The Howling at Hollow Creek

In the autumn of 2018, my wife and I moved into a renovated farmhouse on the outskirts of a small town named Hollow Creek. The previous owners had left in a hurry, and we inherited two young dogs: a brother and sister, jet-black with a thick, healthy coat, a mix of Belgian Shepherd and something else we couldn’t place. The realtor said they had been left behind because the new owners couldn’t take them, and they were desperate for a good home. We took them in, naming them Bram and Wren. They were inseparable, mirror images of each other, with a watchfulness that I found unnerving at first, but I chalked it up to their breed.

We already had a large, aging Great Dane named Goliath, who had always been the gentle guardian of our property. To avoid any territorial disputes, we gave Goliath the fenced back pasture, while Bram and Wren had the front yard and the wraparound porch. At first, they were perfect: obedient, affectionate, and strangely attuned to our moods. But as the days grew shorter and the leaves began to fall, I noticed small oddities. Bram would sometimes stare at the tree line at the edge of our property for hours, his body rigid, a low growl rumbling in his chest, though I could see nothing there. Wren would whine at the back door, staring at the ceiling, as if listening to something moving above us.

Our niece, Elara, came to stay with us for a week in early November, while her parents attended to a family emergency. She was a quiet, imaginative twelve-year-old, and she took an instant liking to the dogs. But on the third night, she woke us with a piercing scream. We rushed to her room to find her huddled in a corner, trembling. She pointed at the window, saying, ‘There were faces at the glass, old faces, with black eyes and wide grins.’ We saw nothing, of course. I dismissed it as a nightmare, but the dogs were both at her door, their hackles raised, barking at something unseen in the hallway.

The next evening, as I was locking up, I noticed Bram and Wren sitting side by side in the middle of the front yard, their heads tilted upward as if listening to a distant sound. The moon was a thin crescent, and the wind had died. Then, from the direction of Hollow Creek, came a sound that made my blood run cold: a long, wavering howl, not like any dog or wolf I had ever heard. It was too human, too deliberate, like a parody of a howl. My wife heard it too, and we stood frozen on the porch. Goliath, who had been silent for years, suddenly began to bark from the back pasture, a frantic, desperate noise.

That night, we decided to bring all the dogs inside for safety. But as we stepped into the kitchen, I noticed something odd: Bram and Wren had dug a shallow trench at the base of the cellar door, and they were both lying in it, their bodies pressed flat, as if trying to hide. Their eyes followed us with an eerie intelligence. When I reached for the cellar door to ensure it was locked, Wren let out a low, warning growl. I pulled my hand back, a chill running up my spine.

In the early hours of the morning, we were woken by a crash. The cellar door was open, and the dogs were inside, standing at the top of a stone staircase that descended into darkness. We had never explored the cellar fully; we had assumed it was just a damp, unused space. But now, Bram and Wren descended, their claws clicking on the stone, and we followed, hearts hammering. At the bottom, we found a hidden room, sealed with a heavy iron door. The dogs pawed at it, whimpering. On the floor, covered in dust, were old photographs of people with grotesque, elongated faces, and a diary written in a spidery hand, describing a ritual to call forth ‘the Hollow Ones’ to guard the land.

We slammed the iron door shut and barricaded it. From that moment, the dogs changed. They became listless, refusing to eat, staring at us with a kind of pity. Elara confided that she had heard Whispers coming from the cellar, and that Bram and Wren were not the ones who should be guarding us—they were guarding the door. The howling grew closer each night, and one night, we saw them: figures at the edge of the property, tall and thin, with faces too wide and eyes like pits, their mouths stretched into grins that split their heads. They did not move, but they whispered our names.

We fled that house in the dead of night. We left the dogs behind, as the shameful previous owners had done, because they refused to come. In the rearview mirror, I saw Bram and Wren sitting on the porch, their silhouettes oddly human, and I swear I heard, above the engine’s roar, a long, triumphant howl—the howl of the Hollow Ones, finally unleashed upon a new home.