Chapter Eleven: The Quiet One Stands
312 Words
The town was bleeding.
Three more bodies in two days.
One found in the laundromat—stripped, flayed, stuffed with dryer sheets.
One in the school gym—hung from the rafters with jump ropes, eyes replaced with marbles.
One in the mayor’s backyard—buried upright, mouth packed with teeth that weren’t his.
The cops were panicking. The town was locking doors. The news called it a “pattern.”
But there was no pattern.
Just hunger.
Inside the Mercer house, Jesse and Caleb were busy.
Caleb had stopped speaking in his own voice. He now whispered in fragments—Latin, maybe. Or something older. He carved symbols into the basement walls with a screwdriver, humming lullabies their mother used to sing.
Jesse was cataloging bones.
He didn’t know where they came from. He didn’t ask. He just cleaned them, sorted them, and arranged them on the dining room table in spirals and grids. The house liked order. The house liked symmetry.
And the house was pleased.
Their mother hadn’t moved in weeks.
Still in her chair. Still staring at the wall.
Until tonight.
At 3:33 a.m., she stood.
No sound. No hesitation.
She walked barefoot into the garage, picked up the hammer, and left through the side door.
She returned an hour later.
Her hands were clean.
Her eyes were closed.
She sat back down.
The next morning, the mailman was found in the ditch behind the Mercers’ house.
Skull shattered. Knees broken. Tongue missing.
No one suspected her.
She hadn’t moved in years.
She was the quiet one.
But the house knew.
It had called her.
And she had answered.
Jesse and Caleb didn’t ask where the blood came from. They just added it to the symbols. The house pulsed. The walls whispered.
“Three more.”
“Then the mouth opens.”
“Then the sermon begins.”
- Writer
