Whispers Beneath the Hay

The year I turned eight, the woods surrounding our valley developed an appetite for human flesh.

That afternoon, I was the only one in the yard when the two voices drifted over the fence.

The Hollow is going to eat its way through this town tonight.

Yeah. Its a damn shame. These folks have no idea the hell that's coming for them.

Our community was one of several off-the-grid settlements nestled deep in the Appalachian mountains.

That year, the neighboring settlement over the ridge had gone dead quiet. Nobody had come down to the county hardware store or the farmers' market for weeks.

My dad, Thomas, couldn't shake the bad feeling in his gut. He gathered a few of our strongest guys and hiked up the logging trails to check on them.

What they found was a ghost town. All three hundred and seventeen residents, gone. Devoured.

The scene was something out of a slaughterhouse nightmare.

I don't know what specific horror my dad saw out there, but when he came back, his face was carved from stone. He was our town's unofficial mayor, the man everyone looked to, and he immediately ordered every able-bodied person to the perimeter to start building a reinforced timber wall.

I was left alone in the yard to entertain myself.

It was a gorgeous string of days. The wind was pushing cotton-ball clouds across the sky, leaving feathery trails in the blue.

Bored out of my mind, I was squatting by the foundation of the house, poking a stick into an anthill.

Faintly, almost obscured by the rustle of the trees, two bizarre voices drifted to my ears.

"The Hollow is going to eat its way through this town tonight."

"What's the point of building walls? No fence is gonna keep that thing out. Man, disaster is right on their doorstep."

The moment the words hung in the air, the entire yard seemed to fall into a vacuum of silence.

A spider crawled noiselessly across the brickwork. The wind pushed a cloud directly over the sun, casting the deep forest into a sudden, menacing shadow. The distant peaks seemed to solidify into a bruised, impenetrable black.

An involuntary shiver violently racked my small body.

The Hollow?!

I dropped my stick instantly, pressing my back against the wall, straining my ears to eavesdrop.

A second voice, slightly higher and more nasal than the first, chimed in. "I don't know, I'd say they have a fighting chance of not getting eaten."

"Oh? And how do you figure that?"

"Word is, The Hollow is practically human, and its got its habits. Whenever it hits a new town, it always sniffs around to see if the meat is fresh. If they hang a slab of raw meat at the foot of their beds, and pretend to be dead asleepabsolutely dead silentThe Hollow will think the room is full of rotting meat. Itll pass right by."

The sun broke free from the clouds, the wind rustled the tops of the pines, and the voices vanished completely.

But I understood. I understood perfectly.

The people in the neighboring settlement hadn't just disappeared. They had been eaten by The Hollow!

Every ounce of childhood playfulness evaporated from my bones. I sprinted toward the perimeter where the men were hauling timber, screaming for my dad.

But when I stood there, breathless, and repeated everything Id heard, the men just wiped the sweat from their brows and laughed.

"Look at the little storyteller we got here," one of them chuckled.

"That's a good one, kid. 'The Hollow'."

"I'll give her credit, she tells it like it's the gospel truth."

The sting of their condescending amusement hit me hard. My face flushed a violent, desperate red.

"I'm not making it up! I heard them! Clear as day!"

I whipped my head toward my dad, terrified he would brush me off too.

"Dad, I swear I heard it. The people over the ridgethey were eaten. That's why there were no bodies left."

"Maeve, who did you hear this from?"

My dads gaze cut through the laughter like a hunting knife. His eyes locked onto mine, so intense that I instantly wilted.

The conversation Id overheard had been so mesmerizing, so terrifying, that I hadn't even thought to peek over the fence to see who was speaking.

I swallowed hard, my confidence crumbling. "I... I didn't see them. But I swear on my life I heard them, Dad. You have to believe me."

"I believe you."

I blinked, stunned. Before I could even process his words, Bobby, a hotheaded mechanic from down the road, scoffed loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Thomas, you've gotta be kidding me, right?"

My dad turned to face him. He was silhouetted against the glaring sun, but I could see his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. The veins in his neck pulled taut against his skin.

"I believe Maeve," my dad said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Not just because she's my daughter. But because The Hollow is real."

The lingering chuckles died instantly.

"Years ago, when I was working construction down in the valley for old man Vance, he told me stories about things in these mountains. Things with a hunger. I thought it was just campfire bullshit."

