The Choir

A week ago, I was on the beach when sleeper waves caught a mother and her daughter on the rocks and swept them away. Those two were very lucky that some experienced swimmers were there and saved them. That frightening moment gave me the idea for this story, which I wrote so I could contribute another story to #Summer Scare at A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author.

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

The Choir

I was in luck.

The house was perfect in every way, and at a price this bachelor could afford.

The listing had appeared online on a rainy Tuesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, I was standing on the front porch staring at the ocean beyond the dunes. The house sat at the edge of a quiet beachfront neighborhood where weathered cottages and modern vacation homes lined the coast. Most properties here sold for sums that made my head hurt.

This one was different.

Three bedrooms. Hardwood floors. A wraparound porch. Windows facing the sea. And somehow it was less than half the price of every comparable home I’d seen.

I should have asked questions.

Instead, I dreamily imagined morning coffee overlooking the white caps and signed the paperwork before anyone else could snatch it away.

Only later would I remember the realtor’s expression. The way her shoulders relaxed. The sigh that escaped her lips at the final stroke of my pen.

At the time, I thought she was tired after a busy morning. I was wrong

I was so excited about my big “find” that I chose to stay the night and arrange for my things to come later. I couldn’t wait for my first sunset stroll on warm sand.

As I returned, feet sandy and pant legs rolled to my knees, I paused to stare at my new neighborhood. It was strangely quiet. No children played outside. No dogs barked behind fences. Curtains twitched in nearby houses as I walked onto the porch, but when I looked directly, those curtains became still.

The locals were watching me. Hmm. I’d have to work on being a good, trustworthy new neighbor.

I only had the essentials that first night: a mattress, some clothes, a few dishes, and a bottle of Mums I’d been saving for a special occasion. The cork exploded, leaving a small dent in the ceiling—my first celebratory moment marked overhead.

“To new beginnings,” I said, lifting my glass and smiling up at that spot.

I drank the sparkling wine in the kitchen while moonlight spilled through the windows. Perfect.

By the time I’d drained my glass, the house seemed to grow warmer. At first I welcomed it. The ocean breeze carried a chill, and the extra heat felt cozy, but the temperature kept rising.

Within half an hour, sweat dampened my shirt.

I checked the thermostat. It read seventy-eight degrees, so I lowered it to sixty-eight, and the vents immediately blasted freezing air.

“Well, that’s not right.” The warmth vanished quickly, and cold crept along the walls and the hardwood floors. The corners of the windows sparkled with frost crystals.

I adjusted the thermostat again, and the screen flickered. When the numbers disappeared, the thermostat died, and silence inside fell over me like a dense blanket.

Outside, the ocean roared and plunged onto the sand, but the sound was too loud now —too close.

Around me, the cold deepened.

I retreated upstairs to the bedroom where I cocooned myself in the duvet I’d brought, and huddled, listening to the beams groan overhead, and the floorboards creak around me as I lay on the mattress. At first, it was almost soothing, but after midnight, the creaking turned staccato. I unwrapped myself and stood listening. It was soft at first, but the melody grew louder until I recognized what it was. A dirge.

It was heartbreaking, and I wiped tears away listening to the increasing number of voices. And then people appeared, and I froze in fear. I’d never believed in ghosts, but here I was surrounded by them.

A woman, arms thrashing as if struggling in high waves, seaweed tangled in her hair…A child in tattered clothes, dripping seawater, gasping for air…A fisherman reaching for a life preserver…never within his grasp.

More followed.

Men and women.

Children.

Seasoned sailors.

They passed through the rooms in a silent, grim procession toward the staircase, and then descended, never looking back.

I still couldn’t move. My breathing was so shallow that I felt lightheaded, but I couldn’t stop watching.

A little girl paused beside me, her skin a bluish white. “Being always cold is the hardest,” she whispered before moving on.

An old fisherman with empty eye sockets peered up at me. “Are you sure, Mate?”

A young woman, clutching an infant. “They have already noticed you.”

The strange messages continued.

Each spirit seemed more frightened than I was, and that terrified me most. They weren’t telling me about what had happened to them. They feared something else. The walls vibrated with that fear.

Finally, the last one beckoned me to follow, and despite every instinct screaming at me not to, I did. At the bottom of the stairs, I confronted a door I hadn’t seen during the tour. In fact, I knew it had not been there when the realtor walked me through. But there it was now, and the ghosts were vanishing behind it in a silent, endless parade of despair.

The moment I touched the door, I was caught up into a storm. I was aboard a ship driven onto hidden rocks. The screams of the dying, bodies facedown floated on the water. I was choking, drowning. And when that horrible image subsided, there they stood, two towering figures.

“Who…” I couldn’t finish asking, but it didn’t matter. Somehow I’d learned their story in the moment I’d imagined myself in that shipwreck.

They were the original owners of the house, she a grieving widow and who was mad with sorrow and loneliness after losing her husband at sea. She had spent years waiting for his return. Years singing to the ocean, begging it to give him back.

And then, something answered. An ancient voice from beneath the waves that promised she would never be alone again. It would send her beloved husband to her, but only on one condition. The singing had to continue loud and forever.

Their lips parted—more grimaces than smiles, and the hundreds of pale figures that had streamed past me were now a choir. Their song, that dirge so heavy with death it stopped my breath.

All of their empty eyes looked directly at me. At once I understood that the dead weren’t trapped there. They were recruiting. The procession had never been a warning. It was an invitation. A courtesy extended to every new owner.

I had one chance to leave, one chance to escape before I’d drown and become a part of the choir.

The widow took a step toward me.

The deadly sound of the ocean became deafening.

And from all around me, voices whispered, ”Stay.”

I ran.

I don’t remember reaching my car.

I don’t remember driving. I only remember that dawn found me miles inland, shaking uncontrollably at a roadside stop. From there I drove as far away from that house and the sea as I could, and I never went back.

The house sold again three months later. Then again the following year. And again after that.

Sometimes, when storms roll in from the ocean, I search property records online, and I’ve found that the house is always occupied—the owners always new

I escaped, but every so often, late at night, I hear a faint melody drifting through my phone speaker—a dirge.

It grows louder with every passing year as though the choir, like a steady rising tide, is creeping closer. Every year, I move farther inland.

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