The Well

My eyes shot open and stared into the dark room where I had laid down for a nap. I rose quickly, the room spinning as I did. I let a few moments pass while I collected myself before making my way to the window and throwing open the curtains. The sun was setting below the tree line of the forest that surrounded the house, hazy light casting long eerie shadows across the yard. I could just make out the old well on the corner of the property. It was an old stone well you would see in a cartoon. Long since fallen out of use, it was currently capped off with heavy wooden slab. A sense of deja vu washed over me, quickly followed by terrible dread. I shook my head and turned to leave the room. The sense of dread followed me down to the kitchen.

“Mary?” I called out but received no answer.

It was not like my wife to leave without a note. I looked out the kitchen window and saw her car. She was here somewhere. Perhaps out on a walk with Tommy.

“Tommy?” I called out.

“Yeah Dad?” called back a voice from the den on the other side of the living room.

“Have you seen your mom?” I asked.

“Um, I think she went for a walk or something,” he called back.

I didn’t reply. Even if she was just going on a walk, she usually left a little note on the fridge. The feeling of dread grew worse, and I could not shake the feeling that this had already happened, almost as if it had been a dream within a dream.

I poured the bottom of that morning’s coffee pot into a mug and began to heat it up in the microwave. While I was waiting, I walked over to the dining room and stared out the window. I had a full view of that old well. Tommy had been enthralled with it from the moment they had moved in. He was of course forbidden to go anywhere near it. In fact, Mary had insisted we had it filled in but after we got a quote from a contractor, that idea was permanently shelved.

The microwave beeped its announcement that it was done heating my coffee. I went out the kitchen door and took a seat on the patio furniture and drank my coffee, waiting for Mary to return. The woods that surrounded the property was probably where she was. They were full of old trails that Mary loved to walk.

“She just forgot a note,” I told myself, trying to chase off the dread that had made its home in the pit of my stomach. “Nothing to worry about.”

As I drank the last bit of my coffee the sun fell below the horizon completely. That was when I finally saw Mary emerging from the woods just beyond the well. She was shoeless with leaves and twigs clinging to her dress.

“Mary!” I yelled.

She did not respond to my call. It was if she was in a daze. She stopped at the edge of the well and with a strength I would not have guess she had, pulled aside the wooden slab that covered the dark entrance.

“Mary what are you doing?!” I shouted.

I stood up to got to her, I froze in terror at what I was seeing. Mary climbed up onto the ledge of the well, swaying to catch her balance as she stared down into the inky blackness.

“MARY STOP!” I yelled frantically.

As hard as I tried, I could not move from where I stood. My legs would not respond to my calls to take a step. Mary looked up at locked eyes with me. Her head shook suddenly, and she looked around wildly.

“Daniel?” she said. “Daniel, what’s happening?” she frantically called out to me.

“Mary, don’t move!” I yelled, my legs finally listening to my commands. I made my way towards the porch steps. Just as I was about to descend, a blood curdling scream filled the air. I looked up at Mary and saw an unnaturally long arm, white as snow reach out from the well. Animal-like claws clasped around her leg and before I knew it, dragged her down into the darkness.

“MARY!” I shouted.

Her screams of terror rose out from the well, then stopped suddenly. Panic overtook me and once again I found myself frozen where I stood.

“Mary?!” I called out again.

But there was no response. A few moments went by and again that ghastly arm emerged from the depths of the well, followed by a second arm and then the creature itself emerged and heaved itself over the ledge. It rose and although it appeared to be human-like, it was certainly not. Its eyes were solid black, its lipless mouth revealed rows of fangs and its long claws stretched out several inches beyond its slender fingers. Fresh blood dripped from its chin, staining its white skin. It rose to its feet and began to move towards the house.

finally my ability to move returned and I fled back into the house slamming the kitchen door behind me and frantically turning the lock.

“Tommy! Run!” I cried out frantically.

The creature must have moved with preternatural speed, as it was already standing at the door into the kitchen. I could make out its shadow from behind the curtained window that made up the top half of the door just moments before it exploded off its hinges, flying across the kitchen with a crash, missing my head by inches. Before I could react, the creature was in front me and with quick swat of its arm I flew backwards and into the wall behind me. I crumpled to the floor in a heap, struggling to catch my breath. I saw a pool of blood quickly forming around me and looked down at the wound on my stomach.

“Oh no.” I thought dumbly.

“Tommy” I gasped out. “Run.”

I looked towards the living room and saw my son staring at the creature in terror, it turned towards him and paused. The very same dazed look I had seen on Mary’s face washed over him. The creature slowly walked towards him and clasped his small hand in its own and led him past me. I looked up in horror and desperation and as I did, I saw the creature begin to change. Its skin became the color of a human’s, hair was sprouting out of its bald head. The claws that had torn open my abdomen had been replaced with merely long pointed fingernails. Black clothes materialized out of nothing to cover the strange being's nude body. As my aching brain struggled to make sense of what I was seeing, my vision began to fade and consciousness escaped me. My last sights were a well dressed, seemingly normal man and Tommy walking through the ruined kitchen doorway and into the night.

When I awoke, I found myself sitting in a chair in a dimly lit room. A dark wooden table sat before me and a door beyond. The door opened and in walked a man in a black suit. Dark shadows hid his face.

“tsk tsk,” said the man, shaking his head. “Failed again, did we?” he asked.

“Wha-,” I began to ask, but as I did, memories flooded my mind all at one. I was living out the scene of Mary being dragged down into the darkness, the creature emerging from the well, myself flying back into the kitchen wall, Tommy being walked off into the night with that monster. Ten times, a hundred, a thousand, each time it was always the same.

“Maybe this time will be different,” said the stranger with a chuckle and the room began to fade.

My eyes shot open and stared into the dark room where I had laid down for a nap...