The Hole
by Craig Wallwork


The old man awakes me. Half lit by a kerosene lamp, his face dived into terror and mystery, his lawn halved by a cold November moon. I stand in my bedroom and watch as he digs the earth with a silver spade; I watch as he opens up a gaping wound in the earth’s skin.

Three weeks ago, he moved boxes into what was the Connors’ house. The Connors’ had a dog named Macy. A six-year-old boy called James. A rope swing and playhouse. The old man has a rusted truck, the grill busted. A dream catcher hanging from the rear-view mirror. He dragged his life into that dead house while Dubussy slowed the world around me to a crawl.

I move the curtain back a little and note a long shadow, warped and twisted, sprawling his garden. Each time he bends to dig, the shadow mutates into a mythological creature: Hydra, Medusa, the Minotaur. When he stands to wipe his brow, out it stretches, reaching out to touch the wooden fence that divides our gardens.

A day after moving in, a dead bolt secured his front door. Around the gate coiled a thick bicycle chain. He erected a sign that said, No Trespassing, and carried into the basement a hammer, a ratchet, a saw, and grinder. For four nights he banged the floors, tightened bolts, sawed wood and grinded doors. I heard him wail and argue, screech and holler. No one returned a word, not one note of reassurance, comfort or annoyance. The room was dead, save for the old man’s footsteps.

I turn on the lights to the patio and open the kitchen door. I wrap my arms tight around a naked chest and look over the fence. From his neck hangs a silver skull held by a black lace. His boots dusted with soil. His overalls slashed with dark stains.

On the news, they spoke about a local girl called Rebecca. She went to swim practice and never returned. The week before, a young boy was out catching stickleback from Redwood pond. The police found his rod and half his shirt hanging from a naked briar.

What you digging for? I ask him.

The shovel buries its head in the ground, ashamed.

I say it again, What are you digging for?

He removes the lamp from the branch of a sickly Sycamore, its flame casting a flat, lifeless light across sunken eyes.

Holding the lamp at arms length, he says, Off to find me the devil.

A few days ago, the police found traces of blood and a severed hand along the back road leading out to Redwood. When the Connors left, and the old man moved in, three dogs went missing. Mrs. Edgecomb’s prize azaleas were set on fire and her lawn covered in paint stripper. The grass died in letters, each one spelling out the word, Sinner.

The devil, I ask.

Yep, he says.

You think the devil lives in your garden?

He throws me a disdainful look, and says, You think I’m stupid?

I don’t know you well enough to make that assumption.

You don’t know me at all, boy.

I’m about to go back in the house when I hear him say, I’m digging to his home. I’m digging to Hell.

After the cremation of Mrs. Edgecomb’s prize flower collection, a curfew was placed on every kid in the neighbourhood.

Mr. Butterworth, who owns the local greengrocers, held a neighbourhood meeting. Three shifts were agreed, morning, afternoon and night, rotating on a daily basis. Every second Wednesday I walked the streets in the afternoon looking for any suspicious looking people. I questioned strangers, and told the older kids to stay away from the Redwood pond. Every second Wednesday, I passed by the old man’s house at least five times.

What makes you think Hell exists below your garden, I ask him.

He puts the lamp back on the branch, spits a brown ball of flem into the ditch and says, It’s down, isn’t it? Where the fuck do you expect it to be?

He had a point.

I offer my hand over the fence, and tell him my name. When he picks up the shovel and begins hacking at the earth again, I draw back and ask him his name.

Without stopping, he asks, Did they send you?

I shrug and ask, Who are they?

The fat greengrocer? The widow with the flowers? The neighbours, he replies.

No, I tell him. I live next door and thought it was high time I introduced myself.

I know where you live and who you
are, he says. Not that I care, and neither should you.

The paperboy and postman, they never have any deliveries for his house. Birds stay off his lawn. A week ago, there was heavy rainfall. Every house, lawn and flower was saturated. His garden and drive was dry as bone.

As he digs the earth, I look over to his house. In the dark, its windows are black as silt, the brick a deep red colour. Blood coloured.

From the corner of my eye, a dim yellowy light illuminates a room on the upper floor. I squint and see what appears to be a figure, blurred by netting.

I turn back and ask, Your wife?

He stops digging and looks to the house. When he turns back, he pulls an old pocket watch from his waist, checks it against the lamp and says, It’s time I got something to eat.

He removes the lamp, picks up his shovel and walks back to the house. I stay a couple of minutes, watching the shadow in the window, watching to see if it moves. I feel the figure’s eyes on me, watching me with the same curiosity. A minute later, a hand is upon its shoulder, pulling it back into the shadows. The light dies. The house is again in blackness.

The next day the hole is bigger: at least four feet deep and the same across. The old man is nowhere to be seen. I tell Mr. Butterworth and we arrange to meet at my place later that night so he can witness the digging for himself.

From eight to late we wait, with breath fogging my pane and silences that pin you to the ceiling. I tell Mr. Butterworth about the figure in the window, the noises next door, the banging, the tightening, the sawing and the grinding. I tell Mr. Butterworth about the wailing, the screeching and the moaning. But around us we hear nothing more than our breath, and the hint of uncertainty lingering on our lips.

