The Dry Well

My grandmother had a superstition about dry wells. She said they were hungry mouths, always waiting for something to fall in. I never paid much mind until we moved into the old farmhouse on Cedar Lane. The realtor had mentioned a well on the property, but she said it was capped and dry. Still, our dog, a border collie named Jasper, wouldn’t go near the back corner of the yard. He’d stand at the edge of the overgrown patch, hair bristling, and let out these low, guttural growls that didn’t sound like a dog at all. My wife, Elena, dismissed it as ‘dog nonsense,’ but our daughter, Mia, started having nightmares about ‘the hole in the ground that wants to eat the sky.’ I chalked it up to Jasper’s anxiety and a child’s imagination. Then the noises started.

It wasn’t like in the movies—no creaking doors or ghostly wails. It was a sound I can only describe as a dry, ceramic scrape, like a cup being dragged across a tile floor. But there were no cups on the floor. It would happen at odd hours, usually around 3 a.m., coming from the hallway. I’d get up, flashlight in hand, and find nothing. Jasper would be pressed against the bedroom door, shaking, his eyes wide and fixed on the dark corridor. After a week of this, I decided to investigate the well.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, overcast and cold. I pulled back the tangled vines and brambles to reveal the well’s stone lip, cracked and moss-covered. The cap was a heavy iron disc, rusted and slightly ajar. I shone my flashlight into the opening, expecting to see dirt and debris. Instead, the beam vanished into an impossible darkness, as if the light itself was being swallowed. I leaned closer, and I swear I felt a faint, warm breath rising from the depths, carrying a smell like old pennies and wet earth. I pushed the cap back into place and told myself I’d nail it shut the next day.

That night, I heard the scraping again, but this time it was rhythmic, almost like something was being dragged in circles. I got up, furious, and flung open the bedroom door. The hallway was empty, but a thin trail of dust led from the back door toward the well. I followed it, my heart hammering. At the well, the iron disc was off, leaning against the stone. And from the darkness below, I heard a voice—not a whisper, not a scream, but a dry, rattling sigh, like wind through a dead tree. It said my name. ‘Daniel.’ I backed away, my pulse roaring. I didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, I told Elena we were moving. She laughed it off, but Mia started crying, saying ‘It’s going to get us, it’s going to get us.’ I tried to calm her, but I felt a cold dread. That afternoon, I decided to seal the well with concrete. I bought the bags, mixed them in a wheelbarrow, and toppled them into the opening. I even hammered the iron cap back on and piled rocks over it. For two days, silence. Jasper relaxed. Elena smiled again. I almost convinced myself it was stress.

On the third night, I woke to a sound like a heavy object falling into water—but the well was dry. I crept to the window. The back yard was bathed in moonlight. The rocks I had piled were scattered, and the iron cap lay yards away, gleaming. And there, at the edge of the well, stood a figure. It was tall, impossibly thin, with arms that hung past its knees. Its skin was gray and cracked, like dried mud. And its eyes—if they were eyes—were just dark hollows that seemed to drink the light. It turned its head toward me, and its mouth opened, a black, silent O.

I don’t remember running. I just remember dragging Elena and Mia out of the house, throwing them into the car, and speeding down the gravel driveway. We didn’t look back. We stayed at a motel that night. The next day, I called a demolition crew. I told them to tear the house down, to fill in the well with dirt and cement, to burn the boards. They asked no questions. But as they were working, one of the workers came to me, pale, holding something in his hand. ‘Found this in the well,’ he said, holding out a child’s shoe—small, scuffed, and caked with dried mud. ‘There was no bottom,’ he added, staring at the ground. ‘It just… kept going.’

We moved across the state. We never talked about it. Jasper never went near that house again, but he still wakes up trembling sometimes, his eyes fixed on the door. Mia is eight now, and she still asks if the hole can follow her. I tell her no, but I know it’s a lie. Because some things don’t stay where you leave them. Some wells are never really filled. And some hunger is older than anything we know, waiting in the dark for a name to fall in.