The Drywell Incident

The summer Danny turned eight, the heat in Barstow was a solid thing you could lean on. His family rented a sagging farmhouse on the edge of town, where the desert gnawed at the foundations and the wind smelled of creosote and dust. His father worked double shifts at the solar plant, and his mother spent her days in town taking care of her ailing mother. That left Danny and his older sister, Maria, to fend for themselves from sunup to sundown.

The house had a drywell in the backyard—a circular pit lined with crumbling brick, covered by a rusted iron grate. The landlord had warned them never to go near it: ‘That well goes down to the old aquifers, but it’s been dry for decades. You don’t want to fall in.’ But kids are drawn to what they’re told to avoid. Danny and Maria would lie on their bellies, peering into the dark hole, trying to see the bottom. It was a black so deep it seemed to swallow light, and a faint cool draft came up from it, a strange relief in the desert heat.

One afternoon, Maria challenged Danny to drop a stone and count the seconds until he heard it hit. He dropped a pebble. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three. The silence stretched past ten, past twenty, and then they heard a wet thud—like something soft and heavy landing on damp earth. Maria’s face went pale. ‘That’s not right,’ she whispered. ‘That well is dry.’ They didn’t mention it to their parents when they got home, but that night Danny dreamed of a voice calling his name from the hole.

The next day, they were out in the yard when they heard a sound—a low, rhythmic tapping, coming from the drywell. Danny approached the grate and saw something that made his stomach drop: a small, grimy hand, fingers splayed, pushing up against the underside of the iron lid. Maria screamed and pulled him away. They ran inside and locked the doors, but the tapping followed them, coming from the pipes, the walls, the floorboards. It only stopped when the sun set.

Their parents dismissed it as ‘old house noises’ and ‘your imagination,’ but Danny knew what he saw. That night, he couldn’t sleep. He tiptoed to the window that faced the backyard. The moon was full, and he saw the grate on the drywell was ajar. A shape was crouched there, a thin, hunched figure, its skin slick with moisture, its head tilted as if listening. Danny froze. The figure turned, and in the moonlight, he saw its face—not human, but a hollow mask of stretched skin, with no eyes, only two dark sockets. And it smiled.

The next morning, Danny told Maria they needed to leave. ‘It’s been there the whole time,’ he said. ‘It wants us to come down.’ Maria, who had always been the tough one, was shaking. ‘We have to tell Mom and Dad,’ she said. But when they tried to explain, their father laughed and said, ‘Don’t be silly, kids. There’s nothing down there. We had the well inspected when we moved in. It’s packed solid with dirt.’ Danny insisted, so his father took a flashlight and went out to the well. He lifted the grate and shone the beam down. ‘See? Nothing but dry earth.’ But Danny saw it—a pale, finger-like root twitching at the edge of the light, retreating into a crack.

Over the next week, the presence grew bolder. Objects moved on their own: a spoon on the kitchen counter would slide off the edge; doors would slam shut for no reason. Danny started hearing a voice in his head, a dry, whispering cadence that said, ‘Let me out. I’ve been waiting so long.’ He tried to ignore it, but the pressure in his skull built until he felt his ears pop. One night, he found Maria standing at the edge of the drywell, her eyes glassy, her hands reaching for the grate. He yanked her back, and she blinked, confused. ‘Why are you out here?’ she asked. ‘You were sleepwalking,’ he lied.

Their parents finally decided to move, blaming the house’s old plumbing and the stress of their jobs. The day they packed the truck, Danny walked to the drywell one last time. He knelt and pressed his ear to the warm iron. From far below, he heard a soft, rhythmic thumping—like a heartbeat. And then a child’s voice, clear as a bell, said, ‘Thank you for the company. I’ll see you in your dreams.’ Danny ran, but he knew it was too late. That night, as they drove away, he saw in the rearview mirror a small figure standing by the drywell, waving. It had Maria’s face.

Years later, Danny never spoke of it. But whenever he visits a dry, dusty place, he feels a cool draft, and a hand brushes his ankle. And he knows the well is waiting for him to come back.