Episode 4 of Season 2 of Tales from The Hollow
Frank Harmon has been telling himself he needs more time. He doesn't have it.
Four years since Michael Anderson stood in the lodge at Ironwood. Four years and one month, if anyone were counting. He has not been counting. He has been building a life instead — a factory job, crew lead since January, a girl named Quinn who sits in the back pew at First Methodist, a family on Walnut Street that doesn't ask questions he isn't ready to answer.
The phone rings on a Thursday afternoon.
"I need you to come out to Ironwood," Frank says. "When you can. Soon."
Michael drives to Ironwood and finds Herald McKinnon waiting at the table — the man who pulled his family out of a blizzard eleven years ago, the man whose seven words have lived in Michael since he was ten years old. What Herald and Frank have been reading across Wawaset County has a center. Michael already knows where it is.
The siren still runs at 8:47. Michael has only heard it twice in his life. He won't forget either time.
He drives home past the turnoff to Maple Grove Road and doesn't take it. Not yet. There's a conversation coming — with his parents, with Quinn, with eleven years of silence that's about to end. But not tonight.
This is not a standalone story. The Darker Season is a continuous serialized narrative following one unfolding threat across 12 episodes. Start with Episode 1 and follow along as the darkness builds toward something that has been coming since 1977.
1980s supernatural horror | Gothic horror | Serialized thriller
Runtime: 1 hour 43 mins
Content: Supernatural horror, themes of inherited burden, the cost of carrying something alone, and the patience of something ancient and hungry. No graphic content.
📚 DISCOVER THE WILLOW'S BEND NOVELS: The horror at Ironwood Retreat is just one chapter of a much larger story. The darkness in Willow's Bend has been feeding for over a century. Learn how it all began:
The Haunting of Willow's Bend Farm (1977–1978) & What Dwells Beneath (1885)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FN6T77TR
Both novels reveal the dark entity behind everything you just heard — and the families it consumed long before Ironwood Retreat existed.
Season 1 Collection - All 10 Tales:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2YN5CVT
EBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H31WBJLJ
🎧 MORE TALES FROM THE HOLLOW:
- YouTube: Stephen Crane Audiobooks — https://www.youtube.com/@StephenPCraneAudiobooks
- Complete series + exclusive content
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Until next time, stay out of The Hollow.