Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I was nineteen when I took
that delivery. I hadn't been at Harold's Pizza for very long,
maybe three weeks, maybe four, but already ID logged more
backer of miles than I care to count. Most of
our deliveries went out to the quieter parts of mcnell County.
That's where the roads got narrower and the addresses got stranger.
You think pizza would be a downtown craving, but no,
up there. People still wanted pepperoni and sausage like they
were calling for a rescue helicopter. The money wasn't bad,
especially with tips, but the routes, let's just say, if
you drove too far, your GPS started second guessing itself,
and even the cows looked like they had questions. You
get good at memorizing landmarks, the shape of roads, the
weird mail books, art, the one guy with a yard
full of toilets. That kind of stuff becomes your map.
That Friday night started slur. One of those nights were
tinned sticks, and the ovens umlauded than the foam rings
by ten thirty. The other two drivers had clocked out.
I was folding up the prep counter half way through
scruby my name off the delivery log when the bell rang.
One last order had slipped in. Sausage, pizza, single topping,
No drinks, no wings, just plain and simple. The ticket
said East Finch Road. Didn't raise alarms at first. The
guide re called, didn't sound drunk or strange, but he
hung up halfway through the confirmation, not ideal, stilled if
it was late. I was bored and I didn't feel
like staying to mop the soda machine. I grabbed the box,
sipped it into the insulated bag, and loaded up my car.
That Civic was on its last leg, always one pothole
away from becoming a lawn ornament. The handbrake hadn't worked
for months. I'd gotten used to it. Parking gear wheels
turned into the kurbyf There was one. No hills, no
trust in gravity. I punched the address into my phone.
The little blue dot hesitated before committing. Thirty minutes mostly highway,
then county roads than would have a lay beyond that.
I pulled out music low had let tie, and I
drove the farther I got the darker it got, street
lights faded, and the road started to feel like it
belonged to some one else. No cars, no signs of life,
just farmer melting into dense woods. By the time I
passed a rustained, water towered callowie barely visible, my phone
buzzed no service. I wasn't surprised that happened out here,
but it always had a pressure, like flying without a parachute.
YE start wondering what you'd do if the car broke down,
or if someone flied you down in the dark. After
a few more turns and a gravel deed that I
felt like driving over broken pottery, I found dear hollow road.
It wasn't a road, not really two rut barely wide
enough for a car, Trees clwing at the edges, branches
low enough to scrape the roof, the kind of place
you hoped you'd never have to reverse out of. I
slowed to a crawl, headlights bounced across twisted trees and
low hanging vines. It felt like driving into a tunnel
made of brush. And then, after nine miles of this
wilderness maze, I saw it the house. It sat low
in a gully at the bottom of a slope, half
swallowed by tree, a squat sagging shape with a roof
that looked defeated, windows blacked out or broken, and what
might have been a chicken cook collapsed beside it. The
driver was cracked and overgrown, but still passable. I eased down,
tires crunching on gravel, engine humming nervously. I left the
head lights on and the engine running, partly because of
the handbrake, but mostly because something about the place just
fell wrong, like it had been waiting. No porch light,
no movement inside, just a door slightly open, like it
hadn't made up its mind to close or invite me.
In I pickup sat at the top of the drive,
an old fort caked in mud, missing plates, one merry
dangling by a wire. It looked abandoned, or worse, not
abandoned at all. I sat there, one hand on the
gear shift, staring, and something was spurred. Don't not loud,
not burgeoned, just a quiet warning you feel more than here.
But it was just a peter right. I grabbed the back,
slipped the car into neutral with the wheelcock left so
it wouldn't roll, and got out the second I closed
the door of the night hit me damp still, the
of still, where every footstep feels personal. I walked the
gravel path sneakers crunching, breath showing in short bursts. The
peter bag felt too warm against my side. One window
caught my eye, half cracked frames, splintered, glass, mudged, as
if some one had rested their head there that detail stuck.
I stopped at the door, raised my hand, knocked. The
sound came back, muffled, thick like wood soaked water. No response.
