When the Humming Starts

As a child, your imagination runs wild. Imagining stories of dragons that breath fire and goblins that stand under bridges—but then you grow up; and it stops. Or maybe it just fades into a tiny voice that speaks up when you close your eyes, just for a few seconds. I want to believe this is my imagination, that my mind has just been playing tricks on me and that I’m just seeing things that aren’t there. I tried convincing my mom that what I’ve been seeing is real, but she just pats me on the head and responds, “Oh sure it is honey” with that placating tone that you use on a stubborn toddler—not a 21-year-old. I feel like I’m going crazy. Maybe I am. I think I would feel better if I was.

Two weeks ago, I came home from university for a break. A debrief to relax in the silence of the only home I’ve ever felt fully at peace in. Mom left me be. I don’t know if she understood why I came back but I think me being home was enough to make her happy enough to make her stop worrying for a while. She’s done work on the house in the time I’ve been gone. Before, the windows were these little white squares that I strained my neck to look out of. Now the windows are these big, clear panes of glass that look like my grandfather’s greenhouse. The house is littered with plants, clay painted pots of greenery lining every surface inside the house and the outside is covered top to bottom with ivy on the brick outside that trails off into the woodlands like a snail trail. It’s overgrown. It’s beautiful.

I was too young to have permission to explore the woodland near the house but after weeks of begging mom, she permitted me to stay by the creek to prevent me from running of when she wasn’t looking—which I absolutely would have done. I made the most out of my small piece of freedom, building a little den with sticks and lone branches; I used big leaves to have a makeshift carpet, old chicken wire from who knows where to make a fence and old cardboard to create a small window. I loved that thing. I loved listening to the singing floating from town and the whistle of wind on colder days.

I wanted to see it again, delve deeper into nostalgia and look at the den from the eyes of an adult instead of the rose-tinted glasses of a kid. Mom didn’t want me to go, and I didn’t know why, I do now, but she wasn’t stopping me. So as the sun began to slowly set, I left home with nothing but my phone and house keys. Which was stupid. When I was younger the walk would take me almost 30 minutes, I got there in 10 and was incredibly underwhelmed by what I saw. Soggy cardboard and dark brown crisped leaves, the branches were long gone; probably blown away by the wind. The chicken wire survived but was covered in litter and cobwebs. It was just a large scatter of mess. I felt childish being as disappointed as I was, I don’t know what I expected really; I guess I just had this image of the small oasis it had felt like and now I was looking at the reality of what it was. Old stuff, rotted materials and waste.

I sat there a while on the old leaves with my eyes closed. My logic was if I couldn’t see the old magic, I used to feel, then maybe I could hear it. I wanted to hear the old shanties sung in the pubs, the squeaky song of nursery rhymes I could never remember the lyrics of. But I heard none of that, just the creek spilling down rocks and gentle bird song that kept changing rhythm. I was about to get up and leave, go home to hear the ‘I told you not to go’ speech when from my right I could make out something new. Humming. Soft, toneless, methodical humming. It was kind and low, like a mother’s lullaby but something about it sounded…off. Not right. Like something way trying to replicate a comforting sound but just didn’t know how; or wasn’t really trying. The sound kept me still, stuck in a hunched position from where I was lifting on my knees to stand, my calves burned but I didn’t move; I kept listening.

The sound throbbed in my head, pulsating my eardrum like the banging of a marching band. But the source stayed the same. Low, soft humming. I looked around to try and spot where it was coming from, but it was getting darker. Harder to see. Then I spotted it out of the corner of my eye. A woman’s face. But it wasn’t a woman's face. No, it was a mask. A white porcelain mask like an old doll. Shiny and smooth. Motionless with black hollow eyes. It hovered in between branches of a tree above me like the Cheshire cat, it was watching me. It, she? Didn’t move at first, placed firmly in the sky like a lifeless moon until I crept forward on my knees, hobbling up to stand. Then it dropped from the sky, falling into the tall grass below. 

I jumped up the second it blinked out of sight, running past the old branches; cutting myself on the chicken wire—the blood trickling down my pant leg but I didn’t care, the humming was getting louder, and I still couldn’t see it. I legged it down the path, darting to the front door in mere moments to find the front door locked. I left my keys and my phone at the den. Stupid.

The humming grew louder, angrier—gone was the soft and calming tone now replaced by something vicious, infuriated that I went near its home. I banged on the door, knuckles whacking against the wood hard, bruising. There was no answer. It was getting closer.

Then it stopped.

Silence.

No, not just silence. Nothing.

Not even my own breath. I couldn’t hear anything. But I felt it. Watching, stalking me as its prey. When I turned around, I had hoped I would come face to face with the mask again, unsettling but manageable. Of course that’s not what I was greeted with. The thing stood tall, its neck long and feathery, twirled like an inspecting snake. Its body looked the shape of a lizard but towered over the house. The mask sat firmly placed on its head, along its back there were  many more—different expressions but all porcelain. Its breathing was heavy and thick, its body weighted on the ground—thick claws sinking into the dirt. It showed no emotion, but I felt like it was smiling at me. It seemed happy, as gleeful as a cat catching mice. Then the humming started again.

The song sounded crowded, an overwhelming number of voices overlapping into one unnerving melody. The sound circled me, capturing me like a siren song. Keeping me still. I choked on a sob and banged on the door harder; in beat with the humming—it didn’t move any closer, content to watch me squirm under the several faced gaze it set on me. I tried to scream but no sound could come out, I pounded on the door—breaking skin possibly bone in desperation for mom to open to the door. And then she did.

The door swung open making me fall forward, smacking my face hard against wood flooring—a large crack sounding out followed by trickles of blood pouring from my nose. I scrambled forward to hold my mom’s legs like a child to stare at the entrance way—it was gone. Mom pulled me up, grabbing my nose hard with a handkerchief to stop the bleeding and I whelped out if pain, but no sound came out. She dragged me into the living room in silence, wrapping me in blankets next to the radiator—taking pity on my state instead of going on an ‘I told you so’ speech I know would come later. I just laid there with my head cradled in her lap, dried blood staining my face—sobbing profusely in complete silence; all noise completely gone.

I’ve tried explaining to her what happened, but she refuses to believe me. I write down how it looked, how it caught me at the door—how it took my sound. She just looks at me sadly, eyes disbelieving as she tucks me into bed, leaving the blinds open so the porcelain masks can stare at me as I lay there still. I know it’s waiting for me; I just don’t know what it wants to take from me next.

Kelise Brooke Cassidy (She/Her) is a writing student originally from Newcastle studying in York. While she doesn’t just write in the genre of Horror, she adores the nightmarishly strange and the disturbingly odd. If you want to keep up to date with her writing, give her a follow on Substack @kbcassidy and Instagram K.B.Cassidy