The Hole

"What was that?" Ruby gasped as the ground underneath her feet trembled. Lena dropped to the ground, afraid she might topple over. Michael, Josh, and Ian snickered.

"Don't be such girls." Michael shook his head.

"Yeah," chimed in Ian. It's just an earth quake. He rolled his eyes.

"What the hell is that?" Josh crumbled up his face in confusion. The friends walked over and gazed down at the hole.

They had been exploring the far edge of town past the rusted water tower and the forgotten train tracks when the ground split open beneath the field. One moment they were laughing, chasing each other through the unkempt grass, and the next, the earth groaned.

They looked down at the strange hole. It was pulsing with heat. The metal cover, half-buried and ancient, lay tilted, revealing a darkness that felt like it was breathing. There seemed to be no reason for it to be there. It just was. A gaping wound in the middle of nowhere.

They stared in silence. "Did you see that?" Michael jumped backwards. "Something moved in there!"

Ian glanced at him from underneath his dark lashes, "Oh yeah." he nodded, "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Ruby looked down, trying to maintain her distance.

"The voices." Ian whispered. He smiled.

"Shut up, Ian!" Lena spat, "You don't hear any voices!"

"I do! They're saying, 'Feed me the little one!'" Ian laughed.

Lena shoved him. Ian tripped over the metal lid and fell hard.

"That was rude." he said through his teeth. Ian lifted his hand and observed the large scrape. "You've injured me, Briggs."

"You deserved it." Lena retorted. "Stop trying to scare people.

"If the twerp is scared, maybe she shouldn't be trying to hang out with the big kids." Ian scraped himself up off the ground and dusted his behind off.

"Let's go." said Josh. "That hole is ugly."

"Don't tell me you're scared of it too, J-man." Ian laughed as he wiped a streak of blood on his blue jeans.

"Bro, I just don't like ugly things." Josh replied, "With you around, the group has more than it can handle already."

The group of friends laughed.

They ran home, but the hole stayed with them.

Followed by the changes.

-

Mr. Halberd, the school janitor, began muttering in a language no one understood. Ruby’s neighbor dug holes in his yard at night, his eyes glowing faintly. Lena’s dog barked at the ground until it collapsed and died. The dog had been in perfect health. The vet couldn't even explain what had happened.

One by one, people in town changed and their eyes went dark. They didn't even speak to each other anymore. Friendly banter on the streets had been snuffed out and replaced with empty stares.

-

One night huddled in Ruby’s garage with flashlights and notebooks, the friends met up. They had all seen the way the possessed stared toward the field, drawn to it like moths to flame. Michael told the group of how he had remembered seeing weird symbols etched into the rocks around the fissure. Lena told them she had dreamed of a voice whispering for her to come down.

"It's gotta be a monster." Ian said, clapping his hands together. "And I'm not going anywhere near it."

"So... we just ignore it?" Lena asked.

"Umm yeah." Ian shrugged. "Basically." He picked up his bag of chips off the table and began crunching obnoxiously in the silence.

"And what do we do about the weirdos in town?" Josh asked.

"Leave em alone, what do you mean?" Ian looked at Josh like he was speaking another language. "Why the hell would we mess with them? Let em be weird. I'm not going near them either."

Michael shook his head and continued the conversation, "I bet it's something ancient. I bet it's been living beneath the field for a long time."

"And we're just now finding out about it?" Lena asked.

"Maybe it's been sleeping." Ruby offered.

"Maybe it's huge and disgusting and wears peoples skin." Ian said through a mouthful of chips. "And maybe we should leave it alone."

He tossed his bag of chips on the table and laid down on the couch.

"Ask me." Ian said, sucking chewed up chip crumbs from his teeth."

"Ask you what?" Josh replied.

"Ask me if I wanna die a grisly death by ancient monster." Ian shrugged, "Because the answer is no, my friend. No, I don't"

-

The kids were right. It was a monster.. and it was waking up.

As the field pulsed with heat, the town grew colder.