I waited, still nothing. Then somewhere inside a light flickered,
dim stuttering, like an old bulbonnets last legs or candlelight
caught in motion, and then he appeared, tall, broad shoulders,
bald hair, tassues, crawling from beneath a yellow tank top.
His skin looked thin, stretched. He didn't move like someone surprised.
He moved like he been there the whole time, waiting.
He stared, no blink note, which just that flat, dry
stare in the faint color of a smile. I lifted
the box peter. My voice cracked. I cleared my foot
and pretended it hadn't. He didn't answer, did not, just
stood there waiting I leaned slightly, trying to glance past him,
and what I saw made my stomach twist. The house
was empty, not messy, not abandoned in the usual way,
just hollow, bare wooden floors, no furniture, no lamps, no curtains,
no smell of food, smoke, or even dust, just ere
that didn't feel lived in. Dark and even march streaked
the floor like something heavy had been dragged across it.
Then he moved his hand, slow, deliberate, behind his back,
and every cell in my body screamed to run, but
I didn't, couldn't. I just stood there, frozen, brain shouting
while my legs refused to listen. I thought of my
mom telling me this job wasn't worth it. I thought
of my girlfriend joking good luck in horror movie land.
When I texted, he read address, and I thought how
ridiculous it would be if this was how it ended
over a ten dollar sausage pizza. Then gravel shifted behind me.
I turned my head. My car was moving, not fast,
just slow, steady, rolling backward down the slope, wheels turning headlights,
weeping toward the road. The incline invisible in the way
in had become just steep enough to unjum me. I
watched my civic drift past the clapped chicken coop ties,
crunching softly. That's when the man smile changed, dell like
something had been taken from him. He looked at the card,
then back at me. Then, without a word, he pulled
a crumpled twenty from his pocket, held it out like
we were to drive through. I handed him the pizza.
He took it. The door shut with a heavy thud.
I ran down the path to the drifting car. I
yanked the door open, threw myself inside, slammed it into
first and hit the gas. The tire spun, caught, and
then I was gone, flying down dear hollow hans locked
in the wheel hart hammering against my ribs. I didn't
look back, not until I hit an intersection with a
street light and bars on my phone again. I pulled over,
killed the engine and sat there shaking. Back at the shop,
I told Monica, my manager, everything. I expected her to laugh,
but she went quiet, picked up the phone and called
the sheriff. Later I called her back, said the property
had been condemned for over a year. Fire damage row
from the sable owned by the bank. No one had
been near the months. Nothing else ever came of it.
I started carrying a pocket knife, Monica started sticking GPS
trackerstickers on all the bags, and I never took a
delivery that far again. My cousin calib had asked me
to look after his hunting cabin for a couple of
weeks while he was out of state for work. I
didn't think twice about saying, yes, we've grown up close
like brothers, really, and I figured it would be an
easy way to get out of town. Made it clear
my head a little. He didn't ask for much, just
said he needed someone to keep an eye on the place.
No use how it eas to worry about. No real chors,
just check in, keep it locked up, and make sure
no one tried to mess with it while he was gone.
The cabin was in a pretty remote spot in rural Kentucky,
about an eyro outside a little place called Weston, one
of those towns that's barely more than a post office
and a diner. From there, it was another fifteen miles
down winding gravel ROAs through old farmland that had mostly
turned back into woods, the kind of place where GPS
gives up halfway and you're relying on memory or printed directions.
The cabin itself wasn't anything fancy. It was quat, made
from old crying timber, sitting low to the ground on
short stilts, with a small front porch and a sagging
roof that always looked like it needed one more nail.
Caleb had fixed it up over the years. He added
a working wood stove, replace some of the windows, but
it still had that patchy and finished feel. You could
tell it had been built more for function and comfort.
One bedroom up in the loft, a main room with
a kitchen nook, a tiny bathroom tapped on to the side.
No internet, no cable, barely any sell signal unless he
walked about thirty feet a pill toward a crooked pine tree,
and even then it was hit or miss. When I
was unloading my back from the truck, Caleb tossed me
the keys and gave me a quick rundown where the
extra firewood was have a reset the well pump of
its butter, that sort of thing. Then he paused for
a second, like he was deciding whether to say something else.
