Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I'd driven up from Lexington to
spend a few days with my cousin Bryn. She and
her husband Mallow had just bought this creaky old house
way up in the Allegheny Hills, in a town so
small you could miss it even if you were trying
to find it. It was the first week of October,
that time when air still feels warm at noon but
by nightfully start looking around for an extra blanket. In
these parts, fall isn't just a season, it's practically religion.
Pumpkins on every porch, scarecrows leaning against mail boxes, and
handmade signs pointing toward hayrides and haunted trails. Brynn, never
want to miss an opportunity, decided we might as well
turn the clean up into a yard sail. They'll buy anything,
she said, thumbing through a box of cracked Mason jars,
rusted tools, busted lambs, even old light switches. You'd be amazed.
She was right. By eleven, there were cars parked all
down the gravel shoulder. People wandered in an out picking
through paths of dusty things like they were mining for gold.
A woman in her sixties bought a whole crate of
bent forks and didn't blink. One guy bartered down the
price of a broken radio, then gave us a bag
of apples as thanks. Some people just stood around, slipping
side her and swapping stories about whose cousin used to
live where. But then there was this one man came alone,
didn't speak or a faded green flannel buttoned all the
way to the top like he was bracing for snow,
and a trucker hat pulled so low you couldn't see
much of his face. He didn't look at anything in particular,
just drifted slowan and out of the same patch of grass,
ket stopping by this old sun faded dollars in a
bin of tangled Christmas lights. He never touched them, never
touched anything. I tried being polite after if he was
looking for something. He didn't respond, not even in ad,
just turn calm, deliberate, and walked off the property, straight
into the tree line, like he'd never been there. I
looked at Brynn. She was holding a chip ceramic rooster,
and just raised her eyebrows mountain ard. She said like
that explained it. Maybe it did. By dusk, things slowed down.
We packed what didn't sell into the garage, slid the
door shut and latched it. There was a slight shell
in the air, and I remember thinking how still everything
felt once the last car left, like the trees themselves
were listening. That night, the house grow more than usual.
Old floeboards, old pipes, typical for a place as age
where room was at the back facing the yard, the
same yard we just spent all day stomping through, sorting
two boxes, and brushing spiders off lampshades. I closed the curtains,
but not all the way. They didn't quite fit the window.
One side drooped, and honestly I didn't care enough to
fix it. I was beat. We read a chilly in
front of the TV. Some show but Survivalists was on,
but we weren't really watching, just noise. By ten we
were both half asleep. Brinn disappeared down the hallway and
I turned a Not long after, I couldn't stay asleep though.
It started with the knocking, not loud, not the kind
of knock heeded at the front door. This was softer, slower,
one knock, a pause, then another. It didn't sound like
it came from the door at all. I lay there
for a second, eyes opened hard, doing this weird, slow
panic thump. The knock came again, same rhythm, pat pawstap
pau's tap. I got out of bed and went to
the window. The yard look normal, nothing moved. That folding
table was still up there, one leg bent, listing sideways
like a drunk sailor. I waited a minute, maybe longer.
Then I went back to bed, half convinced it had
been a dream. I barely pulled the blanket up when
I heard it, Lenin. It wasn't loud, it was almost careful,
stretched out, like someone trying to speak through sleep, and
it was definitely inside the house. I sat straight up.
The hallway was pitch dark. Brine's room was on the
far end, and her door always squealed when it I
hadn't heard it. I held still, listening, trying to convince
myself i'd imagined it. Then I heard it again. This
time it sounded almost unsure, Lenin. It came from the kitchen.
I got up again, walk slow. The coal from the
tiele hit me immediately, sharp, like the floor was punishing me.
For getting up. I rounded the corner. There was some
one standing in the kitchen, right by the fridge, not moving,
just standing there, facing the wall. I couldn't make out
the face. Figure was tall, taller than me by a
few inches, and broad in the shoulders too broad Brin's
five foot four on a good day. And this wasn't her.
No chance, Rain, I asked, more out of desperation than logic. Nothing.
That's when I saw the boots mud crosted, and the
soles and trailing and thick smerrors behind him, the kind
of muggy get near creaks, sticky and gray and coal
definitely not from our yard. I backed up, slowed, and
make a sound. I don't know how I managed that.
My heart was slamming so hard I was half sure
it was going to echo. The figure turned its head,
just the head, not the body, not fully, not fully,
just enough to let me nor heard me. I couldn't
see the eyes, but I didn't need to. The motion
alone sent this wave of coal panic through me. And
then it crouched, Not like some one dropping down casually, No,
this was deliberate, slow, nizzard. I could hear the creak
of joints, the sound of knees folding over themselves. It
went down into a squat and just stayed there waiting, watching. Thus,
when I moved, I turned and walked straight to Brine's room,
not fast, not running, just moving. I opened her door
and she sat up like she'd already been halfway there.
I didn't say anything, just pointed. Her face changed like
her brain skip right past confusion and went straight to you.
We have to deal with this. She grabbed the aluminum
bat by her dresser, the one she kept for just
in case, and we walked back toward the kitchen together.
It was empty, no boots, no crouching figure, no sign
of anything at all except the back door was cracked,
not wide open, just enough to let in a sliver
of air. The screen door swayed gently, ticking against the
frame like a lazy metronome. We stepped outside. In the
damp grass. Leading away from the porch were muddy footprints,
wide deep in space, like someone had been crouching. Then
stood and walked off Baver on the porch wing was
the green flannel shirt, folded like someone had taken it
off and left it there intentionally, as if to say
I was here. We went back inside and locked every door,
every window. Didn't say much. What was there to say.
We didn't call the copse. What would we even report?
Nothing was stolen, nothing was broken, No one was technically
inside the house, but we both knew something had happened.
I was thirty seven when I finally gave in and
decided to sell some of the old stuff line around.
It was a Saturday in mid October. I'd been dragging
my feet about it for years, but something pushed me
that week. I got up a round eight, brewed a
pot of coffee, and by nine I was out by
the gravel drive, setting up three folding tables on the
flat as patch of ground I could find. The set
up was pretty standard. A few buckets of rusty tools,
some of mom's old figurines and dusty candle holders, A
couple crates of paperbacks I hadn't touched in years, and
a wobby stack of faded clothes that smelled faintly like
cedar an old detergent. Nothing valuable, nothing rare, just stuff
that had piled up in closets and coroners and somehow
hung around long after its usefulness had ended. We live
outside Merriser, barely their town in central Palatia. Blink and
you've passed it. It's a kind of place where the
only gas dish also sells baiton coffins. My family's house
is always out from the center of closer to the
Tennessee border than anywhere with cell service. We've had the
place in the family for over six decades. It's weathered, solid,
full of stores no one ever wrote down, but until
that we can I never sawd a single thing out front.
It just wasn't something we did. The idea came from
someone I didn't know, a woman who knocked on my
front door three nights before the sail. It was just
after dark, maybe a little past seven. I was in
the living room going through a box of old extension
cords when I heard the knock. Two soft taps, not hesitant,
just light. I opened the door, expecting some one lost
or maybe a neighbor with caught trouble. But she just
stood there, looking at me like she already knew me.
She was in her fifties, maybe short, gray hair, playing close,
kind of hard to place. Her face was tired, but
not unfriendly. She didn't introduce herself, didn't ask for anything.
She just said, you ought to clear out some of
it don't belong here. That was it, one sentence, no context.
Then she turned and walked away down the gravel drive,
heading toward the road. I didn't stop her. I didn't
ask what she meant, and I don't know why, but
I didn't feel alarmed or even confused, just quiet. It
was like I understood her, even if the words didn't
make sense yet. The next morning, I started digging through
the attic. Saturday morning started off slow. A few cars
pass but nobody stopped at first. Around ten point thirty,
a couple in their sixes pulled in and flipped through
the books. The woman asked if I had any old
good books, which I didn't. They left without buying anything.
I stood out there, watching the sky cloud over, thinking
maybe I'd give it another iron then pack it up.
That's when the blue truck rolled in. I heard the
engine before I saw it, something wheezy and irregular. The
trip pulled half way up the drive and stopped in
a patch of dirt and weeds. Engines still run for
a moment before it cut off. The thing looked tenchin.
