Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I'd signed on for a seasonal
job with the state preservation program, just temporary trail work,
mostly maintenance and documentation out in the backwards niar Kovna County.
Each of us got a section mine with Section D.
It was the roughest one, according to the coordinator. Overgrown remote,
no paved access roads, just a mess of old mining
pass cut into the hillside back when horses still hold carts.
Some parts hadn't seen a footstep in decades, which honestly
I didn't mind. I liked alone. There were six of
us in total. We each got his own to cover
at a radio with a chicken schedule three times a
day every day. My spot didn't have cell service verready
even had a trail. I had to hike in from
the south side and follow a flag rat that one
of the surveyors had set up years ago. First couple days,
a cleave brush flagged new erosion and made notes using
a digital recorder they issued. By the third day, I
started feeling familiar with a layo. The day everything started,
I got to the trail early. Sun wasn't fully up yet,
and I wanted to reach an old clearing that had
been logged in the records as the sight of a
collapsed boundary marker, supposedly from the nineteen teens. Took me
close to forty five minutes just to hike in. The
trail twisted through ferns and down timber, and I had
to scramble across a copple switchbacks that were barely holding together.
Once I reached the clearing, I set my pack down
beside the first marker and got to work. It had
slid half way out of the slope over time, but
the top paff still had some inscription left. I cleaned
around it, snapped a few photos, and lobbered a note.
Everything was quiet, dead quiet, actually, but that wasn't unusual
That part of the woods was always still, No birds,
no buzzing, just the sound of me scraping dirt. Then
I stood up to stretch and something caught my eye.
Up at the top of the slope, maybe twenty or
twenty five yards away, there was a wooden stake sticking
out of the ground, crooked and thin, definitely not part
of any state marker, and tied to the top was
a strip of red cloth looked like a ban on, frayed,
soaked through, clinging to the wood that wasn't the day before.
I reached for my radio cold in just to document
it cut nothing but static. I checked my watch, still
twenty minutes until the schedule check in. I figured i'd
look it manually, so I grabbed my recorder, left my
pat by the marker, and climbed up to take a
closer look. The cloth was weird. It looked old, but
also wet, not damp from dew, but soaked like I
had been buried and pulled up. There were markings on
the stake toohallow carvings, almost like some one had used
a pocket knife to dig circles into the wood. Nothing intricate,
just rough outlines like they were doing it in a
hurry o with shaky hands. I took a picture, made
a note into the recorder. Then I turned round and
my pack was gone. At first I thought I'd just
lost my bearings. Maybe I'd warked farther up than I thought.
But no, the exposed maker i'd been working on was
still right there. My tools were next to it, exactly
where I left them, just no pack. I walked back down,
checked the area. No sign of anything, no broken twigs,
no dry mugs in the dirt. It's not like someone
could have snuck up, grabbed it and left without me hearing.
I went back up toward the stake. The cloth was
gone now. The impression from where it had been tied
was still visible in the bark, by the cloth itself
completely gone. I hadn't heard anything move, there was no wind, nothing.
I started checking the trail again, walking small loops, retracing
my steps. The whole section wasn't that big. Maybe four
acre's turtle. I should have seen it. The red canvas
would have stood out, even under brush, but there was nothing.
It was just gone. Eventually, I hacked out early and
went straight to the sight shed. The coordinator didn't say much,
took my report, told me to take the next day off.
He probably thought I lost it and didn't want to
admit it. Honestly, that would have made more sense. The
next morning, I woke up to a voicemail from Marla,
one of the other contractors. She worked Section F, which
was about two miles from mine. Her voice sounded, I
don't know, shaky, not scared exactly, just strained. She said,
she'd found a pack that didn't belong to her. Said
it was red canvas with the torn zipper and an
old pot tag. Scrabbed it exactly my pack. I called
her back immediately, but it rang out no answer. When
I got to the site that afternoon, the co ordinator
said Marla had called him sick. I asked if she
dropped off the pack before leaving. He looked at me
like i'd asked. She flew to work, said she hadn't
brought anything in. That night, I couldn't sleep, had this
feeling like the dream was already waiting for me and
my usual trail, but something felt wrong. I wasn't holding
my tools. I was dragging the wooden stake as tips,
graving the dirt and the bandanna. It was tied around
my wrists, snug and damp, like a warning. I woke
up with my shirt stuck to my back, checked my
phone again. Nothing for Marla, nothing at all. The day after,
I did something I probably shouldn't have. I went out
to Section E F though I just needed to see
it from myself. I followed the mark of flags she
had left, bright orange strips tied low spaced every twenty
yards five minutes in they just stopped up. Ahead was
a small clearing, no tools, no signs of work, just
a single wooden steak in the center, same shape, same lean,
red cloths tied to the top. I didn't want to
get closer, but I did, and behind a patch of thorns,
half hidden under brumbles, I saw my pack. It was
torn open, like something had rumished through it. My recorder
was still inside. I turned it on. The first entrans
were mine, these clogs from that morning, me describing the marker,
the red cloth. Then ten seconds of static. Then came
the breeding, slow, deliberate, not mine. It sounded too close
to the mic, like it was sitting in someone's lap.
Then my voice again, except I never set what it said,
stop bringing them. That said three words, but in my
exact voice. I turned it off to the record of
the pack what was left of it, and left straight
back through the trees, no stops, back to the Chatau
the coordinator. I was quitting, no explanation. I packed up
the afternoon and drove straight out of Covenor County. Didn't
wait for the last check. The job at Breeber Mining
Museum sounded like a dream gig. When I first got
it night security. The guy who used to cover the
shift had just retired and they brought in a contractor
to replace him, and that contractor hired me. All I
had to do was walk the circuit a few times,
signed the log sheet every ire and make sure nobody
broke in to mess with the exhibits, which, to be honest,
rarely happened. The place basically ran itself. The museum used
to be an act of cold processing center back in
the fifties. Now most of it was cleaned up in
section into walkable exhibits with paccards and manequins and ulgear.
There was a freight elevator that ran all the way
down to the basement archive. That area was off limits
unless he had a very specific reason to be down there, curators,
maintenance staff, maybe an electrician. I had the key clipped
to my belt with the rest of the ring, along
with the back up door coding case. The elevated lytched,
but I wasn't supposed to use it. My supervisor literally said,
don't mess with it unless something brakes would catch his fire.
First couple of weeks were smooth, not single weird moment.
I'd show up just before ten clock in, grab a
coffee from the little break room, and plant myself behind
a main desk with whatever book I was working for.
Every so often i'd walk around check each wing, look
over the displays, shine my flasklight down the holes, just
to look official. Most nights I didn't see another soul.
But on the forty to night something changed. It was
ten thirty, give or take, and I had just finished
one of my usual laps. I was settling back into
my chair when I heard a scraping sound from the
back exhibit metallic lough. Not super loud, but sharp enough
to get my attention. It sounded like someone dragged a
pipe across a concrete floor. I figured maybe something fell.
There were shells and displays back there. Not everything was
nailed down. Oh maybe it was a rat. Place was old,
after all. I grabbed my flashlight and headed over. By
the time I got there, it was silent. Everything looked normal.
