Weekly Drabble #331: Make No Sound (Patreon)

This week's prompt comes from Taelel with 'a careless whisper' and while it may not be a whisper per se... well...

Enjoy!

~

Make No Sound:

The floorboards creaked as the Thing’s heavy feet pressed in on them, each step sending a shiver of dust between the cracks into the crawlspace below. It made soft, low growls that were barely audible, but carried through the worn wooden planks with terrifying clarity.

Raina cowered under the floorboards, the twelve year old girl shivering in terror, holding onto her little brother Dusan tightly. His tears were soaking her hand and he was slobbering over her palm, his breathing rapid, hot and on the verge of hyperventilation.

She’d been woken from slumber by her mother shaking her awake. “Raina, Raina!” she’d whispered, shushing her daughter’s questions. “Quiet. Get up.” As soon as Raina sat up, mother tugged her from her room. In the house’s foyer, father was there, his wood axe and hunting club leaning behind him. He was loading his musket. His face, always stern but loving when he smiled at mother, Rana or Dusan or fearlessly furious on the day he had burst through a thicket like a roaring bear to save her from a pack of wolves, the hungry animals’ barking and gnashing turning to yipping flight, was drawn with fear, each line and crease turned a bloodless white.

Mother pulled her to Dusan’s room, hurriedly waking him in turn. He was about to squawk, but she clamped her hand over his mouth. His eyes focused on her and mother held a finger to her lips. “Make no sound,” she told both of them. It came out in a desperate, quiet rush. “Make no sound. Do you understand?”

“Y-” Raina began, but mother clapped a hand to her mouth in turn. “Make no sound,” she repeated a third time. “Do you understand?”

Fearfully, Raina nodded. Dusan did the same. Mother led them to the door to the crawlspace beneath the house. “Stay down there,” she ordered. “Whatever you hear, do not come out until sunrise. No matter what you hear, do not come up.Do you understand?”

Raina had never seen her mother like this and she could only nod again. “Keep your brother safe,” mother told her as she passed the younger boy to her. “Make no sound,” she said a final time before embracing them. “We love you,” she told her children, her voice cracking. “Now, go. Hide until the sun.”

Then she lowered the trap door over their heads, pulling a rug over it to conceal it. Dusan started to cry, but Raina held him tight. “Remember what mom said,” she counselled him. “We have to be quiet.”

He still, nodding with tear-streaked cheeks as his sister held him. Make no sound,she repeated mother’s mantra over and over, rocking back and forth. The quiet turned heavy and it felt like she was a condemned man sentenced to crushing, stone by stone stacked upon her body and squeezing the life from her. She heard soft, urgent whispers from above, but she couldn’t make out what her parents were saying. She wanted to call to them, to ask what was happening, but...

Make no sound.

That turned out to harder than she expected as something slammed against the front door of their house like a battering ram, so hard she felt the entire building shake. She heard wood crack. Then heavy steps circled the house. Glass shattered. Her mother screamed. Her father roared. She heard the sound of something heavy striking something firm but yielding, like a butcher’s cleaver against a thick cut of meat. There was a pained wail that chilled her to the bone, something she’d never heard from any living thing before.

Her father was cursing, shouting. Her mother was praying. Something struck the front door again, even harder than before. Raina heard metal break and wood shatter. She heard the crash of her father’s musket and then a scream, followed by something heavy crashing to the floor.

Her mother wailed in terror, but that cry ended before it reached full pitch and something like, just like a sack of flour, thumped to the floor. Raina was shaking. Dusan was trembling even more than she was. Then, there was just the sound of those heavy footsteps, too many and too large.

There was wet snuffling and snorting, like father when he’d had that terrible cold and the heavy squelch of those feet. Raina was crying and she’d bitten her lip so hard she could taste blood. The footsteps moved through the house. She flinched every time a bed was flipped over, a wardrobe thrown to the ground, the doors to her and Dusan’s room smashed inwards and those dreadful footsteps plodded methodically through the childrens’ room, the unseen Thing’s wet, ragged hacking and sniffing moving from room to room.

It was all too much and Raina was nearly on the verge of breaking when she heard the footsteps head back towards the door, following by the wet scraping as the Thing above dragged the bodies of mother and father with it. Raina heard it approach the threshold, releasing her hand from Dusan’s mouth...

...the boy let out a soft, terrified sob.

Above, the footsteps stopped. Silence stretched and then...

...then they started to come back.