Whispers Beneath the Floorboards

Whispers Beneath the Floorboards: Some Secrets Should Stay Buried

• Horror

								
Lila had always been drawn to old things: antique shops, dilapidated houses, forgotten nooks and crannies of the past. So when she stumbled upon a centuries-old cottage buried deep in the woods, she knew she had to own it. The real estate agent warned her that nobody had lived therein years. Strange noises, disappearing belongings, the feeling of being watched—rumors that kept potential buyers away. But Lila wasn't one who spooked easily, and she loved the whole idea of mysteries the house would tell.

At least superficially, the cottage was perfect: creaking wooden floors, rooms with minimal lighting, and ivy-covering window frames added to the charm. Alone but for the wind whispering through the trees, she huddled in on her first night. But as midnight neared, another kind of whispering started.

She thought it was her imagination at first: a soft murmur, almost inaudible, the voices carried on the wind. She strained to hear the words, but they were too indistinct. She blanched it off, supposing the house just to be settling.

The second night, the whispers were louder. They came from beneath the floorboards, echoing up through the wood. Lila kneeled down and pressed her ear to the ground, but the moment she did, the voices ceased. There was an eerie silence in the room, as if the house itself were holding its breath. As she rose, the whispering resumed.

By the third night, the whispers had become distinct. They were no longer just sounds; they were voices, clear and desperate. They called her name over and over again.

"Lila... Lila... help us."

She tried to convince herself that it was stress, or maybe the isolation of the cottage playing tricks on her mind. But the voices wouldn’t stop. They followed her from room to room, louder, more frantic.

It was on the fourth night that she finally had enough. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on, she grabbed a crowbar and started prying up the living room floorboards. The wood splintered and cracked as she ripped it away, revealing a dark, empty space beneath the house. But what chilled her wasn't the emptiness; it was the stench. The smell of foul, rotting came up from the hole, filling the room with decay.

She shone a flashlight into the darkness; her hands were shaking. At first, she saw nothing but dirt and webs. Then something moved. A shadow-quick, darting fell disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. Lila's heart was racing, but she was too far gone to stop now.

She crawled forward beneath the floor, through cold, damp earth. The whispering grew louder, more insistent: voices everywhere, surrounding her, guiding her deeper into the darkness.
"Lila, we're waiting..."

And then she saw it: a big, wooden box buried in the dirt. It was ancient—much older than the house itself—with weird symbols carved into its surface. The whispers peaked as she hesitated, her fingers hovering over the latch. She didn't want to open it. Everything inside her screamed to run, but the voices wouldn't let her go.

With a deep breath, she flipped the latch open and slowly lifted the lid.

Inside the box lay bones. Hundreds of tiny, brittle bones. Children's bones.

The whispering stopped, replaced by a heavy silence that pressed down on her like a weight. And then, the laughter began. Cold, cruel laughter that echoed through the space, chilling her to the bone.

"Lila... you’ve set us free."

The bones began to stir, shaking and rattling as if alive. Skeletal hands dug out from the box, pushing themselves across the dirt toward her. Lila scurried backward, her heart pounding in her chest, but it seemed as if the tunnel beneath the floor stretched on forever. The voices returned, but different now: no longer pleading, merely taunting.

"Join us, Lila. stay with us forever."

She screamed, digging her nails into the dirt in a desperate attempt to claw her way back toward the house light, but the bony hands were quicker. They reached out, grasping at her ankles and yanking her backward. The last thing she saw before the boards clambered shut above her head was the grinning face of a skull, its empty eye sockets staring into hers.

The cottage stood silent again, its secrets buried deep beneath the floorboards. The wind whistled through the trees, but nobody would ever hear Lila's screams.

And nobody was ever to live there again.
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