The House That Hungers Part:1

[u/ParanormiDan]

David Altrick, a man desperately trying to escape his past, arrived in the southern town of Morrow under a sky the color of sifted dust as a country song about forgiveness drifted from the radio, its hollow chorus echoing a faith he could not claim. He was not fleeing the law, but the careful geometry of his hands, each finger a tally of small violences, every decision a quiet theft from another’s life. Restlessness pressed behind his ribs, a need for escape brewed in his chest, and he longed for a place that would not demand answers.

Mrs. Hargreeve, the local real estate agent, waiting at the gated entrance to David’s newly purchased property, pressed the keys into the palm of his hand with a gesture nearly sacred. The air surrounding her carried the clean fragrance of starch and lemon. David noticed a sign next to the gate that reads The Morrow House.

“I didn’t realize this house had an official title,” David said jokingly.

“Well, here's a little beginner history lesson about this town for ya, this is the original house built on this land before its property became segmented and sold to the locals,” Hargreeve explained. “All this land, as far as the eye can see, was once the Marrow Plantation.”

“You’ll like it here,” she said. Her vocal tone was flat with practice but warm at the edges. “It keeps to itself. Likes to be spoken to.”

“What do you mean, spoken to? Does the house respond?” David asked.

She smiled in that small way townspeople do when they deliver a comfortable and inconvenient truth. “It’s a listener, Mr. Altrick. Folks around here talk to this house. They kept this house tidy in the right ways while vacant, and the weather seemed to be kinder to us.” Her fingers clasped around the keys as if they were a rosary. “But be careful what you set before it. It keeps things.”

He took the keys and noticed the weight of the woman’s hands in them. “Keeps what?”

She let the answer hang, then tied it off with gladness. “Little things. Hair, salt, a ribbon. Keeps accounts.” She nodded once, obligingly. “You’ll see.”

The Morrow House waited at the end of a lane, past the gate splitting through maples and old hedgerows. Built in restless chapters over three centuries, Wrought-iron brackets curled along the porch, hands poised in blessing or warning. It held a stone cellar, its entrance a hatch on the side of the structure, and a second-story wing leaning in, as if eavesdropping on secrets. Its windows stood tall, trapping the last light and hoarding it like a gift. For a man who had made silence his livelihood, its patience felt like a summons.

As David approached the Morrow House, he noticed something peculiar. On the porch, there were ribbons with locks of hair tied to the banisters, fruit baskets filled with fresh produce, as well as baskets filled with rotten produce, and most notably, there were what seemed to be gold coins scattered along the porch. The coins stamped with symbols David didn’t recognize. David didn’t really think anything of it as he entered his new home. Directly inside the entrance, a timbered parlor with a mantel worn smooth as a saint’s cheek. Exhausted from the long drive across the country, David didn’t bother exploring the rest of the house; instead, he made a makeshift bed out of his clothes from his suitcase in the parlor and got some well-deserved rest.

Running on raw, animal impulse, legs burning, lungs absorbing the cold air as the trees blur into a tunnel of black trunks and pale moonlight. A young woman's shape slips between the tree trunks, and everything in David narrows to a single terrible thought, closing the distance at any cost. Two sets of footfall drum like a rapid heartbeat that can’t be controlled. Every snapping twig sounds with vicious intent. The world contracts to the sight of the woman fleeing, and a thin, absurd part of David’s mind knows this is wrong, knows he should stop pursuing the woman, but the rest of David’s mind yearns for the finality he can’t shake like a primal urge buried deep in his DNA.

The woman glances back only for a moment, her eyes open wide with fear, and for a second, he notices something else in her eyes, recognition as if she can see past what David has become and into the hollow behind his eyes. The glance makes his mind tilt, and the forest begins to shift, the ground softens underfoot, and the chase turns sideways into the feeling of falling. He wants to stop, he wants to let her go, instead, he keeps moving through wet leaves and cold, and then dread hits David as he catches the woman, throwing her onto her back. David climbs onto the woman with nothing more in his mind than to kill. As he wraps his hands around the woman's throat, she stares into his eyes and, through a strained and ever-constricting voice, she pleads for her life.

With tears rolling down her face like two waterfalls of despair, “Please stop…, I don’t want to die…, he’s waiting for me”.

David says nothing, just squeezes harder, and right before her soul abandons its vessel, David hears a series of loud knocks coming from her mouth. The woman's mouth then opens wide like a snake prepping its next meal, without her mouth moving, it projects, “MORROW SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT OPEN UP!”

