31 Jan Chewing

Part I

Daniel had never been one for superstition. He’d never believed in ghosts, omens, or any of that nonsense. But the moment he and Mara pulled up the long dirt driveway to their new home, he felt something shift deep in his chest—something like a warning.

The farmhouse was everything they’d wanted: secluded, surrounded by rolling hills and dense woods, with enough land to finally escape the suffocating bustle of the city and start their hobby farm. It was too good a deal to pass up, practically given away by the previous owners. That alone should’ve been a red flag, but Daniel had convinced himself they were just lucky.

The house itself was old but sturdy—a stocky, two-story structure with peeling white paint, a wraparound porch, and a barn that leaned slightly to one side. The fields stretched for acres, mostly overgrown but ripe with potential. The nearest neighbor was miles away—just how they liked it.

Mara beamed as she stepped out of the truck, stretching her arms. “This is it,” she said, turning toward him with a grin. “Can you believe it?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said with a smile. “It’s perfect. The chickens and goats will love it, too.”

Their stocky golden retriever, Rex, leaped out of the truck and bolted toward the house, sniffing wildly at the ground. But after a few moments, his ears flattened. He let out a small whine, trotting back toward Daniel’s legs.

“What’s wrong, bud?” Daniel asked, scratching him behind his ears. Rex usually loved new places, but now he wouldn’t stop staring at the basement door—a squat, wooden thing on the side of the house leading underground.

Mara knelt and ruffled his fur. “Maybe he smells something weird.”

Daniel tried to shrug it off, but something about the way Rex refused to go near the house bothered him.

* * * * * *

The first few days were a blur of unpacking, cleaning, and making the place their own. They had no cell service, no Wi-Fi yet, and spotty radio reception, which meant the nights were eerily silent.

Daniel had grown up in the country, so the quiet shouldn’t have bothered him, but there was something unnatural about it—no wind, no crickets, no rustling leaves.

Even the woods surrounding the house felt too still.

On their third day, Daniel was digging a patch of soil near the garden when his shovel hit something hard. He crouched down, brushing away the dirt until he uncovered a small, white object.

At first, he thought it was a rock, but as he picked it up, he frowned.

It was a tooth.

Not a jagged animal tooth, but perfectly shaped, like a human incisor—only too smooth, too polished, as if it had been worn down.

“What the hell?” Daniel muttered, turning it over in his palm.

Mara walked over, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Find something?”

Daniel held it up. “Looks like a tooth.”

Mara squinted at it before making a face. “Gross.”

He chuckled. “You think the last owners had a weird hobby?”

She laughed. “It’s probably just an animal bone.”

“Yeah,” Daniel muttered, but he wasn’t convinced.

He tossed the tooth aside, but that night, as he lay in bed, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Several hours later, Daniel woke up abruptly. For a moment, he couldn’t figure out why. The house was still, bathed in darkness. The only sound was Mara’s soft breathing beside him.

Then he heard it. A low, rhythmic sound—chewing. The wet, deliberate grinding of teeth.

Daniel’s skin went cold. He held his breath, straining to listen. The sound was faint but constant, coming from somewhere below them.

The basement.

He nudged Mara awake. “Hey,” he whispered.

She groaned, rolling over. “What?”

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

She paused, blinking sleepily.

Silence.

“I don’t hear anything,” she mumbled.

Daniel frowned. The chewing had stopped.

“I swear I heard—”

“It’s probably mice,” she murmured, already drifting back to sleep.

Daniel lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening.

The sound didn’t come back, but the feeling didn’t leave him.

Something wasn’t right—and he was starting to think they weren’t alone.

Part II

Daniel woke with a dull headache, the memory of that strange chewing sound lingering like a half-remembered dream.

He rolled onto his side and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, concentrating. Nothing. Just the usual morning quiet. Had he imagined it?

Mara was already up, the telltale smell of coffee drifting from the kitchen. With a stretch, he forced himself out of bed and padded downstairs.

She was at the counter, pouring coffee into two mugs. “You look awful,” she said, giving him a half-smirk.

“Didn’t sleep great.” He took the mug and leaned against the counter. “I swear I heard something last night.”

Mara gave him a patient look. “More ghosts?”

“Not ghosts. It was…chewing. Like something gnawing on bones.”

