The answer to this question can be found at the end of chapter 1. Jacob, holding his dying grandfather in his arms, tells him that he loves him, and then his grandfather seems to "disappear into himself." Immediately after his grandfather dies, Jacob has "the strangest feeling" that there is something else in the woods, watching them. He stands up, letting go of his grandfather, and raises his flashlight and sees, for just a brief moment, "a face that seem[s] to have been transplanted directly from the nightmares of (his) childhood."

Jacob describes a grotesque creature who looks straight at him "with eyes that sw[i]m in dark liquid." The flesh of the creature is "carbon-black" and hangs loosely upon its "hunched frame." The creature's mouth is wide open, and inside the mouth, Jacob sees "a mass of eel-like tongues" wriggling outwards.

Jacob then shouts something, and the creature runs away and disappears into the brush. Jacob's friend Ricky then fires his gun at the creature—or rather at the place in the woods where he imagines the creature might be. Jacob then loses consciousness, and chapter 1 draws to a close.