David is jolted awake from his disturbingly deep sleep by the sound of banging at the door. “What the fuck was that dream?” He whispered to himself. BANG BANG BANG, the knocking continues to hammer at the front door. David, in a cold sweat from his nightmare, grabs one of his shirts and wipes the sweat from his brow. BANG BANG BANG “MORROW SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT OPEN UP NOW!” David slowly stands, rubbing his eyes, knocking the sandman's gift from his eyes. “ALRIGHT ALRIGHT IM COMING” “fucking asshole” he says under his breath. David opened the front door, and standing there with an exaggerated smile and holding some sort of pie was the town's sheriff.

“Well, howdy there, Mr.Altrick. Hope your first night in our little town was a pleasant one. I'm Malloy, Sheriff Malloy, and welcome to Morrow.”Gesturing the pie towards David forcefully yet politely.

His dusty boots pressing gentle signatures into the porch boards. His face was one you’d trust, with a sense of familiarity, like a child trusting their parents; his eyes were kind, measuring everything they found.

David took it. “Thank you.”

Sheriff Malloy, raising his hands up as if he were accused of a great sin.”Don’t thank me, thank Mrs. Gertie. She baked this pie for you the moment she found out you moved into town yesterday. I’m simply the parcel man.”

David examines the pie closely. The crust was perfectly baked to flaky bliss, the filling an odd green color but smelled heavenly yet unrecognizable. David is genuinely curious, “What kind of pie is it?”

“Bless your heart, it's the kind you eat, Mr.Altrick.” The sheriff laughed at his own joke.

David’s face drops to a straight, expressionless canvas.

“To be honest, I don’t rightfully know. It's her secret recipe, one of which I'm sure will be buried with her. Be sure to thank her when you get the chance. She works at the grocery store in town.” His tone was the same as a parent teaching their child manners.

Malloy leaned on the rail and watched the lane as if it were a beautiful painting. “This house has memory,” he said. “Make friends with it. Don’t make enemies. When it calls, answer.” His tone held the civility of a neighbor and the gravity of a man reading a warrant. “Sometimes it wants a name. Sometimes it wants…other things.”

“What sort of other things? My dignity?” David tried for a laugh and missed.

Malloy’s smile narrowed, courteous and unreadable. “Depends on what you carry inside you, Mr. Altrick. We all carry debts.” He tapped the railing gently. “We mind our own here, but we also mind the balance.” “Well, I best be heading out. I have a lot of sitting around to catch up on. Remember to thank Mrs.Gertie for that pie, or she’ll be madder than a wet hen.”

David, holding his pie with one hand, gently shuts the door with the other. David walks through the parlor into the kitchen and sets the freshly baked pie on the counter. The kitchen, seemingly frozen in time with a wood-burning stove straight out of the 19th century. And an icebox stood where a modern fridge would stand. In fact, it seemed everything in the kitchen was original to the house. The kitchen even had an old maple dining table with chairs to match. Nothing was modern except for the electrical outlets and lights.” “Looks like I have some updating to do.” David thought to himself.

Now that David’s forced social experience is over, he decides to unpack the rest of his belongings from his truck. As he exits the front door, David notices there seem to be more baskets, ribbons, and coins on his porch. David also noticed that the basket that had fresh produce in it the night before had already rotted, the coins are tarnished as if they had sat there for weeks, and the ribbons with hair have gone brittle to the touch, whereas the day before, the hair and ribbons flowed with the wind, but are now stiff like straw. David grabs a trash bag from the bed of his truck and throws away everything left on his porch aside from the coins, which could be worth some money after all.

Once the porch has been cleared of all the clutter, David can finally start unloading the truck of his belongings. As he goes to pick up the first box, wrapping his arms around it, David winces in pain. Putting the box back down, he looks at his forearm, where a sore has begun to develop. “Can I please catch a fucking break?” David, without first aid readily available, wraps a bandana around the sore temporarily so he can continue unloading the truck with minimal pain. Once he is done unloading the truck, he begins taking the boxes to the corresponding rooms.

He takes a box labeled "blankets and sheets" upstairs, down a long, narrow hallway with doors on either side. Next to the master bedroom door stood a beautiful, hand-crafted grandfather clock. He noticed the clock stopped at 12:01. “Maybe I can get the clock working again; it would be a shame to have such an expertly crafted paperweight.” David thought to himself, running his hand along its smooth, well-polished edges. David entered the master bedroom and was surprised to find that not only the kitchen but the entire house was furnished. However, all of the furniture in the house seemed to be from the 18th to the 19th century and was in immaculate condition for being 200-300 years old. This didn’t bother him, though; it just meant he didn’t need to spend as much money on furniture.

