Not a Sight, Not a Sound

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Three young people stealthily make their way through the trees, splashing through the moonlit puddles, visible only due to the bright yellow raincoats that their parents had insisted that they wear in case it rained. The parents had, as they frequently were, been right.

Jenny, oldest sister, held a hand up to halt the progress of her younger siblings. All that remained was a straight dash to the cabin, through the open area that lay where trees had been cleared away. This night had been planned, prepared for, for years. Peter, the middle child, shivered in anticipation. None of the three knew what lay before them, though speculation had reigned over the last week. Little Harold, oblivious, removed his finger from his nostril and opened his mouth to complain loudly about something. Jenny was already muffling his voice, grateful and disgusted that she was wearing gloves. Her hands would be covered in that muck, otherwise. The parents would not be happy about the mess, though.

“We have to be quick and quiet,” Jenny told the others. “The next lightning bolt, we’ll move then.” Though they only waited a mere few seconds for that next bolt of lightning, to Peter it felt an eternity. Harold felt almost as if he was flying through the air when his siblings, one on either side of him, jerked him forward as the thunder covered the sound of their passage. It was imperative that they enter the cabin unseen and unheard by the occupant. If they were detected before the appropriate time… It just didn’t bear thinking of.

The trio skittered to a halt before the dilapidated cabin’s door as it creaked open, a yawning pit to swallow them all up, the flickering candlelight creating fascinating, terrifying shadows in the darkness of the portal.

“Enter…”

The voice raised the hairs on the backs of the children’s necks. It sounded like stones rattling down a mountainside in rain and fog. The voice came again, the moist rattle calling the children by name this time.

“Jenny…Peter…Harold…” Each child experienced an eternity of dread compressed into mere seconds at the sound of their names being uttered in this otherworldly tone. “Come inside children…”

Taking a deep breath Jenny started up the stairs, Peter on her heels, the both of them practically dragging Harold, whose eyes were beginning to well up with tears. The instant they passed the threshold the door slammed shut behind them and the candle was snuffed out. Jenny heard a slithering, felt something moist crawl over her face leaving a thin layer of ichor that began to itch. Peter began to whimper as something gripped his hand. It wrapped around twice, three times, four. Then it began to pull. Harold wet himself as his elder siblings uttered shrieks of terror.

“Filthy…child!” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, deafening the children from within their skulls. Harold began to weep. “You…should not have…been seen! You… were… warned!” The floor fell out from under the trio of frightened children leaving Jenny and Harold to fall straight down. Their brother, still attached to something, fell to the side to slam against a wall with a wet splatter.

Jenny looked around at the bottom of the pit, an eerie green glow providing light to see by. She saw Peter dangling from a tentacle that gripped his wrist. Smaller tentacles extended from the pulsating walls, wrapping around the young boy swiftly to secure him as the larger tentacle retracted into a hidden recess with a slurping sound. Jenny realised with a sickening feeling that the pit was constructed from flesh just as Peter began to wail in agony as he began to fuse into the wall behind him. Blood ran in rivulets down the wall as the tentacles constricted. His skin stretched, pulling alongside the tentacles to drag the unfortunate child into the wall, to become part of the wall.

Holding Harold’s hand, Jenny covered his eyes with her other hand. She saw an exit, a tunnel leading deeper into darkness on the side of the pit opposite the front door. Pulling her younger sibling along behind her Jenny moved. Or she tried to. Harold was rooted in place, tears streaming down his face as urine flowed down his leg. Neither flow seemed in any danger of slowing.

Jenny attempted to dislodge her hand from Harold’s, but his grip was like iron. After a few tugs she fell away from him, still expelling various bodily fluids, and fell to the floor near the passage that she’d spotted moments ago. The flesh of the floor of the pit turned to dirt as the tunnel began, with an odd fusing of the two materials as the tunnel and pit met. She heard a grating noise, looked up and saw the floor above close as if a huge pair of jaws snapped shut. She could swear that she saw a flash of enormous, jagged teeth.

Harold squealed from behind her and was gone from view when she spun around. A chuckle arose around her.

“Follow… or die … here!”

Jenny began slowly walking along the dirt-covered tunnel. Every now and then she heard the voice laughing at her, punctuated by the occasional screech from her remaining brother. Peter was done with; she had no doubts that he was dead now, devoured by the walls of the fleshy pit. There might be a chance to save Harold still.

The tunnel went for ages, an unknown source of light seeming to move along with Jenny as she trudged along. Her legs were burning, her lungs on fire. She was exhausted but if she didn’t rescue her brother, who else was there?

In time she came to another room, bare of anything at all except for a rocking chair. As Jenny approached the chair began to rock, faster as she approached until she was within inches of the sole piece of furniture in a circular room. As the young girl approached the chair it ceased moving.

“Sit.”

She sat.

A door slammed shut leaving her in darkness.

“Your brothers are gone.” The voice sounded the same as before, yet more powerful. Stronger. “You alone remain.”

Jenny nodded. She knew she didn’t need to speak; she didn’t know if she could have even uttered a sound.

“You were warned. Not a sight, not a sound; or you’ll dwell beneath the ground!” The voice cackled at the rhyme. “Beneath the ground forever!”

Jenny knew then that she would always live there, she would become a part of the cabin, part of the monstrous creature that dwelled beneath the cabin. They would lure other children to join them. They would lure all of the children to join them.