I’m 56, and my husband, David, and I never had children. We tried for years—fertility treatments, adoption, prayers whispered into the dark. Nothing worked. Eventually, the doctors said it was too late, and we were forced to accept the quiet that filled our home, a silence we had come to terms with.
Then, a few weeks after we moved into the old Victorian house, I heard it for the first time. A faint, desperate wail. A baby’s cry.
I shot up in bed, heart racing. “David,” I whispered, nudging him awake.
He groaned, barely opening his eyes. “What is it?”
“I think… I hear a baby crying,” I said, my voice trembling.
He sat up briefly, then shook his head. “There’s no baby, Ellen. Go back to sleep.”
But I couldn’t shake the sound. The next night, it happened again. This time, I followed the sound downstairs. It grew louder near the basement door. My pulse quickened as I reached for the doorknob. But the crying stopped. Just like that.
The next day, I searched the basement, finding nothing but old brick walls and dusty boxes. Maybe I was imagining things, I thought. But the next night, the crying returned. When I told David, he brushed it off again.
“It’s stress, Ellen,” he said, his tone dismissive. But there was something in his eyes, a flicker of guilt, that made me suspicious.
Unable to take it any longer, I waited for him to fall asleep one night. With a flashlight in hand, determined to uncover the truth, I crept down to the basement. As I descended the creaky stairs, the crying grew louder. It was real.
The beam of my flashlight illuminated the basement’s cold, damp interior. My breath came in short gasps as I searched every corner, every shadow. The crying seemed to come from the far wall, where an old wooden shelf stood. I moved it aside and discovered a small, hidden door.
My hands trembled as I pulled it open. Behind it was a narrow passage, barely wide enough to squeeze through. The crying echoed louder now, reverberating down the hidden tunnel. With my heart pounding in my chest, I stepped inside.
The air grew colder as I walked, the flashlight beam barely piercing the darkness. The crying continued, but now it sounded… distorted. Not quite human. My fear grew with every step. Finally, I reached the end of the tunnel and found myself in a small, stone room. It was empty, save for an old cradle sitting in the center. The crying abruptly stopped.
I approached the cradle, my hands clammy with sweat. It rocked gently, though there was no baby inside. Just an old, tattered blanket. As I stood there, frozen in fear, I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck.
I turned around, but there was nothing there. The crying started again, this time behind me. I bolted out of the room, through the tunnel, and up the stairs, slamming the basement door shut behind me. My screams woke David, who found me shaking and incoherent in the kitchen.
When I told him what I had found, he finally confessed. Years ago, before we met, a tragedy had occurred in the house. A young couple lived here, and their infant disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The case was never solved, and the house had been sold, its dark history buried.
We moved out the following week, unable to bear the weight of the haunting cries. To this day, I can still hear that baby’s wail in my nightmares, a chilling reminder of the secrets some houses refuse to keep hidden.