The manequins were where they always were, frozen mincewing with
rusted pickaxes. The mining cut was still on its little
rail section. Nothing looked out of place. I was turning
to leave when it happened again. Another scrape, this one
louder from behind the seal double doors that led to
the old freight tunnel. That tunnel was sealed off on
before I ever got there, collapsed in the light seventies.
From what I heard. There was even a plaque near
the door that mentioned the cave in and how the
museum preserved the site for historical context. Nobody went in,
nobody came out. I waited, listened. It was quiet again
for the rest of the night. I sat with one
eye on the hallway that led to those doors. Told
myself it was old pipes or an echo from some
way deeper in the building. But then it happened again
and again, three nights in a row, always around the
same time, always the same place, just once each night,
the scrape, then silence. At a third night, I started
adjusting my round so i'd be standing near the door
at ten point thirty, just in case. One night, I
swear I heard something else like rebel shifting verily audible,
but it was there. I leaned in, held my ear
to the door. Not then no breeze, no warmth, no vibration,
just still heavy air on the other side. I gave
up on the rat theory. Then rats don't keep a schedule.
On the fifth night, it changed. First came the scrape,
then faint and soft. I heard some one breathe out,
like they'd been holding it in for too long, just
one breath, not a gasp, just to release. I backed away.
I didn't turn my back on the doors until I
was down in the hall and around the corner. I
didn't ride anything in the love. No damage, no evidence,
no incident, just noise. After that, something shifted, not in
the building, in me. I started fillin watch, not all
the time, not everywhere. Just when I passed the elevator,
I'd walked past it and get this weird buzz in
my spine, like there was some one standing right behind me,
just barely out of reach, never moving, just present. The
elevator made a humming noise when it was cold. That's
how I knew something was off. Night seven, ten twenty eight,
I was in the central hall, nowhere near the panel.
I heard the hum gears turning, then the thunk as
it stopped on my floor. I walked over slowly. The
doors were still shut. I swiped my key and opened them.
Nobody inside that There was a footprint in the dust,
just once smaller than mine. Facing the wall in the
back corner. I locked the whole thing down. After that,
disable the panel flipped the breaker in the elevator's circuit.
I didn't mention it to anyone, just rode a big
note in the lock. Maintenance requested elevator cycling to it
as soon as I pot almost drove back, but the
side entrance had been left open for a delivery. I
figured I could close up from the inside, skip the basement,
and deal with it tomorrow. Everything seemed fine until I
heard the elevator hum again. I didn't have the key,
couldn't open it, couldn't stop it. I just stood there
as it rose to the ground floor and stopped. The
doors didn't open right away, but I could see something inside,
a shadow, a shape not standing straight bent eye awaited.
My legs started to lock up. Then the doors slid open, empty,
or at least it looked that way. The walls were clean,
floor bear but the air. But the air. The air
felt runlike something heavy was hanging into the silence in
that moment felt physical, like pressure on my chest. The
doors closed on there. When the elevator went back down.
The next night, I brought the keys and decided to
take a look for it. I had to see what
was going on down there. I waited until after ten,
then took the elevator to the basement. The moment I
stepped out, I felt the air change thicker, damp, almost
like the whole place had been under water a few
hours before and was still drying off. My flashlight cut
through these big, lazy swells of dust. Every step echoed
longer than it should have. I passed shells of old helmets,
stacks of rotting crates. The morning log room was straight ahead.
Right before I got to it, the air dropped cold,
not as he cold, more like walking into a stone
cellar after rain. The tunnel door, the one that was
supposed to be sealed ship, was cracked open. I stopped,
just stood there for a long second, staring that door
hadn't moved in decades. Then I heard it, my name, Jonah,
soft whisper, like someone testing it out. I didn't move,
didn't breathe. Then it came again, stretched longer this time,
like whoever was saying it was trying to remember how
to form the word Jonah. I shut the door, locked
it manually. I didn't turn around until I was in
the elevator. As the doors closed, I heard it again,
closer now, my name repeated in a breathy rhythm, like
some one was practicing it under water. I rode up
and stayed at the desk until daylight. I didn't quit,
I didn't transfer. I still worked the shift, same night's,
same rounds, but I don't go near the elevator any more.
My cousin, Micah, had just bought the Sole Triplets in
a little place called Fulton Ridge, not far from Elkins,
West Virginia. The buildings sat on the slope, just off
a back road, kind of half sunken into the hillside.
Three stacked units, all the same layout, the kitchen and
living room in the front, two small bedrooms in the back,
and a bathroom tucked between them. The top unit hadn't
been touched in years. Micah had already hired people to
deal with the big stuff, new h track, updated plumbing,
cleaned out the gutters. He needed help with the odds
and ends, painting, fixing broken cabinets, maybe reinstalling a doorbell.
If I was feeling generous, he said, if I came
up for a few days, he'd cover gas and I
could stay in the thout four unit to save time.
He even left me some basic groceries in the fridge,
microway of burritos, a loaf of bread, and a six
pack of something unremarkable. I figured, why not, I've been
between projects an Honestly, the idea of getting away from
my noisy apartment for a few quiet days of manual
sounded almost like a vacation. That third four unit had electricity,
but no WiFi yet, and barely any cell signal unless
he stood at one weird angle in the living room.
But it was peaceful, just me, my tools and the
slow tick of an old thermostat the first two days
went fine. I fixed the sagging kitchen drawer, sanded the
walls in the bath room, and started the first coat
o paint in the smaller bedroom. I'd usually work until
above ten, eat something quick, and crash on the catch
with a podcast I pre downloaded. Nothing spooky, just me
being productive. Then came night three. It was a little
after midnight when I heard it. I was half asleep,
wrapped up in a blanket on the couch when the soft,
full knocking pulled me back up. Not from the hallway,
not the sailwell above me, slow rithick, three knocks, a
few seconds of silence, then three more. A first, I
told myself it was just the building settling. It was
an old place, full of odd angles and weird drafts.
Maybe something had shifted on the roof, a loose gutter,
a tree branch graping in the wind. I weeded it out,
nothing else happened. Still it stuck in my head. The
next morning I mentioned it to Mike a while we
were unloading some supplies from his truck. He just laughed
and said, dude, that place is always creaking. I swear
its God Auphradis. Then he added, kind of offend that
the attic door sometimes jawned. The last tenants had uced
the space for storage, but no one had been up
there since. I asked if it was locked. He scratched
his head and said it should be, but sometimes the
latch doesn't catch all the way. That made me pause.
Back inside, I took a better look at the in
the hallway. Sure enough, there was a pul dunb outic
door just above the cook closet, the kind with a
robe loop you can tug on. I didn't open it,
just moved a chair underneath, partly out of curiosity, partly
to keep an eye on it. That evening, I was
back in the bedroom painting around the window frame when
the lights flickered, not just a little dim like a surge,
fully blinked on and off three times exactly three. Then nothing,
just steady light like it happened. I stood there, holding
my brush midaut trying to decide whether I'd imagined it.
