Whispers in the Hollow

 

Whispers in the Hollow

There's a place way back in the Appalachian hills where the trees grow tall and thick, the air is silent, and the earth appears to be keeping secrets in its ground. It's Black Hollow, a hidden gulch no one will dare to go into at night. The people around talk of strange things, of things seen out of the edge of one's vision, and of something felt but never perceived.

Jake Turner did not believe in the language of ghost stories or hex. A seasoned journalist with a knack for defusing legends, he drove to Black Hollow one chill autumn evening to find out why the area had such a reputation. His car crawled down the ancient, shattered road, the only sound the occasional squawk of the wheels. He pulled over at the rim of the ravine, grabbed his camera, and started walking towards the hollow. The only other thing with him was the soft buzzing of cicadas and the gusts of wind carrying the smell of moist ground.

The deeper Jake went, the more stifling the forest became. Trees loomed like sentinels from another age, blocking out the sun, leaving everything bathed in an unwholesome twilight. He reached the hollow's entrance, a tunnel between two enormous boulders, and saw something out of the ordinary. The air here was colder, almost unnatural, as if trapped in a moment of suspended time that was frozen forever.

His flesh tingled with fear as he walked through the entrance. There was total silence, a heavy stillness. That is where he first heard it—a whispery, inaudible voice, the breath of a breeze. His heart skipped a beat. He looked about but didn't see anybody. The trees appeared to close in on him.

 

"Is anyone there?" Jake yelled, his voice ringing through the silence. No response. Only the whispering—soft, inaudible, like muffled conversations. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He was not alone.

 

Jake took out his tape recorder and went deeper into the hollow in a bid to record something for his article. The whispers became louder, clearer. They were whispering his name. Jake… It was a soft, but a very frightening sound that sent shivers down his spine…………….

 

The highway twisted and curved, and the further he went down, the louder the whispers coalesced into a chant—hundreds, maybe thousands, of voices chanting in a otherworldly harmony. His head throbbed with the force of it. The trees around him had a life of their own. He tried to slow his breathing, but his heart thudded. Something was terribly wrong.

Then the ground beneath him stabilized.

Jake stumbled, barely avoiding a fall into the dark chasm that stretched beneath the moss-covered earth. A blast of frigid air billowed out of the hole, carrying with it the fetid odor of decay. He peered down and his gut tightened.

At the bottom of the pit was a bony hand, half-buried in the ground, its fingers still outstretched toward him. He backed away, his heart pounding in his head. The whispers grew louder, now cries, wanting to be heard. They were no longer distant; they surrounded him.

Come closer…

Jake's legs trembled as he turned to run, but before he could move, the voice came again, louder, unmistakable.

"Don't leave us."

His own breath stuck in his throat. The air felt heavy around him, and he sensed unseen eyes on him, cold and famished. The whispers grew into a wild scream, but looking around, he saw nothing. His feet stood immobile where they were, his body held in a cold grip of terror.

Then just as suddenly, the whispering ceased.

Jake turned and beheld the ravine ghostly quiet, but the ground at his feet had changed. The trees were moving, twisting towards him like they were reaching out to drag him into their embrace. His fear was overflowing. He must leave.

As he ran back to his car, the whispers followed, echoing in the silence of the hollow. The trees groaned, their limbs reaching out like skeletal fingers. When he reached his car and left, the whispers stayed with him, fading only after he was a few miles from Black Hollow.

No one knows what is in that black ravine, but Jake will never forget the whispers behind him—trapped and empty voices, awaiting the next prey to fall into their hands.