The Hole in the Corner of the Dining Room Floor

My piece-of-shit cousin Brice waved the card in front of my face for just a minute too long, each wag building the pressure bit by bit. I stared blankly ahead. My body became a bubble, holding back an unspeakable rage with the thinnest of films.

“Finders keepers,” he sneered.

The bubble popped. It was inevitable.

“Give. It. Back!”

The words escaped as an animalistic screech. Brice’s eyes widened in terror. I lunged toward him, but he took off.

“Reece is trying to kill me,” he screamed as I chased him through the house, howling like a bobcat.

He was a few years older than me. The extra height gave him too much of an advantage. I couldn’t catch up.

“Boys!” my grandma yelled from the patio, where the adults sat and smoked. “Quit the rough-housing.”

I didn’t care. I was tired of Brice picking on me. Calling me names was one thing, but taking my stuff was another. I cornered him in the dining room and unleashed an onslaught of indiscriminate slaps as our wails mixed into an unholy cacophony.

“Give me my fucking card,” I screamed.

It surprised even me that I cursed.

“Fuck you.” Brice, no stranger to the word, spat it out with much more confidence. He curled up into the fetal position, shielding the card from my prying hands.

“Enough,” a voice boomed behind me. I turned to see my dad, red-faced with his arms crossed. His presence was enough to startle me into submission. Brice, seizing the opportunity, lurched to the side and dropped the card into a small crack in the floor by the baseboard.

There was a moment of silence as I realized what he’d done. I drew my hand back in a fist and swung it with righteous fury. Before I could make contact, Dad grabbed my wrist and yanked me to my feet.

“I said enough, boy!” He dragged me away.

Brice just laughed.

I wanted to go home, but Dad said he and Mom had plans. Brice wouldn’t go home either, so we both had to sleep in the bunk room. Each chipboard-paneled wall had a bunk bed, except for the one at the end of the room that had a square hole cut where a window should be, covered in plastic until Grandma could afford new glass.

The heat didn’t quite reach back to the bunk room—a combination of faulty ducts and poor insulation. In the middle of the room, they put one of those space heaters with a metal grate on the front and a red light that bathed the room in a hellish glow.

At night, one side of you’d be warm, and the other would be cool. Usually, I’d toss and turn throughout the night, enjoying the fluctuation. That night, however, I was staring directly into the heat across the room at Brice, sleeping like a log.

Lost in my rage, half asleep, I almost missed it.

Sticking up between the slats of the floorboards, my card was only a few feet in front of the heater. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. It was definitely the same card: an ultra-rare blue-mouthed dragon. The holographic foil glinted.

Thinking it must be a prank, I looked around, but Brice was still in the top bunk opposite me. Lain, his little brother, was out cold in the bottom bunk by the closet.

I hopped down. The card retracted back into the space below the floor.

“What are you doing?” Brice hissed.

I jumped, then opened my mouth to respond. The card popped back up, this time behind the space heater. Brice saw it too. Our eyes met. He hopped down next to me.

We followed the card as it popped in and out of the floorboards all the way out of the bedroom and down the short hall. Neither of us said a word as it neared the corner of the dining room.

The crack where Brice dropped the card was now a small hole, about the size of a softball. The card was sticking straight up in the middle of the opening.

“Are you going to grab it?” Brice whispered.

“No.” I was shaking, staring at the card from the safety of the hallway.

“Pussy.”

I glared at Brice. He would never let me live it down if I chickened out. Swallowing my hesitation, I tiptoed toward the hole.

With each step, the card sank downward bit by bit. By the time I got to the corner, it had retreated entirely into the darkness.

I got down on the floor and peered into the hole. The card was still there, suspended a few inches below the floorboards. It was difficult to make out, but I could just barely see a pair of fingers clutching it at the bottom.

I looked at Brice. He shrugged, his face as pale as mine felt.

I looked back at the card, still hanging in the air. My fingers felt numb. I reached into the hole. The card sank further down into the dark, but I leaned forward and snatched it.

Then a hand grabbed my wrist.

I held back the scream, but I definitely yelped. It yanked downwards, pulling my forearm into the hole, my skin scraping along the edge of the floor.

I scrambled, putting my feet against the wall, but it kept pulling. A second hand wrapped around my wrist, its skin just as crusty and greasy as the first. I looked back over to the hallway, and Brice was gone.

My stomach dropped.

It yanked me further in.

My heartbeat raced. Adrenaline surged through my system, and with all my strength, I pushed my legs against the wall. The tendons in my neck strained until they almost popped. My shoulder screamed in pain, but I wrenched my arm out of the hole.

The thing still clung to me like a rusty vice, crushing my wrist with its grasp. Its arm was covered in what looked like oily scabs, smears of red that smelled like infection.

Brice came barreling around the corner, lugging the space heater. Lifting it overhead, he slammed it down on top of the ghastly arm. Its flesh sizzled against the metal grate. The smell of burned hair clogged my nostrils. It held on for a few more moments before it finally let go and slinked back into the darkness.

“Thank you,” I panted.

Brice didn’t say a word. He just collapsed to the floor. We both stared at the hole, waiting for the hand to come back. It didn’t.

The card was lying on the floor a few inches from the hole. It was a little greasy but fine. Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins, but I smiled. Brice started laughing, and I laughed too.