After he moved into our neighbourhood, winds grew restless, lifting leaves from trees not native to our region, and carrying newspapers we never read. One Wednesday I returned from my watch to find the front page of a tabloid caught flapping in a lavender bush near my front door. The pages were spread flat, the headline: Killer Escapes Prison.

The hole is bigger. Neither Mr. Butterworth nor I heard digging, or banging, or moaning last night. Yet the hole is now bigger.

I wrap myself in a dressing gown and head out into the garden. I lean over the fence, looking down the hole.

Hello! Can you hear me, mister?!

I climb the fence and drop into his garden. No morning dew dampens my slippers, no flies buzz around my ears. It is a place lost, unwanted, and listless. Even the Sycamore is failing, its limbs trailing the ground, its bark greyed and cyanotic. I lean over the hole’s edge. Below is a vast pit of nothingness. The sides descend to a perfect O shape, black like that of an opera singer’s mouth at full pelt.

I look over to the house. All the windows on the bottom floor are clad in newspaper, the upper set covered in net curtains. I knock on the back door. I peer through the gaps in the newspaper. Nothing.

Beside a small hedge sits a coiled up piece of rope. I take one end and wrap it around the Sycamore, then throw the other down the hole. I test the strength and lower myself down.

The earth is damp, loamy. My slippers slip and slide against the walls. One falls from my foot. I don’t hear it land.

I descend. Slowly.

Above is a small medallion of light, of life, my life. Soon the medallion of light is no bigger than a paracetamol. And the rope, it keeps giving.

When I showed Mr. Butterworth the newspaper article about the escaped killer, he rang the local police station. To help reassure the neighbours, Mr. Butterworth wanted to know the killer’s name, his age and what he looked like. He wanted to know if the killer had anything to do with the severed hand and the missing children. The officer on the other end of the phone knew the same as the newspaper. Mr. Butterworth explained we were only in possession of the first page so didn’t know anything except the killer had escaped from Stoxton Prison four weeks ago.

Cold wet earth enwraps my one naked foot as I arrive at ground level. I hold my arms out to guide the way. Small steps. I reach out and touch a wall fashioned from what feels like snail skin. Tracing my hand along its surface, sludge and slime gathers between trembling fingers. I reach a small lip. Directly below is a passageway. For the first time since entering the hole, I am able to see a small warm light glowing in the distance.

As the police officer told Mr. Butterworth the details of the killer, I saw his chubby hand grip tight the phone’s handset. Mr. Butterworth never said thanks, nor did he say goodbye to the officer. He just placed the handset back down and told me to never mention the newspaper to anyone I knew. And with that he left.

I’m on my knees and hands, crawling through filth and mire, muck and the grunge of a million years resting. Water drips on my face and in my eyes, blurring the light ahead. With head down, my mind wanders to times when there was sunshine, when the hint of honeysuckle and jasmine in the breeze brought abstraction.

Soon the ground turns from black to brown, from brown to fawn and then to a warm russet colour. The skin around my hand is the same. When I look up, I am in a room with bare wood floors, the
walls stripped down to plaster and brick. In the far corner is a table home to a small bedside lamp.

The day after the conversation with the police officer, Mr. Butterworth’s shop didn’t open. The sign outside said: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the shop will be closed until further notice. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I stand up and stretch. The room smells of morning breath and burnt hair. The light flickers, once, twice and three times before gaining rhythm again. There are no doors
in this room, only a window.

I next saw Mr. Butterworth at Mrs. Edgecomb’s funeral. The coroner’s report said she had suffered extensive internal bleeding. Mr. Butterworth knew pretty much everyone in our town, so he spoke with the mortician at the local hospital. He confirmed what the coroner had documented, but added there had been no physical damage to Mrs. Edgecomb’s body, no bruising, cuts or burst capillaries. The mortician told Mr. Butterworth it was as if she’d been beaten to death from within.

Last night, before Mr. Butterworth left my house, he turned to me and asked if I’d ever done anything really bad in my life. Define bad, I said, and he replied, Have you ever done anything from which you seek absolution? I paused, trying to remember. He never waited for an answer. Instead, he pulled out a small black gun, and said, In case you need a pardon.

The net pattern diffuses the world beyond the window. As I move closer and squint my eyes, I see a face dived into terror and mystery, a lawn halved by a cold November moon. Over a thin wooden fence, a man stares at me, his arms wrapped around a naked chest. As the old man reaches for the watch in his pocket, my breath turns rapid and sour. The gun feels cold in my hand, the air around me, fetid and warm. When the kerosene lamp is removed from the tree, I look to the fence where the man stands looking up. I think about waving goodbye, but before I do silken fingers tighten around my throat, pulling me back into the shadows. The light goes out, and all at once, he reminds me of every sin I’ve committed.

All at once he whispers, For the children.

Copyright belongs to the author on the publication date unless otherwise noted.