Elena didn't wait for Ben to return.
She couldn't.
The click… click… click from the attic had stopped, but the dread it left behind clung to her skin like damp silk. She needed air. Truth. Someone who wouldn't call it grief or psychosis.
She pulled on her coat and walked the two blocks to Sycamore and Elm, boots crunching on frost-laced gravel. The morning was still, the kind of quiet that makes your own heartbeat feel like shouting.
Mrs. Gable's house was a squat, cedar-shingled cottage with lace curtains and a bird feeder swaying empty in the breeze. No car in the drive. No smoke from the chimney.
Elena knocked.
No answer.
She tried the knob—unlocked.
"Mrs. Gable?" she called, stepping inside. The scent of cinnamon and mothballs wrapped around her like a grandmother's shawl. "It's Elena Vance. Maya's sister."
The living room was tidy but cold. A teacup sat on the coffee table, steam long gone. The TV was off. But the phone…
It lay on the floor, receiver off the hook, a low dial tone humming like a trapped insect.
The 911 hang-up.
Elena's stomach dropped. She moved toward the hallway—
—when a voice rasped from the kitchen doorway.
"You shouldn't be here."
Mrs. Gable stood there, wrapped in a faded quilt, eyes wide and bloodshot. Her silver hair was tangled, her hands shaking. But she was alive.
Elena exhaled in relief. "Thank God. Ben got a call—"
"He shouldn't have come," Mrs. Gable cut in, voice raw. She shuffled forward, clutching the quilt like armor. "It knows now. It knows someone's looking."
Elena frowned. "Who knows?"
The old woman's gaze flicked to the ceiling, then back to Elena with terrifying clarity. "The house. Your sister's house. It's not empty, child. It's full. Full of voices it's eaten."
Elena went still. "You've heard of the Hollow Voice?"
Mrs. Gable let out a dry, broken laugh. "I was ten when Old Man Hargrove vanished. They found his boots by the well, filled with mud and hair. But his voice? They heard it for weeks after—on the radio, in the wind, calling his dog's name. Then it stopped." She leaned closer, breath sour with fear. "Because it found a new voice to wear."
Elena's pulse hammered. "Maya believed it was real."
"It's always real," Mrs. Gable whispered. "It sleeps in quiet places. Wakes when someone listens too hard. And once it tastes a voice…" She trailed off, eyes darting to the window. "You played it, didn't you? The cylinder."
Elena didn't answer. She didn't have to.
Mrs. Gable's face crumpled. "Oh, honey. You've let it in. It won't stop now. It'll learn you. Copy you. And when it's ready…" She touched Elena's throat with bony fingers. "It'll take your voice and leave your body standing, smiling with your face, saying your goodbyes—all while you scream inside, unheard."
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Both women froze.
Mrs. Gable's eyes widened in terror. "It's here," she breathed. "It followed you."
From the hallway, the dial tone on the phone suddenly cut out.
Silence.
Then—
A whisper, thin as cobweb, slithered from the receiver on the floor:
"…Gable…"
Not Elena's voice.
Not Maya's.
Hers.
Mrs. Gable screamed—not in pain, but in recognition. As if she'd just heard her own name spoken by a ghost she'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.
She shoved Elena toward the door. "Run! Don't look back! Don't speak! Don't—"
The lights blew out.
In the sudden dark, Elena stumbled onto the porch, heart in her throat. Behind her, the front door slammed shut with a force that shook the frame.
She pounded on it. "Mrs. Gable! Open up!"
No answer.
Then, from inside, a voice—calm, sweet, familiar—called through the wood:
"I'm fine, dear. Go home now. Everything's alright."
It was Mrs. Gable's voice.
But the words… they didn't fit. Too smooth. Too eager.
Like something trying hard to sound human.
Elena backed away, breath fogging in the cold.
She ran all the way home.
And when she finally dared to look back, Mrs. Gable's curtains were drawn tight.
But in the upstairs window, just for a second, she saw a face watching her.
Smiling.
With too many teeth.
End of Chapter 5