The Dark Between the Cracks

I was twelve when we moved to Dry Springs, a town that seemed to have been scraped out of the desert and left to wither. Dust devils danced along the main street, and the only sound was the wind rattling through the abandoned storefronts. The population had dwindled to less than six hundred, most of them elderly or broken in some way. Our apartment was above a closed laundromat, and the stairs creaked like they remembered every heavy footstep they’d ever borne.

My mother, Lorna, had taken the divorce hard. She’d moved us across three states to escape the memories, but they followed her like a loyal hound. She found work as the night manager at the Desert Oasis Motor Lodge, a sprawling, L-shaped building on the edge of town, its neon sign buzzing in the darkness. I rarely saw her during the day; she’d stumble in at dawn, reeking of cigarettes and cheap perfume, and collapse into a sleep that looked more like a coma. The apartment became a clutter of takeout containers and empty bottles, and I learned to fend for myself.

My older sister, Delia, was seventeen and had inherited our mother’s wild streak. She’d taken up with a group of local dropouts who drove around in a rusted pickup, blasting music and throwing beer cans into ditches. They’d hang out by the reservoir, a man-made lake that had turned brackish and foul, its surface coated with green scum. Delia would sometimes bring me along, but I hated it there. The water was too still, and I felt eyes on me, watching from the reeds. I told her once, and she laughed, saying, ‘It’s just the frogs, little brother.’ But I knew better.

One night, while Lorna was at work and Delia was out with her friends, I couldn’t sleep. The air in the apartment was thick and stale, so I slipped out the back door and into the parking lot. The motel loomed ahead, its windows dark except for the office where Lorna sat reading a magazine. I wandered around the back, where the dumpsters stood like gray monoliths, and that’s when I noticed the cracks.

At first, I thought it was just the pavement, weathered and split by years of heat. But these cracks were different. They formed a pattern, weaving across the ground in lines too precise to be natural. They seemed to converge on a single point, a drain grate covered in rust. Curious, I knelt down and peered through the grate. There was a space below, not a sewer, but a dry, earthen cavity. And in the faint moonlight, I saw something move. It was quick, a flicker of gray, almost like a shadow that was out of place. I pulled back, my heart hammering.

Over the next week, I became obsessed. I studied the cracks, which seemed to stretch further each night, snaking toward the apartment building. I began to notice things: dead mice arranged in a line near the grate, their bodies stiff but unmarked. A strange smell, like burnt almonds, wafting from the cracks when the wind died. And always, the feeling of being watched. Delia dismissed my worries, saying I was ‘creeping myself out with horror stories.’ But I saw the way she glanced at the ground, her eyes uneasy.

Then the cat disappeared. Mrs. Halvorsen from the first floor had a ginger tom named Grendel, who was always yowling at night. One morning, he was gone. We searched everywhere, but there was no sign. The next day, I found his collar, neatly placed on the drain grate, the tags neatly removed. I picked it up and felt cold metal, and that’s when I saw the cracks had spread to the building’s foundation.

I tried to warn Lorna, but she was in one of her hazes, eyes glazed as she stared at the TV. She just said, ‘Leave it be, Daniel. Some things are better left alone.’ I wanted to scream at her, to shake her awake, but I knew it was useless. She was drowning in her own darkness, and no one could pull her out.

One night, Delia came home early, her face pale under the cheap porch light. She was shaking, and her eyes were wide. ‘There’s something out there,’ she whispered. ‘It followed me from the reservoir. It was tall, too tall, and it moved like a spider on the ground.’ I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, locking the door. We didn’t sleep that night. We sat in the kitchen, the single bulb flickering, waiting for dawn.

But dawn never came for Dry Springs. The next day was overcast, the sky a sickly yellow, and the air pressed down like a weight. I looked out the window and saw that the cracks had grown, spreading up the apartment building’s walls, dividing the brick into jagged segments. The ground was alive with them, a web of dark lines that pulsed as if something moved beneath.

Late that afternoon, I heard a sound from below, a soft scraping. I went to the back door and opened it. The parking lot was empty, but the drain grate was gone, replaced by a black hole that seemed to swallow light. The smell of burnt almonds was overpowering. I felt a pull, a compulsion to step closer, to peer into that void. And as I looked, I saw something staring back, a shape that was all angles and wrongness, with eyes like pits of oil. It was not human, but it had the remnants of a face, contorted in a silent scream.

I stumbled back, slammed the door, and ran to find Lorna. She was in the motel office, but the window was cracked, and the crack formed a pattern, like the ones outside. She was sitting at the desk, her head bowed, and when she looked up, her eyes were empty. ‘I hear them,’ she said. ‘They whisper from the cracks. They promise rest.’ I grabbed her, shaking her, but she was limp, catatonic.

I don’t remember how we got out. I must have carried her, or dragged her, through the chaos that erupted as night fell. The cracks were everywhere, and from them came a chorus of whispers, a thousand voices, pleading, seducing. The ground opened in places, and people screamed as they fell. I saw Delia, standing on the edge of a fissure, her face blank, and I screamed at her to run. But she was already walking forward, stepping into the darkness, and I saw the shape from the grate wrapping around her, pulling her down.

I ran with Lorna’s weight, stumbling, gasping, until we reached the edge of town. The desert stretched out before us, cold and indifferent. I looked back, and Dry Springs was gone, swallowed by a darkness that had no source. The cracks had merged into one gaping maw, and the town was pouring into it, consumed. And in the silence that followed, the only sound was the wind, and the faint, mocking whisper that seemed to come from everywhere: ‘There is always room for more.’

We walked for hours, until we reached the highway, and a trucker picked us up. Lorna never spoke again, her mind broken by what she’d seen. They sent us to a hospital in Reno, where she would spend years staring at the wall, tracing patterns with her finger on the tile. I was placed in a foster home, but I never forgot. Sometimes, at night, I still feel the pull, the call of the cracks. And I know, deep down, that something is still there, waiting, patient, and it has my name.