The blue paint had gone chalky and pale, and there
was so much rust in the back end I couldn't
make out the license played at all. The driver sat
there for a bit long enough that I started wondering
if he was having second thoughts. But eventually he opened
the door, stepped down slowly, and started walking, not toward me,
but straight for the table at the far end, the
one with the old picture frames and loose photo wraps.
He looked like he worked with his hands, maybe fifty something,
wiry framed, sunburnt neck. His boots were worn so thin
at the toes they curled slightly, like old leather trying
to remember its shape. He wore a green truck a
cap that was pulled down low on his forehead, and
his shoulders were tense, like someone walking into a place
they'd already been once before. He didn't say a word,
just reached down and picked up a small silver frame
with a crack corner. It hit a black and white
photo in it, a little girl in a lawn dress
standing in a field with her arms by her sides.
I didn't recognize it. It wasn't labeled, and I didn't
remember ever seeing it before. Figured it must have come
from one of man's boxes. He stared at a long time,
maybe a full minute. Then he looked up and asked,
where'd you get this? I shrugged, no idea. It was
in the attic. He nodded slowly, still looking at the
photolike he was reading something in it no one else
could see. Then, without saying anything else, he turned and
started walking toward the porch. Hey, I started, but he
was already half way up the steps. I followed him,
keeping a few feet back. You can't go in there.
He wasn't listening. He stood just outside the screen door,
whispering something I couldn't hear. His lips were moving, but
the words were too soft. His eyes were locked in
the door frame, like he was seeing through it. Then
he stopped, turned toward me and said, you keep the
crawl space locked. That threw me off. There's no craw space,
full foundation. It was poured in sixty four. He shook
his head. No, there's a crawl space, there's always been one.
I told him again he needed to leave, and this
time he did no argument, just turned, walked down the stepps,
got in his truck and pulled away like nothing happened.
I barely slept that night. I kept thinking about that photo.
About what he saw in it. Around one in the morning,
I went up to the attic with a flashlight and
started digging around. I didn't find anything like that picture.
But near the back, under ELA's floorboard, I found the key.
It was old, rusted. It small but heavy in a
way that felt wrong, like something made to lock up
something permanent. I tried it on every door in the house.
Didn't fit a single one. Still, I went back out
the next morning, set up the same three tables, told
myself I'd give it one more day, then pack it
all away for good. A few people from town stopped by.
One woman asked if we'd ever had tenants, said she
remembered some one living out back. I told her there
wasn't anything back there. She gave me this look like
I was trying to hide something. Then she walked around
the house like she didn't believe me. I didn't follow.
Just before before noon, the girl showed up. She came
walking up the hill from the woods, not the road.
Couldn't have been older than eight or nine. Haile skin
long brown, had tied with a ribbon bright blue against
the plain white dress. Her clothes didn't match the season.
It was maybe fifty one degrees and she didn't look cold,
no shoes. She walked right up to the table with
the photographs, pointed at the same frame the man had
picked up. That's mine, she said. I crouched a little,
kept my voice calm. What's your name? She didn't answer,
Did some one come with you? Your parents? Not? Then
just kept her finger on the photo. That's mine. I
told her she could take it. I didn't mind, but
she had to tell me who she was. She didn't move,
didn't blink. After a few seconds, she turned around and
walked back toward the woods. Not a word, not a glance,
just disappeared into the trees the same way she came.
I tacked up the photo again. This time I flipped
it over. The backing was walked a little soft at
the edges, like it had been wet at some point.
I peeled it off and found something tucked behind the photo,
A folded grap of newspaper, all yellowed, brittle, like you
would fall apart if I breathed too hard. I unfolded
it slowly. It was an obituary, no photo, just a name.
Marla Jane died October fifteen, nineteen sixty six. Aged nine.
That night, the house felt off, still not silent exactly,
but muffled, like the air had wait. I couldn't stop
thinking about that man's voice. There's always been one. Around midnight,
I grabbed my flush light again and went outside. I
circled the house, nothing but behind the shed, just passed
where the woods start. I noticed something, a square patch
of ground leaf covered a little sunken. I knelt and
brushed the leaves aside. It was a hatch, wooden nearly
flushed with the ground. I hadn't seen it before, and
I had lived there my whole life. I tried the key.
It turned. The hatch creaked open with a sound that
made my stomach tighten. The smell hit me first, mouled
rotting wood, white plaster in something else underneath it all,
something older. The cross space was shallow, three feet deep
maybe five y dout floor, a couple of broken boards,
nothing else except in the corner a small child's shoe
turned on its side. That was all. I shut the hatch,
locked it the next morning. I nailed it shut. That afternoon,
I pack up everything, burned what didn't sell, hauled the
tables to the dump. I took the furt or frame
down to the river and washed it drift away until
it sank. I've lived in that house my entire life.
But the next week I signed a lease on an
apartment in town. The yard sale was out past Marlow,
half way up a hollow that barely shows up on GPS.
I'd seen the flyer a couple days before, stuck on
the bulletin board at Rennie's Market. Most of the flyers
there were the usual stuff, local events, fire withver sail,
lost dogs, but this one caught my eye. Block marker
on yellow paper, tight for the most part, but someone
had written across the bottom in thick and even handwriting,
close out everything left of the family. I just figured
maybe someone passed away and the relatives were clearing out
what was left. I had a quite Saturday morning and
figured I take the drive. Worst case it was a bust.
Best case its gore, sturdy table, some old tools I
could clean up. I like restoring things when I can.
There's something calming about sounding down an old surface, giving
something beat up a second life. The road narrowed after
the cattle gate, one of those old wire and pipe
types you have to open be hand. I climbed out,
unlatched it, and swung it open, careful not to catch
my leg on the russet edge. The hinges groaned in
a way that sounded more like a warning than anything.
I eased the carth through and closed it behind me
like I was supposed to, But the sound of a
climbing shut linger longer than it should have. Maybe it
was just the echo in the tight little stretch between
the trees. After that, it was about half a mile
of winding gravel, though which pressed in hard. You couldn't
see more than twenty feet off the roady the side,
just shadow and underbrush. Then, just as they started wondering
if I mis to turn, the trees opened up a little,
and though it was the trailer, it looked like it
hadn't been moved or touched in decades. Ame was peeling
in long strip. The porch sagged on one side, propped
up by a couple of bricks. An American flag, the
kind that comes from a gas station. Impulse rack was
duct taped to the railing. It was stiff in the wind,
didn't flop or ripple, just stayed frozen like plastic. There
were no other cars parked around except for an old
ripicupoff to the side, engines still running. The driver was
sitting inside, motionless, hands on the wheel, didn't look at me,
didn't acknowledge anything. I remember thinking he was maybe just
out with someone, all waiting for a friend. But he
never glanced over, just staired ahead, like he was watching
something that hadn't happened yet. The yard was scattered with
all kinds of stuff. Folding tables bout under piles of
nick ACKs in what looked like tulls kitchen were broken electronics,
a few boxes were half crushed into the grass, And
sitting in the middle of it all was a woman,
maybe late seventies, thin in a flimsy plastic chair that
looked like it had seen better use. She had a
green cast box resting on her lap, and hands that
didn't look like they'd moved in a while. What stood
up most was her eyes. They were so pale they
looked almost silver. For a second I wondered if she
was blind, but as a stepped closer, she looked directly
at me, no hesitation, just straight eye contact. You're here
for the sale, she said. It wasn't a question. I
nodded to gave a quick polite smile and walk past her.
The longer I stood there, the less comfortable I felt.
The air was colder than it should have been for October,
even in the shade, and everything around me smelled faintly,
like wet paper and old wood. Not rotting exactly, just tired.
Most of the stuff was drunk, the kind of clotty
you expect from some one who didn't fir much away,
blade rusted to their handles, paperbacks too mildy to detach,
a busted microwave with a wasp's nest inside. I saw
an old baby carriage with the doll in it. The
eyes had melted or been burned, one half of the
face walped down like candle wax. Next to that was
a bird gage filled with bones. They looked small, too
small for anything but something like a squirrel or a cat.
Then I saw the chest. It was half buried under
a stack of old blankets and faded fabric lakes. Some
one had tried to hide it, or more likely forget.
The thing didn't match anything else out there. Rod iron handles,
cracked leather straps, and a brass lock right in the center.
