The Hill
Inspired by true events
There is a sharp change in the air as we descend the hill. The birdsong changes to a minor key. Any hint of a breeze stills, as though the sky were holding her breath. The thump of your walking stick in the dirt tells us that the hillside is hollow, and we’ve speculated many times about what lies beneath. A WWII bunker? A murderer’s layer? A portal to another dimension?
In truth, it is the mountain home of an old god. Or an old devil, for there was a time when things were not classified in this way. Maybe he is simply misunderstood. Maybe he deals in death. Right now, he is asleep. He is the size of the hillside. Souls drop into his gaping maw through the mouth of the well. Listen to the silence carved out by his appetite.
A thousand decaying bodies seep into the soil of the giant’s repose.
Where the spirit of the hillside lives, nothing else will.
Excerpt from a story in-progress— based on personal experience of a spooky local trail, which I’ve recently begun to associate with Hobbamock.
