Jonas

I remembered the trapdoor.

We'd never locked it.

We sat there, flashlight off, the propane heater hissing quietly in the corner.

I felt every sound like it was happening right next to me.

Once around two in the morning, I thought I heard whispering.

Not voices, exactly.

More like distant noise filtered through water.

I leaned my head against a wall to try to catch it.

The surface was cold, not just chilly, icy.

Then something touched the other side, just for a second, like a breath.

At dawn, we grabbed our boots and bolted to the shed.

The air outside felt safer somehow, even though I was shaking the whole time.

The trapdoor was wide open.

There were handprints on the underside, smudged in dirt, long streaks where fingers had clawed upward.

I didn't want to go down there.

I wanted to turn and run, but Mason was already at the stairs.

He didn't say anything, just started descending.

I followed.

The cellar wasn't big, six by six maybe, packed dirt walls, old wooden beams holding up the ceiling, a few old jars broken in the corner.

But the carvings were the worst part, circles, with little vertical lines inside them, carved into every bean, over and over again.