Heavy duty stuff, old, not fancy, but solid, you could feel.
It wasn't something someone would just toss out. There was
no key inside. I glanced around to ask the woman
how much she wanted for it. She was gone, Her
chair was empty. The cash box was gone too. No footsteps,
no sound of her getting up, Just no one there
any more. I called out, once, quiet and surer, then
again louder at nothing. The man in the truck still there,
still not looking at me. I shall have left then,
but I didn't. I was too curious. I went back
to the chest. Something about it had shifted. It didn't
just look old now, it felt heavy in the air
around it. I knelt down and pulled on the lid,
expecting resistance. It opened immediately, no creak, no stuck hinges.
Inside were photographs, hundreds, all black and white, bundled into
stacks and tied with string. Some were curled with age,
others sharp like they had just been developed. Every single
photo had the same man, same blank expression, same straight posture.
In some he stood in front of Barnes Fields porches.
Others showed him next to cars or on de at roads.
Some were old enough that the edges had once offt
others looked nearer sharper detail, more contrasts, but it was
always him, always facing the camera, always staring straight into
the lens. In one he was leaning on a truck
parked in front of a trailer, the exact trailer I
was standing behind. I didn't even realize how still everything
had gotten. The wind had stopped, no birds, just the
low purr of that idlingd truck engine. When I looked up,
a trailer's front door was open. It hadn't been before.
I found myself moving toward it. Not fast, just moving,
like my body had decided on something before my brain
had caught up. Each step felt like I was being
guided by the space itself, pushed by something just behind me,
just out of reach. I stepped on to the porch.
The flag still didn't move. Inside the trailer was dark
and freezing. The windows were all covered with the same
blankets from outside, pin tight, like they were hiding from something.
The floor was soft, too soft, too soft. I looked
down and realized it wasn't flooring at all. It was soil, loose,
damp soil under a layer of carpet, like someone had
ripped out the foundation and replaced it with dirt. There
were photographs inside, hundreds maybe more, lining the walls, filling
the shelves, taped to the ceiling. All of them, again,
were of that man, and they were telling a story.
In one he stood at the edge of a tree line.
Next he was closer on the same path, then outside
a window, then inside a hallway. In one photo, I
swear he was standing in this very trailer. I turned
around to leave and saw him outside at the bottom
of the porch steps, standing right in front of my car.
No movement, no expression, just staring up at the trailer
at me. I didn't breathe. I backed away from the door,
keeping low. I moved into the hallway, hot, ponding so
loud it felt like it was in my throat. The
bedroom at the end had no furnisure, just photos floor
to ceiling. I looked out the window. He was gone.
I ran back through the trailer, out the door, across
the yard. The woman was back in the chair. The
man in the truck now at his head, turned eyes
following me like a slope pivot on a camera mount.
I reached my car. The back seat door was wide open.
I never leave it unlocked. I slammed it shut. Locked.
Everything started the engine with shaking hands. As I pulled away,
I caught one last look in the rear view mirror.
The old woman was holding a photograph. It was of me,
taken from behind, looking down at the chest. I didn't
say another word, didn't even check my mirrors. As I
sped down that narrow gravel path, wheel skating on the curves,
I didn't stop until I saw the town line sign.
I was up in White Hollow, a tiny spread out
patch and run county, helping clear out my aunt's place.
She passed the previous winter. She left me to house
in the land in her will, which honestly surprised me.
I barely knew her. I mean I remember seeing her
once or twice as a kid holidays. Mostly she wasn't unfriendly,
just distant. By noon, I had a few plastic tubs
out on the lawn, felt with old kitchen junk books, frame,
need le point quartes, stuff that looked like it had
come straight out of a church basement. I taped a
cardboard sign to the back of a folding chair. The
yard sail cash only. Honestly, I didn't expect much traffic,
but you'd be surprised how many people will slow down
for a yard sail out here, especially when the trees
start to turn. There's something about autumn that makes people
nostalgic for crap they don't need. First few people were
exactly what you'd imagine old a couple's two guys and
comma looking for tools. A woman who spent ten minutes
going through a box of dollies like they were made
of lace spun from gold. She asked if I had
an AsSalt shakers shit like necks, and I didn't, but
she boiled a chip tea but anyway, and told me
to check the added just in case. Around to this
white rolled in an old Ford rust all on the bumper,
paint faded to a dull cream. The engine made a
grinding noise like it was about one mile away from
dying completely. I figured it was just another local looking
for vintage junk. The guy who got out wasn't what
I expected. Midman a stoed as maybe thin and wiry,
like someone who'd skipped a few too mini meals. He
had those thick, square glasses people used to wear in
the atis, and it looked like smiling was a concept
he hadn't practiced in a while. Not angry exactly, just stiff, hollow.
He didn't say a word, just walked up to the
table and started going through one of the kitchen boxes
like he already knew what he was looking for. He
picked up this old dig tamer shape like a chicken,
metal with faded red paint in the comb. I found
it in the back of a drawer earlier that morning.
I told him it was a dollar. He didn't respond,
just nodded slightly and set it aside. Then he looked
straight at me and said, caught any mechanicals. I blinked.
What kind? He said, clocks, wind up stuff, things with gears,
not electric. I told him maybe there were a few
boxes I hadn't gotten to yet, still stacked in the
back room. I offered to check for him. He followed
me into the house without another word, and I him.
I can't really explain that part. It didn't feel threatening
at the time, just inevitable like saying, nor was it
even on the menu. The back room used to be
a den. I think wood paneling over kliner boxes piled
against the walls. It smelled like old paper and mopples.
I started digging for a couple of boxes, trying to
remember if I'd seen any wind up clocks or music
boxes or anything. He didn't wait. He walked over to
one of the shelves, scanned it for maybe three seconds,
and reached up like he already knew what was there.
He pulled down a small wooden box looked like a
cigar box, only older brass hinges, faded carvings around the edge.
I don't remember seeing you before. Mind if I open it?
He asked? Sure, I said, go ahead. He flipped a
latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a deck of
cards he yellowed like old newspaper. They were wrapped in
wax paper with a little tear down one side. Beneath
them was a small cloth pouch, faded green, with a
draw string that looked like it hadn't been pulled in decades.
Opened the pouch carefully and tipped out what looked like dyes,
six of them, but they weren't normal, no pips. Each
side had a strange hand carved symbol. One looked like
a jagged triangle and another like a spiral, and one like
a hook with a lion running through it. Nothing that
made sense. He stared at them for a long moment,
then asked how much I shrugged five bucks. He nodded,
pulled out a five, and lighted on the floor, not
the table, the floor. Then he picked up the cards
in the pouch, curdled them against his chest, and walked out.
Didn't say goodbye, just left. Later that night I found
the box again, same box, same chaf, same crease back's paper,
same pouch. For a second I thought maybe they were two.
I went back to check the rest of the shelves. Nothing.
I opened it again. Cards still there, I still there.
I checked the floor of the back room. The five
dollars bill was still sitting there. I brought the box
upstairs with me and left it in the hallway. Thought
maybe I was overtired and imagining things. When I came
down in the morning, it was back on the shelf.
I moved it again, left it on the porch that time.
Next morning, back on the shelf. There a time. I
locked it in the glove box of my truck. It
was back the next day. By the fall time I
gave up, told myself I throwed away. When I left Monday,
I loaded everything up, took one last look around, locked
a door, started the engine before I pulled out. I
glanced in the rear view mirror. The box was sitting
on the porch. I didn't go back for it didn't
want you. But when I got back to my apartment
in Richmond, I walked into the living room, set down
my bag, turned on the light. There it was in
a corner, like it had been waiting for me. I
let alone, always half. I locked a door behind me.
Every time windows were shut and latched. This time the
pouch was open. The dice were on the floor, scattered
alsike showed the same symbol, a spiral roughly carved, the
edges uneven, like some one had done it blindfolded. I
didn't touch them. Instead, I wrapped the hole thing in
newspaper and shoved it into the bottom drawer of my desk.
I told myself, maybe I'd accidentally taken it with me.
Maybe I was just tired, stressed as weird things. That night,
my smoke alarm went off at free a m. No smoke,
no fire. But when I opened the drawer I smelled
something sharp, burned paper, bitter and achered like old insulation,
and something else, something so I own, almost sweet, like
fruit left too long in a sealed jar. The newspaper
was gone. Ashes clung to the inside of the drawer.
