The Devouring Hole — Eric Raglin

Sun-punished and rain-starved, berries withered on the bush like shrunken heads. They were sour and tough as leather, but young Torsten and his older sister Estrid ate their fill. 

When the berries disappeared and the creeks ran dry, food became scarce. There were no salmon fat with orange clusters of eggs, nor red squirrels thinning in their summer coats. The siblings grew hungry. Meat melted off their ribs, leaving their bodies feeble. Prayers to the Old Gods went unanswered.

Desperate for a meal, Torsten ate fistfuls of grass, only to vomit them up, retching long after the last green glob hit the soil. Whether he’d overeaten or poisoned himself was uncertain, but Estrid called him into the cabin for a talk. Stomachs growling, they sat together on the wolf pelt rug.

“I know you’re hungry,” Estrid said, “but you can’t trust every plant. Death often hides in appetizing forms.”

Torsten widened his eyes at his sister who sat almost twice his height. He scooted closer, the pelt bunching up beneath him. Estrid lowered her gaze, shadows gathering in the hollows of her sharp cheekbones. 

“Before Mother passed, she told me of a secret place. One that gave her guidance in times of famine. The magic there could distinguish sustenance from poison. Without its help, she would have died of starvation as a child.”

Torsten squeezed his sister’s hand, far bigger and more calloused than his own. “Where is it? What’s it called?” he asked.

“The place is west of here. Mother called it the Devouring Hole.”

#

The siblings were weak as newborn deer but still spent long hours searching for anything to eat. Midsummer nights never got dark—only a dusky orange—so finding food should have been easy. Sadly, there was little left.

While his sister stalked the forest’s shadows with bow in hand, Torsten foraged. Many plants had withered and browned in the heat. Others, though green and full, bore vicious thorns. 

Hours went by and all he’d gathered were some wrinkled pink berries, which rolled around the bottom of his bucket. They didn’t look tasty, but he’d eat them if the Devouring Hole’s proved they were safe. Its unearthly light would reveal the truth.

Around midnight, he heard an animal screech, boundless in its agony. Even without seeing the creature, Torsten knew it was a snow hare. He’d heard that same hideous cry many times, but rather than growing numb to it, he’d only become more sensitive. The high pitch punctured his skull, as if the arrow had run through him and the hare both. He dropped his bucket and pressed his hands to his ears, trying to shut out the suffering. Tears rolled down his sunburnt cheeks.

Though it felt like an eternity, the screeching was over in a matter of minutes. Estrid returned with her kill, the arrow stuck squarely between its nostrils. Torsten shielded his eyes but peeked through the gaps in his fingers. When Estrid pulled the arrow loose, a stream of maggots and a steady dribble of gray mush spilled out. She gagged, dropped the hare, and kicked it toward a shrub. Its liquid innards drained onto the forest floor, immediately drying into a white crust that looked like sea salt.

“What’s wrong with it?” Torsten asked, his voice unsteady.

“Old Gods protect us,” Estrid said, wiping her hands on her brown trousers. “It’s as if the decay set in while it was still alive. I fear this place is—” She shook her head. “Did you find anything?”

Torsten blushed, picking up the bucket and gathering the meager fruit he’d spilled. 

“Just some berries,” he said. “I don’t know if we can eat them though.”

“The Devouring Hole will tell us.”

Estrid clutched her growling gut and winced.

“We should get moving before I faint,” she said. “We’ll gather whatever we can along the way. Still a few hours’ trek.”

They headed west through the brittle groves, stopping only at the sight of a promising plant or the rustle of an unseen creature. Hungry though he was, Torsten felt grateful each time these animals eluded Estrid’s arrow. He never again wanted to hear the dying screech of an innocent.

Soon, dusky midnight brightened into pink morning. No birds greeted the rising sun, which had never truly left. The siblings hadn’t slept. Bleary-eyed and sore, Torsten stumbled over fallen logs and struggled to keep hold of his bucket. Estrid spurred him on, maintaining a steady pace, but her heavy breathing and lulling head hinted at exhaustion. Torsten longed for a meal they could share, a bellyful to keep them going.

That’s when he spotted the mushrooms. Clinging to the base of a bare pine tree were clusters of wide-fanned crimson caps with sky-blue stalks. The tops were smooth and glossy, reflective as a pond’s surface. Torsten plucked one and squeezed it gently between his thumb and forefinger. It had a slight give, like perfectly tender meat. He would have put it in his mouth right then, but remembering Estrid’s warning, he looked to her first.

She frowned. “I’ve never seen ones like those. Best to check when we get there. If they’re safe, we’ll have enough for a few meals.”

Torsten’s mouth watered at the thought. He plucked mushroom after mushroom until his bucket overflowed, then stuffed his pockets with the rest.

#

Seeing old, dried-up bear excrement outside the cave’s entrance, Torsten wrapped his arms around Estrid’s waist. Estrid sighed and peeled her brother off.

“Bears only return to their caves in winter,” she said. “It’ll just be you and the Devouring Hole.”

