The Gravel Pile

My cousin Lena and I had been sent to stay with my grandmother in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains while my parents sorted out their marriage. The summer was hot and sticky, and the air smelled of pine and dust. Our grandmother’s house sat at the end of a gravel road, on a ridge that looked out over a valley of dark, tangled forest. There were a few other houses scattered along the ridge, but they were all owned by retirees or city people who only came up on weekends to escape the heat. The only constant was the sound of cicadas, a low thrum that seemed to pulse through the trees.

One afternoon, bored and restless, we decided to explore. At the end of our road, on a small lot that had been scraped bare of vegetation, a new house was going up. It was a modern A-frame, all sharp angles and glass, perched precariously on the hillside. The owner’s truck, a dusty red Ford, was parked in the driveway, but there was no sign of anyone. We’d heard the owner was a reclusive writer from the city, but we’d never seen him. The door was unlocked, and curiosity got the better of us.

We walked in, leaving the bright sunlight behind. The house was a shell, with unfinished drywall and wiring hanging from the ceiling. The smell of fresh-cut lumber was strong, but underneath it, there was something else, a faint, acrid smell like burnt copper. We wandered from room to room, our footsteps echoing, until we came to a large picture window that overlooked the valley. But the view wasn’t of the forest. It was of a deep pit that had been dug into the hillside, ringed with yellow tape that fluttered in the wind. The pit was black, impenetrable, and I felt a sudden chill despite the heat.

We backed away from the window, but not before I noticed a pile of gravel in the yard, a mound of grey stones that seemed oddly out of place. Lena picked up a handful and started tossing them, one by one, at the ‘For Sale’ sign on the neighboring lot, which was completely overgrown with kudzu. I joined her, and we sat on the edge of the gravel pile, making a game of trying to hit the rusted corner of the sign. The stones clattered as they hit, and the sound was sharp and hollow.

After a while, Lena threw a pebble too hard, and it sailed over the sign and into the kudzu. We both paused, listening. There was a rustle, then a dull thud, like something heavy being dragged. We exchanged a look, but then laughed it off, thinking it was a deer. We sat back down, and I picked up a larger stone. As I weighed it in my hand, I noticed it was strangely smooth, almost polished, and it had a dark, glossy sheen. I held it out to Lena, but she was staring at the ground between us.

There were footprints in the dust. They weren’t ours. They were larger, like a man’s, but the weird thing was they were all over the gravel pile, as if someone had been pacing there recently. But we hadn’t seen anyone, and the prints led from the edge of the woods, crossed the dirt road, and ended right where we were sitting. Following them with my eyes, I traced them back to the treeline. The leaves there were unnaturally still. I felt the air around us grow cold, and the cicadas suddenly fell silent.

Lena grabbed my arm. ‘We should go,’ she whispered. I nodded, and we scrambled up. As we turned to leave, I saw something out of the corner of my eye: a face, pale and gaunt, staring at us from between the trees. It was there for just a second, then it was gone. We ran back to my grandmother’s house, not stopping until we slammed the screen door behind us.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing that face, and I kept hearing the sound of gravel crunching, like footsteps around the house. I went to the window, and in the dim light, I saw a figure standing by the road, perfectly still, watching the A-frame. It stayed there for hours, and I watched until my eyes ached. The next day, I called the county to ask about the owner of the property. The clerk seemed surprised. ‘That house hasn’t been occupied in years,’ she said. ‘The owner went missing a while back. They never found him.’

I didn’t tell Lena. But I knew, with a deep, primal certainty, that the gravel pile wasn’t just gravel. Those stones had been packed into the pit behind the house, one by one, to keep something down. And now, we had disturbed it. I could feel its eyes on us, watching from the edge of the forest, waiting for us to come back. The summer stretched on, and every time I passed that lot, I saw the gravel pile. It seemed to have grown, the stones now spilling onto the road, as if the earth itself was pushing them out. And sometimes, at night, I would hear a low, grinding sound, like stones shifting, and I would know that it was still there, listening, remembering us, and waiting for a moment when we’d be alone.