Then came the footsteps right above me. Not fast, not heavy,
just slow, deliberate pacing. One step, pause, another directly overhead,
and then the knock, same pattern, three slow hits, solemns,
then three more. That was enough. I grabbed my flask slight,
pulled out a cord, and let the ladder unfold. It
came down, stiff, joints creaking like they had moved in years.
I climbed up just far enough to put my head
through the opening and sweep the beam of light around. Nothing.
No boxes, no insulation, no furniture, just bare wood and dust.
But in the center of the floor the dust was disturbed,
not footprints exactly, more like smudges, long dragged heel marks,
like someone had sat down and skewed it. Backwards slowly
across the boats. That image lodged in my brain. I
didn't sleep. I stayed on the couch, lights on he Is,
tuned to every creek and pop from the ceiling. In
the morning, I told Mike i'd stick around to finish
what I'd started, but I was only working during daylight,
no more overnight shifts. Around four that afternoon, I was
reorganizing the tilbin when I heard footsteps in the hallway again,
just regular walking. I figured maybe Mike had come back,
or one of the contractors had dropped in without knocking.
I opened the door. No one, hallway was empty. I
checked a stairwell, front door, still locked from the inside.
I started moving from room to room, calling out, just
in case some one was being weared. All the rooms
looked and touched until I got to the bath room.
There and the mirror were these two long, smeared hand prints,
wileigh cloudy streaks, running from about eye level all the
way down to the counter, like some one had pressed
their pums flat against the glass and slowly dried them downward.
I stared at them for a while. My stomach did
that slow, uneasy flip. I didn't wipe them off. That night,
Mica came by again to help me pack up the
heavier stuff. As we were locking up, he suddenly stopped
on the driveway and pointed up. Did you open that?
He asked. The kitchen window on the third floor, where
I'd been sleeping, was cracked half way open. I said no,
I'd never touched it. The windows in that place were
old and a pane to move. I hadn't even tried.
We went back up stairs and checked it out. The
latch was technically still engaged, but the wood around it
was splintered and soft, like it had been forced open
from the inside, not pride from the outside, pushed with pressure.
We looked at each other, then at the attic door.
One last check. We climbed out, both of us. This time.
It'sa an empty space, same dusty floor, but there was
something new right near the top of the ladder, a
tightly rolled piece of newspaper, just sitting there, like it
had been placed deliberately. Mike unrolled it. The paper was yellow,
dated July of nineteen eighty seven. Inside some one had
circled an obituary and thick red ink. I didn't recognize
the name. Nita did he but underneath it read in
faint crooked pencil or five words, You're not supposed to
be here. We didn't say anything. We just climbed back down,
closed the attic, and lock everything we could. I left
early the next morning. I didn't even stop for coffee,
just drove. My shift at the reclamation office started at seven,
and I was already sorting in tick locks when the
first odd entry showed up. A palette of old circuit
panels had been marked as delivered, even though I knew
for a fact I hadn't signed anything. I'd even checked
the yard myself. Nothing there. I'd only been working there
a few weeks. Contract position, nothing permanent, but it was
decent money, steady eyres and quiet. I like quiet it.
The office sat at the edge of Rivermont's old industrial strip,
tucked between a recycling center and a defunct textile plant,
so when that entry popped up in the lock it
caught me off guard. I double checked everything, dates, time stamps,
even the electronic sign off locks. Nothing matched. It looked
like someone had delivered that palette, scandered into the system,
and then vanished it. I logged the discrepancy and moved
on weird but not unexplainable. About the night or later,
I was doing a walk crew and noticed a single
panel syin type as the ones on the missing palette,
leaning against the conveyor, just sitting there like some one
had placed it carefully to be noticed. I stood there
for a while, thinking maybe one of the other workers
moved it without updating the locks. Happened sometimes. I asked
Karl and Alva, the only two others on that shift,
but both just gave me blank looks. Pal muttered something
about probably inventory screw ups, then went back to taping
up boxes like he couldn't be bothered. Alva didn't even respond.
I marked it down, moved the panel to holding, and
tried to let it go. But the next day there
were two. Both were the exact same model, same condition,
old green housings, dented corners, the kind we usually pulled
from demolition sites. One was by the loading bay, the
other propped against my desk. Now La got undermaskin the
office days locked over night. I'm the one who opens,
so unless someone at keys or it stayed late without
signing out, it didn't make sense. I checked the locks.
Nothing secure fotage, of course, the camera near the entrance
had gone out three days earlier. Still waiting on maintenance,
I moved the panels again, this time into the back
storage room and wedged a dolly against the door. It
wasn't high security, but I just wanted to see if
this daid put. That evening I met a guy named Farrell.
Said he'd been brought in for evening inspections since we
were short staffed. He was probably mid fifties then, sun
worn skin, walked with a hitch in a step, like
he'd spent most of his life holding things that weren't
meant to behold by hand. He asked quiet questions, always
looked past you when he talked, like he was watching
the corners of the room. First time I mentioned the panels,
he didn't seem surprised, just said, yeah, sometimes they show
up in twos. It's when NURSERIEU got to worry. Then
he laughed in the slow, rasped up way, like he
told a joke, only he understood. I asked what he meant,
but he changed the subject. Asked me if I ever
worked near electrical dumps, told me to let him know
if the lights in the break room flickered for more
than three seconds, that kind of thing. The next week,
Ferroldon show, no call, no warning. This badge was still
in the system, but he stopped clocking in. The supervisor
shroved it off seth contract workers were always flaking. I
got moved to evening shifts to cover first night alone.
I did the walk through in surprise. Three panels now
all prop neatly against the inside at the back office door.
I remember standing in the hallway first all ad minute,
not moving, just listening, not for foodstuts or voices, but
for that quiet, Charles kind of stillness that makes your
stomach feel heavy. I pushed them outside and stacked them
near the dumpster. Fifteen minutes later, when I came back
when logging disposalwaits, they were gone. I didn't see any one.
The yard was empty, no wind, no animals, nothing. I
left early that night told the supervisor of the sorting
bay was leaking coolant and someone needed to look at it.
Two mornings later, I woke up to a soft sound
from the front room, like something metallic shifting against linoleum.
I sat up too fast, pulled something in my neck.
When I walked into the living room, one of the
panels was there, just one standing up right beside my brookshelf.
I hadn't brought it home. I hadn't even touched one
since I left them outside. I stood across from it
for a while, didn't move closer. Eventually I got a
heavy blanket, wrapped it up, carried outside, and shoved it
in the trunk of my car. I drove it all
the way up past Grainger Hill and dumped it in
the old cory lot behind some broken fencing. Didn't think twice,
but the next night it was back, same spot in
my living room, same dust on the bottom edge. I
don't know how it got there. Nothing in my apartment
was broken, the door was locked. I saw it staying
at a friend's place for a while. Janna, some one
I knew from back when Ewart Municipal inventory, she had
to pull up, SOFO didn't ask too many questions. When
I finally came home, the panel was gone, but there
were three small indentations in the floor where it had stood,
deep enough to mark the vinyl. That's when I stopped
sleeping properly. I tried burning one of them. Took it
up behind the reclamation lot. Dalsa with ethanol lit it
it burned sure, or at least the casing did melt,
a plastic, stinking smoke that The next morning, when I
pulled into the lot, a matching panel was waiting at
my station, brand new casing, no bear marks, same serial
number etched on the corner. I stopped touching them, started
documenting everything with photos, dated logs. I even recorded audio.