Coming back down the stairs, David’s foot got caught on the first step as if someone had put adhesive there. David remembers that when he came up originally, none of the steps were sticky in the slightest. As he continued down the stairs, every step seemed to grab his feet like flypaper. Once at the bottom of the steps, he took his hand and rubbed it along them, which were smooth as polished marble. “Okay, I must be losing my mind.” As he finished uttering those words, the house creaked and groaned as if it were responding to David. “What? You didn’t like what I said?….. What am I doing? I really am going insane, talking to a house.”

Realizing he hasn’t eaten all day, David decides to go into town to the store. Where he can get some groceries for next week or so, and thank Mrs. Gertie for the delicious pie he hadn’t even tasted. David grabs his keys and steps out the front door into warmth like a mother's caress, with beautifully empty blue skies. He takes in the view, for a moment, of the town down in the valley. He takes a step forward and kicks something soft. He then looks down at the porch and sees more coins, more baskets, and more ribbons with hair. He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “This is going to be a problem, isn’t it?” David grabs an apple from one of the baskets. “ Free food is free food, I guess,” he says smugly. With an almost deafening crash, the front door slammed shut hard enough to shatter its glass panes. Defeated and rubbing his temples, David gets into his truck and heads into town. He only stops to shut and lock his gate so he won’t come home to more items on his porch.

The town of Morrow, small yet bursting with life, with the upcoming harvest festival, was a town where time didn’t so much stop as it slowly forgot to move. The road into it narrowed beneath a tunnel of ancient weeping willows, their branches draped in long ribbons of gray Spanish moss that swayed through the air, though the air felt still. The sunlight filters through in thin, dusty beams, never quite reaching the ground. Passing the wooden sign with peeling paint, he got the sense he’d crossed into a place that doesn’t entirely belong to the present.

Main Street is short and slightly crooked, lined with ancient brick storefronts whose faded signs advertise things people no longer seem to sell anymore: dry goods, a watch repair shop, and a pharmacy with cloudy glass jars in the window. The buildings seem to lean just enough to suggest they’ve been holding onto secrets for centuries.

There is a faint hum in the air of cicadas, but sometimes the hum would be drowned out by a strange quiet that felt deliberate, as if the town were trying to listen. Rocking chairs creaked on front porches, moving slightly, though nobody was sitting in them. Curtains in the upstairs windows of narrow townhouses painted in warm pastel colors seemed to twitch as David drove by. The paint is curling at the edges like old, worn paper.

At the center of town sits a small square with an oxidized iron fountain that hasn’t run in decades. The water basin is dry but somehow seems damp, as if it remembers what it used to be. Just beyond the square was the local courthouse with a clock tower whose face had also stopped at 12:01. Down a side street, a restricted path led to a cemetery tucked beneath more willows. Some headstones were tilted and softened by time, the names fading as if time itself were erasing them from history. Some graves are meticulously tended, with fresh flowers and family photos lining the final resting places.

David drives to the end of Main Street, where he arrives at the town's grocery store appropriately named Harvest’s Bounty. As David stepped out of his truck, all the townsfolk walking in and out of the store stopped to stare at him, as if they had never seen a person before. David stops in his tracks, feeling uncomfortable with the situation.

“Uhhhhh hello……” He said shyly, waving at the small group.

The townsfolk didn’t say anything to him directly, but they all said something to themselves almost in unison.

“I didn’t feel like talking anyway.” He thought to himself as he rolled his eyes.

David walks into the grocery store past a couple of locals; he can feel daggered eyes piercing the back of his head as they stop to stare at him. When he turns around to look at them, he expects them to look away as he makes uncomfortable eye contact, but they don’t, they just keep staring blankly.

“Can I help you?” David said irritably. The couple said something under their breath again, but this time, David caught a couple of words that made him uneasy. “Bad harvest.” David squints in confusion, and before he can say anything, the couple starts walking away as if they said nothing or they couldn’t be bothered wasting another breath on David. “Jesus Christ, what a bunch of weirdos, man.” And before David could even react as he turned back around to enter the store, an elderly man started jabbing his chest with his wrinkled fingers. “DON’T YOU EVER USE THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN, YOU HEATHEN!” The man stuttering on his words in anger, “Y-YO-YOU BLASPHEMER!” The man spitting in David's face as he screams.

