In the center of an unkempt field of weeds and voles, a perfectly smooth hole had appeared. Jack Travers, the owner of the field, thought it "appeared" rather than "was dug" because it seemed to have no bottom. Travers tied a stone to a five foot piece of yarn and dropped it into the hole, but it merely hung in space. He then attached the stone to a fifty foot rope, but again failed to meet the bottom. Not knowing precisely what to do about it, Travers took the lid of a barrel and placed it over the mysterious hole.
The next morning, Travers went to retrieve the lid, as he needed the barrel to transport some corn into town that day. When he reached the spot where he'd lain it, he found that it wasn't there. All that remained was the hole, which appeared larger than the day before. It had been about three feet wide all around, but it was now easily two feet wider in diameter. Somewhat stymied, Travers called his neighbor Red Smith over to investigate.
"Well, when'd ya dig it?" asked Smith upon investigating the hole.
"Ah awreddy told ya', ah din't dig the durn hole," replied a confused Travers, "It was jus' thar yestarday."
Thinking on this for a minute, Smith slowly replied, "Well?holes don' jus' dig thumselves. Prob'ly jus' some punk kids messin' witcha."
Not buying that local kids could dig a hole so deep without notice, but not wanting to get worked up over nothing, Travers decided to leave the matter alone unless anything beyond the inexplicable growth started to trouble him. He continued to check it every morning, eyeballing the width of it on all sides. It grew a couple more feet every day, but Travers life was full of more important matters than a hole with a growth spurt. After a week of close inspection, he gave up on trying to understand it and went about his life.
News quickly percolated through the town about the weird development in Travers' field. Gladys Travers, his wife and the official town gossip, couldn't resist chatting up the strange happenings on her property every time she visited the fabric shop.
"It jus' keeps on growin' an' growin'!" she'd rattle off in breathy excitement to anyone around, "Jack says it ain't got a bottum an' that he don' know what we gon' do ?bout it!"
This naturally brought everyone in the town to Travers' field, each one hoping that they'd be the one to uncover the mystery behind the hole while keeping a safe distance from it. The children, on the other hand, having heard that the hole supposedly had no bottom, began having contests to see who dared get closest to the edge. Some were more daring than others, running towards the opening in the Earth with their eyes closed, others leaning far over so that the sudden unbalance almost pitched them forward headfirst into the unknown. Some of the bigger boys even tried jumping over it during the first couple of days until Tommy Jenkins fell about a foot short of the opposite edge. His friends told everyone who asked that he hadn't even screamed when he fell. Tommy was simply gone.
Parents wouldn't allow their children to go within a half a mile of the hole after that day.
The issue of foolhardy children aside, there was also the problem of night time treasure hunters. Animals in the area had enough sense to stay away from the thing at night, but some of the people from town came armed with cameras one night with the idea that some newspaper would pay a pretty penny for a picture of the natural anomaly. Since Travers had forbidden any pictures be taken, not wanting to attract a lot of media attention, folks figured that it would simply have to be done in the dark. Of course, not being able to see a big black hole at night lead to all but one of the picture hounds falling right in without so much as a gasp. The lucky one, Silas Peat, remained poised over the edge for five breathless minutes, hoping to hear some indication that his compatriots were still alive. He never even heard them hit the bottom.
He took three pictures before returning home to his wife in bed. He knew he would never develop them.
After this incident, it became apparent to all in the town that the hole was a malignant presence. Not only did people stop coming to Travers' field, they started avoiding Travers himself any time he went into town. As is the nature of unexplained oddities, those closest to the abnormality are shunned along with it, as if they're to be blamed for it existence. This didn't bother Travers much, as his only friend in town was Smith, who still lived under the impression that this whole business was the word of local troublemakers. However, life did become increasingly difficult for Travers when he'd go into a store for only a moment, then come back to his pick-up to find that people had cut large holes into his sacks of feed. After two weeks of this foolishness, he started making the three hour drive to Greenbrook instead.
All the while, the hole continued to expand. Try as he could to forget about it, Travers couldn't help noticing that with each passing day its edge drew closer to the side of his house. He knew it would only be a matter of time, but he couldn't see any way around it. When the hole was a mere two feet from his porch, he dismantled the large bed frame in the room he shared with his wife, reassembled it in the barn 500 yards from the house, then put all their food in an ice chest and told his wife they wouldn't have a house to live in in a week's time.
"Are we gon' git run out awr howse jus' cuzza some hole?" she demanded furiously. While it had been the source of delicious gossip for three weeks, the hype had died down and she no longer took any interest in the hole or its creeping expansion.
"Well, ah don' reckin you wanna wake up down thar one marnin', do ya?" he countered, "Now, git any thang you wanna save and git out the howse."
After the 10th day of living in the barn, Travers woke one nigh to the sound of nails rending themselves from wood. He crossed the loft and looked out towards the source of the noise. What met his eyes was the last of the house he'd built for his wife as a wedding present sliding awkwardly out of sight. Only a few foundational beams remained.
Sighing tiredly, he returned to his bed, knowing that he was going to hear a thing or two from his wife in the morning.
The Travers left town the next day to live with Gladys' mother in Kentucky.
*****
The day after the Travers' house fell into the hole, everyone stopped talking about it. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but no one could find the voice to express it. So, as if to put off the inevitable, the hole remained in all their thoughts while becoming absent in their conversations.
However, while all the townspeople studiously avoided the subject, they all noticed something interesting happening to it. It was common knowledge that it grew about two feet a day; ever since the house had gone in, it began to grow no less than six feet a day. This became clear when the three houses closest to the hole fell in in three consecutive nights. Smith plunged in his sleep, never knowing whether or not it really was the local kids.
By the time a week had passed since the Travers' left, the hole was growing 12 feet a day.
Many people left town. Others remained, hoping that it would either stop or go away somehow. It didn't.
By June 20th, one month after the hole had appeared, half the town had disappeared into the darkness. Most of the inhabitants in immediate danger were able to get away, but some of the more stubborn citizens met their mysterious end while still in their beds. It would take more than a freak hole to drive them from their homes.
Life continued as best it could for those who remained. A good portion of the fields had been taken over by the hole, leaving the town without much of the produce it depended on. Instead of addressing the issue, people simply worked with what they had left and began to delve into food they had stored away in case of emergencies.
The roads became crowded with the other half of town missing, causing a considerable amount of stress to commuters. This led to more people traveling by foot or horse instead of trucks, enabling people to save the money they would have spent on gas. Many of the people chose to see these changes as blessings rather than look into the face of the gigantic curse that co-inhabited the little town.
This refusal to come to terms with the hole only lasted until the bank fell in too. Although people had withdrawn their money from the building, all the cash floating around made people suspicious of one another. The poorer citizens were treated as thieves and liars, as if they couldn't wait to break into your house to take your loose bills. No one had ever suspected anyone of such underhanded behavior before, but times of duress change everything.
By July 4th, only five empty houses remained. Greed and suspicion had driven the rest of the people out, no longer caring whether or not the hole devoured their property.
July 5th marked the first day that the town hadn't been on a map since its founding. Everything and everyone had either left or vanished into the hole.
No one knew where the hole came from. The fact of the matter was, it was there.
rating: 2
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