The Sound Beneath the Floor

Ben had always been a practical man. He believed in the tangible, in what could be seen, touched, and measured. So when he bought the old house on the edge of town—a fixer-upper, really—he wasn’t bothered by the rumors that had surrounded it for years.

They said the house was haunted, that strange noises echoed through the walls at night, that people who lived there went mad. But Ben didn’t buy into superstition. He’d grown up around old houses, learned to patch drywall, replace wiring, and fix leaky pipes. He saw potential in the creaking floors, the dim rooms, and the peeling wallpaper.

The first night, everything felt fine. The house groaned under the weight of age, but it was just the sound of old wood settling. The wind howled outside, but it was a comforting sound. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

But then came the scratching.

At first, it was faint—just a soft, distant sound, like something scraping against the floorboards. Ben had shrugged it off, convinced it was a rodent or perhaps a loose nail in the floor. He’d lived in old houses before; they made noises.

But the scratching grew louder. It became more deliberate, a rhythm that repeated itself every night. At first, it was always in the same spot—a corner of the living room, just beneath the floorboards. But the noise didn’t make sense. It wasn’t coming from the walls or pipes; it was as if something—or someone—was trapped beneath the house, clawing at the wood.

One night, unable to ignore it any longer, Ben grabbed a flashlight and crouched down, pressing his ear to the floor. The scratching stopped immediately. For a brief moment, the house was completely still, holding its breath. He pulled away, frowning, but the silence didn’t last long.

It started again.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

He felt a chill run down his spine. His hand trembled as he ran it over the floorboards. There was no sign of any hole, no sign of anything beneath the wood. But the sound kept coming, slow and deliberate.

Suddenly, the noise stopped.

Ben froze, his breath shallow. The house was eerily quiet, as though it had paused with him. And then, as if on cue, something banged against the floor from beneath. It was loud, violent. Someone—something—was trying to get out.

Panic gripped him, but he fought to keep his composure. Ben grabbed a crowbar from his toolbox and pried up the floorboards in the corner where the sound had been coming from. His heart pounded as he ripped the boards free, revealing a dark space beneath the house.

He shone his flashlight down into the hole, but there was nothing there. The crawlspace was empty. The air was damp and stale, and the ground was covered with dirt, but there was no sign of anything that could have caused the noises.

Confused, Ben stood up, brushing the dirt from his hands. It didn’t make sense. The scratching had been so real, so deliberate. There had to be something under the floor.

But as he stood there, staring into the dark void, the noise started again. This time, it wasn’t scratching—it was knocking.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

It came from beneath him, from deeper inside the house. Ben’s heart raced as he looked around the room. His pulse quickened. The knocking was rhythmic, methodical. There was no mistaking it. Someone—or something—was down there.

Ben couldn’t take it anymore. He ran to the basement door, wrenching it open, and descended into the darkness. His flashlight beam flickered as he stepped carefully over the uneven steps. The knocking continued, faster now. The sound was so loud, it seemed to be coming from the very walls of the house.

He reached the bottom and shone his flashlight into the far corner of the basement, where a stack of old boxes lay. The knocking was coming from there. Ben’s throat tightened as he approached. He could see the boxes shifting, moving ever so slightly, as if something was pressing against them from inside.

With a sharp breath, he yanked the boxes away, revealing a trapdoor beneath. The knocking grew louder, more frantic. It was coming from below, from inside the space beneath the floorboards. He pulled at the rusted handle, heart racing. The trapdoor creaked open with a groan, and as it did, the knocking stopped.

The basement was still. Too still.

He descended into the dark, cold tunnel beneath the trapdoor, his flashlight shaking in his hand. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and mildew, the walls closing in around him. The tunnel stretched on, winding through the earth beneath the house. The walls seemed to pulse, as if the house itself was alive. The knocking was gone, but there was a low hum now, like a vibration in the walls, a constant thrumming that felt like it was coming from his very bones.

And then, ahead of him, he saw it.

A shape.

At first, it was a blur, a shadow flickering at the far end of the tunnel. But as he stepped forward, the shape became clearer. It was a figure—someone standing in the dark, their back turned to him. A figure that looked like a person, but something about the way it stood—so perfectly still—made Ben’s blood run cold.

The figure turned. Its face was pale, expressionless, the eyes hollow. And its mouth—its mouth stretched wide in a smile that shouldn’t have been possible.

Ben staggered backward, heart pounding in terror, but his feet couldn’t move. He was rooted to the spot, frozen by the eerie figure that now stood directly in front of him.

The last thing he heard was the soft, whispering voice that seemed to come from everywhere, from inside his head:

“You shouldn’t have listened. You shouldn’t have let it out.”

And then, the world went black.

When the neighbors came by to check on him the next morning, they found the house quiet, as if nothing had ever happened. No sign of Ben, no noise from the floors. Just the house, sitting there in the morning light, silent.

And the knocking?

It had stopped.