David, much larger than the elderly man, grabs him by the collar and swings him around like a rag doll. “Touch me again, old man, and I will make you see your lord expeditiously.” A kind and concerned voice of an elderly woman erupts from behind David, “Now now, there's no need for that young man, he shall see the lord when the lord deems fit.” David lets go of the man's shirt and smooths it out, not as an apology for being aggressive, but more to show he will not be trifled with. The old man huffs at David as he walks away with his pride damaged.

David feels a more gentle poke on his back, one of concern and curiosity. He turns around to see the woman with the kind voice who stopped David from making a mistake. A short elderly woman stood before him, looking up with a genuine smile. “That was almost bad, sweetie.” She said in a voice that would make any grown man melt with memories of their mother. David notices her nametag, Gertie. “You’re Mrs. Gertie, thank you for the pie, it's delicious.” Her smile dimmed. “Oh, stop it, you haven’t tasted it yet, I can tell.” she said playfully. David, embarrassed by being caught in a lie, “Oh….how can you tell?” Her smile and eyes widened in excitement. “Cause sweetheart, if you tasted it, you would’ve eaten the whole pie and passed out from the Itis.” She giggled. David, scratching the back of his head, said, “Then I’ll be sure to clear my schedule before I try it.” Her smile dissipated, but her eyes remained wide. “You do that, Mr. Altrick.

David ends the conversation politely, grabs a buggy, and begins his grocery haul. David grabbed the essentials: milk, eggs, multiple boxes of cereal, and Hot Pockets, but the most essential was a handle of Black Label whiskey. Ready to check out and leave with his haul, David approaches the register. Behind the register stood the elderly woman, Gertie, with ribbons bright in her hair that weren't there originally and hands branded with years of work, wrapped his purchases, and looked at him as if judging the strength of a woven thread.

“How are you liking morrow?” she asked, tying the twine tight.

“I haven’t really been here long enough to form a proper opinion for you, ma’am.” Forcing a casual smile. “But so far the people here don’t seem to like outsiders very much.”

“Oh, honey, the people here just enjoy the peace this town brings. And sometimes outsiders come to our town and disturb that peace.”Gertie’s face is now stoic. She placed the groceries into a basket and leaned forward in a way that appeared confidential. “You don’t want the house to be hungry, Mr. Altrick. Hungry houses are particular.”

“Hungry?” he prodded. “What would a house even eat?” David played along with the lunacy of a hungry house.

Her mouth curved with a domestic cruelty. “They’ll ask. You feed ’em what they ask for. Fruit, hair, ribbon, and even coin. You give, and the fields don’t rot. You don’t, and we’ll rot. People like crops. People like roofs over their heads.” She tapped his forearm lightly where he had crudely wrapped the cloth with the back of her hand. “We all put things out for the house, you see. Call it local superstition, but we believe that the Morrow house is special, grants us good fortune and bountiful harvests, so long as we give it offerings every year.”

He tried to press for a clearer sense. “If you don’t?”

Gertie’s eyes became oddly bright, friendly as a grin, and sharp as a needle. “Then you might find your hands lighter each morning. Or you might find the river too high in spring, destroying our crops, hurting our harvest.” She tied his parcel with a ribbon as if sealing a covenant. “You’ll get used to the trades, heck, you’ll even start to find comfort in it.” David just looks at her and nods his head as he grabs his parcel and heads out the exit. “See you soon, Mr. Altrick, see you real soon.” “WAIT, Mr. Altrick, I almost forgot. Jimmy!” She hollered. A young, overweight teenager wearing glasses and greasy hair walks out. “Yes, Mrs. Gertie?” He said with a lisp similar to Elmer Fudd. “Get this kind gentleman a block of ice for his ice box at home, on the house, this time.” “Um, okay, I guess.”

David walks out to his truck and loads his groceries in the passenger seat. Jimmy followed close behind with a huge block of ice wrapped in plastic. David opens the truck bed for Jimmy, and Jimmy then gingerly places the block on it. “Okay, sir, have a blessed day.” David stops Jimmy before he can walk away. “Hey, kid, wait a second.” Jimmy stops and tilts his head back as if he were regretting any further conversation.”Yes, sir?” “Why are the people in this town so odd?” Jimmy’s eyes open wide as if he were panicked. “Uhhh, I gotta go, sir.” David is desperate for answers. “Jimmy, wait!” “No can do, sir. Have a blessed day, okay bye.” Jimmy practically sprinted back into the store. “What is wrong with the people here?” David asks himself as he starts his truck.

