The Keeper of the Cistern

In the autumn of my junior year, I found myself at a party in the old Whittaker house, a sprawling Victorian that had been converted into a commune of sorts. My friend Mara lived there with her parents and a rotating cast of artists and drifters. The house was known for its labyrinthine basement, which had once been a Prohibition-era speakeasy, complete with a hidden cistern that was now sealed off.

It was close to midnight when Mara and I decided to sneak down to the basement to escape the noise. The air was damp and thick with the smell of old stone and mold. We found a dusty couch near a wall lined with ancient wine racks, and we sat there, talking and laughing about nothing in particular. The only light came from a single bare bulb swinging overhead, casting long, dancing shadows.

Suddenly, the laughter died in my throat. I heard a voice, low and gravelly, as if it were speaking through water. It said my name—just my name, drawn out, like a sigh. I froze, my heart hammering. I looked at Mara, expecting her to have heard it too, but she was still smiling, unaware. I convinced myself it was just a draft or a pipe, and I tried to ignore the prickling at the back of my neck.

A second later, Mara’s smile vanished. She turned to me, her eyes wide, and whispered, ‘Did you hear that?’ I nodded, not trusting my voice. The voice had spoken again, this time a string of words I couldn’t decipher, but it sounded like a warning. My skin crawled.

We scrambled off the couch and ran for the stairs. I could feel something watching us, something cold and patient. We burst out of the basement door into the cool night air, panting. Mara leaned against the railing, her face pale. ‘It’s the cistern,’ she said. ‘My mom told me never to go down there at night. She said there’s something trapped in the old water tank, something that calls out to people.’

I didn’t sleep that night. I kept hearing that voice, whispering my name, pleading and threatening. I tried to rationalize it, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw the dark mouth of the cistern, and I felt a pull, as if something wanted me to come back.

Weeks later, I returned to the Whittaker house alone, in the daylight, determined to prove there was nothing supernatural. I found the basement door unlocked and descended. The bulb was still burning, but the shadows were less menacing. I walked to the far wall, where there was a rusted iron door that had been welded shut. This must be the cistern.

I pressed my ear against the cold metal. At first, there was nothing but silence. Then, I heard a faint, rhythmic tapping, like something was knocking from the inside, but it wasn’t a knock. It was a code, a message. I realized with horror that it was repeating my name, in Morse code—dashes and dots, over and over.

I stumbled backward, and the tapping stopped. A voice, clear as day, echoed from the cistern: ‘You came back.’ I fled, but as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a heavy, wet slap against the iron door, as if something massive had thrown itself against it.

I never went back to that house. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a faint tapping on my window, always in the same rhythm, always my name. And I know the keeper of the cistern is still waiting, and that it has found a new way to call me home.