Hell's Bells

by Dusk Soul

Hell’s bells didn’t often toll. However, for those of whom, for who they did; the sound became their death knell.

In the wee dead hours of morning, the frigid wind wept and howled and bled the winter’s spell, out of the North; across the vast frost bitten field of grain.

As above, a freezing rain fell, in a multitude of droplets, the glacial wind breathed its breath. On that breath, each unique drop angled in its descent, as it wound in time with gravity.

As Below, the wheat field rippled due to the winds, meeting the moment with that near frozen rain.

Every individual frigid wheat stalk thrashed to and fro, tormented by the wind and freezing rain. Each and every one encased in its glass chrysalis of a winter come too soon.

They rang out jingling as broken crystal shards. Waiting for the figure. The towering figure, over the field he loomed; shadow cast long and wide in those harvest moonlight rays. The cold scythe in hand, cold as winter’s blade is sharp.

However, the crop was infected with wheat rot and ergot. It would not do. It was marked for harvest. Marked for the Hell’s Bells, to be burned.

An offering.

RODGER

Rodger thought it a strange superstition, these Hell’s Bells. A strange phenomena to be sure. However, one which could be ascribed to the purely psychological. One of hysteria, bordering on hallucination en masse.

It was strange though, even he had to admit, but he chalked that up to the village. The strange village and its archaic religion, if you could call it one. Its roots went deep; to a time before paganism. How it had come to the village was beyond him. All he knew, is that it involved ancient ruins encircling the perimeter of the village. Ancient rites. Offerings and-

These ruins bore strange and menacing carvings. They depicted monstrous beings, and symbols of a nature; he could only describe as: akin to ancient hieroglyphs. However, even those markings managed to project an untold ominousness. They were the unknown. He concluded that he wouldn’t like to decipher them.

Rodger, himself wasn’t a particularly religious man, and he didn’t believe in the Hell’s Bells. Though, the stories of the disappearances were haunting. Startling stories of people hearing the bells, recounting the fact to another, only to vanish in the night, all their doors locked from within, and in some cases a dinner prepared, and yet left uneaten.

  Rodger didn’t concern himself with such nonsense. He was by all accounts, a man of science. A student of Chthonic University. He was here for the advancement of humankind and science. He employed the scientific method and was a rational person.

He had no time for local superstitions.

Rodger was a paleontologist, as such he studied the fossil record. This was his first cold weather dig, and in the surrounding hills and valleys, imbedded within the rock layers; he’d discovered remarkable specimens.

Specimens preserved for hundreds of millions of years. This fueled his scientific ambitions, yet as he dug deeper he found…things. Things that shouldn’t have been there. Things that shouldn’t exist anywhere in nature.

As of late, he’d been documenting some unaccounted for remains in the fossil record. Strange new fossils of immense proportions, both ghastly and horrifying in appearance.

He couldn’t classify them as plant or animal, and they were unlike any previous discovery of which he knew. The morphisms in the rock distorted them only further; fueling his nightmares. At times, he’d awaken, screaming in dead of the winter night, drenched in a cold sweat; thinking he could hear the monstrosities outside his cabin.

Monstrosities making unearthly sounds, sounds that warped space and time and mind. Sounds emanating in echoes from the cosmic abyss above, and creeping into the bloodstream as adrenaline shock, below. Rodger shuddered in his small cabin far from town. Far from anyone or anything, except of course, Marcus.

Although you couldn’t really count Marcus.

Marcus was a bit of a curmudgeon and lived a solitary existence. Marcus was almost a hermit. However, he had struck a deal with the university; giving them the rights to dig on his expansive property. The University had negotiated the digging rights, along with the use of Marcus’s second cabin.

 This would house visiting paleontology students, and in return the students would chop firewood. The fire in the cabin’s wood stove had died long ago, and Rodger, shivering, lit the lantern.

Rodger laced his boots. He put on his coat and hat and gloves. He braced himself at the door to his cabin.

Try as he might to shake off the residual nightmare induced fear, he could not. Fear which permeated his thoughts and would blight his mental faculties.

He stepped out of the cabin with the lantern in his left hand, into the frigid night and into another world. There was a light dusting of snow, which hadn’t been there at nightfall.

The wind whipped up, scattering the snowflakes in serpentine paths, all before dying a small insignificant death in the dead of the night.

The wind would release the flakes from its icy grip. So that they may fall, and dissipate back down to the earth. Only for the process to repeat itself, moments later. He pulled up his collar, watched his vaporous breath rise and freeze before his very eyes.

He made his way down the winding tree lined path to the chopping stump. It was late at night, but he could see lights on in Marcus’s Cabin. The man was a night owl and would not be disturbed by the sounds of the axe falls.

Besides Rodger couldn’t sleep.

The surrounding forest was no source of solace. The massive trees had grown at odd angles, and were numerous. The branches contorted and fought with one another for precious sunlight, and even during the day, at noon; there was scarce light that made its way through the dense canopy.

It was an old forest. It, too, was an oddity. It was devoid of life, for no birds or wildlife had he seen or heard.  In the night the trees surrounded you to a claustrophobic degree. They creaked and groaned.

At night, the pitch blackness was unlike any he’d ever encountered. It seemingly tore at the eyes and ripped at the retina, and stifled any source of light one had equipped.  It was cold and fearsome, and the imagination tended toward insane hallucinations that issued forth from those black depths.

