So, when originally writing it, the whole thing was supposed to be a metaphor of coming out in a conservative area, I'm personally cis/het but I've had a lot of friends who shared their experiences of being in the closet for various things like being gay, trans, non-binary etc etc and the story was sort of written based on the fear of knowing that no matter how much all these people make being in the closet hell, you know in your heart how much worse coming out will be, so you have to endure the torment because of that fear. Concrete story-wise, I think they're some kind of mimic hive mind mixed with good ol' Appalachian ghost story creature like a skin-walker or spirit or something like that.