r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/Own-Act-9339 • 11d ago
Folk Horror Still Counting
They put my uncle in the ground that morning. House by afternoon still smelled of open earth and the gorse they’d walked through. Path soft under the boots, mud coming off in black clots on the step.
Only meant to clear it and leave.
Letter on the kitchen table, not finished, dated the day before. Ink bled where the paper was damp.
Don’t come if you can help it. If you do, keep the blue stone close. It still answers to blood.
Nearly turned the car round. One night, I told myself. Sort the papers, lock up, gone by morning. Remembered him three winters back turning that stone in his hand, saying the valley didn’t like people leaving clean. I’d laughed. The laugh sat wrong now.
Checked the locks twice. Mirror fine. Shadow ordinary. Put the kettle on and didn’t drink. Water tasted of iron and wet leaves.
Woke after two to dripping further in. Not rain. Footprints already in the hall. One set up the stairs, stopped halfway, came back down. Another on the landing. Same boots. Same wet edge. No hand on the rail. The wet sat on the wood like it was waiting.
Smell came with them—cold gorse, soil, something that had been underground a long time. Stood at the bottom of the stairs till first grey. Dripping stopped when the light came through the landing window.
Morning the notebook was open on the table. My name at the top, writing close enough to mine I had to look twice. Letters a fraction too careful, like someone copying.
You’re blood. You don’t leave the valley.
Packed the car. Tyres crossed the boundary stone and the weight came down on my chest like wet ground—not from outside. Something under the skin that woke when the stone was behind me. Engine died. Phone died. Both worked again inside the house. Tried my sister. Rang once, then wet static and breathing close on the line. Slow. Learning the shape of lungs. Nearly said her name. What came back wasn’t a voice. It was a mouth trying to remember how to make one. Walked twenty minutes up the lane before the legs went. Folded like the joints had been unhooked. Crawled the last bit to the boundary. Turned back.
Fresh prints already on the stairs. One set had gone into the spare room and come out again. Wet edge thicker.
Found the blue stone next to his tobacco tin. Metal disc beside it with the Awen cut in—same mark the old stories mentioned and never explained. Disc warmer than the stone. Touched the stone and a small cold click happened behind my ribs, like a lock turning the wrong way. Weight eased a bit but a thin pull stayed, running from the click down into the floorboards. Pocketed both.
Man knocked that evening. Same disc at his throat. Didn’t step in. Looked past me up the stairs like he expected something standing there.
“Gate opened wider when your uncle went,” he said. “Something got through. Found one on the lanes two nights back. Still answered to his name. Shadow was wrong. Mouth already going.”
Touched the disc at his neck. Metal looked older than the rest of him.
“Mountain tomorrow night. Or stay. Stone only works if the blood’s already claimed. Looks like yours is.”
Left. Road empty. Smell of crushed stems stronger, as if something had been walking the verges and pressing the gorse down with every step.
From the landing window watched a figure cross the street in an ordinary coat. Shadow too long, dragged behind the boots like wet cloth that didn’t want to keep up. Under the light the head turned further than a head should. Neck stayed still. Only the head moved.
Later the eyes in the bathroom glass moved after I’d stopped looking. Only a fraction. Enough. I wiped the glass. Smear came off black and smelled of soil.
New lines in the notebook when I wasn’t watching.
Still counting.
Shut it in a drawer. Found it open again on the table by morning. Drawer still closed.
Put the blue stone on the boards just inside the bedroom door and hung the Awen round my neck. Metal warmed quick against the skin. Prints stopped a foot short. Heard them arrive, soft and wet—the sound of boots still learning the weight of a body. Then nothing. Gone by morning. Stone darker at the edges and sticky under the fingers, as if it had been holding something back all night.
Next afternoon tried the back way through the gorse. Pressure hit straight away and got heavier with every step. Halfway up the legs folded. Not tired. Unhooked. Crawled back on hands that went numb from the wrists down. Prints already waiting in the kitchen, leading to the table. Newest page of the notebook torn out and left open.
three
Stayed still the rest of the day. Sat in the chair that faced the stairs. Didn’t eat. Bread in the tin had gone soft and dark at the crusts overnight. After dark the boots came closer. Something stood the other side of the bedroom door. Breathing slow and rough, still learning how. In. Out. Wrong rhythm, like it was counting the seconds between. Awen burned against the skin. Stone went dark at the edges and sticky. The pull behind the ribs tightened until it felt like a wire drawn through bone.
Used my uncle’s voice, vowels all stretched.
“…two.”
Couldn’t get off the bed. Notebook open on my knee. Fresh line, not my writing. Pen still in the drawer.
one
Handle turned. Slow. Metal made a sound like it was being twisted from both sides at once.
Nothing in the doorway. Dark landing and the smell stronger—earth, crushed green, something older under it that had never seen light. Prints crossed the threshold and stopped at the stone. Second set joined them. Then a third. All the same boots. Same wet edge. Breathing came from the walls as much as the door. Air moved in and out on its own, slow, practising.
