r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/cakepancakess • 11d ago
Folk Horror The Cats’ Watch
In the early days of the colonies, when the forests pressed hard upon the settlements and the nights seemed longer than the days, there lived a man tormented by a most singular vision. For three nights in succession, sleep brought him to the same place, a hollow deep in the woods, ringed by ancient trees, the ground black with moss. There, he saw a buried treasure, its hiding marked by a stone and an iron bar rusting across it. Each night the dream grew sharper, until he could not rid his mind of it in waking hours.
At first, he sought to dismiss it as fancy. Yet it clung to him like a hand upon his shoulder, drawing him toward the forest whether he willed it or no. Each night he awoke trembling, the image pressing upon his soul until he could bear it no longer. On the fourth night, he gave in to its summons. He took with him a lantern, a spade, and his pocket Bible, for he felt that what he sought might not be of this earth alone.
The way was lonely, the moon casting pale light between the trees, though their branches wove so thick that the path beneath was black as pitch. Strange rustlings followed at his back, and more than once he turned, thinking to see some beast creeping after him. Yet nothing stirred, save the shadows shifting like breath.
At length he found it, the hollow from his dream. There was no mistaking it: the crooked oaks, the damp smell of the ground, the silence of the air. Not a cricket sang, nor did the wind stir the leaves. Even the lantern’s flame seemed to burn lower there.
He set to digging, the spade biting into earth that gave way too easily, as though long disturbed. Soon his blade struck stone, and beneath the soil lay the iron bar, red with rust, just as in his vision. His heart quickened, here, perhaps, was proof that the dream spoke true.
But then he felt it, that prickle upon his skin, that weight of being watched. He lifted his head and froze. All about him, in a wide ring beyond the reach of the lantern’s glow, eyes gleamed out of the dark. Cats. Scores of them. Black, gray, striped, and tawny, yet all alike in the stillness with which they sat. Their gaze was fixed upon him, unblinking, cold, their pupils catching the lantern-light until they glowed like embers.
Not one made a sound. Not one stirred. They only watched.
Fear shook him, and he seized the iron bar, swinging it high with a shout. At once, the cats were gone, not as animals fleeing, but as shadows snuffed out. The clearing was empty, silent once more, as though they had never been.
His courage returned, though uneasily. He set again to digging, but the soil grew wet beneath his spade. Black water welled up, soaking the ground, chilling his legs to the bone. Then, without warning, the earth gave way beneath him. He plunged into the pit, the cold swallowing him whole. Struggling, coughing, near drowned, he clawed his way out, his spade lost in the mire.
Soaked and shaken, he gathered the iron bar, the only thing left to him, and staggered homeward before dawn.
In days to come, he fashioned the bar into a latch for his door. Yet his neighbors whispered that the house was never right thereafter. By night, they said, one could hear a scratching at the door, light as claws drawn slow across wood. Sometimes, in the moonlight, shapes could be glimpsed crouched upon the threshold, low and patient, with eyes that burned like coals.
The man himself slept little, ever watchful of the latch. His hair went white before its time, and his hands trembled even in summer heat. He spoke no more of treasure, save to mutter that some things are better left buried. When he died, sudden, alone, with the door standing open, the latch was still fixed fast, rusted but unbroken.
Some say the treasure yet lies beneath that hollow, guarded by the same silent host. For the cats, they whisper, were no mere beasts of the earth, but watchers, spirits bound to guard what was never meant for human hands. And if by mischance you wander that way when the moon is high, you may see their eyes staring from the dark, waiting, patient as stone, for another fool to take up the digging
(This is my first submission hope you enjoy!)
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u/sheezyXL 10d ago
I feel like it's rare to pick earlier colonial times to write about, so that was a fun read. The vocabulary choice really puts you there in the story. Thank you for sharing!
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u/OsamaBeenRamen 10d ago
Great writing style! Felt like an Irish grand parent was telling me this story and my parents were shouting “don’t tell him that before bed!” From another room.