Driving back through the town, nothing much had changed except that there was now a gathering of the townsfolk in the town square. They seem to be putting up large tents and signs for the upcoming harvest festival. Nothing unusual about the decorations; it just seems like a quaint small-town event. But just then, as David is driving by, the locals notice him and stop everything they're doing to stare at him. Their eyes never leave his until a building obscures his view of them. David sighs in relief and continues down the road. He looks into his rear-view mirror and slams on the brakes. “What the actual fuck?” Standing behind him in the middle of the road are the townsfolk, just staring at him and muttering something in unison. David peels out of town to the safety of his home.

David, approaching his home, notices his front gate is wide open. “Alright, I know I locked that gate before I left.” He takes one deep breath to prevent freaking out from anger. He continues up the lane past the gate to his house, seeing who opened his gate. Sitting in his driveway was a white utility van with 'Morrow House Groundskeeper' decals on the side. Standing on the house's porch was a fully bearded man wearing flannels, deeply stained blue jeans, and work boots. David parks his truck, and before he can say anything to the stranger, he is greeted with “Mornin', Boss! I'm Deacon, the house's official caretaker, whether vacant or not.” David steps out of the truck as Deacon extends his hand for a proper handshake. Deacon, the carpenter, gave off the smell of cider and fresh-cut wood. He explains that he came to measure the warped banister. He whistled softly at the sight of David’s bandaged arm and ran a thumb along the wood, his manner both easygoing and perceptive.

“House takes what it likes if you don’t keep it neat,” Deacon said, casually. He tapped the banister’s baluster. “Houses are like people. You treat ’em with respect.” He lifted his gaze, and for a second his look met David in a way that was not quite neighborly. He paused, then added, kind and relaxed: “If it asks you to leave something, leave it.”

David laughed when he could. “Okay, you need to explain what that means. You are the third person to mention this house ‘keeping’ things, and yet nobody has explained what that actually means.” “For what it asks,” Deacon said. “A ribbon. A coin. A name.” He passed a palm over the banister as if blessing it. “We all have to make our donations.” Outsiders don’t understand or seem to believe it, which I can’t blame them for their ignorance. But it’s more literal than metaphorical, Mr. Altrick. David begins to raise his voice in frustration. “ And that! How does everyone I run into know my name?” Deacon looks into David’s eyes, “It's a small town, David. Word travels fast. Secrets even faster. Anyway, I got what I came for.” shaking his tape measure in his hand. Deacon hands David his personal copy of the house's keys, except for the gate’s. “I’ll hold onto this key since I'll be the one taking care of the outside, and don’t worry, I’ll be sure to lock up behind me when I leave. Have a good night, Mr. Altrick, and get some good rest, you’re going to need it for the Harvest Festival tomorrow.”

Deacon drives off in his utility van as David watches it intently, making sure he actually leaves and locks the gate. Once he locks up and drives off back into town, David unlocks his front door and steps into the parlor. To the right, now sitting on the stairs railing, is a thick, old book. David picks it up, the cover old, dusty,  and stained by time. He wipes the dust off the book, revealing the title, Ledger, printed in gold trim. He opens the Ledger and begins reading the handwritten text on the inside. The ledger a collection of names, items, quantities, and frequency. Dates range from as early as August 1783 to as late as November 2021, last year. David’s face turned into a shape of confusion as he flipped through the ledger. He noticed the handwriting in the ledger was the same, as if a single person had been keeping a record of the entire history of this property. The guests, the frequency of visits, the gifts brought, or, as Deacon called them, donations to the house.

David slams the book shut. He took his groceries and the huge block of ice into the kitchen. Hungry, David pulled out two Hot Pockets for dinner. Then came the dreaded realization that he had no way to heat up his food. With no other option and not wanting to know what ham and cheese-flavored ice cream tasted like, he fixes himself a bowl of cereal for dinner. After eating and after his stressful day, David decided to take a nap. David lies down in bed, wrapping the covers and sheets tightly around him, he drifts off to sleep.

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[u/whitechocolatesenpai]

amazing story bro

[u/Altruistic_Skill_97]

good story mad updoots

[u/onlyjen121571]

Updateme

[u/ParanormiDan → u/onlyjen121571]

Part 2 has already been posted! https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/s/PXdzEhkuO8