The box was sitting there and touched. The dice were
arranged in a line, and this time the symbols went abstract.
They looked like letters, not in any language I knew,
but still letters. I stayed up until morning, just sat
there watching them. The next day I boxed the whole
thing up and mailed it to a guy and you
in Cincinnati who collects weird antiques. Didn't tell him anything,
just wrote thought of you. A week pass Then he called.
His voice was flat, no greeting, just said where did
you get this? I told him some mountain house belong
to my aunt. He asked, did you open the crards?
I told him now, He said, good, don't. I asked why.
He said, they don't shuffle, they move. You don't want
to know what this spell. Then he hung up. That
was the last time I ever heard from him. His
numbers stopped working. I never saw the box again. The
YDD sale was my idea. Around here, otber means two things.
Leaf peepers and terists will pay twenty bucks for a
rusty lantern. A few call at vintage, the trees were
on fire, with color, and I fake oed. If I
played my car's right, I could clear out the garage
and make enough cash to not freeze through December. The
house had belonged to my uncle, a quite guy who
kept himself and didn't talk much about anything personal. After
he passed, I moved him, mostly out of necessity. I
was broken out of options and started fixing it up
with what little I had left to my account. The
place sits up a hill in the edge of fern, said,
a patch of gravel road the dead ends into woods
that nobody really walks through. It's quiet out here two
quite Sometimes I could go days without hearing anything but
birds in my own footsteps. So I hauled everything out
into the yard, tolls, furniture, old signs, even a broken
down fishing rod, and set it all up on folding
tables in the gravel. I'd even made a cardboard sign
with the yard sail in black marker and nailed it
to the tree out by the road. Classie. The first
couple iurs were slow, which I expected. A sweet couple
from a Hio picked up an antique mirror with a
cracked edge. They said it had character. A college kid
from down and Brawnford tried to talk me done on
a chain so that didn't even run. He offered fifteen bucks,
and I almost took it, just so I wouldn't have
to carry the thing back inside. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then around eleven, a red super returned unto the drive.
It slowed like the driver Roll wasn't sure if this
was the right place, then pulled up and parked at a
slight angle in the grass. The woman who stepped up
was like the other browsers. She was tall, lean, almost
burtal looking, with white brays tucked neatly beneath the black
shoulder hung past her hips. She didn't make ey con
didn't say a word, just drifted through the tables like
she was walking through falk. She stopped in front of
a ben I'd almost thrown out the night before, just
a random mess have junk, half frosted drill bits, dentitins,
lio screws, rolling around the bottom, little stuff that didn't
fit anywhere else. Her hand have it over the mislike
she was waiting for something to jump out at her.
Then she reached in, slow and steady and pulled out
a box, small square maybe four inches on each side.
It looked wooden, smooth, like some one had just sounded it.
No hinges, no latch, no seams, no reason it should
have been in there. How much, she asked, I didn't
even think. I just said it's not for sale. It
came out fast, without a second thought, and as soon
as I said it, her face changed. Not angry exactly,
more like disappointed, like I'd failed some tests I didn't
know I was taking. You shouldn't have it sitting out.
Then she placed it back in the bin, turn around
and walked back to her car. Didn't buy anything, didn't
glance back after she left. I picked up the box.
It was lighter than it looked, felt like nothing was inside,
no markings, no texture, just smooth beerwood. I turned it
in my hands a few times, tried to open it. Nothing,
no give, no seems. It didn't feel like a live
was even part of the design, just a single solid block.
I set it down on the back table and ket selling.
But every hour or so someone asked about it. Not casualty,
like really asked. One guy offered me fifty bucks cash.
A woman lean in real clothes and whispered, is that soapstone?
A teenage girl in ripped jeans and a hood. He
picked it up and wouldn't stop staring at it, like
she was listening to something I couldn't hear. I kept
saying it wasn't for sale, and the weird thing was,
I still didn't know why. There was no reason not
to sell it, but I couldn't bring myself to part
with it. Like something I might got told me that
once it left, I'd never be able to undo whatever
came next. By four, the traffic dried up. I packed
everything that didn't sell and brought it inside, including a box.
I left it on the kitchen counter and didn't give
it another thought, just something odd in a day full
of little oddities. Then after sundown, I went out to
cover the firewood, one of those quick little tasks you
do before calling at a night. When I turned back around,
the front door was open. I know. I closed it.
I always do. This isn't the kind of neighborhood where
you get surprised guests, and even if it were, nobody
had walked past me. My first thought was the wind,
second thought some one had come back for the box.
I walked inside, checked the counter. It was gone. In
its place was a note. Just a torn piece of
brown paper with writing that looked like it had been
scratched in with the end of a nail. Don't follow it.
I stood there for a long minute, trying to decide
if I was being pranked, but there wasn't anyone around
to prank me. I don't even talk to my neighbors much,
and they are a quarter mile away. I checked every room,
nothing missing, nothing disturbed except the box. I went outside
with a flasklight, checked the yard, under the porch, even
in the shed. Nothing around ten I gave up, locked
every window, dead bolted the door, closed the blinds. That
night I dreamed I was in the shed, except it
wasn't a shed any more. It was bigger, deeper. The
walls were covered in shelves, and on every shelf set
a box, same shape, same smooth wood, endless rose. And
the woman was there, standing dead center, running her fingers
along the edges, humming under her breath, like she was
picking the right one. When I woke up, I went
to the shed. It looked normal, smelled like old oil
and mouse droppings, same clotter, same rusted hands or hanging
on the pegboard, but right there, sitting on the work bench,
like it had never left. Was the box. I didn't
touch it, just stared at it, then turned around and
went back inside. About ten minutes later, I heard a thump.
Looked out the window. One of the porch chairs had
tipped over her No wind, no animals inside. A few
minutes later, another one tipped. Then a bird flew straight
into the kitchen window. Hard feathers stuck to the glass.
Another hit ten minutes after that. That night I dreamed
the same dream, same shed, same shelves. That this time
the woman turned toward me. Her eyes were pale, and
she said, you let it out. The next morning I
found coal marks on the inside of the front door,
three long scratches, deepened space wide. Not from a raccoon,
not from any dog I know. I took the box
into town, figured i'd let some one else make sense
of it. Brought it to her an antique shop on Maine,
the kind that sells typewriters and tikups for a hundred
bucks apiece. The woman behind the counter took one look
and shook her head, said she'd never seen anything like it,
but the way her hands tensed and the fake smiles.
She plused and told me everything she wanted it gone,
wouldn't even let it sit on the counter back home.
I tried to burn it, built a proper fire and
a pit up back, let it get nice and hot.
Tossed the boxin and watched nothing. It didn't blacken, didn't crack,
just sat there until the fire burned down to ash.
So I buried it late at night near the edge
of the woods, deep enough I had to stop for
breath twice, didn't mark the spot, didn't tell us all
next morning it was back sitting on the kitchen table,
same as before. I live alone. There's no one else
with the key. The doors were locked, the windows latched.
Since then, the box moves. I don't see it move.
I just find it in different places, sometimes in the stairs,
sometimes by the bed, once right in the middle of
the hallway, like it was waiting. I wake up tired.
My hands are dirty. In the mornings. Sometimes there's much
back through the house, and I don't remember going outside.
About a week ago a man showed up, not twice
in step back, like can you I'd be cautious. He
was soaked to the bone, cloths clinging to him, water
dripping from his sleeves, He didn't say his name, just asked,
do you still have the box. I didn't answer. He
gave a slow nod. When it's ready, he said, you'll
take it back. Then he walked off into the trees.
Last night I heard voices beneath the floorboards, not whispers,
full on conversations, laughter, someone asking someone else to pass
the salt. My cabin doesn't have a basement. This morning
I tore up two planks, just dirt underneath, no crawl space, nothing.
The box is still here. I've tried everything. I can't
leave with it. Draw five miles out of Fern said
once before my truck died like the engine just gave up.
I walked home, took two iyars. The box was waiting
on the porch when I got back, right in front
of the door. I don't know what it wants. I've
never opened it. I'm starting to think that's the point.