“Yuck,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Probably mice in the walls.”

“Maybe,” he replied.

Rex whined at the back door, tail tucked. Daniel opened it, but the dog refused to step outside. Instead, he paced anxiously at the threshold, his ears flat.

Daniel sighed. Weird.

That afternoon, while clearing brush behind the barn, Daniel found another tooth, bigger this time. It was sticking up from the dirt like a buried stone, and when he pried it loose, he felt his stomach turn. It was a molar—large, round, disturbingly human—except it was the size of a golf ball.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at it, unease creeping into his gut.

“Hey, babe!” Mara called from the porch. “You wanna take a break?”

Daniel turned, gripping the massive tooth in his palm. She was already walking toward him.

“Find something?” she asked.

Instead of answering, he held it up. Mara’s smile faded.

“What the hell?” She took it, turning it over in her hands. “This is…” She shook her head. “It’s not real, right? Like, it has to be some kind of—”

“Fake tooth?” Daniel finished. “From what, a giant?”

Mara frowned. “You think it’s, like…a fossil?”

“I don’t know.”

They both looked down at the hole he’d pulled it from. It wasn’t deep, just beneath the surface.

Mara forced a laugh. “Okay, this is officially creepy.”

“Yeah,” Daniel muttered.

Daniel pocketed the molar and glanced back toward the barn.

Something felt wrong about this land.

* * * * * *

That night, it came again.

The chewing.

Daniel shot upright in bed. The sound was louder now, closer—a slow, wet gnashing of teeth, reverberating through the wooden floorboards.

Right below them.

He barely breathed, ears straining. The creaking of the house, the wind outside—it all faded beneath that slow, rhythmic sound.

Mara stirred beside him. “Daniel?”

He didn’t answer. His focus was locked on the floor.

The chewing was directly beneath their bed.

The next morning, Daniel grabbed a flashlight and headed down to the basement.

It was cool and damp, the air thick with the smell of old wood and earth.

He swept the light across the dirt floor.

Indentations. Shallow grooves in the soil, as if something large had shifted beneath it.

He knelt, pressing his palm to the ground. It felt solid. But something about it still made his skin crawl.

His fingers brushed against something hard. He dug into the dirt–and pulled out another molar.

No—not just one. Many. An entire row of them, half-buried in the soil, lining the ground like a set of buried jawbones.

Daniel staggered back. What the hell is this?

A sudden sound made him freeze—a deep, muffled creak, like something shifting below the earth.

He backed toward the stairs, teeth clenched. For the first time since moving in, he felt something more than unease.

He felt watched.

* * * * * *

That afternoon, Daniel drove into town.

At the hardware store, he asked the old man behind the counter about the property. The man’s face went pale.

“You bought that place?” he croaked.

Daniel hesitated. “Yeah. Why?”

The man shook his head. “Should’ve stayed vacant.”

Daniel frowned. “Why?”

The old man stared at him for a long moment, then said, “That land ain’t empty. It just ain’t full of people.”

Daniel left with a knot in his stomach. Something was very, very wrong, and he had a feeling he and Mara had dug up something that should’ve stayed buried.

Part III

Daniel barely slept that night.

Every time he drifted off, he’d hear it—that moist, methodical grinding sound just beneath the floor. When he turned on the light, the house would fall silent again.

By dawn, his nerves were frayed, and he felt sick with exhaustion. Mara didn’t seem to notice his restlessness, but Rex did.

The dog whined constantly, pacing in the kitchen with his ears flat. Every time Daniel glanced at the basement door, Rex growled under his breath.

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. Mice, my ass.

* * * * * *

The first thing to go were the chickens.

Daniel stepped outside that morning, still groggy, and stopped dead in his tracks. The coop door stood wide open—not broken, not chewed, just open.

Three hens were gone.

He checked the perimeter. No feathers, no blood, no tracks. Something had taken them silently.

Mara came out onto the porch, yawning. “What’s wrong?”

“Some of the chickens are missing.”

Her brows knitted. “Foxes?”

“There’s no sign of a struggle. And the door wasn’t broken into. It was opened.”

Mara’s expression darkened.

Daniel exhaled sharply. “I’ll reinforce the locks,” he muttered.

The next night, one of their goats disappeared.

Daniel had checked on them before bed—all accounted for.

