Thurston’s feelings of unease when he saw the well were a recent development. For the better part of the last 10 years he’d lived on this property, he’d taken Stanley - his brussels-griffon - on nightly walks through the sizable forest that bordered his home.
For the better part of the last 10 years, he’d passed the well, and never once had the rotund mustached man or his rotund mustached dog sensed any sort of negative aura or fear or any solitary ounce of ugliness from the abandoned thing.
The sight typically gave Thurston a sort of comfort, if anything. The crumbling, mossy stone and weather-beaten wooden roof, even the rotted and frayed but still somehow in-tact rope and rusted bucket that once heaved up pails of water from the earth - it had all stood the test of time. It was a sort of symbol of things, Thurston had always thought. The times and the things that pass us by and go away, but men like Thurston would always appreciate and never forget.
No, the well had never set off those alarm bells in his head before. Though he didn’t technically own the land it occupied, the well was his.
Lately, though, things had changed.
When walking Stanley on their typical loop, Thurston found the hairs on the back of his neck prickling when they’d pass the well. He still found himself stopping to observe it, but not out of any sense of nostalgia or tranquility. It was like some innate part of his reptile brain was waiting for something to happen. There was nothing outwardly different about the well. It was the same physically and visually as it had been any other night. Thurston just felt something. Something that he could put into words, but hesitated to because the thought was just so terrifying. That first night, he’d pushed it to the back of his mind and walked on after scooping up the number two Stanley had taken while Thurston wrestled with his odd sense of trepidation.
It went on like that for a few nights, stopping staring and waiting, until one walk. When passing the well, Thurston swore he saw the rotting old rope sway slightly. Swore he heard the faint clinking of a rusted metal bucket against ancient underground stones. It was almost microscopic it was so faint, that swaying rope, but Thurston had seen it.
And there was no breeze on that hot summer night.
Thurston had been tempted to walk over to the well then, peer into the abyssal maw down into the deep and ancient dark. He dabbed sweat from his furrowed, crimson brow. Dark stains of perspiration began seeping through on the armpits and crotch of the sweat suit he wore for activities like walking Stanley, even faster than usual, accelerated by the adrenaline and fear.
Thurston knew something was in that well. Knew it was waiting, breathing its ragged and rotted breaths, clawing feverishly at the sides of the moldy rocks and tightly packed dirt, yanking for purchase on the thin rope, desperately dragging itself up to him.
Ridiculous, he thought to himself. You know nothing is going to come crawling out of that damn well.
I’ll just walk over and take a look then. A quick peek. That’ll sort this all out, he assured himself.
Thurston stood stalk still, Stanley beginning to grow restless and irritated. He whined softly and tugged on the leash. Thurston ignored the dog. He just couldn’t shake the sense that he wouldn’t like what he saw if he looked into that well.
He pictured a gnarled, corpse-like creature with membranous white eyes and marble skin. It’s disjointed limbs snapping and popping as it groped at its surroundings, gargantuan mouth hanging slack jawed dripping saliva from exposed jagged teeth. He pictured it darting up the walls as soon as its milky eyes locked with his, chittering and giggling maniacally as it burst forth from the well and did whatever something evil like that does when it gets its hands on someone defenseless and terrified.
Thurston felt another tug, and instinctively yanked Stanley back as the dog made his way toward the well, sniffing the air. Thurston had yanked him a little too hard. Stanley’s marble sized eyes had watered, he had whined softly in discomfort, pain, or annoyance as they’d then briskly hurried past, Thurston worrying that his tormentor would burst forth at any moment. Thurston kept his eyes on the well until they rounded a turn on the forest path, just waiting for that rope to sway again.
He’d barely slept that night. The image he’d conjured in his head of whatever was in that well had completely taken over Thurston’s mind. He’d continuously tossed and turned in his massive bed, clearly agitating Stanley who would eventually depart the King entirely to sleep on his own dog bed in the master bedroom’s corner.
