Excerpt from an unamed story

Calvin and Sally were now on the farmland, yet neither of them had seen any signs of live, not even cattle roaming about the land. Calvin could see the fences were still intact that would keep animals from running wild, yet he saw no signs of life. Judging by the sun’s placement, Calvin gathered that it must be around the tenth hour before the midday.
“Does it strike you as odd that we are not far from midday and we have yet to see any signs of life?” Sally’s question broke the silence.
“Yes,” calving agreed. He looked at Sally’s concerned face. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Do you think we should continue on?” Sally stared deeply at the farm that lay in front of them.”
Calvin weighed his options before speaking. We are in need of food, yet my gut tells me venturing further could be dangerous-
His thoughts were cut off by Sally speaking again. “I think we should check this out, I don’t feel comfortable standing out in the open during the day. For all we know rangers could be patrolling these lands, and we know the others are safe in the tunnel for now.”
“Uh, right.” Calvin replied seeing Sally’s point. “Then let us continue on.”
The two of them traveled onward toward the main cottage of the farm. As they neared it about a half hour later; Calvin saw that the small wooden cottage had spiderwebs covering a good portion of it. It was a small one room building made up of light brown wooden logs that appeared long dead. Calvin could see many holes in the stacked logs and thoughts of disgusting crunchy bugs crawling inside the wood and infiltrating the cottage filled his head. The grass around the small structure had turned a light beige color indicating that it, like the cottage, was long dead. Sally walked over to the edge of the dead grass and knelt down examining the ground. Calvin thought she looked foolish when she put her face to the ground and moved her hand over the top of the blades. He stood there for several moments watching her, but he could not figure out what she was doing.
Just when he was about to break her concentration by asking her what on earth she was doing, she broke the heavy silence. Her voice cut through it like a knife through warm bread; it was sharp and loud, her usual delicate soprano sing-song tone was harsh and hung in the air. It made Calvin uneasy, like something was out of place; he felt as though her voice gave them away. “If you look at the grass, it’s all torn up. Like someone was digging at it.”
Calvin was confused now, and he could feel his eyebrows coming together on his forehead in a scowl. “Why would someone dig at grass? It makes no sense.”
“Exactly!” Sally was now standing and walking away from the cottage’s rickety, termite infested door. “If you look here,” she pointed down to a line in the ground where green grass met dead grass, “the grass is green.”
“So?” Sally gave Calvin a look that he assumed was annoyance because he was so lost.
“Calvin, isn’t it obvious? It appears that there was a struggle here. It would explain the torn up ground and dead grass. If someone was fighting here they could have gotten to the ground and had to wrestle and claw their way to freedom.”
“I suppose that makes sense, but one fight would not kill all of this grass.” Just then, and idea popped into Calvin’s head. “Sally, what if there was more than one struggle here?”
Sally’s eyes widened and Calvin saw a fear swell up in her that he had not seen since Hammeron had told Calvin of his dream all those nights ago.
“I think your right Calvin. We should head back.” Her voice was trebling and as far from sing-songy as possible. “I don’t want to linger around here anymore.”
Calvin’s stomach lurched, and he swallowed hard pushing air down. He had a pulling feeling inside him that he felt the need to obey; it was pulling back away from this cottage. Yet, he ignored his instinct again. “I’m going to go inside and see if I can’t find food or anything that might aid us.”
At this Sally grew angry. She stomped over to him and grabbed his arm trying to pull him away. “You are not going in there Calvin I have a bad feeling about this place! There is an evil here!”
But Calvin ignored her. He yanked his arm free and held his finger up to his lips, commanding her to be silent. She slumped to the ground and looked up at Calvin. He saw a cross of anger and worry strewn across her face but ignored it. Turning toward the door he started for the cottage.
Calvin grabbed the rusty handle and pushed the door inward. To his amazement, it opened soundlessly. This however, did not ease his fear nor slow his racing heartbeat. He looked back at Sally and saw that she was sitting there shaking her head back and forth, but he continued in. As soon as he stepped fully in the cottage, the door slammed shut behind him. A cold mist came over him. The hair on the nape of his neck stood up and Goosebumps sprouted about his arms. Now he found it hard to breathe and he could feel his heart slowing from lack of blood flow. Cold beads of sweat raced down his forehead and some seeped into his eyes. The salt irritated him and made his vision blurry. From what he could see, the cottage was small. There was a small table on the right wall below a window that was fogged over, at the end of the room was a hearth. It was crumbling into itself and looked like it hadn’t been used in a long time. On either side of the hearth were two wooden rocking chairs. Tentatively, he took a few steps forward, his footsteps made no noise on the rotted wooden floor that should have creaked and moaned under the pressure of his feet. He reached the two rocking chairs; and looked down upon them. He noticed that they, like the cottage hadn’t been used in a very long time. He saw brown flakes indicating that the chairs used to be a fine polished oak color, now they were a frail, dead grey color.
Calvin cautiously reached out his hand and touched the right rocking chair, before he could even register the feel of the rotted wood; it crumbled into dust and fragments. Calvin’s ears rang with a crashing noise that did not fit dust hitting the floor. In a panic, he spun around looking for the source of the noise. Just as he spun around, he heard a curdling scream coming from outside the cottage. He started for the door but was blinded by fog and a swirling of dust. Before he could reach the handle, four hands shot out of the grey abyss and threw him to the floor. He immediately tried to get up and fight, but he was shoved even harder into the floor. The hands felt like a stone force pushing into Calvin’s spine, and he let out a yelp of agony.
Just then the door crashed open and banged on the inner wall of the cottage. All Calvin could see amidst the dust was two sets of feet shuffling along the floor. He was then picked up and turned around, form what little he could see there was a trap door in the floor leading somewhere Calvin did not know.
“Calvin, Help!” Sally coughed, but before he could respond; he was being gagged by a cloth and a black sack was pulled over his head.