It doesn't want to be opened. It wants me to
keep it. And now every morning it's just a little
closer to my bedroom door to night, I'm not going
to sleep at all. I'm sitting outside with the lights off,
in the fire that stuck like a barricade, and the
box is still inside. I gotten up late, had some cuffee,
scrolled my phone for longer than I meant to. Then
I saw a post about a community yard sail happening
out near hell Callo. Supposedly a big one, multiple sellers
heading treasures, that kind of thing. I figured i'd check
it out. I like wandering through other people's junk. I
ended up stopping at a few places along the way,
normal stuff. One had a kid's bike with a bent wheel,
Anetta had those ancient VHS work out tapes with the
neon lithides. Then I saw the sign. It was hand painted,
nailed crookedly to a tree. Communities Ale one day only.
Then here no arose, noballoons, just a dirt roabe with
gravel soluce. It felt like driving on marbles. There weren't
any other cars that should have tipped me off. I
didn't even see a house. Just to break in the
trees and sitting wearily alone at the edge of a
clearing one folding table. Behind it was a sagging red
barn with half the roof missing. The whole place looked
like it hadn't seen life in decades. But the table
was packed, not clotted. Each item was space apart, way
too far, like they want meant to be near each other.
I know that sounds weird. It was weird. Some one
had arranged them with serious intengent, like display case level care.
There were ceramic dolls, the fragile kind of glassy eyes
and those eyelashes that somehow still flick old photos and
curled frames, a tarnished prosper a flet that had no holes,
just smooth wood, and right in the dead center of
the table, like it had been put their last on
purpose was this mirror. It wasn't flashy, just hold the
kind of old that makes he want squint. The glass
had gone that cloudy silver around the edges, so the
reflection was warped and dull. The frame though, That's what
stuck with me. It was heavy, carved wood, darkened, dense
all over it, with his little straight line marks, carved
shallowly but deliberately, like some one had taken a knife
and dragged it down a hundred times, always the same direction.
They looked like tally marks, not neat ones, more like
some one had done them fast, maybe while thinking about
something else. I wasn't even into antiques, definitely not old mirrors,
but I picked it up anyway. The wood felt dry
and brittle under my fingers. There were little slivers poking
out in a few places, like it had been handled
a lot and never cared for. There was no price tag.
I turned around to ask someone about it, expecting maybe
an old man with a color of bottled water or
someone fiddling with a cash box, but there was no one,
no sounds, just the creaking of the trees behind me
and the faintick of my car engine cooling down. I
don't know why I didn't just leave idor I could
have just walked away, but instead I pulled the five
dollars built from my wallet, set it down on the table,
and carried the mirror back to my car like it
was mine a home, I said it on top of
the cabinet in the hallway. It didn't look right there,
too big, too grim, looking for the light wood and
bhite walls. I kept telling myself I'd move it, maybe
store it in the attic, but every time I walked by,
I just kept not doing it. That night, I had
the same dream three times. In each version, I was
walking back up that same gravel river, but this time
the barn was a falling apart. It was glowing from
the inside, pulsing yellow like there was firelight flickering through
the slats. I couldn't see what was inside, but I
could hear it creak softly, like wood adjusting underweight. And
every time I got close to the doorway before I
could peek in, i'd wake up. The next morning, there
was a thin red scratch on my forearm, ran from
my wrist almost to my elm. It didn't hurt much,
just felt tight. I figured it'd scraped myself and loading
the mirror abump something. But when I looked at the
mirror again, the frame looked different, not dramatically, but those
little marks I could have sworn there were more. Over
the next few days, it kept getting stranger. One night,
while brushing my teeth, I caught movement behind me in
the bathroom mirror, a shadow or a figure. Maybe. I
spun around so fast I dropped my teeth brush. Nothing there,
no open doors, no windows. I tried to laugh it off.
My brain gave me the whole speech. Reflections are tricky,
you're tired, probably just your own shadow, except the mirror.
I sold the movement and wasn't the one in the bathroom.
It was the Hollway mirror, the one that shouldn't have
been visible at all. Next morning, new scratch. This rad
always in places I'd never reach in my sleep, and
definitely not by accident. Then came the dreams again, Only
they weren't really dreams any more, more like flashes, quick images.
A woman with a mouth too wide, smiling with her
eyes closed. A man standing just behind the mirror's frame,
only his eyes visible and blinking. Sometimes it was just
the mirror itself, play somewhere it wasn't supposed to be
my kitchen counter, at the foot of my bed, the
back seat of my car. It started to feel like
I was dreaming about the mirror, but through it. By
the end of the week, I couldn't take it any more.
I wrapped it in a blanket, shoved it into the
shed and locked the door with a thick pad. Look
my hands were shaking by then. I told myself I
was being ridiculous, but I still triple checked the lock.
The next morning, it was back, sitting on the whole
way cabinet like it had never moved. I actually ran outside,
yanked the shed door open, and found the blanket still there, folded,
no mirror, no footprints, no signs of break in. That
was the first time I let myself panic. I looked
at the frame again. The notches went just numerous. Now
they were crowding up the sides, some overlapping, some deeper
than others. I grabbed a box cutter, carved a little
ex beside one of them, just to market, just to
prove something to myself. Next day the ex was gone,
replaced by a new notch, different spot, same size. He
was tracking something. I went to an antique place in town,
this tiny shop owned by a guy named Lowell. I
sketched a Mirov from memory, showed him the drawing. He
stared at it a long time, didn't say a word.
Then he looked up and said, there's old stores from
around here about returning items, things that won't be throna,
things I keep their own camp. I asked him what
it was counting. He didn't answer that part, just said,
don't add to it. That's all I know. After that,
I tried everything, left it at the country dump. Next
morning it was leaning against my front door. Took it
into the woods, hiked a mile off the trail, buried it.
Under rocks. Two days later, it was buckled into the
passenger seat of my car. I stopped sleeping. Altogether covered
every reflective surface in the house. But even with all that,
I kept seeing the frame, just the edge of it
in my dreams. I gave up, took it back to
that gravel road. The barn was gone, collapsed into itself,
folding table was missing. All that remained was a rectangle
of scorched grass, as if some one had burned a
piece of the earth out and left it like that.
I walked out to the center, so faint impressions in
the ground, circular patches where the other items must have
been let ghost place soldiers. I set the mire down
dead center. Didn't look back. After that, everything stopped, no dreams,
no scratches. I felt like myself again. The town of
Danning Hollow throws this huge odd sail every four called
the Hollow Trail Sail. I just moved out there, renting
a place in the woods a few miles outside of town.
Not a proper house, just an old hunting cabin some
one had sort of half returned into her home. It
had running water, heat when the generator behaved, and a
front door of the stuck in the rain. I'd only
been there a few weeks still hadn't really talked to
any one except the guy who handled the keys. I
figured checking out the art call might help me feel
a little more rooted, or at least help me see
who lived around me. So I got him a cart
just after sunrise with a thermis of coffee and followed
the paper map they gave out at the groy store,
hand draw loops with arrows, circles, and spots labeled like
smith Barn records on Nora books plus dolls. I didn't
have anything specific I was looking for, just figured it'd
be good to get out the roads up their wine
like crazy one second year, between corn fills the next
year on a gravel curve with no guardrails and nothing
but woods on either side. Some stops were decent toolboxes,
mason jaws, old fishing gear, but most of them wore
a word mix of baby clothes, mishmschmuks, broken chairs, and
those old metal tints that smell like crust and regret.
About half way through I noticed something that wasn't on
the map. There was a break in the trees near
a bend in the road right before the bridge at
Carrick's Hollow. No sign, no balloons, no marker, just small
clearing with one folding table set up in the grass.
Nobody else around, no cars parked nearby, just this one
older woman sitting behind the table like should be in
their day waiting. Sheered this look neatly combed gray hair,
a pale yellow sweater that hung loose around the shoulders,
and a lawnchair that looked like it belonged in a museum.
I sawed the car, almost without thinking. There was just
something about how still she was, no phone, no book,
just watching the road. I parked on the shoulder and
walked up. She didn't say alah, didn't even nod. She
just watched me. I remember feeling kind of awkward, like
I had walked into someone's back out uninvited. But there
was this small cardboard box on the table, sitting by itself.