The silence in the clearing was so absolute you could hear the pine needles dropping.

"Until I went up that ridge yesterday. Until I saw the bone fragments left behind. There were bite marks. Human teeth marks. But the jaw span... Jesus, folks, it wasn't an animal that did that."

He looked around the circle of pale faces. "Three hundred people, gone in a single night. Not one survivor. If it's not The Hollow, what the hell else could it be?"

"That's why I ordered this wall built the second I got back. I just wasn't sure, and I didn't want to incite a panic until I knew what we were dealing with."

For the younger guys who had barely ever left the county, this was too massive, too horrifying to swallow.

But the older folksthe ones who had lived in these mountains their whole lives, who knew the deep, dark folklorefinally spoke up.

"Thomas is right," an old timer wheezed, leaning heavily on his shovel. "It's true. The Hollow... God help us, I remember now. The old stories say it lives deep in the bedrock, only wakes up when it's starved."

Another elder nodded grimly. "My granddad's whole bloodline was wiped out by it. Skinned them, drank the marrow. They say from a distance, it looks like an old hunched man, but it's five times the size of any normal person. Don't let the shape fool you. It's an abomination that comes down the mountain to eat people alive."

Once the town elders validated it, the reality set in.

Tools dropped to the dirt. The men building the wall backed away from the timber, their nerve entirely broken.

Bobbys hands were shaking so hard he dropped his hammer. His voice cracked. "So... what the hell do we do?"

"We do exactly what Maeve said," my dad ordered, his authority absolute. "Tonight, every family hangs a slab of raw meat at the foot of their bed. And no matter what you hear, no matter what you see, nobody makes a goddamn sound."

My dad was a man of his word.

He slaughtered the only cow we owned and butchered it, distributing the raw cuts to every family in town.

Long before the sun dipped below the tree line, people were scrambling back to their cabins, locking themselves inside, paralyzed by fear.

My dad took my hand and walked me home.

After deadbolting the heavy front door and pulling down the steel shutters, my mom pulled me into her lap. Her heart was hammering against my back like a trapped bird.

"Is this really going to work, Thomas?" she whispered into the dark.

"We have to try," he said softly. "Whatever or whoever gave Maeve that advice at a time like this... its either an angel or a devil."

"But how do you know it wasn't The Hollow itself trying to trick us?"

My moms question hit like a physical blow.

The realization washed over me late, but when it did, every hair on my arms stood on end. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down my spine. Absolute, suffocating dread.

Thank God, my dad replied steadily, "Because The Hollow doesn't walk in the daylight. And before today, nobody except me and a few of the old-timers even remembered what it was."

I let out a shaky breath, but then my mind spun again. Id almost rather it be some sick prank by the neighbor kids.

At least then, there wouldn't be a monster.

I closed my eyes and prayed silently to a God I hoped was listening that the meat trick would work.

In the corner of the bedroom, the raw beef dripped blood onto a towel. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Time bled away. Night fell.

The town felt like it had been suffocated under a heavy, black quilt.

Not a single porch light. Not a single candle.

The silence was deafening.

I knew, with absolute certainty, that behind every locked door, people were lying rigid in their beds, faking sleep.

The three of us lay in the dark, our eyes glued to the foot of the bed. Everything we had, our very lives, rested on that dripping piece of meat.

The moon crested the pines. The wind picked up.

My eyes were burning from staring without blinking. I closed them for just a fraction of a second. When I opened them, a shadow had materialized outside our bedroom window.

It was jarring. Violent in its suddenness.

The Hollow really did look like an old man. But twisted.

It was hunched over at a grotesque angle, yet its back scraped the roofline of our two-story house. Its jaw hung slack, drooping unnaturally all the way to its sunken chest. I could hear it taking wet, labored snorts as it dragged its massive feet toward our front door.

CRACK.

The front door splintered open.

I caught a flash of two eyes glowing like hot coals in a furnace, and I yanked the quilt over my head, squeezing my eyes shut.

A smell hit mea gag-inducing wave of rotting meat, copper blood, and stagnant swamp water.

I bit down on my own lip so hard I tasted iron, just to keep the whimper trapped in my throat.

"Tsk. Why does it smell like dead rot in here?" a voice hissed. It sounded like grinding stones. "Spoiled. Its all spoiled meat."