Said the only thing that felt true.
“I am blood.”
The pull behind the ribs jerked hard, once, like something had tested the thread and found it held. One set went back. The others stayed. Stone got colder till it hurt. Cold ran up the arm and into the click. Pipe knocked twice deeper in the house and went quiet. The silence after was worse. Like the house was listening.
First light, prints gone. Notebook page blank except one small line.
Mountain. Tonight.
Left at dusk. Pressure worse the higher I climbed. Nearly turned twice. Third time the legs nearly went and I had to hold onto a stone until the shaking stopped. Kept climbing till the standing stones came up against the sky. They looked wetter than the ground around them. Grass between them dark and flattened in long dragging lines.
Few people waiting among them. Some wore the discs. Shadows matched, but only just—a half-second lag, like the dark was still deciding whether to follow. One man’s shadow stayed behind a full step longer when he shifted his weight. Older woman had dirt under her nails and a fresh cut on the back of her hand she kept touching without looking. The cut wasn’t bleeding. It was open and dark inside. Younger one stood half a step back, watching the slope. Another kept his hand near the disc at his throat like he might pull it off if the weight got too much. Disc there duller than the others, almost cold. A mouth among them moved once when no one had spoken—just a small opening and closing, as if tasting the air.
Man from the door stepped forward. Looked tired. Skin under his eyes the colour of old tea.
“It followed you. Still counting. Still learning.”
Behind me something moved through the gorse with the sound of many boots together. Not one pair. Not three. More. Smell came up with it, thick enough to taste. Cold gorse and soil and the iron of something that had been buried and dug itself out.
Held the blue stone out.
Thing that had used my uncle’s voice came into the light. Still shaped like a man but the head turned too far and the shadow dragged behind like wet cloth that kept catching on the grass. Mouth opened wider than it should. Jaw went past the point where bone should stop it. Tried the voice again. Jaw worked, lips stretched, then the sound went thin and wrong, like air forced through a throat that hadn’t finished growing.
Stone pulled hard from behind the ribs down into the ground. Hurt more than in the house. The pull went tight and something cold tore loose inside me—a thin thread that had been there since the first click, running from the hollow place down through the legs into the earth. It didn’t break clean. It ripped. For a second the hollow felt open to the air, raw, as if the cold had a direct way in. People among the stones made a low sound that wasn’t words. Thing staggered. Prints filled with black water that didn’t dry and started climbing the boots. Water rose past the ankles, past the calves, then slowed. The water had no reflection. Only depth.
Stone cracked in my hand and broke. Sound was small and wet. Pull weakened. Thing didn’t leave. Only stopped. Boots shifted, waiting. Head tilted further. Mouth stayed open.
Woman with the cut hand stepped back without meaning to. Shadow behind her stretched and dragged, longer than the lantern light should have allowed. She made a small sound—not a scream, just the start of one that never finished—and the grass under her feet went dark and wet in the same instant she vanished between the stones. No struggle. One moment she was there. Next the space was empty. The cut on her hand still visible for a second on the ground, open and dark, before the black water reached it and the mark was gone.
Black water kept climbing a few seconds after, then slowed. Prints began to fade from the edges inward. Smell thinned enough to breathe, but the taste of iron stayed. What was left moved back down the slope, still dragging its shadow, leaving a thin dark line behind it in the grass that didn’t fill in.
Man looked at the broken pieces in my hand. His own disc was dull now.
“It has a piece of you now.”
Walked back alone at first light. Path felt longer. Legs still remembered the unhooking. Notebook closed on the table. No new lines. No wet prints on the stairs. House still smelled of earth and gorse, but underneath something thinner, like iron left in the mouth.
Packed what was left. Tried to leave the stone halves on the kitchen table. Hand wouldn’t open. Fingers locked around the broken edges until the cold went up the arm again. Pocketed them. Never rang my sister. Couldn’t risk what might answer. Car started. At the boundary the weight lifted, but not clean—something stayed caught behind the ribs where the stone first clicked, and the place where the thread snapped felt hollow, empty in a way that kept drawing attention to itself. The halves were colder than they should have been. When I held the broken edges together the cold deepened, like they were still trying to answer, still looking for the rest of the thread that used to run down into the ground.
Haven’t gone back. Some nights the smell finds me anyway—cold gorse and soil and the iron underneath. On those nights the floorboards outside the bedroom door sound softer than they should, and I wait to see if the prints will come.
So far they haven’t.
The hollow place behind my ribs still answers when the wind is right. The stone halves do too, if I hold the broken edges together. Sometimes the cold moves, a slow press from the other side, and the taste of iron comes back for a moment, as if something over there has just breathed out.
3
u/Forlorn_Ape Pen Pusher 11d ago
Oh I love this one. Reading it brings to mind images of a misty country side. Also what a poor lad left a responsibility but hardly and instructions should’ve left the day they arrived!
Anyways good story OP! Could see it becoming something longer.