Finally he did, oh, and just don't go wandering at night.
I chuckled, couldn't help it. It sounded like something out
of an old Camphire story, what like coyotes or something.
He just looked at me, not angry, not trying to
scare me, just serious. Just don't Then he got in
his truck and drove off. The first day was quiet, peaceful,
even I brought in some groceries, sat the fire by
the stove, and took a walk around the edge of
the tree aligned to get a feel for the place.
The forest stretched up in every direction, dense, dark, and
mostly undisturbed. You could stand in the porch and spin
in a full circle without seeing another house, row or
even a power line. I'd ask. I was sitting out
there with a beer, legs up on the railing, just
listening to the breeze rustling through the trees. No traffic noise,
no distance sirens, just silence, the kind that makes your
ears ring a little, because there's nothing to fill the space.
When I finally went inside and locked up, I remember
thinking the quiet almost felt too complete, like even the
forest was holding its breath. The second night, things started
to shift a little. I've fallen into a bit of
a rhythm. By then cooked a simple dinner, read for
a while, then checked all the doors and windows before
heading upstairs to the loft. I locked the front and
back doors twice, tugged in the shutters to make sure
they were latched, crawled into bed under the old cork
callot kept folded at the foot. I must have been
asleep for a couple of hours when I thought I
heard something on the porch, just a soft creek, like
someone had stepped in the loose board near the stairs.
I laid her for a long time, listening nothing else,
no footsteps, no knocks, no voices, just that one sound,
and then nothing. I told myself it was probably an animal,
maybe a raccoon, maybe a deer wandered too close. I
didn't look. I didn't want to. The next morning, everything
seemed normal, nothing disturbed, The firewood pile was still neat,
the door still locked. I convinced myself I had imagined
it that it was just the quiet playing tricks on
my ears. That night, I poured myself a drink before bed,
just something to take the edge off. Maybe it was
in my head, maybe not, But I had started feeling
a little watch, like the trees were paying attention, like
there was something just outside of you waiting for me
to notice it. Then around the leven or so, I
went into the kitchen for a fell and saw the
back door standing half an inch open. The dead boat
was still extended, not even touching the latch. I just
stood there staring at it, gripping the counter with one
hand and the glass with the other. I knew I
had locked it. I remembered hearing the solid think of
it sliding into place. I even tested it twice, but
now it was hanging open like it hadn't been touched.
I locked it again, harder this time, and dragged the
little end table over to sit in front of it,
just for peace of mind. The next morning I noticed
something new, mad thin streaks of it across the floor,
starting at the back door and trailing part way into
the living room. Not four footprints, not really, just marched lines,
like someone had walked through half dried mock and then
scraped their boots lightly on the floor. The streak stopped
at ten feet in, no turn around, no continuation, just stopped.
I crouched down to look closer. The marks were definitely
from boots wide uneven souls maybe size e leven or twelve.
I checked every room in the cabin, the loft, the
tiny bathroom, even the cabinet under the sink. Nothing, no one,
no sign of forced entry, no open windows, just a mud.
I even crawled under the porch, flashlight clenched between my teeth,
hot pounding so hard I could feel it in my jaw. Nothing.
That night, I didn't bother trying to sleep. I sat
in the main room with the lamp on, reading a
paperback I found on the shelf, something about hiking disastos
every now and then. I glanced at the back door,
checking the bowl, checking the floor. Around midnight, I heard
the front's green door creak. It was the same sound
as before, soft drawn out like so pressure. I'm an
old hinge. I froze, held my breath, waited for the
next sound. Nothing. After a while, I glanced at the
mental clock. It had stopped, hands frozen at nine forty two.
I leaned closer, trying to listen. The second hand twitched
once backward, twice forward, then nothing, like it had forgotten
how time is supposed to work. I didn't sleep. I
just sat there waiting for the sun. Somewhere around three
zero in the morning, I think I saw light moving
through the trees. At first I thought it was the
moon catching on something, but then it moved a flickering blow,
like an old lantern, swinging back and forth to the
kind with a glass cover and a little flame inside.
It moved slowly, deliberately, weaving between the trees. I stepped
out on to the porch, calling out without really thinking ullo.
