Let me start by saying I’m not crazy. At least, I wasn’t before this. But something’s happening here. Something wrong.
It started three weeks ago. The forecast said storms. We’ve had droughts before—this is farm country, after all—but never like this. Never with the clouds right there, fat and gray and close enough to touch. They just… stopped. Hung over the town like a wet sheet nailed to the sky.
You know how when a storm’s coming, the air smells like ozone? Like wet concrete? There was nothing. Just heat. Dry, dead heat.
By the third day, the old folks started muttering. Mrs. Grady, who runs the diner, said her grandma used to talk about a summer like this back in the ’30s. Said the clouds got “stuck” because the town owed a debt. Nobody paid her much mind. Superstition’s thicker than ticks out here, especially after the mines closed and the church burned down. But then the cracks showed up.
Not in the ground—in the sky.
Day 7:
They found Mrs. Harlow this morning.
She lived alone in that big Victorian on Pine Street, the one with the wraparound porch. Used to sit out there every evening with her Bible, shouting psalms at the sunset. Last night, she tried to “pray the rain down.” Sheriff said her heart gave out, but I saw them carry her out. Her mouth was full of dirt. Not soil—dirt. Dry, powdery stuff, like the kind that gathers under porches.
The clouds didn’t move.
Day 10:
The Thompson boy cracked first.
He’s 14, works part-time at the Gas ’n Sip. Caught him trying to siphon gas out of Mr. Voss’s truck. When Voss confronted him, the kid just started screaming about “the thing in the cistern.” Said it’s been whispering to him at night, telling him to bring it water. They locked him in the back of the sheriff’s cruiser, but he kept clawing at the windows, begging someone to drown him.
Nobody sleeps much anymore.
Day 14:
They’re rationing water now. One gallon per family, per day. The Baptist church set up a distribution line in the parking lot, but it didn’t last. Somebody smashed the tank overnight. Sheriff says it was vandals. I know it was the Lundgren brothers. Saw them hauling jugs toward the old quarry, their eyes wild, shirts stained with something dark.
Old Man Riley says the quarry’s where they used to drown witches.
Day 17:
First disappearance.
Amy Carmichael, 8 years old. Last seen chasing her dog down by the train tracks. They found the dog this afternoon. Or what was left of it. Looked like it’d been… wrung out. Skin inside-out, bones crushed into gravel. No blood. Just dust.
Her mom’s sitting on their porch now, rocking back and forth, humming that hymn Mrs. Harlow used to shout. “Shall we gather at the river…”
The clouds are lower. Almost brushing the treetops.
Day 21:
They tried digging a well.
Behind the cemetery, where the ground’s soft. Got about ten feet down when the shovels hit something hard. Not rock—metal. A rusted grate, like the kind they used to cover mine shafts. Sheriff pried it open, and that’s when the smell hit. Rot and sulfur and something sweet, like burnt honey.
Nobody’s gone near it since.
But last night, I heard something down there. A wet, slapping sound. Like hands clapping.
Day 25:
Preacher Hendricks climbed the water tower.
We all watched. He didn’t say a word. Just stood there, staring up at the clouds, his shirt soaked through with sweat. Then he tied one end of his belt to the railing and looped the other around his neck.
His note said: “IT WANTS THE CHILDREN.”
They cut him down, but the belt stayed. Swinging in the dead air.
Day 28:
The whispers started.
Not from the mine shaft. From the clouds. A low, grinding hum, like a motor running in the sky. My wife hears it too. She’s been leaving jars of rainwater (what’s left of it) on the windowsill. Says it’s “for the ones who are waiting.”
I don’t ask. I don’t want to know.
Day 31:
The Lundgren brothers came back.
Or something did. Found them this morning at the edge of the quarry, their bodies bloated, skin split like overripe fruit. No water left inside them. Just… husks.
The sheriff says it’s the heat. Says we’re all just tired, dehydrated, seeing things.
But he won’t look up anymore.
Day 35:
My wife is gone.
Woke up to an empty bed. Followed her footprints outside—bare feet, dragging through the dust—to the edge of the woods. She was standing there, naked, arms raised like she was waiting for something to lift her up.
“Can’t you hear them singing?” she said.
I begged her to come inside. She just smiled and pointed at the clouds.
“They’re not clouds,” she whispered. “They’re egg sacs. And they’re about to hatch.”
Day 40:
The hum is louder now. Feels like it’s inside my teeth.
I tried to leave. Packed the car, drove west until the gas ran out. But the clouds followed. Every mile. Every turn.
When I got back, the town was empty. Houses open, doors swinging. No bodies. Just piles of clothes, all facing the same direction—toward the quarry.
Except the kids’ clothes. Those were all knotted up. Like something twisted them.
Final Entry:
They’re here.
I don’t know what they are. Not exactly. They’re… shapes. Shadows with too many joints. They don’t walk. They unfold.
They’re in the house. In the walls. Behind my eyelids when I blink.
The hum says it’s time. Says I owe a debt.
My wife was right.
The clouds are splitting open.