I leaned over to look. It was full of polaroids,
dozens of them, each one labeled in soft pencil with
the name, different names. Every time Curry the lures fete,
every photo showed some version of the same thing, a
yard sale. Sometimes it was a rickety wooden table, other
times it was just a blanket laid out on the grass,
but always the same composition, someone standing behind it facing
the camera. Some were smiling, some weren't. None of them
looked stage. It wasn't just the sayeness of the shots
that felt weird, it was the feeling they gave off,
like none of these people had meant for their pictures
to be taken. That's when the woman finally spoke. Her
voice was dry, almost like it hadn't been used in
a y. Well, people forget, she said, not looking at me,
but the land. Don't I let out this plight laugh,
half confused, hollow wisdom. I said that one's free. She
didn't blink. I asked her how much for the box.
She didn't enter that either. Instead, she picked out one
photo and handed it to me. It was my cabin,
clear as day, same sloping yard, same front porch, same
busted's wing hanging by one chain. There was a card
table in front of it, with a woman standing behind it.
She was half turned, like she just looked up from
arranging something. The photo was old, faded with that yellow
Hay's polar roidskit when they've been run too long, but
it was unmistakably the place I just moved into. I
stared at it for a while. The woman in the
photo wasn't familiar, not the previous tenant, not someone from
the neighborhood, just a stranger standing where I drink my
coffee in the mornings. When was this taken? I asked,
Still nothing from her. She just motioned again to the box,
like it was free to brass, no pressure, like it
didn't matter whether I took something or not. I slid
the foto back in the stack, mumbled thanks, and left.
Her silence was the loudest part of the hull interaction.
It hung over me all the way home that night.
I kept thinking about the picture. When I pulled into
my driveway, I sat in a coffer for a few minutes,
staring at the yard eye, walked up the same path,
stood on the same portch. Everything matched. I even found
the spot where the table must have been, right down
to a patch with a grass of grown thinner. Inside
the cabin was quiet, too quiet, too quiet. It always
had the stillness at night, but this time it felt deliberate,
like something holding its breath. I started looking around, hoping
I'd find some reasonable explanation. I checked the walls to corners,
even behind the furniture. No hidden cameras, no old photos
in the walls. But in the kitchen, tucked in the
back of the drawer with some faded grocery lists and
a box of matches, I found a stack of letters,
not in envelopes, just bundled together with a rubber band.
They were all addressed to someone named ELM. Reese. Neat handwriting,
mostly short notes, grocery reminders, a few names I didn't recognize.
The latest one had the date October twelve, nineteen nine
ty eight. No return of ress, nothing official, just personal,
quite correspondence. I stood there for a while, just holding them.
The air in the kitchen felt heavier, not colder, just
dnser like it wanted me out. I couldn't sleep that night.
I kept hearing soft creaks from the porch. I told
myself it was just the house settling. That's what all
places do. Right then, around three in the morning, I
heard a gravel crunching car tires. I sat up and
went to the window. Nothing no headlights, no engine, just
the faint sound of shifting stone. I growl a flask
light and stepped outside. There in the middle of the
yard was a folding table. I swear I hadn't been
there earlier, and sitting on it one polaroid. It was
me from behind, leaning over that woman's table olo that day.
The ankle was exact like someone had stood just behind
me and snapped the shot. But I hadn't heard a shudder.
I hadn't seen anyone else on that rope. I backed
away and went inside, locking every window, every door. I
pulled the curtain's close and left the lights on. Then
I dug up the flyer from the hollow trail sail
and culled the number at the bottom some kind of
infull line or maybe a hot line for lost items.
A woman answered. I asked if she knew anything about
the house with a single table near Carrack's Hollow, just
passed the bridge. She went quiet. That house burned down,
she said, eight years ago, nothing left but a concrete slab.
Now next morning the table was gone. I went back
out there anyway. I had to see it again, same bend,
same clearing, but sure enough, just trees in a half
swallowed foundation, concrete cracked and overgrown. No sign of chairs,
no woman, just quiet. I tried to shake it off.
Maybe I had stopped at the wrong bend. Maybe it
was just a weird coincidence. But then that night the
mail from the kitchen drawer vanished, not muss place gone,
no trace of it in its place, and the kitchen
counter was a new photo a man I'd never seen
before standing on my porch, same pose as the others,
just standing there, look looking at the camera, only his
eyes were smutched out, wiped or rubbed, like someone didn't
want them seene. The bax said el went last day.
I left, I packed what I could and drove to
a motel in another county. I didn't care about my Lisa,
my deposit. I just kneeded out. A week later at
the front desk, Click called my room, said I had
a delivery. I hadn't told anyone where I was. No
name on the box, no label, just a cube of
cardboard sealed tight with black electrical tape. Inside were over
a hundred polaroids. Every single one showed a yard sail.
Everyone had a person standing behind a table looking into
the camera. Different people, different years, basin, the clothes and
the cars in the background, different places, but always the
same look. The last photo was blank, no picture, just
a label written in pencil, soft and small meath. I
took the whole box out to the motel firepit and
lit it up. Watched it burn all the way down
until the plastic snapped and curled and the ashes floated
up like dead leaves. I left the state the next morning.
I don't stop for roadside sales any more. I was
thirty two when it happened. There was this yard sail
off a back road near a place called Lionel, a
little no stop like town in eastern Kentucky where the
hills brass close and most roads don't even have names,
just directions like turn after the Green Barn. I was
out that way on Saturday morning, no real destination, just
needed to get out of the house. I did a
long week and figure a drive, maybe hit a flea
market or two, nothing serious. That's when I saw it.
The sign was barely a sign, just to walk piece
of cardboard duct tip to a leaning mail box that
said Saturday and Sunday ninium in faded black marker. It
wasn't even angle toward the road, more like someone stuck
it there as an afterthought. I wouldn't have stopped, except
sitting at the edge of the driveway was what looked
like an old Sennith console radio, the kind built like furniture,
all wood and brass trim, from the late seventis or
early eighties. It looked in surprisingly good shape. That's my thing.
I collect retroelectronics, not the flashy stuff every one wants,
but the weird off brown pieces, radios with strange dile pas,
and TV with burned in channels. Anything that hums was
old circuitry. I've got a little room at home with
shelves of the kind of stuff. It's not valuable exactly,
just comforting in a strange way. So I pulled into
the gravel tonau and stepped out. The house sat half
way up a small slope tout behind a screen of
trees that were just starting to go gold for the season.
It didn't look abandoned, but it definitely had that long,
empty feel, like someone came by once a season to
cut the grass but never stepped inside. The paint was
peeling around the windows, and one of the porch columns
was held up by a stack of bricks. There were
no people, no dogs barking, just me and a bunch
of stuff. The yard sale wasn't what i'd call organized.
The left side of the porch had two sun bleached
lawn chairs and a stack of old readers, digests magazines.
The right side was clotted with boxes, lamps, rusted tools,
a folding table with dollies and salt shakers, a few
bentoire hainers. Everything laid out like someone had been half
way through sorting and then just stopped. What caught my
eye was the sign on the door of prices as
emmarked c S only honor system. I've seen it a
few times before. Usually it states sales where the family
doesn't want to talk to strangers. Still, something about the handwriting, jaky, uneven,
like it had been painted with a brush too large,
gave me pause. Most of the atoms had masking tape
on them, which is normal enough, but instead of writing
the prices with marker, the numbers was scratched into the tape,
not printed. Scratched. You could actually see where a penn
or nailer dug into the surface, leaving fing outers, and
the prices were strange. Everything had sense, nothing rounded off.
A beat up recliner was tagged seventeen point ninety two.
A cracked toaster said eleven point thirteen, even a busted
garden hose at attack that read three point twenty seven.
It was like someone had calculated every item down to
the penny. It didn't feel quirky, it felt deliberate. I
didn't see anyone. I waited a minute, expecting maybe someone
would step out if they saw me poking around, but
no one did. I wanted the porch for a bit, though.
Was the usual garar sale weirdness, a cookie tinful of buttons,
as stackable VHS tapes with no labels, a hand made
colt that smelt faint like vinegar. One thing that stood
up was a ceramic rooster with no eyes, just smooth
indentations where the people should have been. Not scary, just thought,
but the radio kept drawing me back. It was cleaner
than everything else, no scratches on the panel, the speaker
cloth looked and touched. The knobs still had their little
chroom caps, no dust. It was the only item without
a price. I figured maybe it wasn't actually for sale,
just there for show. I walked up to the door
to ask. Before I could knock, the screen door moved.
