SCARECROW - Hive

A Cosmic Folk Horror Novel of Fungal Spores and Small-Town Dread

The rot is changing in Rainsford Hollow. It’s a scent Cole knows better than his own name, but this year the decay is different—cloying, sweet, and suffocating. The crows have fallen silent. The fields are unnervingly still. And the scarecrows, which should have been burned after the harvest, are left standing like silent, skeletal sentinels.

When a local boy, Finn, vanishes from a locked clinic room, leaving behind only a sparse trail of straw, the town chooses denial. The annual Autumn Festival must go on, a flimsy bandage of forced celebration over a festering wound.

But as the community gathers, a creeping paranoia begins to spread, a sickness of the mind that mirrors the sweet decay rising from the soil. The townspeople are changing, their eyes holding a distant, hollow look. The scarecrows are not just decorations; they are hosts. The spores are not just a smell; they are a consciousness. And the festival isn't a celebration; it's a harvest.

For Cole, Sarah, and the few who see the truth, the fight for survival is a race against the insidious, growing Hive that is consuming their friends, their families, and their very minds. In a town being systematically erased, they must uncover the terrifying cosmic truth behind the rot before they too become just another empty shell in the silent, straw-filled parade.