“Can’t we just try them without going in?” Torsten asked. He pulled a mushroom from his bucket. “If we don’t eat too much, we’ll probably be—”

Estrid shook her head. “Go. No bears will bother you. I’ll stay out here and hunt.”

Torsten swallowed his fear, then took a wary step into the cave. His arm ached under the bucket’s weight, but Estrid had promised the Devouring Hole was close.

A minute in, Torsten’s head brushed the cave ceiling. He smacked his hair, thinking a bat had fallen into it, but the culprit was only a hanging finger of stone. He heard neither the chittering of winged vermin nor the snoring of hungry bears. But from deeper in came a sound like heavy wind. Rather than blowing in intermittent gusts, it roared with unnatural, uninterrupted persistence. Estrid had described the sound of the Devouring Hole exactly like this when relaying their mother’s story.

Torsten wouldn’t be able to reach the Hole using sight. Darkness had crept in on all sides, the morning light unable to penetrate this deep into the cave. The boy stopped, steadied his nerves, and listened. The sound came from a tunnel to the left. Placing a hand on the damp wall, he walked toward it. With each step, the air grew more humid and rank, like breath passing through a maw of rotted teeth.

“It’s not a bear, it’s not a bear,” Torsten whispered.

His stomach growled and he jumped. Realizing what had startled him, he laughed. But even thinking about the hollow in his gut intensified his hunger. He hurried along.

A glow illuminated the next bend, casting a silver sheen across the rough walls. Torsten couldn’t tell if the light was a torch, an exit, or a hallucination, but he rushed toward it, eager to flee the darkness. Rounding the curve, he discovered the source: an opening in the ceiling no wider than a birch tree’s trunk—the Devouring Hole. Its brightness exceeded the sun’s by several magnitudes. Whooshing air rushed upward, carrying pillars of dust into the Hole’s luminous throat. Approaching nearly blind, Torsten tripped on a stone and spilled his bucket. He did not immediately pick up the mushrooms and berries. Instead, he stared at the Hole. Which Old God had created it? Or was the Hole itself an Old God?

A violent hunger pang coursed through Torsten’s gut. No time to delay, even to gaze at such a wonder. He snatched one of the pink berries from the floor and cautiously approached the Hole. Hold it up and let go, Estrid had instructed. The closer he got, the more he squinted, light flooding his vision and wind whipping dust into his eyes. He lifted the berry, mouthed a silent prayer, and released his grip. The wind carried the fruit upward, though the light made it impossible to see its path into the Hole. Torsten stepped back and waited, his body tense.

Over the next few seconds, the wind slowed to a dead stop and the light faded to a darkness so pure that its shadows seemed to contain substance. Torsten held his breath, his ears ringing with absence. Dazed, he nearly lost his footing.

Then came the sound, pulsing out of the Hole and into the cave: screeches, layered one over the other, like a thousand snow hares pinned with arrows, thrashing and panicking in their final moments. The dissonance and violence of the noise flooded the chamber. Torsten collapsed to his knees and covered his ears. He screamed along with them, as if it might drown their cries, but it only brought him closer to their agony. In the darkness, some unseen liquid dripped from the screaming Hole, splashing Torsten. He squirmed toward the farthest wall, buried his face in stone, and begged for it all to be over.

As abruptly as the sound came, it left. The boy gasped for breath, taking a long moment to recover. Light and wind soon returned to the Hole, dimmer and weaker, as if the apparently poisonous berry had sapped its spirit. Regardless of how many snow hares Estrid had killed, the suffering would never measure up to what Torsten had caused today. All he wanted was to cry, apologize, retreat in shame. To never again inflict such horror on the innocent.

He looked at the spilled mushrooms, abundant and plump and brilliant in their color. They had to be safe. Nothing so beautiful could bring harm. He knew he should feed them to the Hole first, but he hesitated. Picking up the mushroom, he held it in the sluggish wind, his hand shaking as the Hole’s screeches echoed in his memory.

He couldn’t let go.

#

When Torsten emerged from the cave, Estrid staggered toward him and kissed the top of his head. A fox lay dead nearby, arrow wound crawling with maggots and coated in a thin layer of pale crystals. Torsten pulled away from his sister and averted his gaze.

“Another quick rotter,” Estrid said. “This place is cursed. At least you found something we can eat, right?”

She looked at Torsten’s brimming bucket, then up at him, her eyes both sparkling and sunken. Despite the lump rising in his throat, Torsten gave his best smile. 

He couldn’t disappoint his sister now.

#

Hand in hand, brother and sister laid in the grass. Froth dried to their chins in a white crust. Milky eyes stared at the ceaseless sun, unblinking. Their last meal had been a special one.

AUTHOR BIO:

Eric Raglin (he/him) is a Nebraskan speculative fiction writer and owner of Cursed Morsels Press. His debut short story collection is NIGHTMARE YEARNINGS, and his second collection, EXTINCTION HYMNS, is coming December 2022. He is the editor of SHREDDED: A SPORTS AND FITNESS BODY HORROR ANTHOLOGY and ANTIFA SPLATTERPUNK. Find him at ericraglin.com or on Twitter @ericraglin1992.