One night when I left one in the hallway, the
playback just had this faint start to come under everything,
like the sound to see art he used to make
when you weren't looking directly at it, but there were
also clix rhythmic, almost like typing. I sent the recording
to a friend who does audio engineering. He said it
was probably electromagnetic interference. Then he asked if I had
been recording in a room with any live transmission equipment.
I hadn't. Then Verol came back out of nowhere. One night,
I pulled into the lot and his truck was there.
Parkside was near the exit gate. He was sitting inside,
engine off, windows down. When I walked over. He didn't
look at me. He said, I saw it again, but
it's not staying underground anymore more. I didn't ask what
he meant, but I noticed his hands were shaking. I
asked if he needed help. He just looked at me
and said, it wants patrons, That's how it spreads. Then
he started his track and drove off. The next day,
the Riclamation Office hit of fire electrical fault, total loss.
They never found Farrell. I quit, didn't even give notice,
just packed up, turned off my phone and drove until
I ran out of highway. I'm in a small town now,
off the grate more or less, no job tied to
logistics or data systems. I was clearing out brushing the
old side trail behind Bramble Creek when I noticed the rocks.
I've been doing seasonal work with the Seat of Hollow
Trails Department for a couple of years now. That rouge
section hadn't been touched in years, maybe longer, wasn't on
the current trail maps. I only found it because a
windsworm had knocked over a few trees and I was
roared in hikers around the damage. I ended up busheroking
out the side path just to see where it led.
That's when I came across the stones. Later that day,
when I mentioned the ridge trail to my supervisor Karen.
She got this odd look, like I'd said something she
didn't expect to hear. EUMENI e's fork. She asked, that
thing's been closed off since before I started. Don't mess
with it too, dangerous dead trees, old sinkholes and stable everything.
She said it casually, but her voice had this word
added to it, like she wasn't just talking about safety,
more like she didn't want to hear not a word
about it. I let it drop, didn't tell her about
the markers, but I couldn't stop thinking about them that
whole week. It stuck in the back of my mind.
Those stones weren't random. Fifteen of them, each won a
little different in shape, but all about the same size,
placed in such a precise way that you just knew
someone meant for them to be found by some one?
But who and why? So, like an idiot, I went
back after work one day. I hacked him from the south,
where there are any warning signs of flagged off barriers.
I climbed the slope again, ducked under the same dead fall,
and found them right where I left them. This time,
I looked closer. Some of the nails looked nearer. A
few were driven so deep into the stone I couldn't
imagine how someone did it without breaking the rock. Others
were older, crusted with rust spreading out in faint haloes
across the surface. But not one of them looked accidental.
It was deliberate, every inch of it. No names, no dates,
just nails and stone. I stood there a while trying
to figure it out. My best guess was maybe a
forgotten pet cemetery, or one of those old mountain family
plots that never got official records. But still even those
usually had a cross over initials something. This had nothing
but nails. I should have told some one, should have
at least mentioned it to Ray, He's one of the
old timers worked the area along before me. But I didn't.
That was my mistake. The third time I went back,
maybe five days later, there was a new stone, same shape,
same nail, same placement. It was set at the far
end of the last row, perfectly aligned. I walked the
line twice to be sure. There had been fifteen. Now
there were sistine. I stood there for maybe ten minutes,
just staring. I tried to talk myself into believing i'd
counted ron the first time, that maybe I missed it.
Maybe I was tired, but I wasn't. I turned around
and left fast. About twenty yards back down the trail,
I saw something that stopped me cold, A pepper tag
hanging from a low branch. It was tied on with
bright orange t wine trail marking twine, the kind we
used for warning signs, hazards, maintense boundaries. Except we hadn't
flagged anything up here, not for years. This whole section
was off limits. I walked over slowly and read what
was written in faint pencil, not for you. I stood
there with the tag in my hand for a while.
I wasn't sure what to do with it. I ended
up just leaving it there, like maybe it wasn't a
good idea to take it with me. I didn't mention
any of this at work. The next day or the
day after that. Friday afternoon, I took a longer lunch
and drove out for a burger. I parke ined the shade,
eating the truck, just trying to forget about it all.
But when came back out, there was a tag under
my windshield wiper, same kind of paper, same handwriting, same
orange wine. Don't remove the nail that one actually made
me light headed for a second. I just stood by
the truck, staring at it like an idiot. I hadn't
touched a single nail. I'd barely gone near them. Some
one was watching, some one knew. That night. I waited
until we were closing up shop and casually asked Ray
about the old East fork. He was packing up chainsaws
when I brought it up. Didn't even look at me
at first. You been up there, he asked. I shrugged,
just wandered past thought I saw some old markers. That's
when he looked at me, really looked at me. You
kick any No, he nodded once, slowly, like he wasn't
totally convinced, but wasn't going to argue. You don't want
to find the grave that's not buried, he said, because
if you do, you won't come back, the same might
not come back at all. He said it like it
was just a fact. No drama, no trying to scare me.
You're not from here, right, he asked. I shook my head.
Then stop acting like you are. That night, I kept
the blinds closed, lock the doors, double check the back windows.
I live alone in a rental cabin. Way out off
a gravel road, pretty isolated. Round two in the morning,
I heard tapping at the kitchen window. Not constant, not aggressive,
just soft, uneven, like someone lightly knocking with a knuckle.
I stood there on the other side of the kitchen wall,
not moving, just listening. When I finally worked up the narve,
I grabbed my flashlight and went outside. No one was there,
no print, no signs, nothing. But in the morning there
was another paper tack nailed to the edge of the porch.
He stepped too close. I didn't go to work Monday,
just said I was sick. Didn't give a return date.
That afternoon, Ray showed up, no call, no knock, just
standing on the porch. When I opened the door. You
need to take a drive, he said. Now he wouldn't explain,
just kept repeating it. It's worse if you ignore it.
So I papped a bag, got in the truck and
drove west. Didn't tell anyone where I was going. Ended
up two counts over at this cheap motel off Route sixty.
After I lost my job at a warehouse in Pittsburg,
one of those big distribution centers where everything's loud, fast,
and constantly behind schedule. I didn't have much of a PLANSO.
When my uncle Ray said I could crash with him
for a while, I didn't testate. Heard this trailer sitting
near the edge of a ridge in Viaette County, West Virginia,
sat maybe a half hour outside of a tiny town
called Hollow Creek. One gas station, one grocery store, a
laundrum at that barely ran. If I needed real cell
signal or something that was fried food or canned beans,
I had to drive down to Meadowville. Still, for the
first couple weeks, I got used to it. I'd wake up, drink,
burn coffee, tinker with whatever they wanted fix, then read
or scroll my phone until I ran out a signal.
