This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/lemonsorbetstan on 2024-12-27 12:59:12+00:00.

I heard about the massacre at the old mill while buying supplies in Heidelberg. Two pops, that’s all I’d heard last night—sharp and distant like a car backfiring. Could’ve been gunshots. The housewives at Miller’s General whispered over their canned peaches about how the police raided that Brides of Christendom compound up north. Found things. Bad things. Most of the women were killed in the firefight.

My eyes caught the newspaper rack. Thought about buying one. Didn’t. World’s wicked enough without paying to read about it.

The truck protested when I turned the key, coughing twice before the engine caught. I sat there, hands on the wheel, remembering what Pastor Weber said about God’s justice being beyond mortal understanding. The small bag of hard candies for Hannah burned a hole in my pocket. Sugar rots both teeth and discipline, but a father provides.

Those Brides weren’t right—everyone knew it. They’d drift through town in those white dresses with faces blank as china dolls, passing out pamphlets about salvation. Couldn’t tell you anything concrete about what they believed in, or about the young women who joined and were never seen again. Not right at all. But murder is murder, police raid or not. The sixth commandment makes no exceptions.

I decided I’d pray for them tonight.

The drive home took me deeper into the Schwarzwald, where the roads twist like black ribbons through ancient pines. Few people come this far into the mountains. Sometimes hikers stumble across my property, straying from the Hexenweg trail that runs three kilometers east. They never stay long. Something about this part of the forest makes folks uneasy—the way the trees grow too close together, how the sunlight struggles to reach the forest floor even at midday.

My cabin sits in a natural hollow, half-hidden by the landscape. Built it myself ten years ago, when Hannah was still small enough to carry. No electricity, no phone line. Just rough-hewn logs chinked with mud and moss, a steep roof to shed the heavy mountain snows. Root cellar keeps our food from spoiling, and the stream running behind never freezes, even in the depths of winter. It’s not much, but it’s what the Lord provides.

It’s a hard place for a child. I see that in how Hannah watches the hiking families that pass by, their children bright with store-bought clothes and easy laughter. Sometimes she stands at the window long after they’ve gone, fingers pressed against the glass like she’s trying to hold onto their echo. But hardship builds character, and comfort breeds sin.

Hannah was waiting on the porch when I pulled up, a scarecrow figure in her hand-me-down dress. She watched me unload without offering to help, thin arms wrapped around herself against the cold. That’s how she is—quiet, watchful. The doctors in town called it “developmental delays” but I know better. The Lord made her exactly as she needed to be.

We ate our dinner in silence—venison stew and hard bread. The kerosene lamp threw our shadows long against the wall, making the crucifixes dance. Hannah’s eyes kept darting to the windows, now black with night. Her spoon scraped against ceramic in that way that usually earned her a stern look. Tonight, I let it pass.

The woods had been strange lately. Not wrong, exactly—God’s creation can never be wrong—but different. Like the forest was holding its breath. The deer had grown scarce, birds quieter. Even the wind moved differently through the trees, making sounds that sometimes seemed almost like words.

I’d lived in these woods long enough to know their moods. Sometimes the ancient places of the world grow heavy with His presence. These deep woods are closer to God, raw and untamed as the day He made them. The settled folks in town don’t understand this. They’ve wrapped themselves in electric lights and television static, distancing themselves from His touch. But out here, you feel the weight of creation. Some days it presses down harder than others.

The first scream came just after sunset.

It was distant, could have been an animal. But something about it raised the hair on my neck. Hannah’s spoon clattered against her bowl.

“Papa,” she whispered, and her voice had that same high pitch it got when she was seven and found a dead fox in the yard, its belly split open and steaming in the winter air. “What was that?”

“Could be nothing,” I said, but my hand was already moving toward the rifle above the fireplace.

We waited, breaths held. Then again—distant and high-pitched. This time, it almost sounded like laughter.

I took down the hunting rifle, checking the chamber out of habit. Keep my weapons clean as scripture demands a man keep his soul.

“Stay inside. Lock the door behind me.”

