There is something in the coal silos and it sings to us at night. We can't understand the words but the meaning drifts through our minds like a second layer of thought, intrusive but gentle. Like it wants to talk to us, it wants us to know but it's too weak right now.
We started feeding it at dusk in the hope that its message would become clearer as it grew. At first it rejected our food, the fruits and vegetables we threw down were thrown back with such force that it blinded Mr Greaves. That night the song made us all sick and feverish.
When we offered it a freshly killed pig it managed to sing out a single clear word - more. From then on the kills were fresher and bigger to the point where five to ten cows were lifted to the top of the silos and stunned before being dropped into the joyous maw.
Before long, the cattle stopped satisfying it and the clear word became garbled and hazy like it used to be before we ever tried to feed it. They say Mr Greaves slipped and fell, what with his bad eyesight and all, but we all know he was pushed and we're all grateful for his sacrifice.
Because of his death, we were able to hear it sing to us all night and we understood each blessed word. It wanted us to bring it more meat, fresher meat, and we obliged. In such a remote area, people go missing all the time and if nobody's around to report it then nobody investigates it.
Loners set up their homes in the middle of nowhere all the time, families in the middle of a mid-life crisis uproot and relocate for peace and quiet, runaways deliberately obscure everything about their homes and we still find them. We find them and we bring them back to the silos.
We may not know much about that which sings to us each night but we know better than to forget a feeding.
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