The Termite Cadence

The notifications started three days after we buried Aunt Cora. Her house on Hollow Pines Lane sat like a forgotten hymn book, dust motes dancing in the weak light that filtered through the yellowed curtains. The realtor’s sign had been up for a month, but no one wanted a place that smelled of mothballs and regret. My mother, always the practical one, agreed to stay there until it sold. We needed the money, and Uncle Frank, Cora’s son, was too busy grieving to keep the place tidy.

I was seventeen, and the move felt like a step backward. Our cramped apartment had been small, but it was ours. This house, with its creaking floors and peeling wallpaper, felt like wearing a dead woman’s clothes. The first night, I couldn’t sleep. My room was at the end of the hall, and the old pipes groaned like they were trying to speak. I put on my headphones and tried to block it out.

The first note appeared on the kitchen counter, tucked under the sugar bowl. A single sheet of lined paper, the kind you’d use for school notes, with handwriting that slanted heavily to the right. ‘The termites are singing tonight,’ it read. I showed it to my mother, who laughed it off. ‘Probably a prank from the neighborhood kids,’ she said, crumbling it into the trash.

But the notes kept coming. ‘The cadence is rising.’ ‘They’ve found the joists.’ ‘Don’t tap the walls.’ Each one appeared in a different spot: inside the refrigerator, under my pillow, in the mailbox. The handwriting was always the same, and never a smudge or a fingerprint. I started to feel watched, like the house itself was breathing around me.

It was on the fourth night that I heard the sound. A low, rhythmic tapping, like a finger drumming on wood. It came from the basement, steady and deliberate. I crept to the basement door and pressed my ear against the wood. The tapping paused, then began again, faster. I flicked on the light and descended the rickety stairs. The basement was a cluttered crypt: boxes of Cora’s belongings, old furniture under dust sheets, a workbench with tools rusted from neglect. The tapping was coming from the wall behind the water heater. I pressed my palm against the wood, and the tapping stopped. Then, right where my hand rested, a faint vibration, a pulse.

I fled back upstairs, heart hammering. I didn’t tell my mother; she was already sleeping, exhausted from her shift at the diner. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and the tapping started again. This time, it was directly above me, in the attic. The ceiling seemed to bow slightly, and a fine dust sifted down, settling on my face like ash.

The next morning, I discovered the house was infested. Not with termites, but with an old, dark mold spreading in the corners of the rooms, blooming in patterns that looked almost like words. I tried to wipe it away, but it returned thicker within hours. The notes changed too, becoming more urgent. ‘You’re feeding them.’ ‘Stop knocking.’ ‘They’ve learned the melody.’

I called my uncle, but he was distant, still dealing with the estate. ‘Just ignore it,’ he said, his voice cracked. ‘It’s just an old house. It’ll sell soon.’ I wanted to believe him, but that night, I saw something that shattered my composure. I was in the hallway, heading to the bathroom, when I saw a figure at the end of the hall. It was the shape of Aunt Cora, but her body was made of shifting, crawling darkness. She raised a hand and pointed at the wall, and where her finger touched, the wood began to splinter, revealing a hollow cavity filled with writhing, pale insects that glowed faintly in the dim light.

I screamed, but no sound came out. The figure dissolved, and the wall resealed itself as if it had never been. I ran to my mother’s room and shook her awake. ‘We have to leave,’ I gasped. ‘There’s something in the walls.’ She looked at me with glassy eyes, and for a moment, her expression was blank. Then she smiled, a too-wide, unnatural smile, and said, ‘They’re just hungry, love. We all are.’

That broke something in me. I grabbed my keys and bolted out the front door, not caring if I tripped into the night. The porch light flickered off as I sprinted down the driveway, and when I reached the road, I turned back. The house was dark, but I could see a faint, rhythmic pulsing, as if the structure itself were breathing. And in the attic window, something watched me go.

I slept in my car that night, and the next day, I managed to convince my mother to drive back to our apartment. She seemed dazed, nodding but not truly speaking. I don’t know if she ever fully woke up. The realtor called a week later, saying the house had sold to a mysterious buyer who paid in cash. We never went back. But sometimes, late at night, I hear that tapping again, and I wonder if it’s in the walls of our new place, or if it’s just in my head. And I always glance at the floorboards, half expecting to see a scrawled note, telling me that the termites are still singing, and they know my name.