It all felt unreal until we looked over and saw Lain standing in the hallway, on the verge of tears.

Lain was too scared to sleep by himself, so Brice let him sleep on the top bunk with him. In the morning, we tried to tell Grandma what had happened, but as soon as we mentioned the man under the floors, her eyes glossed over.

“There’s nothing under the house,” she whispered.

“It’s a person. There’s somebody under there. He tried to drag me in.” I showed her the marks on my wrist. She looked away.

“Quit it with the nonsense.”

“Brice saw it too.”

“Yeah.” He stared at the floor. “There was something there.”

“Enough!” Grandma’s jaw clenched tight. Her eyes fluttered for a second, then she shook her head and took a deep breath. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. There’s nothing for you to be worried about.”

Dad didn’t believe me. Neither did Mom. The card wasn’t enough proof, so I searched for evidence every time we went to Grandma’s. The hole continued to grow bit by bit, but I never found any.

I became so invested that I missed that everything was crashing around me.

In the span of a month, the bank seized Brice’s house. They all moved in with Grandma. A couple of weeks later, Mom and Dad announced their divorce. Mom kept the house; Dad moved into Grandma’s too. I had to be there every weekend. With Brice.

“Why don’t you give that shit up?” Brice asked me while I was in the middle of my research, sitting in front of the now basketball-sized hole with a disposable camera, taking a picture with the flash every ten or so minutes.

“I’m going to catch it on film.”

“You're wasting your time.”

I glared at him.

“At least I care.”

“Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You just have this weird need to be right all the time. No. It’s not even enough for you to just be right. You want everyone to know how right you are, but I was right too. I saw the same shit you saw, but you don’t see me begging for people to believe me.”

“It’s dangerous.” I set the camera down next to the hole. “Someone could get hurt.”

His face scrunched up.

“Okay?”

I crossed my arms.

“I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Nobody’s going to get hurt.” He rolled his eyes. “They don’t let nobody go near the hole. It’s not like a safety hazard; it's just a little hole.”

“It’s not the hole I’m worried about.”

“You’re scared of the scab man?”

My cheeks burned.

“No.”

“You are.” Brice nodded his head and smirked. “It’s okay. Personally, I’m not going to waste my life looking for him. He can’t even crawl out. I don’t give a shit.”

“Then don’t give a shit, Brice. Why are you even bothering me? Just leave me a—” I looked back at the hole. “It’s gone.”

“What?” Brice laughed.

“The camera… It was just here. I just set it down. It’s gone.” The gaping hole practically bled out darkness. A cool draft wafted up, smelling like mildew and rot. I shuddered.

The smile fell from Brice’s face.

We stood there. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Silence flooded the room, drowning out any remaining tension. We shared a knowing look, then went to bed.

Once I stopped searching for hard evidence, I could see it everywhere. It seemed everybody knew about the man under the house. An open secret, like an open wound. We let it fester.

The hole in the floor grew until it consumed the entire corner of the dining room. We pushed the dining table against the outside wall and ignored it. Lain started tossing quarters in the hole like a wishing well. At night, I could hear it rummaging around beneath us. Things went missing all the time.

It was normal.

For a while.

There was nothing we could do.

No matter how much we denied it, it took its toll on us all. Dad was grumpy all the time. Grandma's eyes remained distant. Uncle Ron day-drank in bed. Lain developed night terrors and stopped talking. We could barely get a word out of him during meals. He’d just stare at the hole and tremble.

The only one who seemed to be holding it together was Aunt Lynn. She was the only one who brought home groceries, the only one to help Grandma clean. She was quiet, kept mostly to herself like me, but I didn’t notice anything strange.

Brice did.

“So what is happening?” I asked him as he fumbled his fingers.

He was being too vague. I think something’s wrong. There’s something weird. She’s been off. I tried not to get annoyed, but I just wanted him to spit it out.

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

His voice was quiet. He wouldn’t look at me.

“Like she’s depressed?”

“No.” He shook his head, his eyes searching in the dark for something. “If she were depressed, it would make more sense.”

“So what’s happening?” I bit my tongue. “Can you just tell me?”

“She’s been… weird.”

“No duh.” I let out a groan.

“They’ve been fighting. Mom and Dad.”

“That’s not new.”

“No.” His voice wavered. “But it’s different. When they fought, it used to be for something. I don’t know. Like it seemed like they at least wanted to get along or at least it seemed like Mom wanted it to end. Now… it’s like she’s trying to make it worse.”

“Is that it? What are they fighting about now?”

“No. Like, they’re fighting about money. It’s almost always about money, but it’s not even just the arguing. It’s like she’s here but she’s not here. Like she’s going through the motions, but she’s gone. She’s just not there.” His voice cracked. “She hugs me, and it’s like she’s hugging an object. She won’t even look at me.”

“I’m sorry.” I suddenly felt like a jerk, watching him cry.

“It’s fine. I just… don’t know.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I catch her lying on the floor all the time.”

My stomach sank. Brice stared into the floor, his eyes unblinking.

“What is she doing?”

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but stopped. I sat down on the floor next to him, shook his shoulder. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes. I could see the fear.

“I think she’s been talking to it.”

As annoying as Brice could be, I couldn’t sit back and do nothing, not when he came to me for help. Not knowing who to tell or what else to do, we followed her to observe.