The Night the Floor Sang

In the autumn of 1987, I was house-sitting a remote farmhouse in the middle of Nebraska, a place called the Holloway place, which had been empty for years. The owner, a distant cousin, had asked me to keep an eye on it while he was abroad. I was a graduate student then, studying folklore, and the isolation suited my research. The house was a creaking Victorian, two stories, with a wrap-around porch and a cellar that I never fully explored. I figured I’d be fine; I was a rational person, or so I thought.

That Tuesday night, October 13th, began like any other. I had a fire in the stove, a glass of whiskey, and a stack of books. I turned in around 11, tired from a day of organizing my notes. I fell asleep quickly, lulled by the wind outside. Then, just after midnight, something woke me. It wasn’t a loud noise, but a subtle, rhythmic hum, like a distant engine or a giant’s deep breath. It seemed to come from the floor itself, vibrating through the floorboards and into my bed frame. I sat up, heart pounding. The room was dark, lit only by the pale moonlight filtering through the lace curtains.

At first, I thought it was the old furnace kicking on. But the sound wasn’t mechanical; it was musical, almost like a low chant. I got out of bed, my feet cold on the wooden floor, and knelt down, pressing my ear to the boards. The humming grew louder, as if something were directly beneath me, resonating with my skull. It was a sound without words, but it carried a feeling of immense age, as if the earth itself was humming an ancient dirge. I tried to rationalize: perhaps it was wind through the crawl space, or a well pump, but everything felt wrong.

I decided to investigate. I grabbed a flashlight and went to the cellar door, which was in the kitchen. The door was heavy, bolted with a latch that seemed rusted shut. I pulled it open, and a musty, cold air rushed out, carrying with it the hum, now more distinct. I descended the wooden steps, which groaned under my weight, into a darkness so thick I had to feel my way. The beam of my flashlight danced over dirt floors, old jars, and cobwebs. The humming seemed to come from the back corner, where a large, flat stone lay embedded in the earth. I walked toward it, and as I drew close, the humming stopped abruptly. Silence. The sudden quiet was more unsettling than the noise.

I knelt down, brushing dust off the stone. It was about three feet square, oddly smooth, with strange carvings—spirals and jagged lines that looked like an ancient language. I had never seen anything like it. My heart raced as I realized I might have stumbled upon something significant. I tried to pry up the stone, but it wouldn’t budge. Then, without warning, the humming returned, all around me, and the stone began to vibrate violently, knocking my flashlight from my hand. The light went out, and I was plunged into absolute darkness. I froze, terrified, as the humming grew to a deafening pitch, and the stone emitted a faint, sickly glow, illuminating the cellar in a ghastly blue. I saw shapes moving in the shadows—not animals, but indistinct, wavering forms, like heat mirages, but with a malevolent presence. They began to converge on me.

I scrambled backwards, tripping over debris, desperate to reach the stairs. The forms didn’t chase me; they just hovered over the stone, as if in reverence. I made it to the stairs, crawled up, and slammed the door shut, then threw the bolt. I leaned against it, gasping, my heart hammering. The humming continued for a few minutes, then faded away. For the rest of the night, I didn’t sleep. I sat in the kitchen, every light on, listening. But there was only silence. By dawn, I had convinced myself it was a gas leak, or my mind playing tricks. I left the house that morning, told my cousin he could find someone else, and never returned. But to this day, I cannot explain that stone, or the shapes, or the humming. It was as if that house was not just a building, but a door, and something on the other side had almost opened it.

Years later, I tried to research the Holloway place. I found only a brief mention in a county history: the house was built on an old Pawnee burial ground, and the stone had been there before the house, maybe for centuries. The locals avoided the place, calling it ‘the singing ground,’ though they wouldn’t say more. I never spoke of it again, until now. On some nights, when the wind is just so, I think I can still hear that low hum, rising from the ground beneath my own home, and I wonder if that stone is connected to something deep in the earth, waiting for another curious soul to come and listen.