“Papa, please.” Her voice cracked. She grabbed my sleeve with both hands, something she hadn’t done since she was very small. “There’s something wicked out there.”

I frowned down at her. “How do you know?”

“I feel it,” she insisted, her tugs becoming more urgent. “Like… like when you know a storm’s coming before you see the clouds. God is warning me, deep in my tummy.”

“If what you say is true,” I replied, gently pulling free of her grip, “then who better to protect His realm than his most devoted servant?”

She had nothing to say to that. Truth has a way of silencing doubt.

The night air struck like a hammer of ice. Moonlight turned the forest silver-white, each tree casting a prison-bar shadow across frozen ground. My breath came in clouds as I moved between the pines, rifle ready. The woods were different at night—every shadow deeper, every sound magnified.

Another cry echoed through the trees, closer now. Could have been wind through the valleys, but wind doesn’t sob like that. Through the trees, something white flickered—maybe cloth catching moonlight. But there shouldn’t be anything out here. We’re miles from the nearest neighbor. I know every inch of these woods like I know my prayers.

I moved closer, boots crunching on frozen leaves. More movement ahead; quick, darting. My flashlight beam caught nothing but trees and shadows. But the ground told a different story—bare footprints in the frost, small and precise like a dancer’s. And something else: dark spots in the snow that could have been blood.

“Hello?” My voice sounded thin in the vast silence. “This is private property.”

The woods went dead quiet. Not even wind in the trees. Just the sound of my own breathing, harsh in the stillness. My flashlight caught something hanging from a branch—a scrap of white fabric, edge stained dark. I picked it up, turned it over in my hand. Old, smelled of pine needles and something else—sweet decay, like overripe fruit.

When I reached the cabin, Hannah was standing on the porch. The kerosene lamp behind her cast her shadow long and narrow across the snow, like a crack in the earth.

“Did you shoot them, Papa?” she asked, her voice small but steady. “Did you shoot the witches?”

The question hit like a slap. “What did you say?”

Hannah shifted on her feet, looking down at her bare toes turning blue in the cold. A suspicion crossed my mind.

“Did you read the newspaper when it was delivered this morning?” The words came out sharp as icicles. “You know what I’ve told you about throwing them away. About not filling your head with that sort of thing.”

Hannah merely shifted on her feet, looking down at her bare toes.

Disapproval pooled hot in my belly. Lord, forgive the child her disobedience.

That night, as we knelt for evening prayer. Hannah’s hands tightened in mine as we recited the Lord’s Prayer together: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Her fingers felt like ice in my grip. Behind us, the windows rattled in a sudden gust of wind, and I could have sworn I heard laughter carried on the breeze—high and wild, like breaking glass.

The next day passed as most do. After breakfast—hard bread and the last of our preserved applesauce—we began Hannah’s lessons. She has a quick mind when she chooses to apply it, though she’s been more distant lately. Still, she worked through her multiplication tables without complaint, recited her verses from Proverbs, and copied passages from the few history books I allow in the house.

Around midday, Hannah went to tend to those goats she’s so fond of. Strange creatures, they appeared during the first frost of winter, drawn perhaps by the smoke from our chimney or the scraps Hannah sometimes leaves out. Three of them, all identical with rough black coats and bright eyes. They produce no milk, bear no kids, but Hannah doted on them. I let her keep them, against my better judgment. They didn’t need much feed, preferred the sparse grass and foliage during the warmer months, and displayed a surprising level of fortitude during winter. I’d done a fool thing a few years back and slaughtered a brace of rabbits Hannah had hand-raised since they were kittens. She didn’t speak to me for months. So I let her keep the goats, lest I risk her wrath once again.

I prayed God would forgive me this one indulgent for my little girl. What better to love, than one of God’s creatures?

The rest of the day we spent on chores—splitting wood, checking the snares, preserving what little game they’d caught. We ate our dinner in familiar silence, the wind whispering through the gaps in the logs.

That night, something woke me. Perhaps a sound, perhaps just the weight of another’s gaze upon my face.

I opened my …

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1hnecbl/i_found_a_hole_in_the_woods_and_god_whispered_to/