It creaked open just a couple inches. I hadn't touched it.
There was no wind, no vibration under my feet. It
opened like someone on the other side had gently nudged it.
I stood there a second. Nothing moved inside. I couldn't
see past the mash. No voices, no footsteps, just stillness.
I said, hi there, just wondering if that oles in
it's for sale. Nothing, not even the sound of a
floorboard shifting. I knocked first, fleet, then louder, waited. Still nothing.
I should have walked away, but something about the whole
set felt and finished. Black eyes stumbled into the middle
of a transaction that had already started. I turned back
to the radio, walked over, squatted down in front of it,
and flipped open the top panel. Inside. Sitting neatly in
the tray beneath the dials was a small stack of coins,
not loose, stacked quarters, dimes, nickels, connas, all polished. I
leaned closer and saw a piece of that same masking
tape stuck to the inside of the lead, scratched into
it fourteen point ninety one paid paid by WHO. I
turned again toward the house, still no sign of life.
The radio didn't feel like an object at that point.
It felt like part of something like I was being
invited into I didn't quite understand. I pulled out my wallet.
I had a twenty A five and three ones I
left fifteen dollars exactly, folded it once and placed it
where the coins had been picked up the radio. It
was heavier than I expected, way heavier. It didn't feel
like it had speakers or a too bump inside. It
felt solid, like a block of wood. I carried it
back to my truck and set it gently in the bed.
That night, I didn't think about it much, went a bit,
watched a little TV, fell asleep. The static woke me up. Loud,
not loudlike volume, loud, loud like too close to your
ear loud. I came downstairs and there it was, sitting
in the corner of my living room, laring nothing, just
dick hissing static. It wasn't plugged in. I turned it
off and plugged it anyway, just to make sure. Next night,
same thing, but this time behind the static there was
something else, not a voice, not words, not words, more
like a pattern, like the shape of some one speaking.
But the sound had been carved away, a kind of
rhythm that made the hairs on my arms rise. I
opened the panel. The fifteen bucks i'd left were gone.
The coins were back, same stack, same order, polished. I
didn't tell anyone. I don't know why, maybe because I
already knew how insane it sounded. I just moved the
radio to the garage, wrapped it in a towel, tucked
it behind a pile of gardening stuff. Figured I deal
with it later. It turned on again the next night.
This time it wasn't just static. There was music, sort
of fiddle music, but ron too Fast two Shop played
in reverse with through a warp reel. It had this
anxious picture it like it was trying to raise the
head of itself. I could feel it in my spine.
That was when I decided to take it back. I
drove out on Sunday afternoon, but the house was empty,
no sign, no drunk porch, completely clear. The screen door
now had a rusted padlock across it, thick and old.
The chairs were gone, the rooster was gone, the radio
obviously was gone. Everything. I walked around the yard for
a bit, thinking maybe someone had packed up, but it
didn't feel like someone had left. It felt like nothing
had ever been there at all. Back in town. I
stopped at a gas station and asked a guy behind
the counter about the house up the hill. He gave
me a look that place. No one's lived there in decades,
he said, used to be a preacher, died in a
fire house, survived, but nobody's touched it since. People say
it's course, but I think it's just rot. The radio
kept turning on for three more nights, same time, every night,
three point thirteen a m not a minute earlier, not
a minute late. I stayed up to watch once, sat
in the dark with a flasklight, just staring at it.
I had exactly three point thirteen. The knobs started to turn,
not fast, just methodical, like someone was tuned in to
a frequency. Then the speaker paused and entered The static
ended up broken fiddle music. I heard my name, not yelled,
not whispered, just stated like someone was logging it. I
took it outside the next morning and smash it with
a hammer. I hit it until the case split open.
Inside wasn't a radio, no wires, no tubes, just dirt
dick packed in soil, the kind that smells like roots
and rust like crave dirt. I left the pieces by
the trash bins. The yard sale had been going since
Friday morning, and by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around,
I was almost out of stuff to sail. Most of
it belonged to my uncle Clay. He passed a winter before,
and no one else in the family wanted to deal
with what he'd left behind. His garage was pat water
wall with hotels, boxes of random junk, broken vans, religious
nick acts, you name it. By Saturday, the tables in
the driveway were mostly empty, just a few beat up ashtrays,
some rusted wrenches, and this porcelain angel statue that was
missing a thumb and leaning sideways like it had given
up on life. I was half heartily sweeping by needles
off the concrete, just trying to look busy, when the
last vehicle of the day pulled up. It was this
battered old pick, the kind that looked like it had
been held together with duct tape and sheer wolpar brownish red,
probably used to be moroon once, but freighted and scuffed
all over. No plates on it. That struck me as
odd but not alarming. Out in places like Sycamore Hollow
with this was happening, you see some odd things, and
you get used to not asking quos. The driver climbed out,
tall guy, maybe late fifties, maybe older. It was hot
to tell under the beard, which was thick and gray
and took up most of his face. He wore one
of those old sculbal coats piekle pels, giant buttons, the
kind my dad used to wear in the eighties, and
a hat with a low brim that kept his eyes hidden.
He didn't say anything to me, didn't give a nod
or even a polite wave, just walked over to the
tables like he was there to inspect something. Some people
just brows in silence, especially older folks around here, so
I didn't think much of it. He kept his hands
behind his back and moved real slowly, looking but never touching,
like he was walking through a museum. Eventually he stopped
in front of the angel statue. He stared at it
for what had to be a full minute, not moving,
not even shifting his weight, just locked in on it
like it had said something to him. That from your family,
he asked finally, without turning, I told him it was
my uncle's. Clay had a habit of picking up random
religious decor from auctions, closed churches, flea markets, wherever he
could find it. I never asked why he wasn't especially devout.
The guy nodded once, slowly, then turned his head just
enough for me to catch his mouth moving again. How
much I shrugged told him to take it. Honestly, I
was going to toss it if it didn't go. It
was chipped in a little creepy the kind of thing
you see in the corner of a room and think
is watching you. He didn't say thank you, just picked
it up like it was something fragile and irreplaceable, walked
back to his truck and sat in a cab engines
stole running, and then he just stayed there. Five minutes
went by, then Zig's I could hear the engine idling,
and I started wondering if maybe he did a stroke
or was about to fall asleep in the front seat.
I was half way to walking over to check when
he opened the door again and stepped out, this time
without the hat, and I finally saw his eyes. They
won't white exactly, but pale off white, milky like river glass,
not blind, not cloudy with canterrex, just faded like whatever
color used to be there had worn away, and they
locked onto mine with this quiet intensity that made much
ast field tight. He walked over and handed me a
piece of paper nearly folded. His fingers were rough, knuckle swollen,
like someone who done decades of manual work. If you
find the box it was in, he said, calm but deliberate,
don't open it, just burn it, all of it. He
didn't give me time to ask questions, turned round, got
in this truck and drove off. Not fast, not dramatic,
just gone. The paper was blankened outside, just one fold.
I didn't open it right away. I stood there for
a second holding that little square, wondering what the hell
that had been about. Then I went into the garage.
I hadn't touched the fur corner yet. There were three
moving boxes had stacked there when I first started sorting
through everything heavy. One s taped shut with clay basement
written on the sides in his handwriting. I remember thinking
he must have moved them out that before he got
sick and just never got round to unpacking them. The
first one was filled with books, some old paper backs,
some water damage hymnels. The second at a broken toaster,
some expired canned food, and a few family photo albums,
none of which I recognized, probably from Clay's side of
the family, which I barely knew. The third box was different.
It was heavy, and it should have been, not like
a few brooks. Heavy but wrong, dense in a way
that made me set it down gently without even realizing
I was being cautious. Inside there was another angel statue,
this one smaller than the first, but with the same
bowed head and folded hands, same word expression like it
was crimasing instead of praying. And under it was a box, wooden,
dark maybe oak, metal clasps on the sides, wrapped in
this brittle yellowed cloth. A crumbled a little when I
touched it. No markings, no labels, no reason for it
to be there. But I remembered what the man had said,
don't open it. I wish i'd listened. I picked it up.
