Laughter Deep in the Hills

It’s devastating to see with your own eyes how what once was a house, a warm home, a refuge of stories and gatherings, suddenly turns into an empty shell, inhabited only by the whisper of the wind slipping through the rotten walls and the screeching of some hidden critter.

The tale spreads from mouth to mouth in the cantinas, across poker tables crowded with old timers, the kind who withstand life’s beatings with a shot of guaro in hand.

They talk about a little farm, or better yet, a scraggly patch of coffee plants tucked deep into the hills.

Good land, the kind that made any farmhand drool.

So good, they said, it must’ve been claimed by the devil himself... or by the goblins.

Even so, something didn’t add up.

Anyone who laid eyes on that place from afar could swear not even rats or bats lived there, and for the villagers, that was a very bad sign.

Something had to be scaring all life away.

But as they say: not everything that glitters is gold!

One young man, fed up with all the small-town gossip, got it into his head to see it with his own eyes.

He grabbed his machete, slung his ruana over his shoulder, and one Friday afternoon headed deep into the hills to take a look at the damned farm.

As he approached, he noticed something was off.

The place seemed frozen in time: no cobwebs, no crickets, no bugs, not a trace of life.

But stubborn as a mule, the boy started clearing the weeds at the entrance.

The more he hacked away, the colder the breeze that crept up his legs...

and faint, mocking giggles started buzzing around him, sneaking into his head like invisible mosquitoes.

He didn’t understand a thing, but kept working, machete swinging, until he heard it clearly:

laughter spilling straight out of the house.

With guts in his chest and the machete firm in his hand, he pushed the door open and a stampede of bats came flying at him!

Or so he thought.

When he blinked, he realized the door wasn’t even open.

There were no bats.

Everything was just the same: the cold, the hills, the silence... and the laughter, closer now.

He shook off the fear, pressed the machete to his chest... and finished what he had started.

—Kids these days, I tell you —grumbled one of the old timers, shaking his head and pointing at the poker table—.

I warned them. That boy was too damn nosy... and look what happened.

The old man threw down his hand: two Jokers, each drawn with the sly, mocking grin of a goblin.