By morning, one was gone. The fence was still intact, the latch untouched. There was no blood, no tracks. All the same, they were just…gone.

Mara’s voice was tight with fear. “This isn’t normal, Daniel.”

He wanted to tell her she was overreacting, that these things happened in the country—but he couldn’t.

Deep down, he knew she was right. And he knew what he’d heard beneath the house.

That evening, Daniel set up motion-activated cameras around the barn and coop.

“If it’s an animal, we’ll see it,” he told Mara, though the words rang hollow. They both knew this wasn’t an animal.

The next morning, he checked the footage. Most of it was empty frames—shadows shifting in the trees, the barn swaying slightly in the wind.

Then, at 3:12 AM, something moved. Daniel froze.

At first, it was just the earth. The soil rippled—not like wind through grass, but like something shifting beneath it.

Then—a dark shape pressed up from below. The ground itself was breathing.

And then, for a single, terrible moment, a gap in the soil opened—revealing rows of massive, human-like teeth.

He deleted the footage.

* * * * * *

Daniel sat on the porch that evening, staring out at the field.

The land wasn’t right. He could feel it now, a constant presence, something ancient and unseen stirring beneath their teeth.

Rex growled low in his throat, and Daniel followed his gaze to the tree line. Something shifted in the brush, a whisper of movement, just out of sight.

And then Rex took off.

“Rex!” Daniel shouted, bolting after him. “Hey, no! Stop!”

The dog’s barks grew frantic—then cut off suddenly. Daniel crashed through the underbrush, flashlight beam sweeping wildly.

Nothing.

No dog. No tracks. Just the sound of chewing, somewhere deep in the trees.

Daniel sat in bed that night, Mara beside him, staring at the ceiling, hands clenched into fists. He knew it was only a matter of time before he’d hear it again–the chewing.

He swallowed hard, listening.

At first, there was nothing.

Then—there it was, as if on cue. The wet, rhythmic sound of teeth tearing through something soft.

This time, however, it wasn’t beneath the floor. It was in the walls.

Part IV

Daniel sat at the kitchen table, eyes fixed on his untouched cup of coffee. He hadn’t slept.

The chewing had been inside the walls. He was sure of it. The sound had carried through the wood, like something gnawing its way in.

He ran a hand over his face. Mara slept right through it; she hadn’t heard a thing. Daniel used to think she was just a deep sleeper, but now, he wondered.

What if it only wanted him to hear?

Mara sat across from him, sipping her coffee. “You’re not listening.”

Daniel blinked, looking up. “I’m sorry. What?”

She sighed, setting her mug down. “I said maybe we should leave for a few days. Go to a motel. Clear our heads.”

Daniel forced a laugh. “A motel? For what?”

She gave him a long look. “Because something’s wrong here. You know it, too.”

He exhaled sharply. “We can’t just leave the house every time something weird happens.”

“This isn’t just ‘something weird,’ Daniel.”

Before he could argue, something thumped against the house.

They both froze.

A second later—another thump.

Daniel stood up so fast his chair scraped against the floor. Mara followed him to the window.

Outside, something lay in the dirt.

His stomach twisted.

It was a goat’s leg, severed at the knee.

The rest of the animal was gone.

“What the hell is happening?” Maria whispered.

Daniel couldn’t answer. Just beyond the leg, the dirt was moving. Something beneath the soil was shifting.

Daniel grabbed a shovel. Mara pleaded with him not to go down there, but he had to. He had to know.

He tore up the dirt outside the basement, digging as fast as his arms would allow. The deeper he went, the harder the soil became—not rocky, not clay-like, but dense and smooth.

The shovel hit something hard.

Daniel hesitated, then cleared more dirt away. What he saw made his stomach turn.

Teeth.

Huge, white teeth embedded in the earth.

At first, he thought he was looking at a fossil, but no—these weren’t bones. They were long, curved incisors, arranged in rows like an enormous set of jaws.

He was no longer digging into dirt. His shovel had struck enamel.

Daniel stumbled back.

The chewing sound returned—so loud he felt it in his chest.

Mara called his name from the porch, but he couldn’t look away.

Beneath him, the ground shifted with a low, rumbling groan.

Mara’s scream broke his trance.

Daniel ran toward her, but she was already backing away, staring at the porch in horror as the foundation of the house cracked like splitting bone.

