The Hollow Field

The old farmhouse had a way of holding onto sounds. I’d lie in bed at night, the floorboards groaning like they were remembering footsteps, the wind finding cracks in the windows and sighing through the rooms. I’d gotten used to it, even the occasional creak that sounded like a small voice. But that night was different.

I was almost asleep when I heard it, a clear, little voice, not threatening, just there, like a child asking for a glass of water. ‘I know what they’re looking for,’ it said. I snapped awake, my heart pounding, but the voice was familiar. It was the same spirit I’d encountered before, the little boy with the wide eyes and the old-fashioned clothes. I’d never been afraid of him, and that somehow made it worse. I sat up in bed, staring into the dark corner of the room where the sound had come from. ‘What are they looking for?’ I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

The silence stretched, broken only by the distant hum of the refrigerator. Then, the voice returned, softer, almost conspiratorial. ‘Space.’ ‘Space?’ I echoed, confused. ‘What do they need space for?’ ‘To grow,’ he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. My mind raced. ‘Who are you talking about?’ I pressed. The next words came with a chilling clarity: ‘The men beside me.’

I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead. I fumbled for the lamp, but the switch clicked uselessly, the bulb dead. The darkness seemed to thicken, pressing in on me. ‘What men?’ I demanded, my voice cracking. But he went quiet. I waited, straining to hear any sound, but there was nothing. I told myself he’d left, that it was just a dream, and I tried to go back to sleep. But my mind wouldn’t stop churning. Men beside him? What did that even mean?

Minutes passed, maybe longer, and I was just beginning to relax when his voice came again, this time with a weight that made my blood run cold. ‘They aren’t trying to get you.’ My breath caught in my throat. I knew, somehow, that he was talking about the ‘men’ who were beside him. ‘They just like looking,’ he added, and then the sound of his voice faded, leaving me alone in the suffocating dark.

I stayed frozen for what felt like an eternity, my eyes fixed on the window, where the moonlight cast a sickly glow on the glass. And then I saw them. Shapes, tall and thin, standing outside, their forms blotting out the stars. They weren’t trying to get in. They were just watching, their heads tilted at unnatural angles, their faces devoid of features. I could feel their attention on me, a cold, invasive pressure. I realized then that the little boy hadn’t been warning me. He’d been telling me what they were, and that they were always there, just beyond the reach of my vision, waiting for something I still didn’t understand.

I pulled the covers over my head, my heart thundering in my ears. The night stretched on, and I could feel their gaze even through the cloth, like needles of ice on my skin. When dawn finally came, I stumbled to the window. The field outside was empty, but the grass was flattened in a wide circle, as if something had been standing there for a very long time, watching. And I knew, with a certainty that made me sick, that they were still there, in the space they needed to grow, and that one day, the field would be filled with them, and they would still just be looking.