The Dry Well

The new story is set in the autumn of 1987, in a small farming community in the Nebraska panhandle, population 213. The narrator is a five-year-old boy named Samuel. His family lives in a weathered clapboard house on the edge of a cornfield, with an old root cellar behind the kitchen.

The first time Samuel heard the voice, he was in his room building a tower of wooden blocks. It was a woman’s voice, soft but clear, calling his name from outside. He dropped the blocks and went to the window, but saw only the endless rows of corn rustling in the wind. He ran to his mother, who was kneading dough at the counter. ‘Did you call me?’ he asked. She looked at him oddly, flour on her cheek. ‘No, sweetie, I didn’t. Maybe it was the wind.’ But Samuel knew it wasn’t the wind. The voice had a human shape to it, a familiarity that made his chest ache.

The voice came again the next week, this time from the direction of the root cellar. He was playing in the yard, and he heard his name, as if the wind had learned to speak. He walked toward the cellar, the wooden doors half-rotted and sagging. The voice was clearer now, coaxing, ‘Samuel, come down here. I have something to show you.’ He stopped at the top of the stairs, the dark below smelling of earth and old potatoes. But his mother’s voice cut through: ‘Samuel, get away from there! You know you’re not supposed to go near that cellar.’ He ran back to the house, heart pounding, and told his mother what he heard. She sighed and said, ‘It’s just the old well. Sometimes it makes sounds. Don’t worry.’ But she looked uneasy.

Samuel began to have terrible nightmares. He would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, begging his father to check the attic. ‘There’s a man up there, I heard him moving,’ he would sob. His father, a burly man named Carl, would climb up the pull-down ladder with a flashlight, grumbling about dust and cobwebs. He would emerge a few minutes later, shaking his head. ‘Nothing up there but boxes and mouse droppings. You’re dreaming, son.’ But Samuel persisted. He described the man as tall, with long arms and no face, just a dark hollow where his face should be. His parents exchanged worried glances.

One evening in late October, Samuel was playing in the yard when the voice returned. This time it was not just his name; it was a full sentence: ‘Samuel, your father is lying to you. Come to the well, and I’ll show you the truth.’ Samuel felt his feet move before he thought. He walked past the root cellar, through the tall grass, until he reached the old well behind the barn, its stone rim crumbling, a wooden cover rotting away. The voice came from deep inside, echoing, ‘Look down, Samuel. Look down.’ He peered over the edge. The darkness was absolute, but he could smell something sweet, like rotting fruit. He heard a scraping sound, then a whisper, ‘I’m down here. I’ve been waiting.’ Samuel turned to run, but his foot slipped on the loose stones, and he fell.

He landed hard on his back, the breath knocked out of him. He looked up and saw a circle of dim sky, far above. He was in a dry well, but the bottom was soft, covered with old leaves and debris. He cried out for help, but his voice only bounced back. Then he heard a sound from the alcove in the wall—a shifting, a slither. A figure emerged from the shadows, tall and gaunt, with no face, just a dark void. It spoke in the woman’s voice, ‘Finally, you’ve come. I’ve waited so long.’ Samuel screamed, but the creature didn’t move. Instead, it pointed to the wall beside him, where crude drawings were scratched into the stone—a family of stick figures, and one of them with a line through it. ‘Your father knew,’ it said. ‘He put me here when I was his age. He saw me, too, but he locked me away. You’re the only one who can hear me now.’

Samuel felt a terrible cold seep into his bones. He tried to climb, but the walls were too smooth. He sobbed, and the creature stepped closer, its empty face inches from his. ‘Don’t cry, Samuel. I’ll take care of you. You’ll never be alone again.’ Samuel closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was in his bed, sunlight streaming through the window. His mother was shaking him awake, ‘Samuel, you were having a nightmare again. You’re safe.’ He sat up, shaking, and looked at his hands—they were covered in dirt, and there was a fresh scratch on his arm. He ran to the window and saw the well, its wooden cover moved aside. He turned to his mother, ‘He’s still there.’ She looked at him with a mix of fear and pity, and for the first time, she didn’t deny it.

That evening, Samuel’s father came to his room and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked older, tired. ‘Samuel,’ he said, ‘I need to tell you something. When I was your age, I heard the voice too. I didn’t listen, and I put the cover on the well to keep it locked. But it’s been waiting for someone new. I’m sorry you had to see it.’ Samuel asked, ‘Why is it there?’ His father sighed, ‘Long ago, there was a woman who lived on this land. She was accused of stealing water from the well during a drought, and the farmers did terrible things. They threw her in dry, and she cursed this land. She wants a child to join her, to keep her company. That’s why she calls.’ Samuel felt a chill. ‘What do I do?’ His father looked at him, ‘You have to ignore her. Never go near the well again. And pray she finds someone else.’

Samuel tried to heed his father’s words, but the voice grew more persistent. It would call to him during the day, from the field, from the house, from the air itself. It whispered secrets about his family, about the people in the town, about things he shouldn’t know. One night, he heard it in the attic above his room, tapping on the ceiling. He hid under his covers, but he could hear a woman’s sobbing. He knew what he had to do. He took the ladder down, climbed up into the attic, and pushed aside the boxes. In the far corner, he found a trapdoor he had never noticed. He pulled it open, and a staircase descended into darkness. The voice echoed from below, ‘Yes, Samuel. Come down. I’ll show you the way out.’

Samuel descended the stairs, his heart hammering. At the bottom, he found a tunnel that led to the well—he could see the stone walls, the circle of sky above. The creature was standing at the base, its head tilted. ‘You came,’ it said, its voice now a mix of woman and man. Samuel took a step forward, but then he remembered his father’s words. ‘No,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘You can’t have me.’ He turned and ran, back up the stairs, through the attic, down to his room, slamming the trapdoor shut and dragging a heavy trunk over it. The voice screamed, a raw, furious sound that shook the house. Then silence.

The next morning, Samuel’s father found the well cover intact, but the ground around it was disturbed, as if something had tried to claw its way out. Samuel never told anyone about the tunnel. He grew up, moved away, but he never forgot the voice or the creature in the dry well. And he never again set foot near a well, no matter where he lived. But sometimes, on quiet nights, he still hears it, calling his name from a place that doesn’t exist.