Every time Thurston closed his eyes, he was met with the same scene. A pale, hideous hand with dirty and cracked fingernails slamming itself over the side of the well, eventually tugging forward the monstrous creature within. It gibbered like some kind of mad ape as it scurried toward him, seeming to revel in the feeling of living earth beneath it. How long had the thing been down there? Why hadn’t Thurston ever felt this before? Why did his sanctuary need to be invaded by this overwhelming feeling of wrong? He knew he would have to do something about it.
He would have to look inside.
The following evening, Thurston walked his usual path through the woods, alone. Stanley had stared at him expectantly as he made for the back door, a head-tilting look of confusion on the dog’s face as Thurston didn’t grab for his leash and harness but instead departed for the woods without giving Stanley another look. Like the first night, that first time he’d felt that sense of unease in his reptile brain, Thurston again had a feeling that something was going to happen. Having the dog with him would only complicate things.
Eventually, Thurston reached that familiar mossy stone cylinder, that same rustic and dilapidated wooden roof. The well. He braced himself.
Almost as if on cue, the rope began frantically swaying back and forth. Thurston heard the very distinct sound of movement coming from inside the well. The sound of hands and feet clawing up the sides of a dirt wall. The ragged and manic breaths of something desperately ready to feel warm earth beneath its feet. It was all happening too fast for him to process.
Something was coming.
A perfect snapshot of his dream, a one to one scale replica, a still life painting.
The pale, ragged arm swung itself over the side of the well.
Thurston’s eyes bulged, sweat dripped down his wide face as the large man lunged forward as quickly as someone his size possibly could.
Thurston struck the little girl square between the eyes with the blackjack just as her head emerged from the well, just as she had almost finished clawing her way to freedom.
Her face was gaunt, emaciated. Her cheeks sunken and dark, her eyes rimmed black. Her once golden hair was greasy and stringy and caked with filth.
The manic look of desperation and tenacity in her eyes quickly replaced by that same fear Thurston was all too familiar with once she saw him coming.
Thurston was so sure she had been dead when he’d thrown her down the well the previous weekend. After nearly a month with Thurston in his special room, there was really no way she couldn’t be dead. Clearly, though, this girl had some innate primal urge to survive. In a sense he guessed maybe they really weren’t so different as he watched her eyes roll into the back of her head and her body plummet with a thud back down from whence it had come.
He thanked whatever it was men like him believed in that his reptile brain had been more acute, more clever than hers. That disruption of his tranquil ground, that creeping unease, it had all been a warning. Thank goodness he had been paying attention.
Thurston wondered how the girl had even made her way up to the top of the well in the first place - had she used the pathetic rope to rappel herself all the way up, eventually gaining purchase on some loose dirt or a jagged rock? Thurston didn’t think that was entirely possible. He had to know. Cautiously, he made his way to the well and peered into that black expanse. Thurston never really knew just how deep the well went. The first few times he’d used it, it had taken a long enough time to hear the splash or the thud. Thinking back now, though, when he’d tossed the little girl in after they’d had their fun, it hadn’t taken her nearly as long to land.
In fact, gazing into that darkness now, Thurston swore he could almost see the glint of her glassy, wide eyes out of the shadow.
In his older age, Thurston guessed he really hadn’t stopped to think about it. He’d lived on this property for the better part of the last 10 years, and the well had been good to him. Almost all of his little friends were down there. It had gotten crowded.
Thurston thought about how it had been his own carelessness that had allowed this little girl to almost be the one that got away. And how all of his little friends must have helped her. After all, she didn’t have nearly as far to climb as he thought.
He’d make sure the next little boy or little girl was well and truly dead before he tossed them into the well - Thurston did not want a repeat of this mistake. And, he reasoned, he would definitely have to do something about the smell. It hadn’t hit him until that moment, staring intently into what he could make out of those hopeful eyes, just how much of that stench of death and torment reached the surface.
Thurston’s lips curled into a slight smile. He hoped that in those last days, desperately clawing at the walls of the mass tomb with her last ounces of strength, using the bodies of the ones that had come before her for support, the girl had also learned to appreciate the things that have been passed by. The things that someday everyone but Thurston would forget.
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