The Silence Between Screams

The house on Wren Hollow Road had been empty for twenty-three years—long enough for the town to forget the truth, but not the fear.

When Claire Ramsey inherited the old two-story home from her grandmother, she almost didn’t take it. The house had a past, and in a small town like Ashbridge, people whispered. They remembered the Ramsey tragedy: a fire that claimed her aunt and two cousins. No cause was ever confirmed. No bodies were ever found.

Now, Claire stood at the doorway, key in hand, the October wind tugging at her coat like a child begging her not to go inside.

She went in anyway.

The air was thick with dust and something else—faint, like burned sugar and old paint. The hallway was narrow and dim, lit only by the gray light leaking through the boarded windows. Floorboards groaned like the house itself resented her presence.

She explored cautiously, eyes scanning old portraits where faces faded like memories. In the upstairs hallway, she found three doors: one ajar, one closed, and one sealed shut with rusty nails. She didn’t need to ask which one had been her cousins' room.

That night, Claire didn’t sleep.

Around 2 a.m., she woke to a soft creaking noise, like footsteps circling her bed. She held her breath. The air was cold, too cold for October. The sound stopped—but something else started. A whisper. Faint, not in her ears but in her bones.

Help me.

She sat up, heart racing. No one was there. The room was still. But the voice... it had been real. She was sure of it.

The next morning, Claire visited the Ashbridge library. The fire was barely mentioned in the archives—just a short article about a "tragic loss," a "structural fire of unknown cause." No obituaries. No funeral records.

She found Mrs. Dalloway, the librarian who'd been around since before Claire was born.

"Funny thing about that fire," Mrs. Dalloway said, voice low. "They never found the kids, did they? But I remember hearing screams that night. More than just pain. It was like… something was being silenced."

Claire’s skin prickled.

That night, she returned to the house with a flashlight and a hammer. She stood before the nailed-shut door. One by one, she pulled the nails free. Each groan of the wood felt like a protest.

Inside, the room was untouched by time. Toys scattered on the floor. A small bed with a pink canopy. A closet door cracked open.

She stepped inside.

A sudden thud behind her—she spun. The door had slammed shut.

Then the silence came.

Not normal silence. It was too quiet. Her own breath seemed muffled. Even her heartbeat felt distant.

And then she heard it again.

Help me. Please... it's still here.

Claire turned her flashlight toward the closet.

Inside, a small pair of eyes blinked.

She gasped, stumbled back. The flashlight flickered.

From the shadows of the closet, a child stepped forward. A girl. Maybe eight years old. Pale. Eyes hollow. Mouth trembling.

"It's in the walls," the girl whispered. "It watches through the cracks. We screamed... but then it took the sound. It took our voices."

The flashlight died.

Claire froze. Total blackness wrapped around her like a wet shroud.

Then came the noise.

Not a scream.

The absence of a scream.

A void, sucking sound—like a vacuum pulling sound from the air. Claire tried to scream but nothing came out. Her mouth moved. Her throat strained. But silence swallowed everything.

She backed up blindly, hands out, feeling the walls close in.

Then—light.

The flashlight buzzed back on.

The girl was gone.

So was the closet.

She was standing in an empty, rotted room. No toys. No bed. Just a mirror on the wall, cracked straight through the center.

And in the mirror, she saw herself.

But not just herself.

A tall figure stood behind her—faceless, stretching impossibly long, its arms reaching forward like ropes made of shadows.

She spun around. Nothing.

But her reflection still showed it. Closer now.

She ran.

Down the stairs. Through the hall. Out into the cold night air, heart pounding, breath short.

Claire didn’t go back the next day. Or the day after.

She moved into a motel and called a priest from out of town. But when they returned to the house, the door wouldn’t open. It was like the house had sealed itself shut.

They broke a window to get inside.

Everything was gone. Empty. Not abandoned—erased. As if no one had ever lived there.

No one but Claire.

And the silence.


---

Weeks later, Claire sits in a psychiatric ward, eyes wide and mouth stitched shut by memory. No one believes her. Not about the house. Not about the girl.

Not about the thing in the walls that feeds on screams, and leaves only silence.

But sometimes, in the quietest hours of the night, the nurses swear they hear something echo from her room.

A single, blood-chilling whisper:

Help me.