The Hollow in the Sinkhole

My grandmother’s house sat on the edge of a vast, dry plain in the high desert of New Mexico, far from the bustling cities and their comforting lights. The land was a cracked, sun-bleached bone, punctuated by scrub brush and the occasional skeletal silhouette of a Joshua tree. My family had gathered there for the summer, a reunion of cousins and aunts and uncles, all crowding into the old adobe house that smelled of piñon smoke and dust.

Evenings were our ritual. We’d drag mismatched chairs and blankets into the gravel yard, and my grandmother, Abuela Rosa, would tell us stories. Not the gentle fables of our childhood, but the harsh, winding tales of the region, of lost travelers and cursed mines, of things that walked the desert at night. We’d sit, knees tucked to our chins, as the firelight danced on her weathered face, her voice a dry rasp like wind over sandstone.

On the third night, she told us about the K’ishtu. She described it as a creature born from a forgotten sin, buried alive in a sinkhole that opened during a storm. It had the body of a coyote, but its fur was patchy and slick with a black, oily substance. Its face, however, was a twisted echo of a man’s, with skin stretched tight over a too-prominent skull. Its eyes were like obsidian shards, and its fingers were long, sinewy digits ending in razor-sharp claws that clicked like chitin. She said it could mimic any sound, from a child’s laugh to a mother’s cry, to lure its prey to the edge of its pit. We were terrified, and for the rest of the trip, any mention of the sinkhole beyond the ridge was enough to make us behave.

Years later, as adults, we’d forgotten the K’ishtu. The desert had become just a place to visit, a backdrop for family photos. My cousin Marco and I, now in our late twenties, had come back to help sort through Abuela Rosa’s belongings after she passed. The old house felt smaller, the desert less vast, but the wind still carried that faint, dry smell.

One afternoon, while clearing out the cellar, Marco unearthed a rusted lockbox. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, was a leather-bound journal with Abuela’s spidery handwriting. It was filled with observations, dates, and sketches of the land. One entry, dated sixty years ago, described a strange event: a sinkhole had opened near the old well, and a rancher had claimed to hear a crying child coming from it. Another entry, a few weeks later, mentioned that a calf had gone missing, and the rancher’s dog had returned with a strange gash on its flank. The final entry, on the day my grandmother moved away from that place, simply read: ‘The hole is hungry.’

Marco and I exchanged a look. The old fear from childhood, the faint memory of the K’ishtu, clawed its way back. But we were rational adults now. We dismissed it as superstition. Yet, curiosity is a stubborn weed. We decided to hike to the old sinkhole, partly to prove Abuela’s journal was just the rambling of an old woman, partly to feel close to her.

The hike was long, under a brutal sun. The land shimmered with heat, and the only sound was the crunch of our boots on gravel. We found the sinkhole eventually, a gaping maw in the earth, maybe thirty feet across, ringed by cracked, white rocks. The air around it was still and cold, a noticeable drop from the surrounding heat. A faint, sweet smell, like rotting fruit, drifted up from the darkness.

We stood at the edge, peering in. The bottom was lost in shadow. I kicked a pebble in, and we waited, but never heard it hit the bottom. A chill ran down my spine. Marco, ever the joker, cupped his hands and called out, ‘Hello? Anyone down there?’

The sound echoed for far too long, bouncing back and forth, growing deeper and more distorted. Then, from the void, a sound returned that froze us both. It was a child’s voice, small and frightened, calling, ‘Please… help me…’

Every rational thought screamed ‘trick’ or ‘echo,’ but the voice was too clear, too close. Marco stepped closer to the edge, and I grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t.’

He pulled free. ‘It’s a kid, we can’t just…’ He leaned over, trying to see. The voice came again, now from directly below us, a desperate whimper. ‘My leg… I’m stuck…’

Marco lost his footing. He scrambled, his fingers scraping against the rock, but the edge crumbled, and he was gone, swallowed by the darkness. His scream was cut off abruptly, replaced by a wet, crunching sound.

I fell to my knees, shouting his name. A long, agonizing silence followed. Then, from far below, I heard a voice—not Marco’s, but a rasping, throaty parody of it. ‘I’m fine… the rocks broke my fall… it’s soft down here…’

I didn’t believe it. I scrambled backward, terror turning my limbs to jelly. As I fled, I could hear a slithering, scraping sound behind me, growing closer. A voice, now inching up the walls, called out in my grandmother’s voice, ‘Don’t worry, mijo, stay with me…’

I ran until my lungs burned, until I reached the house and slammed the door. I’ve never returned. And sometimes, at night, when the wind blows just right across that plain, I can hear the echo of Marco’s voice from the edge of that hole, and the dry, clicking sound of claws on stone, as if something is patiently teaching itself to climb out.