The void was a place where fear took hold and monstrous beings were perceived. Monstrous beings not unlike those fossils he’d unearthed.

The more he thought about the things, the more consideration he gave to changing his field of study. They were that horrendous to behold. They were that nightmare inducing. They were that terrifying. He couldn’t imagine how the beings, as he now thought of them, ambulated.

Rodger shivered in fear and cold, imagining the things not only moving about, but having full reign of the earth itself. It was difficult to imagine they could have died out at all, and the ancestors of man seemed insignificant in time and space by comparison.

Rodger chopped a section of trunk to take his mind off the things. He noticed how loud each axe fall was, and he wondered about wolves. The wind died down as it does.

A sound erupted from the forest. He flinched.

The sound of a large branch falling, no doubt from the accumulation of ice and snow. Despite his own reassurances, Rodger found himself gripping the axe handle with a grip, ever more firm. His head swiveled about instinctual in its scanning for movement, and his legs prepared to flee.

Silence rang out, hollow and muted, across the forest blanketed in snowfall. This should have soothed his nerves from the sudden disturbance of the noise. Instead, it gave him gooseflesh. He had the eerie sensation that he was being watched. He felt the volume of the silence become unbearable. It deafened the ears. It rang against his ear drums. Crescendoing to the point where he thought his ears might bleed. His legs buckled. He waited in agony. He would have prayed, if he thought it would have helped.

Rodger forced his legs to stand, but not without considerable effort. His own legs resisted his every command. He found he had to use every last ounce of will power to motivate his legs into standing.

At last the wind picked up, only to hurl the snowflakes into his wide eyes. Eyes tortured with fear, in that moment snow blinding him. His eyes gave rapid blinks, somewhere between pain and numbness. He fought the urge to run back to his meager cabin. He encouraged himself to complete the task at hand.

Rodger found himself swinging the axe with significant effort. He found himself with his back to the cabin, and ever watchful of that impermeable veil of obsidian nightfall. Immutable darkness that enveloped the forest each night. He’d have been better off closing his eyes.

Rodger would have seen more.

Each sound, each creak, each howl of the wind; he startled. After what seemed an eternity and more, he found himself with near enough wood for his own stove until the morn.

Instead of gathering it up, he found himself splitting it in half. Half for Marcus. As he would not venture out into the wood to collect more sections of trunk, not in this ungodly dark. He’d sooner sleep in his coat and gloves and hat. He resolved to do so, until the break of day.

DAWN

Rodger awoke, panicked.

He could not explain what had brought it on. Perhaps, the inadequate light. Dim light that filtered through the prism of the dark canopy. The canopy above his cabin. All, before making its way through the cabin’s small and singular window. The one above the door which provided little in the way of an outside view.

Rodger had had strange nightmares. Something outside. Outside his cabin. He grabbed the axe. Again, the fire, had died in the wood stove. He stood by the door, hesitant to open it, not knowing what he’d find on the other side.

Rodger stood at the door for a long while, trying to gather his wits and his courage. He winced as he opened it, it issued forth an audible creak. The wind had died down, and snow had settled on the forest floor; crunching under foot.

Rodger, set out to the chopping block. He found the firewood he’d set aside for Marcus the previous night. Odd. He thought. Marcus usually collected it before turning in. Rodger’s eyes rose to Marcus’s cabin. The lights were still on.

Rodger, noticed no smoke rose from the chimney. The fire had died. Marcus’s truck was still there. Rodger decided to deliver the firewood to the porch, now that it was daylight. As he approached the cabin he dropped the firewood in the snow.

Something, something had been circling the cabin in the night. He shuddered. He stepped over the tracks making his way to the cabin’s porch. He knocked.

Nothing. He knocked louder. Still nothing.

“Marcus! You in there?”

Nothing.

Rodger shook his head, not knowing what to do. He walked back to the tracks. Numerous tracks, deep in the snow. Odd tracks. They were cloven, not unlike that of a goat. However, they were to wide apart to be a four legged creature. They were larger than a horse’s shoe, nearly double the length.

The characteristics were all wrong, each individual hoof print was set too far apart. Too far apart to be anything other than an animal that walks upright. As he compared the length between footfalls, he came to a dreadful conclusion. The thing must have stood taller than him.

Rodger began to follow the tracks around the house, until they terminated abruptly. There was no where else they could have gone. They disappeared into thin air. He stood there dumbly for a moment until his eyes were drawn up to the roof. He gasped for he saw on the roof the-

Rodger’s grip on the axe tightened. Once more he went to the door knocking loudly and calling out.

He checked the door; locked.

“Marcus. You in there?”

Rodger made his way around the perimeter of the house, peering in through the windows; now concerned that something may have happened to the old man. He couldn’t see anything out of place.

Rodger had circled the cabin and could see no trace of Marcus. At last, he resolved to kick in the door.

Inside the cabin nothing seemed amiss. Other than the fact that Marcus had vanished.

Rodger checked all the windows, and they were all still locked.

Rodger checked the fireplace, the charcoal and ash and soot still glowed in smolders. The cast iron pot hung over all that remained of the fire. It was full near to the brim with stew meat and broth. The bread on the table was sliced. The table was set for one. However, something had occurred between the meal prep and the serving and dining. There was a notebook open by the chair at the fireplace. Four words written.

I heard the bells. Rodger, turned the page.

You will too.

©️2026 Dusk Soul