Pretty low stakes living. Then I met this girl at
the gas station just outside Hollow Creek, Lacey. She worked
at the checkout counter, had this quiet confidence about her
and laughed at all my dumb jokes. We talked a
couple times while I bought snacks or filled up the truck,
and eventually I asked if she wanted to hang out.
First time we met up at a little dinner and
just talked forriars. She was funny, shop a little sarcastic,
felt like we clicked fast. A week later, late October,
starting to get cold, she asked if we could hang
out again. I said sure. She didn't want to go
back to her place, said her brother was crashing there,
so I offered up mine. I figured Ray would be
out anyway. He often drove up to Glen Hollow to
drink and walk sports with some guys he'd known since
high school. That night, I picked her up. We grabbed
some food and headed back to the trailer. We pulled
in a round ten hatch light was on flickering as usual.
I unlocked the door and noticed the doormut was pushed
off to one side. Not a big deal, but I
always straightened it when I came or went, one of
those little habits you don't even think about until something's off.
Inside things felt normal enough, except and notice two of
the upper kitchen cabinet doors were hanging slightly open, just
an inch or two. I paused, staring at them, trying
to remember if I'd left them that way. I hadn't.
I'm not tidy, exactly, but I'm not the kind of
guy who leaves cabinets hanging open. I asked Lacy if
she ever had raccoons or anything get into her house.
She laughed and said, maybe my uncle was just forgetful.
Could have been that. Still, it was a strange detail
to let go of. We sat on the couch and
ate half watched some old movie playing on TV. The
vibe was good, comfortable, kind of lazy. I started to relax.
Around eleven, I got a text from her. He said
he was staying at his body's place for the night.
That made me feel better. Knowing we had the place
tie ourselves helped me shake off the word feeling from Eller.
Somewhere between then and midnight, the lights flickered just once.
Lacey made a joke about haunted trailers. I laughed, but
didn't feel like joking. She got up to use the bathroom.
I wandered into the kitchen to grab a soda. That's
when I noticed the back screen door was cracked open.
Not white, but definitely not closed. It hum maybe two
or three inches off the frame. The latch was loose
sometimes so part of me thought it could have just
bounced open, but I knew i'd shut it earlier, locked
it too. I stood there for a while, staring at
the gap, one hand still in the ferge. Eventually I
pushed it closed and slid the bolt tight. My shoulders
fell tense, like I was waiting for something to explain itself.
Lacey came back and noticed the look on my face.
I didn't want to make a big deal out of it.
Told her the back door had blown open. She shrugged
it off, asked if we could step outside for a smoke.
We went out the back stood in the small wooden steps.
The woods beyond the roodge were pitch black. No moon,
no stars, just this wall of trees in darkness. I
kept looking out there like my eyes were trying to
focus on something, but there was nothing. No sounds, no breeze.
The stillness felt heavy. We didn't stay out long. When
we went back inside, A triple checked the door latch bolt,
and I even shoved a small folding chair under the handle.
Lacey gave me a look but didn't say anything. We
went to bed. She fell asleep pretty quick, but I
just laid there staring at the ceiling. The silence was
louder than usual. I couldn't shake this feeling that something
was off. Around two in the morning, I heard it,
not a creek, not the usual trailer settling footsteps, slow,
deliberate on the hallway linoleum. I froze. The door to
my room was shut, but the gap underneath it let
in just enough light from the whole way to sea movement.
A shadow passed by, slow and smooth, some one walking
by the door. For half a second, I thought maybe
Ray had come back after all, But I hadn't heard
his truck, no doors, no gravel crunching, nothing, and whoever
this was, they weren't moving like someone who lived there.
I leaned over and tapped Lacey's shoulder. She stared, blinked,
looked at me. I whispered, I think someone's in the trailer.
Her face shifted instantly. She didn't speak, just stayed still
and listened. Two more steps than nothing. I reached into
the nightston and pulled out raised big metal flashlight. It
was heavy, with ship pained along the handle. Not much
of a weapon, but better than nothing. Then the doorn upturned,
thought slow, A little click, a little click, just testing it.
Lacy shot up in out what the hell. I moved
closer to the door and called out Ray, loud enough
to carry, but not a yell. No answer. The door
knob stopped moving dick quiet. I pressed my ear to
the door. Nothing, no shuffling, no shuffling, no breathing, your silence.
I cracked it open in and she and aimed the
flosite into the hallway, empty eye, opened the door wider
and stepped out, shaped the front door, still locked from
the inside, living room, clear, kitchen, saying bathroom nothing. Then
I remembered the coal space. There was a square hatch
in the hallway floor just past the bath room, covered
by a faded old rock. I walked over and peeled
it back. The worden cover was shifted a few inches,
not wide open, but not sealed like it had been
before I'd vacuumed that rugge earlier in the week. I
would have noticed, I didn't open it. I turned to
Lacey and told her to grab her shoes, coat, anything
she needed. We were leaving. I locked the door behind
us and we got in the track. I drove straight
to a motel and hollow Creek and didn't say a
word the hallway. The next morning I called Ray told
him everything. He came back with a shot gun in
his truck bed and opened the coal space. Inside there
were boot prints the dirt, an empty water bottle in
the corner. Someone had been down there living, sleeping, watching.
Probably the cops came to the search. They found a
tone scrap of flannel, a rusty pocket knife, a match
book from a bar in Beckley, and a trail of
broken branches leading off into the woods. No id, no
finger prints, nothing naked jews. Ray put in a steel
grate over the hatch that same day, bolted it to
the frame. I packed my things and left A week later,
moved to Charleston, found work, tried not to think about it. Now.
I live in an apartment on the third floor with
double locks and motion lights. I check under the bed
every night. Clauset too. Thanksgiving the year was at my
cousin Drew's place, tucked out in the woods near a
little tongue cold Ashford, about twenty minutes pass Bluefield in
southern West Virginia. Drew met me out front when I
pulled up, same wiry frayin, same bus, cut from college,
but now with a pair of Neon orange and a
new fiance in named Haley, who waved from the porch
like we'd met before. I got out of the car
and was immediately pulled into the kail his food, smells
pouring out of the front door, football yelling from the
TV inside, someone's toddler making siren noises for no reason.
The house was huge, way too big for just Drew
and Haley. Five bedrooms, wrap around porch, even a five
pit up back. He said the place used to be
an old hunting lodge that got gutted and renovated. Now
it was just his house, no big deal. Inside it
was shoulder to shoulder. I counted eteeing people, cousins, in laws, kids,
people I wasn't even sure were related, but smiled like
we grew up together. The kind of party where you
start off checking your phone in the corner and by
the end of the night you're laughing over Bier's with
someone who once pushed you off a trampoline in fifth grade.
Dinner was chaos, glates piled high with everything. Haley made
three different kinds of pie for some reason. By the
time we sat down to eat, it was already dark
out and the windows just showed your own reflection. That
weird kind of night were it so quiet outside, feels
like the woods are pressing in in the house. I
crashed in the guest room upstairs, the one with the
floral quilt and a window that looked out over the
graveled driveway. Around midnight, after brushing my tea than trying
to ignore the sons of someone's snoring lovely down the hall,
there was a knock at my door. It was Drew.
