The Hollow at Midnight

I never told anyone about the things that happened to me when I was a kid. It wasn’t that I was afraid of being called crazy, though I was. It was more that I couldn’t find the words. How do you explain the feeling of being watched by something that has no shape, no sound, only a presence that presses against your skin like a cold hand? But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start with my grandmother’s farmhouse, the one that sat on the edge of the Pottawatomie reservation, because that’s where it all began.

When I was eight, my parents inherited the place from a distant aunt. It was a rambling, two-story structure with peeling white paint and a tin roof that sang in the rain. The land around it was flat and dry, dotted with sagebrush and the occasional gnarled juniper. But the most distinctive feature of that property was the old well in the back yard. It was capped with a rusty iron lid, but I could see the darkness beneath it, a bottomless black that seemed to breathe. I used to dare my cousin to peek through the gaps, but she always refused, saying she could feel something cold coming up from it.

My grandmother, who had lived there her entire life, told me stories about the place. She said the well was dug by the first settlers, who used it for water until it suddenly went dry. They tried to dig deeper, but they hit something hard, like solid rock. They tried to blast it open, but every time they lit the fuse, the dynamite would fizzle out, as if struck by an unseen hand. Eventually, they gave up and covered it, but she said things had been off ever since.

One summer, when I was twelve, my parents left me with grandmother for two weeks while they went on a trip. I was in the yard one evening, chasing fireflies, when I noticed the lid of the well was slightly ajar, sitting at an angle that I hadn’t seen before. I approached it, my heart thumping, and leaned close. A foul smell, like rotten eggs and dead flowers, wafted up. I heard a faint, rhythmic sound, like someone tapping on the inside of the well, slow and deliberate. Tap… tap… tap. It echoed, and I felt a cold draft on my face, though the air was still. I backed away, my legs trembling, and ran inside to tell grandmother.

She looked at me with a knowing, sad expression. ‘Don’t go near that well, child,’ she said. ‘There’s something down there that ain’t right. It’s been there since before I was born, and it’s waiting.’ I asked her what was waiting, but she just shook her head and refused to say more.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The house was hot and still, but my room felt frigid. I lay in bed, listening to the creaks of the old house, and then I heard it again. Tap, tap, tap, coming from outside my window. I drew the curtain and saw the well lid was now fully off, a dark void in the ground. A thin, white mist was rising from it, curling like fingers reaching for the sky. And in the center of that mist, I saw a figure. It was tall and gaunt, with long, stringy hair and arms that hung too low. It had no face, just a featureless expanse of pale skin. It stood there, perfectly still, as if it knew I was watching. Then it raised one arm and pointed at me, its finger jabbing toward my window.

I screamed and buried my head under the pillow. When I looked again, the mist was gone and the lid was back in place, as if it had never been moved. I told grandmother the next morning, but she just nodded, her face pale. ‘It’s looking for a host,’ she said. ‘It wants to come back into the world. But it can’t, unless someone invites it.’ I didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t elaborate. She made me promise never to go near the well again, and to never speak its name, for names have power. She called it ‘The Hollow Man’.

As I grew older, I began to forget about the well, and my visits to the farm became rarer. I went to college, got a job, and moved to the city. But my grandmother’s health declined, and I returned to her bedside in her final days. She was in a hospital room, hooked up to machines, but her eyes were sharp. She gripped my hand with surprising strength. ‘Listen,’ she whispered, her voice raspy. ‘I never told you the whole truth. That well is a portal. The Hollow Man isn’t a ghost, it’s a demon, something ancient that was trapped by the first people who lived here. The Native Americans knew about it, they avoided the area, but the settlers built over it. It feeds on grief and loneliness, and it can take the form of someone you love to trick you. It almost got me when I was young, but I was saved by a medicine man. He sealed it, but the seals are weakening. You must go to the farm, and you must find the iron bracelet he left. It’s buried under the cornerstone of the house. You have to wear it and speak the words he taught me. Promise me.’ I promised, not understanding.

After she passed, I drove to the farm, now abandoned and overgrown. The house sagged, the tin roof was rusted, and the windows were dark. I had a key, and I let myself in. The air inside was thick with dust and the smell of decay. I went to the corner of the foundation, as she had instructed, and dug with my hands. I found a metal box, and inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a bracelet made of heavy iron links, with strange symbols etched into it. I slipped it on, and it felt cold, but also strangely comforting, like a shield.

I spent the night in the house, in the room that had once been mine. I couldn’t sleep, so I sat by the window, looking out at the well. The moon was full, and I saw a figure standing next to it. It wasn’t the gaunt, faceless thing I’d seen as a child. It was my grandmother, wearing her favorite floral dress, her smile warm and kind. She waved at me to come outside. My heart ached with grief and longing, and I almost opened the door. But the bracelet grew colder, almost burning my wrist, and I stopped. I remembered the words she had taught me in the hospital, in a language I didn’t recognize. I spoke them aloud, trembling.

The figure flickered, and for a moment, I saw the Hollow Man beneath, its mouth open in a silent scream, its eyes like black pits. Then it dissolved into mist, and a wind rushed across the yard, slamming the well lid shut with a clang. I heard a sound like a thousand voices crying in agony, and then silence.

The next morning, I went to the well and saw that the lid was now rusted shut, fused to the stone. I felt the bracelet pulsing faintly, as if it had absorbed something. I knew I had done what she asked, but I also knew it wasn’t over. The Hollow Man was trapped again, but the seal was weaker now. It had tasted the world, and it wouldn’t stay silent forever.

Now, years later, I still wear the bracelet, though it has grown dull. Sometimes, when the night is still and the moon is full, I hear a faint tapping from beneath my floor, as if it’s trying to reach me. And I know that it’s only waiting for the right moment and the right invitation. So I keep my grief close, but I never let it engulf me, because I know that on the other side of that darkness, there is something that is hungry for it.