The heavy, dragging footsteps slowly retreated.

Just as I thought the nightmare was over and went to take a breath, my moms hand clamped down brutally over my mouth.

I peeked out from the blanket.

In the pale moonlight spilling through the ruined doorway, the top half of The Hollows face was hanging upside down from the top of the doorframe.

It was peering into the room. Those glowing red eyes swept over our bed, manic and starving, terrified of missing a single morsel.

My heart pounded so violently I thought my ribs would crack.

Finally, The Hollow muttered in disappointment, "Nothing but dead rot."

The massive shadow stood upright. The floorboards groaned, the earth outside thudded heavily a few times, and then, it was gone.

It wasn't until the morning sun broke over the ridge that anyone dared to move.

People gathered in the street, their faces pale but alight with the euphoric, hysterical relief of having survived.

"Holy mother of God, it's real. The Hollow is real."

"Thomas, we're safe now, right?! Do we still need to finish the wall?"

"Damn right we finish the wall," my dad said firmly. "We prepare for the worst."

Slowly, the crowd dispersed, exhaustion taking over.

I felt the adrenaline crash, leaving me hollowed out. I dragged myself toward the porch, desperate to sleep.

But right as my eyes started to droop, those two voices drifted back into the yard.

"Why the hell are they celebrating? Do they think The Hollow packed up and left?"

"The Hollow gets smarter every day it's in a new hunting ground. Raw meat ain't gonna fool it twice. What are they gonna do tonight? I heard it muttering to itselfit said if it doesn't get a meal, its not leaving. But once it gets a taste, its gonna eat the whole damn town!"

"Tsk, let me think... I remember The Hollow has a sweet tooth. Actually, wait. It hates..."

The voice paused, and I couldn't help myself. I stretched my neck, leaning as close to the side yard as I dared, straining to hear.

"It hates sugar! All they gotta do is keep a piece of hard candy tucked under their tongues. But they can't swallow it, and they sure as hell can't spit it out. If they just let it sit there, The Hollow will be repulsed and leave on its own."

"Are you for real? Don't be messing around now. This ain't a game."

"Why would I lie? Shh, shut up, I think someone's listening!"

For a long time, the yard was dead silent.

My dad's question from yesterday echoed in my mind. Who exactly was I listening to? Curiosity overpowered my lingering exhaustion.

I crept toward the low wooden fence that separated our yard from the animal pens, determined to peek over and see who was talking.

Suddenly, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder.

I jumped out of my skin, whipping around. My dad was standing right behind me. He shook his head sharply and pressed a finger to his lips.

He had heard them too.

Together, moving with agonizing slowness, we backed away until we were on the other side of the yard. Only then did he drop to a crouch and whisper, "Don't spook them. Maeve, the voices you heard yesterday... did they sound like that?"

I nodded frantically, my pulse racing. "Dad, they said The Hollow didn't leave! They said we have to sleep with candy in our mouths tonight!"

My dad frowned deeply, his eyes locked on the low, squat structure hugging the fence lineour duck coop.

Inside, our eight white ducks were waddling around, casually preening their feathers, occasionally letting out a soft quack.

"That's damn strange," my dad murmured to himself. "There wasn't a single human being over there."

"I know," I whispered back. "I never saw anyone either. Just the voices."

My dad fell silent, staring at the coop.

My moms terrifying theory from the night before crept back into my mind. I tugged his flannel sleeve. "Dad... do we still trust them?"

He reached down and ruffled my hair, his face lined with an impossible weight. "Better safe than sorry, kiddo. Go inside. Get that big jar of butterscotch from the pantry and start handing them out."

Sometimes, a little sweetness is the only thing that can push back the dark.

But when my dad called an emergency town meeting to announce the new plan, the crowd pushed back. Hard.

"What? Hard candy? Since when does a piece of butterscotch stop a monster? Thats crazy talk."

"Thomas, what if that thing gets right up in my face? If I panic and swallow it by accident, I'm dead meat!"

"This is starting to sound like a whole lot of voodoo bullshit," Bobby chimed in, crossing his arms.

My dad swept his gaze over the sea of panicked, exhausted faces. When he spoke, his voice boomed over the clearing. "Three hundred people over the ridge were chewed down to the marrow in one night. And you think candy is the unbelievable part?"

