All Are Welcome Here – Chapter 11
The Fingers in the Walls
The finger pushed slowly through the packed earth beside the cellar shelves, bending at too many joints beneath pale stretched skin. Dirt crumbled softly onto the floor while more whispering drifted through the walls around them.
Not random whispering.
Voices.
Human voices speaking softly beneath the earth.
Elias Ward physically stepped backward away from the wall while Mara raised the rifle immediately toward the moving soil.
Then another finger emerged nearby.
And another.
The cellar walls began shifting in multiple places at once as something underneath the ground pressed slowly inward from all directions around them.
Mara’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“They found the cellar.”
Elias stared at her in disbelief. “How many of those things are out there?”
Mara didn’t answer.
The dirt beside the shelves suddenly bulged outward violently. A pale hand burst fully through the wall and clawed desperately into the cellar air, its long fingers scraping across the wooden floorboards.
Elias recoiled instantly.
The hand twitched unnaturally, searching blindly.
Then it stopped moving the moment it pointed toward him.
The whispering beneath the walls immediately grew louder.
Excited.
Hungry.
Above them, footsteps crossed the house floor again.
Slowly descending toward the cellar entrance.
Emily.
Or whatever still wore her voice.
“You shouldn’t make them wait,” she called softly from upstairs.
The lantern flame dimmed lower.
Mara quickly grabbed Elias’s shoulder.
“There’s another exit.”
She rushed toward the back of the cellar where old shelves covered part of the stone foundation wall. Elias followed immediately while more pale hands forced their way through the dirt around the room behind them.
The whispering became clearer now.
Repeating the same sentence over and over beneath the walls:
“All are welcome here.”
Mara shoved aside one of the shelves, revealing a narrow wooden hatch hidden behind it. Cold air drifted through the cracks immediately.
Elias frowned. “Where does that go?”
“The woods.”
The answer made his stomach tighten.
“You want to go INTO the forest?”
“We won’t survive staying here.”
A loud crash exploded overhead.
Something heavy slammed against the cellar door upstairs hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling beams. Then came another impact.
And another.
The Hollowed were breaking through.
Mara forced the hatch open while cold fog rolled inward from the darkness beyond. Narrow stone steps descended beneath the house into what looked like an old tunnel buried beneath the forest.
The whispering around the cellar walls became frantic now. More fingers pushed through the soil from every direction while soft scratching echoed beneath the floor itself.
Something underneath them was trying to climb upward.
Then the cellar door upstairs finally splintered open.
Heavy footsteps entered the room above.
Dozens of them.
Slow.
Patient.
Elias heard Emily’s voice clearly now.
“He’s close to hearing the sixth bell.”
The footsteps upstairs stopped moving.
Listening.
Waiting.
Then one of the Hollowed softly laughed.
Mara grabbed Elias hard and pulled him toward the tunnel entrance.
“Move.”
They descended into darkness moments before something slammed violently against the cellar walls behind them.
The hidden hatch closed overhead.
And the whispers beneath the earth followed them underground.