The thing wasn't even locked. I peeled the cloth back
and opened the lid. The smell hit me first, earthy
in floral, but brawn, like lavender mixed with rod. It
clunked my nose and stayed there like something that got
under your skin. Inside was a layer of straw, or
what looked like straw, beneath that little wooden carvings, hand
carved animals, a moon, a couple birds, things like that,
and the bottom a small head, human shaped, not a
doll exactly, just a face, smooth wood, tiny glass eyes,
an open mouth. Its lips were stained, talk like someone
had tried to paint them ready years ago, and it
had mostly worn off. There were shallow scratches across its cheeks,
little gouges that made it look like it had been
dried across a wall. I touched it once. Instantly this
pressure started in my ears. Not a sound, just a
deep tunnel squeeze, like my own body was reacting. My
vision felt strange. I don't know how else to describe it.
I dropped the head back into the box and shut
it fast. I didn't sleep that night. I lay there
thinking I'd imagine hearing something, waiting for a knock or whisperer,
I don't know. But nothing came. Not that night. It
started three days later. The angel statue, the big one,
the one that man took, was back on my porch,
same one, no question, same crack in the rope, same
chip base, but the wings were gone, snapped clean off.
The pieces were laid neatly beside it, like some one
had tried to return it, broken but respectfully. I stood
there staring at it for a long time. Then I
walked the perimeter of the yard. No tire tracks, no footprints,
no sign any one had been for her. That night,
I found the garage door wide open. The wooden box
was sitting dead center on the floor, lid popped off,
and the carved head was gone. Everything else in the
house looked normal, windows locked, doors shut, nothing broken, but
the pressure in my ears was back, faint but constant,
like the hum of all power lines. The next night,
all the clocks were set, my oven, the microwave, my phone,
even my wristwatch. Midnight exactly, everything went blank for a
few seconds, then came back flashing zeros. I called the
electric company the next morning, no outages. I asked my
neighbor if they'd had any weird power surges. They light closed.
Tapping the back door, Max, my dog, jumped up and
stood rigid staring at the door with his ears pinned.
He led out a low growl I had never heard
from him before. I let him out, grout a flask
light followed him around the yard. Nothing but the next day,
there were claw marks in the door, three straight lines
lowed to the ground. The next night it was the
living room window. I didn't let Max out that time.
I turned off the lights and stood in the kitchen,
flushlight slide off, waiting. Nothing moved, But just before sun
rise the sound came again, this time from above me
in the attic. I didn't go up. I didn't go up.
I went to the hardware store and stead bought fire
startled logs, lighter fluid, a pair of long metal toms.
I hauled the box out to the fire pit and
dumped everything that seemed connected, both angels, every carving, even
the folded note the man had given me a sofd
in lighter flu The fire burned hotter than I expected.
Smoke curled up, thick and greasylike burning pine tarre and
with fabric. Max backed away, barking his head off. I
waited until it all turned ash, poured water over it,
then bared what was left behind the shed. That night,
I slept, but at three in the morning Max growled again.
He stood at the end of the bed, eyes fixed
in the hallway. The bedroom door was open. I know.
I shut it. I did another sweep of the house.
Every door still locked, windows tight, but the atticatchermatched. The
ladder had dropped halfway down. I shoved it up and
bolted it shut with new screws. That was two years ago.
I haven't seen the man's ends. There's this old mining
town tuck behind the hills, about forty miles from where
I live now. It's not on most maps, and GPS
gets confused around the last bend. You just follow this
creek road until the pavement gives up, first gravel, then
dear it, then just forro It's cutting free brush around here.
People only go that way during hunting season, and even
then only when the sun's out. I hadn't thought about
the place in years until I saw a fly I
taped to the post office bulletin board, just one sheet
of paper, yellowed like it had been sitting in some
one's attic too long, Multi family yards ail October fourteenth
only cash only, no early birds, Paul and Ridge. The
font looked like it came off an old typewriter. The
ink had bled a little, like maybe it got damp
at some point. But the word a state the credition
caught my eye. That's where the good stuff usually turns
up tools, furniture, bul gear. I buy and fix up
things to resell, mostly online. October is always slow, so
around ten that morning I packed some small bells and
a couple of tops and headed up. The rodent was
just like I remembered. No signs, no shoulders, no reason
to be there unless you had one. The last mail
box I passed had three bullet holes and the flag
was missing, but when I got there, it looked like
a proper sail. Five long folding tables set up in
a clearing next to what had clearly been a general store,
once woodsiding alts on, faded Coca Cola signs, porch roof
sagging like it was exhaling. A woman stood behind the tables,
maybe mid forties, long black braid, no smile, just gave
me a nod and went back to straightening a box
of glass ashtrays. I was the only one there. The
stuff was a strange mix. Some nearer things a microwave,
a worn out recliner, but most of it looked like
it had been sitting and touched for decades, while army blankets,
a butter chur old records, a box of thick hanpor
candles wrapped for twine. Everything melt like attic dust and
rude cellar air. I picked out a few things, a
solid brass carpenter's level, a cup of cast iron pans,
and this thy cunting my fin a leather sheath, no
price tag on it, so I held it up this
for sale. She didn't even look up, just said, if
you can carry it, it's yours. I thought she meant
it was heavy, but it wasn't. It sat easy in
my hand, ballanced. The sheath was real leather initials burned
into the back w C. I gave her thirty two
bucks for everything. She bowed it all in a plastic
sack from a store that's been gone since the nineties.
As I was walking back to the truck, she called out,
don't let it get warm. I turned, but she'd already
disappeared into the store. The knife was the only thing
I brought into the house right away. It looked hand made,
like someone forged it in a small shop. The blade
wasn't shiny, more of a duck dull finish, not rust
but not polished either. I didn't sharpen it. I just
said it all my dresser and left it alone. That night,
I had this dream, or I think it was a dream.
I will lying in bed, and I swore I heard
the front door open, just the soft click of the latch.
My bedroom door was shut, but I could hear movement,
not footsteps exactly, more like the floor creaking under slow,
careful shifts of weight. I got up and checked the
whole house. Nothing was touched, the door was locked, nothing missing.
The next day I had felt like it was in
a vice. I tried working on a shelf i'd been refinishing,
but my hands wouldn't stop tramping. Around dusk, while I
was cleaning up in the kitchen, I noticed muddy footprints
and the tile bare feet damper. But I had been
inside all day. I hadn't even stepped outside. They weren't mine.
That night, I moved the knife out of the garage,
told myself I was just spooted from the trip. All
places can have mold or weirved chemicals. Maybe something in
the blade messed with me. Still, I didn't sleep a second.
Next morning, the prints were back upstairs, this time a
single trail of damp foot prints right to the top
stairs and none coming back down. I didn't go up
just grabbed my keys and left. Came back you in,
thinking daylight might help. It didn't. The house felt thof,
not colder, exactly heavier, like even the silence had massed
to it. That afternoon, I went through one of the
boxes I'd picked up at the sale. Maybe i'd find
a clue. The knife sheath was in there, and the
initials were gone. There was a folded letter inside the
blanket box and pencil reel, shaky cursive, no greeting, no date,
just this. He brought it back after the war, buried
it three times. It still came back. If you take it.
Never cut living things, not even a weed. Don't warm it,
don't bleed near it. And if it starts humming, bury
it under running water. That's the only thing that slows
it down, eh McCall. I hadn't cut anything with it,
but I remembered I left it in the truck for
a while some was out. It had gotten warm. That
night it started humming. It was loud, more like a
low rhythm, almost a breath, tight and slow, like someone
breathing through their teeth. I figured it was a neighbor's
generator or something. But when I went out to the garage.
The knife wasn't where I left it. It was lying
in the middle of the floor. The sheaf was across
the room. I picked it up with a pair of tons,
shoved it into an old tin I used for oily rags,
sealed it in inside a locked tool box, and shoved
the whole thing in the back corner. The humming stopped,
but the next morning my garage door was open, the
toolbox was gone. I found it two days later at
the edge of the property, down in the creek bed.
The tin was wedged under a fallen log, like someone
had started to bury it but never finished. I pulled
it out and the humming came out back. That night,
I drove east, didn't pack a thing, just followed the
highway for about fifty miles until I found a bridge
over fast water. And that is the end. Thank you
for listening, and I will see you in the next one.