The floorboards buckled as something below them pulled the house downward, the entire structure tilting as if being chewed and swallowed.

Then, the ground burst open.

A sickening crack tore through the air, and for the first time, Daniel saw it.

The mouth. 

A yawning pit, a hideous, cavernous maw lined with rows of human-like teeth, massive and gleaming, rising from the soil.

The chewing grew deafening.

Mara screamed as the porch collapsed beneath her. Daniel lunged forward, grabbing her wrist, but she was already slipping down, her leg disappearing into the earth.

She clawed at him, sobbing. “Daniel—”

In an instant, the ground clamped shut with a sickening crunch.

Mara was gone.

Daniel staggered back, legs weak. The house continued to sink, tilting and crumbling into its own footprint.

A bassy, inhuman moan rumbled through the ground.

The mouth was closing again.

He ran.

Daniel didn’t stop—not when the barn caved in, not when the earth rumbled behind him.

He sprinted for the trees, lungs burning.

Only when he reached the road did he dare to look back.

The house was gone. The land was smooth again, as if nothing had ever been built there.

Behind him, the chewing never stopped; it just grew quieter. Like something settling back into its slumber.

Daniel didn’t stop. His legs ached, his lungs burned, but he didn’t dare slow down. The trees blurred past him as he sprinted down the gravel road, his boots skidding on loose stones.

He didn’t know how long he ran before the headlights blinded him. A truck’s horn blared, tires skidding on the gravel, and Daniel collapsed to his knees, waving frantically.

The driver—a stocky man in a flannel jacket—jumped out, his face twisted in alarm. “Jesus, buddy, you okay?”

Daniel could barely speak. He just pointed back toward the woods, his chest heaving.

The man frowned, following his gaze. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Daniel turned to look.

The field where his house had been was smooth and undisturbed.

For a moment, he held back sobs, tears welling in his eyes as he thought of everything he’d lost: his home, his dog, all his possessions—and Mara.

Succumbing to the agony, he finally fell to his knees.

And Daniel screamed.

* * * * * *

The hospital kept him overnight.

Shock, they said. Exhaustion. He could barely form sentences when they brought him in, but when he tried to explain—

“The land ate my wife.”

They sedated him.

When he woke up, Sheriff Ray Dobson was sitting beside his bed. The man was staring at him hard, arms crossed.

“Daniel Montgomery,” he said. “Lived at 1220 Hollow Creek Road with your wife, Mara.”

Daniel nodded.

The sheriff flipped open a notebook. “Except there’s no house there.”

Daniel’s stomach dropped.

“That land’s been empty for decades,” Dobson said. “No records of a home ever being built.”

Daniel sat bolt upright. “That’s impossible! We lived there! Look it up—look up the seller—”

“We did,” the sheriff said. “There are no records.”

Daniel felt like he was drowning.

“It was there!” he whispered. “I know it was there!”

Dobson sighed, rubbing his temples. “Son, I don’t know what happened to you, but I think you need to get some rest.”

Daniel shook his head.

No one believed him–and no one ever would.

* * * * * *

He was released two days later.

He rented a motel room on the edge of town, too numb to do anything else.

His hands trembled uncontrollably.

He spent hours searching online, looking for any sign that the house had ever existed.

He found nothing—no old listings, no prior owners, no satellite images. It was like the land had swallowed it whole and erased it from time.

And Mara…

Daniel swallowed hard.

He hadn’t even told her family.

What would he say? That the ground ate her? That she was chewed up and swallowed like a piece of meat?

They’d call him insane.

Maybe he was.

* * * * * *

The package arrived on the sixth day.

Daniel had barely touched his motel food, and he’d barely slept. He only noticed it when he opened the door to grab a cigarette—a small box, wrapped in brown paper, sitting on the doorstep.

No return address. No postage.

Daniel stared at it.

Slowly, he picked it up and carried it inside. Hands trembling, he tore it open.

Inside, wrapped in cloth, was a tooth—one of the big ones—as large as a fist, its root still caked in dirt.

Tucked beneath it, there was a folded note.

Daniel’s breath caught as he unfolded the paper.

It was only four words: “It wasn’t finished eating.”

Daniel froze.

Somewhere beneath the motel floor, it began again—the chewing.

It was hungry.

And it was coming.