Stories To Tell In The Dark

The Dark Below

It started with a feeling. A strange, gnawing sensation that you couldn't quite place, but that slowly worked its way into your bones. Like when you're walking in a dark room, your hands brushing the walls, and you can feel something *off* in the air. But there’s nothing to see, nothing to hear, only the sense of wrongness creeping just beyond your vision, like a phantom lurking around the corner of your perception.

For Lily, it was the quiet that made her skin crawl.

Lily Connors had always been terrified of the dark, even as a child. But it wasn’t the kind of fear that could be alleviated by a nightlight or a reassuring hand. No, it was something deeper—a sense that the darkness was alive, that it was watching her, pressing in on her from all sides. As a child, she had found comfort in the safety of her blankets, wrapping herself tightly in their folds until her mind calmed enough to sleep. But as she grew older, the terror didn’t fade. It morphed into something more insidious: the fear of what could be hidden in the corners of her mind and the world around her, waiting for a c***k to appear, to slip through into her reality.

When she moved into the small, two-bedroom apartment on the edge of town, she thought maybe this time, things would be different. The apartment was cozy, tucked in a quiet neighborhood, far from the city’s noise. It had its quirks—creaky floorboards, old, peeling wallpaper—but it was perfect for a fresh start. Lily was trying to escape the crushing weight of her past, the memories that still haunted her, and maybe, just maybe, the apartment would help her shake the feeling that the world was closing in.

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The first few weeks in the apartment were fine. At night, the silence wasn’t oppressive; it was a welcome change. The hum of city traffic, the distant sounds of sirens and chatter, had faded into a memory. It was quiet here. Too quiet, maybe. Still, Lily convinced herself it was for the best. She had her own space. She didn’t have to explain herself to anyone. She was free.

But it was on a night towards the end of her second month in the apartment that things started to shift.

She awoke to the sound of scratching.

At first, it was faint—almost imperceptible. But then, it became more pronounced. As if something—*someone*—was digging, scraping against the walls. Lily jolted upright, her heart pounding. The room was still dark, the only source of light the faint outline of the moon through the curtains. She told herself it was just the house settling, old pipes groaning or rats in the walls. It could be anything.

But the scratching persisted.

Lily’s eyes flickered to the clock—2:34 AM. The noise came from beneath her floorboards. Beneath her bed.

A shiver raced up her spine. *No, this isn’t happening.* Her breath quickened. She was alone. There was no one in the apartment but her.

And then, in the deafening quiet, it came again. A soft, slow scratching, followed by a low, guttural sound—like something grating against stone. It wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t anything she could explain away.

Lily’s legs trembled as she swung them over the side of the bed and stood, heart hammering in her chest. Her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into the skin. She moved toward the door, but her feet felt as though they were stuck in tar, dragging behind her. The scratching stopped the moment she reached the doorframe, and the silence that followed was worse than the sound had been.

Lily didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

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The next day, she called the landlord.

“Mr. Harris,” she said, her voice quivering, “there’s something wrong with the apartment. I keep hearing scratching noises from the floor, like something is under the house. Is that normal? Is there an animal problem?”

There was a long pause on the other end. Then he spoke, his voice gruff. “No, Ms. Connors, there’s no animal problem. That apartment’s been vacant for a while. There’s no reason for anything to be crawling under the floorboards. Probably just old pipes or the house settling. You’ve heard of those old houses, right? They make all sorts of noises.”

But Lily wasn’t convinced. Not after the noise she’d heard. The scratching had felt deliberate. *Sentient.* It felt…alive.

That night, she slept with the lights on, but the terror was not so easily quelled. The fear she had buried deep inside her started to claw its way back to the surface, every creak of the floorboards now a reminder of something *waiting*.

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Days passed, and the sounds grew worse.

The scratching became more insistent, and then it changed. The noise wasn’t just from below now, but also from above. There were thuds on the ceiling at odd hours, as though something—no, *someone*—was moving above her, pacing back and forth. Lily tried to ignore it, telling herself that her imagination was running wild, that the stress of moving to a new place was getting to her. But every night, the sounds grew louder, more disturbing.

And then, one night, she woke to a new sound. This time, it wasn’t scratching or thudding. This was something much worse.

It was breathing.

Slow, heavy breaths, almost as if someone was in the room with her. Close to her. So close she could hear the air moving in and out, rasping, labored.

Her body went rigid. Her eyes darted to the corner of the room where the shadows met, but there was nothing there—no figure, no movement. But the breathing was unmistakable.

She swallowed hard and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She wasn’t alone. Something was in the room with her. Her heart pounded in her chest, louder than the breathing, louder than the scratches that had plagued her. She wanted to move. To scream. To run. But she was paralyzed, her mind fighting against the wave of panic surging through her body.

And then, the worst thing happened.

The bed shifted beneath her.

Something was pressing down, the weight of it growing heavier by the second. Lily could feel her pulse in her throat, and her body trembled uncontrollably. She tried to move, but the pressure pinned her down.

There’s something under the bed.

Her throat closed with terror, but before she could scream, she felt a hand—cold, clammy—wrap around her ankle.

A loud crash echoed in the hallway, followed by rapid footsteps—scratching, scraping, dragging, *crawling*—and then a deafening *bang* from the kitchen. The door flew open, the hinges protesting against the weight of whatever was trying to break through.

Lily’s heart was in her throat as she forced herself to move, to scramble, to break free of whatever had hold of her. But when she swung her feet out from the bed, she saw it. Her stomach lurched, and the scream that erupted from her throat was not one of defiance but of sheer, abject horror.

It wasn’t just a hand. It was a whole body. A thing, half-formed and twisted, with flesh that looked as if it had been gnawed away. Its legs were spindly, joints bent at odd angles, and its eyes—oh God, those eyes—were too large for its skull, bulging out like bloated fish.

The thing dragged itself closer, its mouth opening to reveal rows of jagged teeth. Its skin was waxy, translucent in places, showing the bones beneath. And as it stared at her with those grotesque, unblinking eyes, Lily realized, with mounting horror, that it wasn’t human.

It wasn’t even animal.

It was the manifestation of her worst fear.

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Lily bolted from the bed, running down the hallway, the sound of scraping and breathing behind her. She didn’t dare look back as she reached the door, her hand trembling as she fumbled with the knob. The air seemed to thicken with each passing second, the weight of something pressing down on her chest.

And then, there was a *snap*.

The door flung open, but not before the thing—*the creature*—caught her. It gripped her from behind, dragging her back into the suffocating darkness. Her scream was swallowed by its inhuman laugh.

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The next day, the apartment was quiet. Neighbors reported hearing nothing. No screams. No noises. Nothing.

But when the landlord came to check the unit, he found the door wide open, the apartment in perfect order—except for one thing. The walls were covered in scratches, deep gouges that looked like they had been made by nails, by something *clawed*.

But worst of all was the floorboard. Beneath it, where there had once been a trapdoor that led to the cellar, there was now only a vast, yawning void.

Empty.

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The people of the town would whisper, but they would never speak too loudly. They knew better than to ask questions about the apartment on the edge of Hollow Creek. They knew better than to acknowledge the strange things that lurked in the dark below, waiting for the next unwitting soul to come too close.

Because whatever was down there, whatever had taken Lily Connors, was not finished yet.

And it was waiting for someone else.