He leaned him with a sheepish look, scratching the back
of his neck like he was about to ask for
a ride to the airport. Amen, you'll wake kind of,
I said, I said, what's up? He explained that his knighbor,
Guy Nin Curtis, had asked him to check on his
dogs while he was away for the holiday. Nothing major,
just let them out top off the water, maybe ten
minutes max. Only problem was Drew had not back half
a bottle of wild turkey and wasn't about to drive anywhere.
He'd be doing me a huge favor, he said. I
was about to say no, I was tired, I didn't
want to drive an unfamiliar back was at night. But
then he hit me with remember junior year that night
in Huntington. Went I O kay, fine, I said, cutting
him off. What do I have to do? He handed
me the keys to his truck and gave vague directions.
Down the main road, passed a busted mail box, then
a gravel path to the right. After a bend, you'll
see a tree with a bunch of reflectors nailed to it.
He said, that's the turn. Long driveway. House sits behind
a hill. You'll know it when you see it. So
off I went. The truck was old but steady, tires
crunched over the gravel, and headlights cut through trees that
looked like they'd been since the Civil War. I found
the terrain barely, almost missed it because the reflectors had
fallen and were now just hanging crooked, like they'd melted.
The driveway stretched longer than I expected. When I finally
saw the house, it looked lonely, single story, dark porch,
no cars. The only thing that stood at was the
basement like glowing faintly through a window near the back.
I parked, left the headlights on, and walked around to
the porch. There was a small note tip beside the
basement door. Dogs in back room let the mountain yard
water and bowl by sync. I opened the door. The
smell hit me first, not bad, just musty, like a
space that hadn't seen fresh air. In a while. The dogs,
two black labs, were curled up in the corner on
an old blanket. They perked up when they saw me,
tails wagging low and lazy. Hey guys, I muttered, flipping
the light switch. They stood stretched, padded over. One nuzzled
my leg, friendly, mellow mellow. I opened the back door,
let them out, and leaned against the door frame, waiting.
My phone had to row pause. I tried to check
messages out of habit, but it was like holding a
dead brick. Fine. I watched the dogs instead. They sniffed
around for a bit, walked toward the edge of the yard,
near where the tree lined dipped into a shallow slope.
Then they stopped, both at once, just froze their bodice stiffened,
ears up, tail straight. I was locked on the woods.
I swinted trying to see what they saw. Nothing, no rustling,
no going eyes, not even a breeze. Then the bigger
one took a slow step back, keeping its eyes locked
on whatever it thought was out there. A low growl
rumbled from its chest. The other one whined softly, and
that's when I heard the knocking, not behind me, not
at the front door, under the porch tree knocks, slow,
even like someone tapping with the knuckles against the wood beams.
I didn't move. It didn't sound like a brunch or
an animal. It had rhythm intent. Three more knocks, the
dogs turned and bolted straight back to the basement door.
I opened it without thinking. They ran in, tails tucked,
and immediately huddled in the farthest corner like they couldn't
get far enough way. I locked the door, didn't check
into the porch, didn't even glance back. I walked fast,
almost jawed back to the truck, climbed in, and peeled
out down the gravel. When I got back, Drew was
still up, sitting on the porch with a beer. You goed,
he asked. I told him what I heard, the dogs,
the knocking. He raised his eyebrows but didn't say much.
Just muttered something about sound carrying in the hills. Probably
a possum or raccoon messing around under there. Possums don't knock,
I said, He just shrouked. Weird place. That house has
been empty on and off for years. Curtis inherited it
last spring. I didn't sleep great a round three in
the morning. I woke up with my mouth dry. I
slipped downstairs, quietly, stepping over bodies in sleeping bags and
half finished puzzles. As I opened the fridge, something outside
caught my eye. There was a woman standing in a
field behind the house. No flashlight, no jacket, long hair
hanging down, not blowing even slightly. She was walking, wasn't
looking around, just standing face in the house, directly toward
the window. I was looking through a blink. Still there.
I leaned back slowly, hort knocking against my roops. We
did looked again. Fun. I didn't check the field, didn't
ask about her in the morning, just acted like nothing happened.
Help clean up, thank Cayley for the pies at my back,
and planned to be back on the road before four.
As I was loading up my car, Drew came out. Hey,
he said. Curtis texted said thanks again for helping out.
But now the dogs won't go near the yard. They
just bark at the basement door. I paused, wait what
He nodded like it was nothing. They wouldn't even eat
this morning, just sat there growling. He said it started
last night. I told him again about the knocking the
porch for the dogs. He just gave me a crooked smile.
That house's weird man. Always has been, always has been.
Someone said his uncle guy, who used to live there,
died in the basement. That was enough. I didn't say
goodbye to anyone else, just got in the car and drove.
We were living in this quiet stretch of southern West Virginia,
the kind of place where the highway eventually fades into
nothing and the wood start to reclaim everything. Our house
sat just a couple miles up from what used to
be a mining zone. One of the older one's lawns
shut down, most of the shafts were boarded up and
slowly collapsing, and the forest had been creeping back in
for years. You'd see rusted metal half sunk into the dirt,
old fencing tangled in vines, warning signs that had faded
to wide. Nobody really paid attention to it any more.
That land still technically belonged to a private company, though,
some offshoot of an energy group that didn't you anything
with it anymore except keep liability at bay. My uncle
Rick worked for them, not in any kind of a
Fisher badge in uniform way, just low key contract security.
His job was to make sure people weren't messing around
on the property, mostly keeping drunk teenages out and keeping
scavengers from getting crushed in old structures. That fall, Rick
fell through a rotted floor while checking an old up
buildingier Chaft three, broke his leg bad enough to need
sogery in a long stint on crutches. A few days
after it happened, he asked me if i'd cover a
few of his night patrols until he could get around again.
Said it would just be temporary and off the books,
cash pay, no paperwork. He'd vouch for me. At the time,
I didn't think twice. I was between things, some odd jobs,
no college plans yet, and not much else going on.
It sounded easy enough. Walk a loop, shine a flashlight,
make sure no one's around, maybe bring a snack. He
gave me the key to the axis gate, a rough
map of the area, and a short checklist on a
couldboard I was supposed to fill out during each shift.
The loop itself was about a half mile around. It
started at the perimeter events and curved around two old
mining strokes long since guttered, and then circled the main
entrance to Shaft three, which had a gate over it
and fencing that extended a good thirty feet on either side.
All I had to do was walk the loop once,
check the locks, and log anything unusual. The first couple
nights were uneventful, quiet, actually almost too quiet out there
past midnight. It was the kind of still where your
own breathing felt loud. You could hear animals moving in
the brush rockings, mostly maybe the occasional deer, and sometimes
you'd hear snapping twigs from way off in the woods,
but nothing ever felt close. I always stayed outside the buildings.
Rick told me not to bother unless something really looked off.
The structures were dangerous anyway, no floors, sharp metal masts.
I didn't argue, just gave them a wide breath and
kept moving. But on the third night something caught my eye.
Near the shaft gate. One section of the fence looked nearer.
