The Hollow Squeal

I am thirty-one, and I live in a small, aging farmhouse on the outskirts of Coldwater, a town that time forgot. My family has always had a peculiar sensitivity to the unseen, a trait I’ve inherited and chronicled on my blog for years. But nothing in my family’s history prepared me for what happened last night.

It was a humid August night, and I was in my study, a room that overlooks the overgrown pasture behind the house. The window was open, letting in the scent of wildflowers and the distant hum of cicadas. I was on a video call with an old friend from an online forum, discussing the peculiar patterns of local folklore. At precisely 1:30 AM, a sound cut through the night like a rusty blade.

It was a series of high-pitched squeals, not unlike a duck, but twisted, as if the creature making it was in immense pain. The noise came from directly outside my window, from the direction of the old well, which had been capped and sealed for decades. The squeals were rhythmic, almost mocking, and they seemed to be right at the edge of my hearing, drilling into my skull. My friend’s face froze on the screen, and he asked, ‘Did you hear that?’ I could only nod, my skin crawling.

The sound stopped as abruptly as it had started, leaving an oppressive silence that felt heavier than before. My friend, clearly shaken, ended the call shortly after, muttering about needing to check on his own property. I sat there, heart pounding, trying to rationalize what I had heard. Teenagers from the nearby abandoned lot, perhaps, with a toy. Or a wounded animal. But the sound had a deliberate, taunting quality that unsettled me to my core.

Unable to shake the feeling, I decided to investigate. I grabbed a flashlight and stepped into the moonlit grass. The air was still, but I felt a chill that had no business being there in August. As I approached the well, I noticed the rope and bucket were gone, and the wooden cover was slightly ajar. I knew it had been nailed shut; my grandfather had sealed it after his brother disappeared near it in the 1960s.

I leaned over the opening, aiming the flashlight into the darkness. The beam revealed only moss-covered stones and a faint glimmer of water far below. Then, without warning, the squealing resumed, but this time it was not from the well. It was from behind me, from the direction of the house. I spun around, and there, on the porch, stood a figure—a child, perhaps, in a white nightgown, its face obscured by shadow. It let out a final, piercing squeal, then vanished as if it had never been there.

I ran back inside, locking every door and window. I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed in the study, watching the well through the window, but nothing moved. The next morning, I inspected the well cover. The nails were intact, and the rope was still coiled beside it. There was no sign that anyone had been there. But on the porch, I found a single, fresh rubber duck, its yellow paint chipped, and its squeaker missing. And under it, a note in a child’s handwriting: ‘You shouldn’t have let him out.’

I haven’t told anyone outside this forum. But I know that sound, that hollow squeal, was not of this world. And it is not done with me.