The Town of Bogahill

Chapter Four: The Whispers in the Walls

The day dragged on in a strange, heavy silence. The house seemed to breathe, as if every plank and nail remembered the footsteps of those who had once lived and perhaps died inside it. Caroline moved quietly from room to room, trying to shake the feeling that something unseen was following her. Every time she passed a mirror, she caught the faintest movement her reflection lagging just a second too slow, her face somehow not quite her own. Rita lay on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, staring blankly at the window. Patrick sat on the floor playing with a small wooden car Gerald had found in the attic, rolling it back and forth without a word. Caroline tried to focus on the ordinary the children, the creak of the floorboards, the steady ticking of an old clock but the house refused to feel ordinary. It whispered. It breathed. It remembered. From somewhere deep within the walls came a faint sound, like the dragging of fabric over stone. Then a whisper soft, almost kind, calling her name. “Caroline…” She froze. The voice was familiar and wrong all at once. It sounded like her mother’s voice, but her mother had been dead for years.

“Caroline… don’t stay here.”

The words made her skin crawl. She pressed her ear to the wall, but the whisper stopped. Only the faint, rhythmic thump of something moving inside the wall remained steady as a heartbeat. She stepped back, trembling. “Rita, did you hear that?” Rita blinked slowly, her eyes glassy. “They talk all the time,” she said softly. “They don’t like the light.” Before Caroline could answer, the front door creaked open. Gerald stepped inside, his boots muddy and his face flushed from the cold air. “I brought food,” he said casually, holding a small sack. “The butcher’s still open in town.” Caroline frowned. “But it’s Sunday. You said no one worked on Sundays.” He hesitated. “New owners, maybe. Things change.” She didn’t believe him. Something in the way he looked at her made her stomach twist—a strange, distant calm that didn’t belong to the man she married. He walked past her, brushing her shoulder, and she flinched at the chill of his skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I’m just tired.”

He smiled faintly. “Get some rest. Tonight will be long.”

His words lingered in her mind long after he went upstairs. Tonight will be long. She didn’t know why, but it felt like a promise. That evening, the fog thickened again, swallowing the town in gray. The scarecrows on the fences outside seemed closer now, their shadows long and sharp in the fading light. Caroline closed the curtains, trying not to look at their faces. The smell of smoke and rot drifted through the cracks in the windowpanes. Rita began to mumble in her sleep, whispering fragments of words that made no sense. Caroline leaned over her, brushing her cheek gently. “It’s all right, baby. Mommy’s here.”

Rita’s eyes snapped open. “No, Mommy,” she said in a trembling voice. “She’s here too.”

Before Caroline could react, a loud thump echoed through the walls then another, and another. The house seemed to shudder, dust falling from the ceiling. Patrick began to cry. “Mommy, what’s happening?” She pulled him close. “It’s just the wind,” she said, though she didn’t believe it. Then the whispers came again, louder this time, weaving through the cracks in the walls. Dozens of voices, low and desperate, speaking all at once. She couldn’t make out every word, but one phrase stood clear blood for breath, breath for blood. The room grew colder. The fire in the hearth flickered and went out. Caroline grabbed the lamp and turned it up, her hands shaking. Shadows leapt across the walls like living things. Gerald’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Caroline?” His voice was calm, almost soothing. “What are you doing?”

“Do you hear it?” she whispered. “The voices in the walls?”

He smiled faintly, stepping into the light. “There are no voices, love. You’re just tired. This house it has a way of getting into people’s heads.” She stared at him, searching his face for truth, but his eyes were unreadable.

“I think we should leave,” she said quietly. “Tomorrow morning. We’ll take the children and go.”

He shook his head slowly. “We can’t leave, Caroline. Not yet.”

“Why not?”

He looked past her to Rita, who had fallen asleep again, her breathing shallow and uneven. “Because the town hasn’t finished with us.”

Her blood ran cold. “What do you mean, hasn’t finished with us?”But he didn’t answer. He turned away and disappeared up the stairs, leaving her in silence.The house moaned as if alive. Somewhere above, a door creaked open on its own. The whispers began again, softer now, almost pleading. Caroline held her children close, whispering prayers she hadn’t said since she was a girl.Outside, the fog thickened into a wall. Something moved beyond it shapes that looked human but weren’t, shifting and swaying like they were waiting for a signal.And then, through the whispering walls and the beating of her terrified heart, Caroline heard a voice that didn’t belong in any dream.It was Gerald’s voice, but it came from the walls themselves, speaking in a tone cold and distant.

“Soon, Caroline,” it said. “Soon, it will all be over.”

She pressed her hands against the wall, tears burning her eyes. “Gerald? What are you doing?” But there was no answer only the slow, rhythmic thump from inside the walls, steady as a heartbeat, growing louder with every breath she took.

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