The chain links were cleaner, like they hadn't been sitting out,
and the weathers long. The posts were brighter too. At
first I figured maybe the company had sent some one
out to patch it recently, be after Rick's accident, but
there wasn't any note about it on the checklis store
in the low book. I knelt down for a closer look.
No rost nowhere, and then I noticed the lock on
the gate was different. The one I'd seen the past
two nights was old and dull, all scatched up. This
one brand new, shiny. You could still see the barcode
sticker in the bottom. It hadn't been there before, and
no one had told us to expect any replacements. I
jotted it down on the clipboard and finished my loop.
Nothing else seemed out of place. The next night, I
showed up like usual around quarter after midnight, walked the path.
When I got close to the chaft gate, I stopped.
The new lock was gone. The gate was wide open.
It was just cracked, maybe four or five inches, but
enough that someone could slip through if they wanted to.
I stood there for a while, just listening. I didn't
hear anything, no wind, no movement, but that tiny opening
just sat there waiting. I got the weirdest sensation that
if I stood still long enough, something would step out
from the darkness behind it. I didn't go here, I
didn't touch the gate. I backed up, walked the entire
loop again and logged the anomaly. Later that morning, I
told Rick he just stared for a second like he
was surprised. Then he sighed and said, just don't go
near it, let them handle it. I wanted to ask
who them was, but I didn't. Two nights after that,
the gate was shut again, but the lock still wasn't there.
Someone had twisted a piece of wire around the latch instead,
like a temporary fix. That night I noticed something else.
There were no signs of activity, no footprints, no drag marks,
no tie trucks in the axis road, the dirt they
were usually held marks pretty well, but nothing. Then came
night six. It was just past two way m. I
remember because I just checked my phone. After passing the
northern corner of the loop, I was coming up toward
the shaft again when I heard a sound something inside
the tunnel. It was to an animal. I know what
to sound like. I know what raccoons. When foxes sound
like this, will swoller have you? It was a dragging sound,
like something thick and heavy being pulled across stone. I froze.
I didn't shine a flashlight straight at the tunnel, just
kept it aimed a few feet ahead of my boots.
My heart was studding in this weird off hythmway, like
it was trying to warn me. The dragging stopped, then
a few seconds later started again, but this time it
sounded farther away, like whatever it was had moved deeper
into the tunnel. I turned and walked away. I didn't
log anything, I didn't speak. I got in the truck
and drove home. Seventh night. The air felt off before
I even got out of the truck, still and heavy,
like the whole area was holding its breath. I got
half way through the loop before I noticed the smell.
It hit me like wet meat left in the sun,
thick and clinging, not sharp like rogugil, but deeper, like
something had been rotting under ground and finally cracked the surface.
I kept walking slower now, trying to figure out where
it was coming from. The closer I got to the
shaft gate, the stronger it got. The wire was gone.
The gate was slightly open again. I should have walked away,
I told myself that. I remember thinking, just finish the loop,
just turn your back and leave, but I didn't. I
stood there at the fence, not moving, staring into the
dark space behind the gate, like it was staring back.
That's when I saw it something was lying on the
ground just inside the gate. It looked like a bundle
at first, like a top or maybe a big sack
of tools. But it had a shape to it, a
long cuff pale against the stone, almost like a spine.
There was no blood, but something about it looked wrong.
It looked opened, like it had been torn along the side.
Then it twitched, not fast, just a tiny reflexive jerk.
That was enough. I turned and walked, not where'm walked,
but fast, kept my flash light on the path, didn't
look back. I didn't even drive home. I went straight
to Rick's house, pounded on the door until he answered.
I told him everything, start to finish. He listened, didn't interrupt.
When I was done, he just nodded and said, don't
go back. He left the job a few weeks later.
About a week after all that, the company posted signs
private secure enforced no trespassing that sort of thing. The
patrol stopped. They didn't hire replacements. I was working maintenance
at the courthouse in Briarfield, Virginia. The records lived in
the basement, old court documents, marriage licenses from couples, probably
long beared, land deeds from back when half the town
was still forest floor to sealing boxes down there. The
woman who used to handle all that had passed the
year before I started. No one replaced her, so the
basement just stayed the way she left it. I was
told not to touch it unless someone needed something specific.
One Thursday evening, I was tightening a valve in the
break room sink, one of those little leaked jobs where
you know the wash is gone, but you're still hoping
it'll holt together for another month, when Melinda King downstairs
with a paper in her hand. Melinda was a clerk,
always polite but sharp. She didn't like wasting time. Can
you grab a probate file for me, she asked, handing
me the slip. It hit the box, numbered shelf code,
and you're written on it. I nodded, easy enough. Gave
me a reason to stretch my life. The lights in
the basement had been a problem since I started. I
replaced the bulb's check to fixtures, even swapped the few wires,
but they always flickered like a bad horror movie. So
I kept a flash like click to my belt. Not
out of fear, just habit. He learned to come prepared
when I pushed the basement door open. I felt that
flat kind of error again. Not coal, not musty, just stale,
like whatever circulated down there had stopped trying a long
time ago. I'd been in the week before Fury under
the old water heater, so it wasn't like it was
sealed off or anything, but it didn't feel used. It
felt forgotten. The filing system was simple enough. Floor tiles
had numbers, Shells were labeled with letters. Rows were divided
by year. Follow the grid and you'd end up in
the right corner. Eventually, I'd used it maybe twice before,
Shell fourteen b, third row from the bottom. When I
got to it, the box I needed was already sticking
out a bit, like someone had set it down in
a hurry, same kind of box as the others. Dull cardboard,
black mark, a label, old masking tape, yellowed in the corners.
That something about it didn't sit right. The libel was
too crisp ink, didn't bleed like theyellows, no smatging, no age.
Still it matched the coat, so I pulled it down,
rested it on a low shelf, and opened the lid.
Right on top was a file with my full name,
not initials not. I just stared at it for a second.
Could have been a coincidence, maybe maybe someone filed a
complaint or left a note. But when I opened it,
it was the complaint. It was a maintenance report, standard form,
but all the handwriting inside was mine. I knew it.
The weird little col I make on my FSS, the
way I underlined dates when amonoid. It was like I'd
filled it up myself, only I hadn't. The report listed
a light fixture repair in the second floor hallway, scheduled
for the fall and Tuesday. I hadn't been assigned anything
like that yet. I closed a folder, lifted the box
to slide it back in the shelf, but the space
behind me had changed. The spot where I'd set it
down was empty. And now there were three more boxes
at my feet, all stacked, all labeled in my handwriting.
Each one had a date. None of them matched. One
said July twenty second, two years ago, one said next month.
The third didn't have a year at all, just a
range on mowing. I opened one, then another. Every fowl
was a job I hadn't done yet. Some I didn't
even understand. Easterwell inspection, wal cavity exploture. We didn't have
any stairwell. One form mentioned a mechanical subbasement access deny.
I'd never seen that space on any blueprint. Another said
storage room three B sound observed, lock jammed. There is
no storage room three be, not in that building. I
stepped back. I hadn't even realized how far i'd walked in.
