Monsters: Within the Trees [ book 1 ]

In the woods of Oakridge, hikers are disappearing left and right―even more so than usual. After much careful deducing, Evan Novak is positive that the locations where the vanishings occur follow a pattern, but when he sets out one night to see for himself, he doesn't return from those woods. The last thing he does before seemingly blipping from existence is send a garbled voicemail to his best friend-his emergency contact.

Day Jha wants to get through high school with minimal mayhem. From elementary school, he's been a wallflower, blending in with the crowd-and he prefers it that way. In a town like Oakridge, where strange things are the norm, Day prides himself on being truly mundane. But when his best friend goes missing, and his only lead is a voicemail with nary a voice, the beginning of his freshman year is made up of poking into the odd history of his small town and unearthing disconcerting instances from its places, its people, and even himself.

Day wants to be a typical high schooler. He wants to be on the swim team, even if one of its co-captains has a big head. He wants to go out with the new girl, Artie. He wants to slip by as he had in middle school―but mostly, he wants to do all that with his best friend by his side. But where on Earth is Evan, and what really is lurking in those woods?

There's only one thing to do: see for himself. They're just trees; it's not like the legends, the tales, the monsters that have always surrounded their town are real, right?

BOOK 1 of the Monsters series