nosleep

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LoreWriter8 on 2024-11-23 17:02:21+00:00.

When I was about 7 years old or so in 1974, my dad owned an old Victorian somewhere in Massachusetts. Well, I don’t know if he exactly owned it outright, but we lived there after my grandfather, who did own it, died and my grandma took the inheritance with her all the way to Florida. And I say ‘somewhere’ because, for the life of me, I can’t remember what the name of my hometown was.

I’ve done some searching online but the only thing that turns up for the area is a thing called the ‘Bridgewater Triangle’ which is supposedly what the land in the middle of three particular towns in Massachusetts is called.

I looked up several landmarks I remember about the place, and they all seem to be there, but the town is just… gone. I know the town had something along the lines of ‘veil’ in the name, but nothing came up for it.

But I digress, that’s only half of the reason I’m writing this. The other half is that, well, I figure the events of my childhood in that house should be suitably gruesome.

Let me just start by saying my father was not a good man. Don’t get me wrong, he never specifically did anything bad or abusive to me that I can remember. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He cared for me as best he could and he always put food on the table. Even though we were struggling to get by, there was always food. Meat, specifically. Plenty of meat.

Once I asked him if we could get fruit and veggies, but he just shrugged and said he’d see what he could scrape together to afford it. I suggested not spending so much on all the meat, but he told me that the neighbor was a hunter and was cutting us a portion of his catch as a good samaritan.

I never met that neighbor, and as far as I knew we lived alone on that street. I didn’t push the issue at that point, though, the dilapidated houses peppered on the various rocky hills around the area very well could’ve hid surreptitious old hunters or the like, for all my knowledge as a seven year old. It all seemed okay for the most part, because my dad said so.

I don’t know.. exactly when I started to notice the smell in the basement, but one day it was just there. It was a putrid, burning sort of smell like harsh chemicals, but organic, like a carcass on the side of the road.

One day the scent led me to the side room in our basement, where a rug laid at a random point against the wall. It was so strong in that room that I had to hold back wretches, feeling the tingle of vomit entering the back of my throat.

I crept closer to the rug and the smell of purifying flesh invaded my nose that much more. I was almost touching the thing when the sound of my dad clearing his throat broke the silence. I hadn’t even heard him come down the stairs, but there he was, looming in the doorway, as the light of the only hanging bulb behind him cast stark shadows over his face.

For the first time, in that very moment, I was afraid of my father.

He said, in a very calm voice, that I shouldn’t be in this room, because it was the yucky room. He said that yucky things happen in this room, and that I was too young to know about them. I don’t know what I thought he meant by that, but the blind trust and sudden fear was enough to make me go back upstairs.

That night, just as I was falling asleep, I heard it. The voices of what must have been dozens of people, all talking at once in a hushed tone. My eyes bolted open, and I looked around my room for the source of the sound. As I stared into the shadows surrounding my bed, it entered my mind, and I knew exactly where the whispers were coming from.

A storm approached the old house, and distant thunder rolled as I snuck into the hallway and past my father’s room. I couldn’t see a thing until the storm got a bit closer, and the flashes of lightning that entered the windows lit up the house.

I crept down to the basement, making sure not to make any noise at all. Each quiet creak of the cellar stairs sent shivers up my spine, but they were masked by the now heavy rain. I reached the bottom relatively quickly, and noticed something strange. From under the thick wooden door of the yucky room, there was a pale red glow shining onto the floor.

The light was static, but almost seemed to pulse brightly, like a heartbeat. As I got closer it started to feel.. warm, and slick. My skin became slightly tacky; clammy. But in that warmth there was no comfort, rather it was hot, like an infection. There was hate in it, and pain.

I tried to open the door but it was locked, and tugging on the handle didn’t work. It was at that moment that the voices, at their loudest, stopped suddenly, and from the other side of the door the handle twisted once and the door opened. I stared into the room as that same pale red light covered everything.

I couldn’t discern any clear source of the light, but it illuminated the whole room, and seemed to accentuate the horrible smell of death. In the light I could see a stone table in the far corner, splattered with what looked like dry blood, which also covered the floor beneath it. The table itself was sturdy and rough, covered in what appeared to be some kind of sigils and a language I couldn’t read.

In the other far corner there were all sorts of sharp tools hanging on the wall, stained and chipped. Over everything was a thick mucusy membrane of some kind of gristle that squelched every time I picked up my feet. I was on the edge of vomiting when my attention went swiftly to the rug against the wall.

One voice permeated the room now, a muffled, soft voice which called me over to the rug, telling me to lift it and see. The rug jostled as I crept toward it and I could see those same sigils from the table, now lining the edge of what looked like a hole.

I lifted the rug to see just that, but it wasn’t only a hole. It was a gaping pit in the stone, and now the room was filled with the voices again, but they were screaming and pleading and choking. Inside the pit there were all sorts of mangled body parts and extremities.

Bodies were twisting and writhing in what looked to be the most horrible pain imaginable, and the faces that stared back at me with wide, crusty eyes and gnashing teeth filled me with mind-numbing horror. They called out to be eaten, and, remembering all of our previous meals, I felt the oddest twinge of… hunger.

I shook off my trance and turned to run, but my father stood in the door once again, and that pale light showed his face, which was the same in appearance as the ones in the hole. He was smiling, and in one hand he held a lit match. I could see that he was covered in what must have been oil, and the only thing he said to me before dropping the flame was “You’ll come back. When it’s time.”

Needless to say, he set himself ablaze, and I ran as fast as I could away. I ran and ran until I was well into the woods, looking back only to see the flames reaching over the trees and into the night sky as thunder rolled and lightning flashed around the house.

I made it to the town over, when I stopped running. I must have collapsed in fear and exhaustion because the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. I started sputtering things about my father and the town… but no one knew what I’d been talking about, and the town was gone.

I couldn’t believe it when they said it. But I was starting to forget too, and every moment that passed took away more and more of the town. But I will never forget that night, and what happened. I’ve tried to look for an obit of anyone, or any missing persons reports. All nothing.

Sometimes I still hear those voices before I go to sleep, and my dreams are a mess of writhing limbs most nights. Who knows, maybe I will be back when it’s time.