How many excuses had I already made up to this point? Trees scraping against wood siding, creaking boards in an already older house still aging, animals sneaking in through gaps in insulation, wind shaking the top levels of your home. All of them said to ease my mind from the strange sounds I kept hearing.
An incessant whispering coming from the attic.
“Are you okay, James?”
“I’m fine.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I wasn’t confident I was okay. I think things were getting worse because I could hardly do anything but focus on that strange whispering. Had I finally reached my breaking point?
“It just seems like something is off.”
Great. Now I was worrying Mary.
“Nothing is wrong, just lost in thought.”
“Well, honestly, you seem lost in thought a lot lately. You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
I don’t know about that.
“Sure, I would you know that.”
I could tell she was still upset, downtrodden look dragging her facial features into the dumpster. So I decided to try and solve two problems at once.
“Why don’t we have a game night, get our minds off the week?”
Already her face was perking up, and I could see the competitive spirit within her beginning to boil.
“What did you have in mind?”
“How about…Stycalah?”
“We haven’t played that in…oh…probably six months. So I have no idea what we did with it.”
“I think it’s in the attic. Why don’t you prepare some snacks, and I will climb up there and look around.”
Mary was already prancing off out of view without a second thought. Should give me plenty of time to investigate the sounds. The never-ending whispers constantly invaded my thoughts, mind, physical body, and ears. I was definitely starting to lose it.
I walked upstairs to the second floor, making my way toward the attic entry, a braided cord hanging down from the ceiling, begging to be pulled. The whispers were already getting louder, beckoning me to hurry inside. I grabbed the cord and pulled down hard, releasing the ladder that would let me up. I climbed the ladder with a single-minded focus, almost like I was in a strange trance.
As soon as my head popped up inside, I had to stifle a cough. A thick layer of dust coated a series of boxes that spread throughout the mostly empty space, now silent as my cough dispersed some dust into the air. A hazy light spread thinly through the room, enough to see but not enough for specific details. I finished climbing into the attic and pulled on the thin metal ripcord for the single lightbulb.
Nothing. It was dead. Of course it would be.
I freed my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight, moving boxes as I shined it around, looking for some source of the now silent whispering. What happened to it? Was it all just in my head? Or was it some summoning signal to get me into the attic?
I searched as far and wide as possible in the small space but found nothing. Nothing except the box set of Stycalah I had come up there for. I started across the attic toward the ladder when I accidentally dropped my phone, and it bounced down out of sight.
“God dammit.”
My eyes had already adjusted to using the flashlight, so even with the sparse lighting seeping in, I was blind as I moved forward. I ambled on, moving my feet out to feel and search for the ladder, when I felt a sharp pain on the bottom of my foot. I bit my lip as I fell to the ground, stifling a scream that I knew would make Mary worry.
My first thoughts were a loose nail or some splinter, but I felt my heart skip when I saw that there was a piece missing from my shoe, blood dripping freely from the hole. I could see a curved indentation around the hole’s edge, strange smaller rounded indentations following its edge. My eyes darted to the side as the whispering began once more, occasionally interrupted by what I could have sworn was a slow chewing sound.
My eyes were already adjusting to the dim light, and that’s when I saw a small mouth, the size of my palm, on the attic floor, whispering incomprehensible sounds while chewing on the piece of my shoe and foot. I swatted toward my left arm as I felt a similar pinch as before and felt warm liquid trailing down as the sound of chewing grew.
I glanced over and saw another mouth, chewing, whispering, and perhaps growing. My head was ringing from the pounding in my chest as I tried to keep my breathing under control. This made no sense. Absolutely no sense. Mouths on wood? I crawled on my knees toward the ladder when I stopped, realizing they had the exit surrounded. Between me and the exit were several mouths of various sizes, some already larger than my head, whispering excitedly.
I felt another pinch on my calf and screamed as the mouths began to laugh, chewing sounds continuing to intensify as they seemed to relish the taste of my body. My eyes wildly darted around as I tried to figure out what to do. How the hell could I escape from here? I tried to think of a solution through the growing pain as blood began to pool around me.
It was then I saw an opportunity, even if it was brief. The mouths bumped into one another, trying to drink from the pooled blood seeping into the wood. I grit my teeth as I grabbed my injured leg, squeezing my calf and spilling fresh blood onto the wood around me. The whispering grew louder as the eager mouths flooded toward me, giving me just a moment to throw myself forward through them.
Even as my body rolled rapidly toward the exit, I could feel them nibbling at me, tearing chunks from my side, back, and stomach. I kept screaming as I rolled and fell through the entrance to the attic, landing on the second floor with a loud thud. I glanced above me and saw the whispering continuing, quieting, but still constant. Finally, I forced myself into a standing position and pushed the attic entrance closed as hard as possible.
I could hear steps coming up the stairs nearby and Mary’s voice echoing toward me.
“Everything okay, James? I heard a loud bang.”
“Eve… everything’s okay…love…I just…had a small fall.”
“Do we need to go to the hospital?”
“No, no…no, everything is fine…just going to soak in a bath for a bit… I’ll be downstairs soon.”
There was a long pause before she finally responded with a brief okay. I knew she was not satisfied, but I couldn’t let her see me like this. I couldn’t let her get anywhere near the attic. I managed to crawl toward the bathroom and turned on the tub to help fit my story. Blood was still leaking from the wounds resulting from being bitten by those things.
As I bandaged myself, I realized that the whispering was getting quieter until it finally disappeared. I still felt on edge, though, wondering what had happened— if we were safe here. And wondering why all of the wounds were itching so damn bad on top of the pain.