The crowd immediately shut their mouths.

"If you want to live to see tomorrow, you do as you're told. Anyone who doesn't want to end up in its teeth, line up and get your candy from Maeve."

As they reluctantly shuffled forward, my dad added, "And the wall construction continues. The more barriers we have, the better we sleep."

Ultimately, the terror of The Hollow easily overrode their skepticism.

Night descended, wrapping the valley in a chokehold.

I lay in bed, pressed tightly against my mom's side, a piece of butterscotch wedged firmly beneath my tongue.

But my mind was racing. My heart wouldn't settle.

Something was wrong.

Why did I feel like something was terribly wrong?

Those two voices... it felt like they had spoken up knowing I was listening.

My dad said The Hollow didn't walk in the daylight.

But what if...

What if those voices belonged to Lures? The old stories said monsters sometimes sent Mimics ahead of themtwisted spirits that sounded like neighbors, feeding bad advice to humans to lead them right into the monster's jaws.

Before I could spiral any deeper into the panic, The Hollow arrived. And this time, it came early.

It sounded frantic. I could hear its massive, dragging footsteps pacing back and forth on the gravel road outside. I could hear the sickening pop and crack of its joints as its elongated neck whipped back and forth.

"Makes no sense," it hissed, its voice like rusted metal scraping together. "The cabins aren't broken. There's life here. Hot blood. So why the hell do I only smell cow blood and sugar? Where are they?!"

It was lingering longer at every single door.

More than once, I felt the oppressive weight of those glowing red eyes peering through the cracks in our boarded-up windows, staring unblinkingly into the dark room.

I clenched my jaw, using every ounce of willpower to keep my tongue clamped down over the candy, terrified my own saliva would cause it to slip down my throat.

The Hollow stopped outside our cabin. It stayed there for an agonizingly long time.

I heard the wet, sickening sound of its cheek pressing flush against the glass of our window.

"The meat in here is tainted. How am I supposed to eat this? Son of a bitch, Im starving! This whole town is repulsive."

It dragged its claws down the siding of the house. "Fine. Fine. Let them rot. I get sharper the hungrier I get. A few more days of scaring them like this, their meat will seize up. Fear makes the muscles tight. Makes it taste better. I'll rip them all out of the floorboards eventually. Let's see where they hide then!"

It stood outside our window for what felt like an hour, breathing heavily, before finally stomping away in a furious, defeated rage.

The silence rushed back in.

When dawn finally broke, the townspeople gathered in our yard, their faces drawn but filled with the desperate, giddy luck of the surviving.

But after two nights of cheating death, the adrenaline was wearing off, replaced by a creeping, toxic paranoia.

The whispers started. And honestly, they mirrored my own dark thoughts.

"It ain't right," Bobby muttered to a group of men resting by the wall. "The more I think about it, the more it stinks."

"What do you mean?" someone asked.

"I mean, how convenient is it? Raw meat and candy, and we magically survive? Little Maeve says she's hearing two voices giving out the master plan. Ain't it a bit too perfectly timed? How do these voices know exactly what the beast is thinking?"

A woman gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. "Lord Almighty... do you think they're Lures?"

"Exactly!" Bobby pointed a dirty finger in the air. "The settlement over the ridge got wiped out, right? What if two of 'em got turned into Mimics? They're out here playing us. Didn't you hear the monster last night? It said it wanted to scare us to make the meat taste better!"

My dad stood a few feet away, his jaw clenched, staring at the ground.

I knew the weight he was carrying. As the leader of this town, a single wrong call meant everyones blood was on his hands.

"Thomas, honey," my mom whispered, stepping up beside him. "The folks have a point. We can't ignore the possibility. What if we're taking orders from the monster's own bait?"

"I know," my dad sighed, running a trembling hand over his face. "But until we have another option, following those voices is the only thing keeping us breathing."

The perimeter wall wasn't even half finished. We were boxed in by deep woods and jagged mountains. There was nowhere to run.

"We take it one night at a time," my dad said grimly. "And God willing... I need to find out exactly who the hell is doing the talking." He shot me a loaded glance.

That afternoon, the bizarre, ghostly voices returned.

I was waiting for it. I tracked the sound instantly.

It was coming from directly behind the hay bales piled up in the corner of the duck coop!