The Damp Chorus

The clock on the DVD player blinked 3:17 AM. I was sprawled on the sofa, a half-eaten bowl of cold chili con carne balanced on my stomach, while my sister Lena scrolled through Netflix for the fourth time that night. The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the old farmhouse settling. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and we had the rare luxury of doing absolutely nothing. Mom and Dad were upstairs, dead to the world after a long day of turkey and pies.

Then it started. A low, guttural moan, like something between a growl and a sob, rose from the dark beyond the living room window. It was not human. It was too raw, too wet, as if a throat full of phlegm was being ripped open. Lena’s hand froze over the remote. We both stared at the window, where the fog had rolled in thick, turning the porch light into a fuzzy orange blob. The sound stopped, leaving a silence that felt heavier than before. I counted the seconds, my heart thudding. Ten. Fifteen. Then it resumed, louder this time, closer, like it was standing just outside the glass.

‘What the hell is that?’ Lena whispered, her voice cracking. ‘Is that a woman?’ I didn’t answer. My mind raced with thoughts of the Johnsons’ dog, though I knew it wasn’t. I told her to grab the phone, just in case. I had a stupid idea that someone was being hurt out there, maybe in the cornfields that bordered our yard. I pulled on my boots without tying them and stepped onto the porch, the cold air hitting me like a slap. The moaning was directly in front of me, no mistaking it. But the yard was empty. Just fog curling over dead grass, and the silhouette of our rusty Chevy. The sound seemed to come from the fog itself, from every direction at once.

I shouted, ‘Hello? Is someone there?’ The moaning didn’t stop. It got louder, more desperate, and then I realized it wasn’t just one voice. It was layered, like many voices were moaning in unison, slightly off-key. Lena came out behind me, flashlight in hand, her phone clutched to her chest. The beam cut through the fog but revealed nothing. We stood there, two idiots in pajamas, while the chorus of misery swelled around us. It lasted two full minutes, and then it cut off so abruptly that the silence was deafening.

We looked at each other. My skin was crawling. Lena’s face was pale, her eyes wide. ‘It was in front of us,’ she said. ‘It was right there.’ I nodded. We went back inside and locked the door. I didn’t sleep that night. I kept hearing it, even after it stopped. Around dawn, the fog lifted, and I went out to check the yard. There was nothing unusual, except for one thing: a patch of grass in the middle of the lawn was damp, darker than the rest, like it had been watered. But the sprinklers were off, and it hadn’t rained for days.

That was three years ago. We never figured out what it was. Mom and Dad sold the farmhouse last fall. But sometimes, on quiet nights, especially after Thanksgiving, I lie in bed and listen. I hear a faint moan in the distance, low and wet, and I know it’s not the wind. It’s the same sound, waiting for me to step outside again. And I swear, one of these nights, I will. And it will swallow me whole.