The light didn't react, just kept moving in a lazy arc,
same pace, same distance. I walked a few steps toward it,
boot crunching on the gravel. It moved true, not away,
not toward me, just deeper into the woods, keeping the
same gap between us, just far enough that I couldn't
quite make out who was holding it. I followed it
from maybe twenty or thirty feet before stopping. My skin
felt tight, like the air was pressing on me. I
turned back toward the cabin and saw the back door
wide open again. That was it. I ran. I sprended
back hard in my throat, slammed the door shut, and
shoved the heavy table in front of it. I was panting, soating,
hands shaking as I leaned against the table, trying to
slow my breathing. Then came the sound bootsteps from upstairs,
one at a time, slow, steady, pacing back and forth
across the loft. There was no way. No one could
have gone past me. I had been watching every door,
but the steps kept going, deliberate and heavy right above me.
I stood at the base of the stairs for what
felt like an iro. Eventually I climbed them. Every step
felt like it took a year. My legs were trembling
through it dry. When I reached the top, nothing bad
was un touch My bag was still sitting on top,
sipped and undisturbed, but I had heard those footsteps. I
stayed in that chair until daylight bots on bag, packed
keys in my pocket. As soon as I saw the
first crack of light through the shutters, I got up,
grabbed my stuff, and walked out the door without a
glance back. We had just moved into a rental house
in a little town called Marlow, Kentucky. My girl friend
and I wanted something quiet, affordable, with a yard where
the kids could play, a place where we wouldn't hear
are upstairs neighbors late night tap dancing any more. This
house checked most of the boxes. Not perfect, but it
had potential two small bedrooms, one tiny spare room we
converted into a cozy mix of music n nook and
nerd sanctuary, have al lin and guitars on one side,
my old desktop and stack of our pig books on
the other. It felt like a fresh start. The front
window the road sloped down toward the elementary school bus route.
Every afternoon, right around three, the yellow busses rolled by
in a slow parade. Kids tumbled out, yelling and laughing,
back back, swinging. Sometimes I sipedlucorm coffee and watched from
the couch, and for a brief second, everything felt right.
I don't know why that pot stuck with me, maybe
because it felt normal, familiar even, But there was one
thing I never quite got used to. Right across the street,
just fifty feet from our front door, stood an old
wooden church, not a grand cathedral, just a tired, whitewashed
building with chips siding, a slanted roof, and a steep
le leaning slightly to the right, as if it had
survived two many storms and decided to rest. The way
beside it a gravel lot, usually empty except on Sundays
of the occasional Wednesday night, it looked like the kind
of place where hints echudoff raft and peas creaked when
you shifted your weight. Most people probably thought it gave
the area a wholesome vibe, clean, safe, decent. For us,
it felt like standing in a glass box a display
case labeled look at the weird. Ones were pagan, not
loud about it, but not hiding at eaither A small
sticker on our front door, nothing harsh, just a pentacle
with a funny caption. A wind chime made of dear
auntlaws near the porch. That alone was enough to draw
attention in a place like Marla. A few days after
moving in, I noticed muddy streaks up the side of
the house, not splashed from attire, smeared high up, like
someone had thrown a fistful of wet dirt at the wall.
I stared at it, trying to explain it away. Maybe
kids running through the yard, maybe a dark mirror. My
girlfriend was less forgiving. Someone saw the sticker, she said, flatly,
arms crossed, jaw tight. They don't like us being here.
I couldn't argue. She grew up in towns like this,
so did I. It wouldn't be the first time someone
loomed us with passive aggressive nonsense. She woorked lawn shifts
at the clinic. I stayed home with the boys j
J O'Neil. It made more financial sense, and I liked
the rhythm, even if it sometimes felt like a one
woman's circus. Breakfast was chaos. Scorework needed, bribes and breaking
up fights between a six year old and a four
year all to negotiation skills worthy of the un The
only real quite came in the afternoons, when the kids
played in the yacht and I could bree That day,
I crouched in the grass near the porch with Neil.
We watched a spider spinning a web between two railings.
He was absorbed, pointing every few seconds and narrating like
a tiny niche host. I wasn't thinking about the church.
