The Hungry Gate

The summer my cousin Vera turned nineteen, we camped in the meadow behind her house, a scrubby stretch of land bordered by an abandoned slaughterhouse. The place had been closed for decades, its corrugated iron walls rusted to the color of dried blood, and the local kids swore it was haunted by the livestock that had died there. Vera, who had always been fascinated by the macabre, insisted we go ghost hunting one night, armed with a single flashlight and a half-bottle of cheap wine.

I remember the story she told us around the fire, about the last owner, a man named Murdock, who had been found hanged in the main killing room, his face frozen in a scream. The official report said suicide, but the townsfolk whispered that the pigs had done it, that they had driven him mad with their squeals as he butchered them one by one. After his death, the place was sealed, but the sounds never stopped—squeals, and the wet slap of meat on concrete, drifting across the meadow on quiet nights.

We laughed it off, but as the fire died and the hour grew late, Vera’s eyes took on a feverish gleam. She grabbed my wrist, her fingers cold as the grave, and said, ‘Come on, let’s see if the stories are true. Just you and me.’ I hesitated, but the wine and the thrill of fear won out, and I found myself following her across the dark field, the flashlight beam cutting a weak circle through the fog that had rolled in from the river.

The slaughterhouse loomed before us, its silhouette like a crouching beast. The main door was a yawning black mouth, the hinges long since rusted open. We stepped inside, the smell of old blood and ammonia thick in the air, making our eyes water. The flashlight revealed a vast concrete floor, stained with dark patches that could have been rust or something worse. Chains hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly as if stirred by a breeze, though the air was dead still.

Vera led me to a small room off the main hall, where a metal grate covered a drain in the floor. She knelt and pried the grate loose with her fingers, revealing a dark hole beneath. ‘This is where they drained the blood,’ she whispered, her voice echoing strangely. ‘I read about it online. They say if you listen, you can still hear them squealing, somewhere down there.’

I leaned in, my heart pounding, and for a moment there was only silence. Then, from deep below, came a sound—a faint, rhythmic squeal, like a piglet in distress. It was so faint, I thought I might have imagined it, but Vera’s eyes widened, and she grinned. ‘You heard it too,’ she said, and without warning, she swung her legs over the edge of the drain and dropped into the hole.

I screamed her name, but she was gone. I lay flat on my belly, shining the flashlight down, but I saw only a narrow, slimy shaft that descended into darkness. I called to her, my voice cracking, but there was no answer. Panic clawed at my throat, and I scrambled to my feet, intending to run for help, but as I turned, the large steel door to the room slammed shut with a deafening clang, and the lights—which had been dead—flickered on with a harsh, buzzing hum.

The room was bright and sterile now, the concrete walls covered in white tiles, and the drains they were clean. And then I heard it again, the squealing, but this time it was everywhere, a cacophony of terrified animals, and I realized I was no longer alone. From the shadows in the corner, a figure emerged—a man in a blood-stained apron, his face obscured by a butcher’s mask. He carried a long, curved knife, and he was humming a tune I didn’t recognize.

I tried to run, but my legs were rooted to the floor, and the man approached, his steps slow and deliberate. He stopped in front of me, and I could see his eyes through the mask—they were pig’s eyes, small and black and full of a horrible intelligence. He raised the knife, and I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The squealing grew louder, drowning everything, until it was the only thing I knew.

I woke up in the meadow at dawn, my clothes drenched with dew, Vera’s flashlight lying beside me, its battery dead. Vera was never found. The police searched the slaughterhouse, but there was no drain, no room, nothing but the rusted shell we had entered. The townsfolk say she was taken by the pigs, just like Murdock, and that her spirit now joins them in their endless hunger. Sometimes, on clear nights, I think I can hear her squealing with the rest of them, calling me back to the gate beneath the slaughterhouse floor. And I know, one day, I’ll have to answer.