The shelves looked taller now, or maybe I just felt smaller.
I turned, trying to get my bearings, but every row
looked the same stacks of old card board and stale air.
That's when I noticed the cab. It It sat low
in the corner, beige metal, medical, looking like something pulled
from a nurse's office in the sixties. It didn't belong
in there, not with the rest of the records. The
top drawer was opened just a little inside was a
folded maintenance jumpsuit identical to mine, same navy color, same
patch in the arm, same tear in the knee from
crawling under the boiler last month. I hadn't left a
spare down here. I didn't touch it. I turned back
to the stairs. I needed to leave it air at
air pretend. I didn't see any of this. Right as
I reached the top step, the door slant shut pod
like someone had yanked it. I ran up and shoved
at it, but it wouldn't move. There's no lock on
that side, no bolt, but it didn't budge. I knocked,
then again, louder. Then I stopped because I heard something.
It was footsteps, not breathing, just a soft sum right
bef behind me, the kind of dry scrape you hear
when cardboard slides across concrete. I turned around. There was
a box on the step below me. I hadn't heard
it move, hadn't seen it fall, but it was there.
No label this time, just my name and big block
letters across the lid. I opened it. Inside was a photograph,
black and white, Brueni looked like a still from a
security camera the time stump match that day. It was
me then over, flashlight in hand, standing at shelf fourteen by,
just like I had ten minutes earlier. I dropped the box,
shoved the door again, harder this time it gave. I
almost fell forward into the hallway. Milinda looked up from
her desk like nothing had happened. You find it, she asked, No,
I said, records are a mess. I'll try again later,
she nodded, already typing again. I went home and didn't
sleep that night, just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling,
trying to convince myself. I'd imagined that I was tired, stressed,
anything but what it felt like. Next morning, I showed
up early, told the county manager I wasn't going into
the basement any more. Exterior jobs. Only. I didn't tell
them about the files, or the boxes or the photograph.
They wouldn't have believed me. I'm not sure I do now.
I don't even go near the basement level. If a
pipe burst down there, some one else can figure it out.
Deyna called me in late August, just as I was
wrapping up a rough week at work. She was moving
into a rental house near Lake in West Virginia and
asked if I could come help her settle in. She
landed a librarian job at small college out there and
found a cheap place not too far from campus. I
figured why not. I had some p DEO saved up
and hadn't seen her in months. The house was remote,
one story older, and surrounded on all sides by woods
that seemed to krawd close so the further you drove
in the road it sat on didn't even show up
by name on Google Maps, just a thin gray line.
Her nearest neighbors were an older couple who lived two
lots over and Bailey. Came outside and a broken down
house cross the road that looked like a half collapsed barn.
The back corner of its roof was carved in and
there were no cuttains in the windows, just bag glass
reflected in trees and sky. I drove down from Pittsburgh
on a Monday, made good time. Dana didn't have a
lot of furniture, just boxes and a few bigger pieces
she bought secondhand. We had it all inside by dinner.
That evening. We sat out in the yardard drinks, still
sweaty from hauling stuff, letting the cicades hum in the background.
There was a quite stillness out there that was peaceful
in theory, but the kind of quiet that also makes
you keep glancing over your shoulder. We kept looking at
the old house cross the road. It wasn't boarded up,
just neglected, like someone meant to fix it once but
gave up half way through. The windows looked fogged up
from the inside. There wasn't even a wheel driveway, just
a patch of gravel sinking into weeds. I joked that
if any one was living in there, they were either
a ghost or a meth head. Dana laughed sort of,
then said her real stagage and told her the place
had been empty for six years. She didn't sound convinced.
The next morning, I woke up to this soft, steady
hammering just enough to the quiet. I rolled out of bed,
looked out the window and saw a man in a
blue shirt standing next to that house across the road.
He was nailing something to a wooden post, not the
edge of the yard. I couldn't make out his face,
and there was something worried about how he moved slow,
like his joints didn't quite work right. I figured I'd
go out and say something, but by the time I
got dressed and stepped outside, he was gone, just gone.
No sound, no truck, no footsteps on gravel. I asked
Diana if she saw him. She hadn't heard a thing.
We walked across the road together to see what he'd
been doing. There was a piece of weather wood nail
crookedly to a splindid poilt covered in rusted nails and
tangled wire, not like a sign or anything, more like
something meant to hurt someone or warn them. We just
stood there staring at it for a while. Then we
went back to the house and didn't bring it up again.
That night, I had trouble sleeping. I don't know why.
It wasn't hot and it was nassy, but every time
I closed my eyes I felt like something was slightly off,
like I'd left a door cracked open. Around one in
the morning, I heard tapping, not banging, na, not king,
just a soft, deliberate tapping. It was coming from the
front room. I got up, trying not to wake Dana,
and walked slowly down the hallway. The tapping didn't change rhythm.
It was coming from the front window, the one that
faced the road. I pulled up the blind. The old
house had a light on second floor left window. There
had never been a light on in there, no electricity,
no movement, nothing, But now it glowed with a soft
yellow light, and behind the gloss doed of figure a
dog shaped still a stone. I just stood there watching it.
It didn't move, the light didn't flicker. Then, after what
felt like a full minute, the light snapped off, no fade,
just dark. I stepped back from the window and sat
on the floor until sunrise. Couldn't bring myself to go
back to bed. The next day of over coffee, I
told Dana she was already stressed from the job orientation
and just waved it off. Save maybe someone was checking
on the property, maybe a squatter brought in a generator.
She didn't want it to become a thing. I didn't
press it. But that afternoon something else happened. We were
outside and loading groceries from her car when a man
stepped out of the woods behind the abandoned house. Same
blue shirt, same build, same with stiff walk. He didn't approach,
as just stood at the tree lion and stared. His
face was long and pale, blank as paper. I called
out as if he needed something, no response. After a
few seconds, he turned around and walked back into the trees.
Not sand nor TwixT cracking, no leaves rustling. He was
just absorbed back into the woods. That night, I didn't
even pretend to sleep, but kept the TV on low
and sat up in the arm jinney at the hallway,
just listening for around midnight, the light up of the
kitchen sink started to pulse. It didn't flicker like a
bulb about to go. It poles like it was breathing.
Then it stomped. Then the hallway life looked on. I
was still staring at it when the smell hit me. Smoke,
chop backward, kind that catches in the back of your throat.
I ran into the kitchen. Nothing. The stove was cold,
no fire, but the smell was thick, like something had
just burned and vanished. Then it came out, coughing, scared.
We searched the house top to bottom, checked every outlet,
every one nothing. Then I opened the front door to
let the air out, and that's when I saw it.
Right at the edge of the yard, near the ditch
was a mound of dirt. It hadn't been there earlier.
I walked toward it with a flashlight. The sail was loose, damp, uneven,
like someone had just dug it and covered it up again.
Dinna stood in the porch behind me, whispering, we need
to leave. We didn't argue about it. We packed what
we could in five minutes and left everything else behind.
We got a room at a cheap motel near Combass
and that is the end. Thank you for listening and
I will see you in the next one.