The Hollow Hours

For weeks, the thought had burrowed into Elias’s mind like a persistent splinter. He’d been on a long detour through the old industrial district, avoiding the highway construction, when he’d glimpsed the wrought-iron gates of Oakhaven Rest. It wasn’t a cemetery he knew, not that he made a habit of visiting them, but something about its gnarled oaks and moss-draped stones called to him. That night, at his desk in the archive warehouse where he worked the evening shift, the image of those gates kept resurfacing. So, after clocking out, he drove back.

Oakhaven wasn’t large, more a neglected pocket of land squeezed between a defunct textile mill and a shuttered school. The iron fence was rusted, and the gate groaned when he pushed it open. The setting sun filtered through the dense canopy, casting everything in a sickly amber. He’d brought his camera, a vintage film model he’d recently taken up, hoping to capture the somber beauty of the place. As he wandered the cracked paths, he noticed the graves were old, many from the late 1800s, with names worn smooth and epitaphs illegible.

A particular headstone caught his eye. It was a modest granite slab, slightly tilted, with a carving of a weeping willow. The name read ‘Constance M. Aldridge, 1867-1888. Beloved Daughter.’ Beneath it, in smaller letters, ‘She sleeps, but hears the soil.’

Elias found the inscription unsettling, but he raised his camera. The light was perfect, a long golden beam cutting through the trees, illuminating the stone. He framed the shot and pressed the shutter. The camera clicked, but the film advance felt sticky. He wound it again, took another. This time, the shutter sounded wrong, like a muffled sigh.

He lowered the camera, frowning, and glanced at the ground. The soil around the grave was dark, almost black, and it seemed to shimmer faintly. He knelt, tracing a finger through the dirt. It was damp, but the day had been dry. The air grew still, and the sounds of distant traffic faded. He felt a low hum through his knees, a vibration in the earth.

A cold sweat prickled his neck. He stood, checking his phone. The screen flickered with static, the time glitching between 7:47 PM and 12:03 AM. He blinked, and it steadied to 7:47. He put the phone away, deciding to leave. As he turned, he saw a figure standing among the trees, a woman in a long dark dress, her face obscured by shadow. She was motionless, facing another grave a few rows over.

Elias froze, his heart hammering. He raised his camera again, using the zoom to see her more clearly. But through the lens, she was gone. He lowered it. She was still there, now closer, only a few feet away. He could see the fabric of her dress, worn and stained with soil. He couldn’t make out her features, but he felt her gaze on him.

He tried to speak, but his voice was gone. The woman lifted a hand, her fingers long and pale, and pointed toward the grave he’d photographed. Elias’s eyes followed, and he saw the headstone now bore a different name: ‘Elias R. Thorne, 1985-2024. The One Who Stayed.’

He stumbled back, his mind reeling. When he looked at the stone again, it was the original. The woman was gone.

He ran for the gate, but the path seemed longer, the trees closing in. As he ran, he heard a sound beneath his feet, a muffled scratching, as if nails were dragging on wood from below. He reached the gate, but it was locked. The rusted latch seemed fused. He shook it desperately, but it wouldn’t budge.

He spun around, his back to the iron. The cemetery was now in twilight, the shadows deepening. And then he heard the nursery rhyme, a faint children’s chant from the direction of the shuttered school: ‘The earth is hollow, the worms do follow, one goes in, none come out, only the roots and the stones and the doubt.’

The voice was sing-song, echoing. And the ground beneath him began to tremble.

The woman appeared again, this time directly in front of him, her face finally visible. It was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and empty sockets where eyes should be. She opened her mouth, and a cloud of dust and insects spilled out. She spoke, but her voice came from behind him, from the grave, ‘You took a piece of me with your light. Now you must stay to fill the night.’

Elias’s camera fell from his hands, shattering on the stone path. The film, unspooled, fluttered in a wind that came from nowhere. He felt the soil of the grave beneath him soften, his feet sinking as if it were quicksand. He clawed at the air, at the gate, but there was no purchase.

His last thought was of his mother, and how he’d never told her he loved her. Then the earth closed over his head, and the nursery rhyme stopped. The gate stood unlocked, swinging slightly in the breeze, and the camera lay broken on the path. When a jogger passed the next morning, she found the camera, and the film inside was undeveloped. She took it to a photographer, who developed it and saw a series of blurry images: a woman’s face, a grave with a different name, and a final shot of a city street at night, with a man’s hand reaching up from the ground, as if trying to escape.