-

Ian remained adamant. He would not have anything to do with any holes or monsters that lurked beneath. Until the day Ruby started speaking in a voice that wasn’t hers. She stared at her friends with eyes glazed like wet stone.

The possession wasn’t dramatic. It was just a quiet, creeping wrongness. She stared at her friends for too long and her shadow bent the wrong way.

"Hello!" Ian yelled directly into Ruby's face, "Snap out of, it ya little twerp!"

Ruby stared through him. "I want to go home." she whispered.

Lena hugged her. She smelled like wet dirt.

"What do we do?" she cried. "Ruby is only six! We can't let this thing take her!"

"Well?" Ian shouted.

Everyone stared at him, unsure of what to say.

"Let's kick some ass." He said, slinging his back pack over his shoulder.

-

They made their way to the hole, dragging Ruby behind them. The hole, dark and breathing, pulsed with the scent of damp soil and decay. The kids didn’t hesitate. They tied ropes, packed flashlights, and took Ruby who had remained silent, her skin cold and her eyes flickering with something ancient, down into the earth.

The descent was slow. Roots clawed at their arms like fingers. The air grew thick and heavy with the musk of rot and old secrets. At the bottom, the monster waited.

They reached a cavern where the earth opened into a black pit. At its center stood the creature. It was twisted and eyeless. Its body was made of writhing roots and bone. It didn’t speak aloud. It spoke through Lena, who collapsed and whispered, “You are mine.”

The walls breathed. The ground trembled.

It wasn’t a beast. It was the earth itself, a writhing mass of roots, pulsing with life and rage. Its form was shifting, like a tree trying to walk. The smell was overwhelming, a mix of wet moss, broken bark, and something deeper, like the breath of a buried god.

Ruby stepped forward. The roots responded, twitching toward her like they recognized her. Ian jumped in front of her and pulled her away from the crawling roots.

"Leave her alone, you crusty old salad!" he screamed, pulling his pocket knife from the side of his back pack. He stomped the roots into the ground and severed the plant. Ruby screamed and all of the kids fell to the floor, covering their ears.

The fight wasn’t just physical. It was invasive. The monster didn’t roar. It infiltrated them. Its voice slithered into their skulls, a thousand whispers clawing at their thoughts. It dredged up memories they’d buried deep inside of their heads. In Josh, it brought up the moment Dad left. In Michael, the time Mom sobbed on the kitchen floor, after the death of his baby sister. The monster offered bargains, “Give me Ruby, and I’ll make it all better.”

Its roots weren’t just in the soil, they burrowed themselves deep within them. Twisting through their minds, threading through their fears, feeding on doubt. It tried to possess them one by one. But they didn’t break.

They fought back with beautiful memories of Ruby. Josh thought about her laughter. The day he sprayed Ian with water through his front teeth and how it made her giggle uncontrollably. Ian remembered her stubbornness, how no matter how much he teased her, she always clapped back. Lena thought of her kindness, how she always was the first to share anything she had with the group. Michael thought of her bravery, how when the tremble first hit, she was the only one who didn't collapse to the ground with the fear of falling.

They burned the monsters lies with truth. They fought with fire, with light, with love so fierce it cracked the air.

Ruby screamed. Not in pain, but in release. The roots recoiled, shrieking, curling back into the earth like wounded serpents. Silence filled the hole.

-

The ground stopped pulsing. The air cleared and Ruby collapsed, her breath ragged. Her eyes seemed to be her own again.

The kids climbed out of the hole, scraped and shaken. They didn’t speak. They were no longer just kids.

They were survivors.

The hole was gone. The field was silent, as if nothing had ever happened. The people in town returned to themselves, confused and shaken. No one even remembered the hole. But the kids knew.

Something had lived beneath that field. Something ancient. Something hungry. And they had killed it.

Or so they hoped...

because every now and then, when the wind catches Ruby’s hair just right, Lena swears she can still smell the damp moss and decay.

Authors note:

This story was inspired by the creepy hole next to my house. I have no idea why it is there, but for some reason, it terrifies me.

I took the picture last month and have been working on this story ever since.

Hope you enjoy!

-Sara