but she was frozen with fear. She knew what she was seeing wasn’t a person or an animal. She lowered the binoculars again, squinting in its direction, but the figure was gone.
She scanned the treeline with her naked eye, but nothing moved between the pines. Lucas continued to growl, low and steady, his gaze fixed on the same patch of trees. Cassidy swallowed hard, trying to catch her breath.
“Easy, boy,” she murmured, though the words felt hollow in her mouth. She rubbed a trembling hand across her face. Weeks alone in the mountain could do strange things to a person. Lack of sleep, silence, and endless trees– maybe it was all beginning to play tricks on her mind.
Lucas barked once, loud and sharp. Cassidy jerked her head in the direction of the sound. The treeline stayed motionless, but something was off. The air felt thick and oppressive. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
There was a faint disturbance in the brush as if something had just slipped between the trees. Cassidy took a slow step back toward the safety of her tower.
“Hello?” her voice echoed throughout the valley, but the forest did not answer.
She motioned for Lucas, and the two ran into the tower and locked the door. Cassidy knew she’d do whatever she had to do to stay in that tower.
Inside, the tower felt smaller. The wood creaked with the slightest breeze, and the windows seemed to fill with the endless forest around them. Cassidy leaned against the door, chest heaving. Lucas paced back and forth, whining and stopping to gaze out the window.
Then, Cassidy’s radio crackled.
“Dispatch?” she quickly grabbed the radio, “Dispatch, come in.”
A static voice, “....Cassidy…”
She threw the radio down.
“You heard that, too, right?” Lucas’s ears perked up, eyes fixed on the door.
Cassidy moved to look out the window. It was starting to sprinkle outside, and the wind was picking up. As if she had summoned it herself, the wind knocked the door open. Lucas darted out of the tower and into the woods.
“Lucas!” Cassidy shouted from the doorway. All she could hear was his barks growing fainter as he disappeared deeper into the forest. Cassidy pulled on her raincoat, grabbed her flashlight, and headed into the woods.
Rain started to fall harder. Cassidy kept calling out for Lucas, but the forest swallowed her voice. The flashlight's beam cut through the rain, illuminating wet trees and branches that shimmered in the light. Somewhere up ahead, Lucas barked. A wave of relief washed over her.
“I’m coming!” she called to him, but as she ventured further into the forest, the bark appeared from behind her. Cassidy froze in confusion. She turned around, only to find the bark now coming from her left, then her right. She spun in circles, but a familiar figure standing among the trees made her stop.
The beam of her flashlight had just caught it– the white, faceless figure standing there. Cassidy’s heart sank. For a moment, she couldn’t move. The rain drummed against the leaves, louder than before. The wind shifted, and so did the figure. It tipped its head at her again, as if studying what she was. Her hand tightened around her flashlight as she backed away slowly. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.
Cassidy frantically searched for where it might have gone, but it was nowhere to be found, and she suddenly realized something much more terrifying. She couldn’t see the tower anymore. Every direction seemed the same. Her breathing quickened, and tears mixed with the rain falling from her hair.
“Lucas…” she whispered.
A bark responded from far behind her. Cassidy spun around and pushed through the trees, nearly slipping in the mud as she followed the sound. Branches scraped her sleeves as she stumbled forward. Then she saw it: the faint light of the tower and Lucas standing at the base of the steps, barking into the forest. Cassidy ran to him, hugging him tightly as she let tears fall.
They rushed up the staircase of the tower, and Cassidy slammed the door shut. Rain hammered against the windows while the wind rattled the tower walls. Cassidy wiped the rain from her face and pushed damp strings of hair out of her eyes. She moved toward the window and looked out into the forest.
The trees swayed in the wind, their branches bending and brushing against one another. All was calm, nothing moved, nothing stood among the trees, just nature. Cassidy stepped away from the window. She hung her raincoat by the door and pulled off her soaked boots. Lucas shook himself, spraying a fine mist across the floor, then settled into his dog bed. Cassidy rubbed her hair dry with a towel, her hands still trembling.
“You really scared me, you know?” She looked at Lucas, who huffed softly in response. She draped a warm blanket over him. Cassidy changed into dry clothes, shivering as the tower's warmth returned. The storm had quieted outside, leaving only the sound of rain falling. Cassidy climbed into bed, pulling the blankets tightly around her. She closed her eyes, telling herself it had all just been shadows and the storm, and tried to fall asleep.
Outside, the trees swayed in the moonlight– and somewhere deep in the forest, a faint, pale movement passed unnoticed. Almost as if Cassidy had only imagined it.