I wasn't thinking about anything, just enjoying the stillness until
the car showed up, first a black suv, then a
maroon sedan, then another. Within ten minutes, the church lot
was full, ten maybe twelve cars, lined in neat rows,
not normal from Monday afternoon. My first thought was funeral,
but I saw no suits, no flowers. They weren't dressed fancy,
not even a like It didn't feel like an event,
more like a gathering, a coordinated one. I told myself
it was probably a council meeting or Bible study with snacks.
But I kept watching. Then the door opened. People felt
out in clusters. The first group drew my eye, a man,
a woman, and two little girls. The girls looked identical,
same braids, same dresses, moving in perfect sink, not in
the cute twin way, in a practiced way. Behind them
came two men who made my stomach to a tall rail.
Thin gaunt faces, sunken cheeks, collars too wide for their necks.
They looked stretched, worn down. But the slow, deliberate steps
made me want to run inside and lock the door.
Neil noticed too. He waved with toddler enthusiasm. HULLO. I
gave a polite smile, raise a hand. The adults ignored us,
but the girls turned both of them. They stared blank,
frozen like dolls. Like dolls, one even started to raise
her hand in a dilate wave. Then snap, one of
the tall men grabbed her wrist enforced her arm down,
not gentle, quick chop, like scolding a child reaching into fire.
My stomach dropped, I told neil the head inside. He
went without fuss, assuming it was snack time. She Ja
met him at the door, already peeking out the window
like he'd been watching. I stayed put. Curiosity got the
better of me, the dangerous kind, the kind act whispers
say something where you'll always wonder. So I crossed the road.
The father figure was in the driver's seat. I called out, hey,
I'm Danny. Just moved in across the street. He turned
and looked at me. That's all. But the weight of
it made the skin on my neck tighten. Not anger,
not fear, just heavy, certain Still, I smiled, You've got
two beautiful girls. One of the twins tilted her head.
Her words were so flat, so strange. I thought I
mishard were not for sale. I blinked, sorry. She didn't
repeat it. The gaunt man in back echoed, slow and deliberate,
they are not for sale. I laughed nervously, No, of
course not. I just thought maybe you'd like to come
over some time, coffee or something. Let the kids hang up.
That's when the mother appeared. She stepped down, pulled off
her some glasses, and cut me with a look sharp
as a blade. My girls won't be caught dead with
you boys. She hissed, Then she stepped closer. I've seen
what you are. Lesbians, heathens, devil worshippers. Each word landed
like a slap. God sees you, little girl, and he
does not like what he sees. He will strike you down.
Her hand shot skyward. He will not buy my children
the souls belonged to him. Her voice cracked, shull, echoing
across the empty street like a sermon rehearsed for years.
I stood frozen, not for lack of words, but because
what do you even do with that? My legs shook.
I nodded, muttered something like OK, then and turned back
across the street, not running, not quite. Her voice chased
me all the way home, scripture but curses. Inside. G
J and Neil were wide eyed at the window. I
shut the door, leaned against it, tried to shake it off.
Then Neil, still clutching a juice box, looked up at me, Mommy,
if you buy those kids, can I keep one in
my closet? And that was the end of it. This
happened during a solo camping trip in Kentucky a couple
of years ago. I was deep in one of those
burnout spirals where even the sound of a microwave beeping
felt like too much. Everything at work had been NonStop meetings, deadlines,
slack messages pinning every ten seconds. I live alone, but
even my own apartments started to feel cramped, so I
blocked off a weekend, told every one I was going
somewhere without service, which was true, and I started packing
for a two night trip into the woods, just me
a tent and hopeful in no one else for miles.
A guy I used to work with, Marcus, once told
me about this hidden spot past the usual campgrounds of
Red River Gorge. It wasn't listed on any camping map,
just a place you had to know about. He said.
If you followed a dirt trail past a washed out
sign in a bed fence post and kept going until
you reached little fort that looked like nothing, you'd find
an open clearing surround trees. He had only been there
once years ago, but said it felt like the quietest
place he'd ever been. That sounded like exactly what I wanted.
I left on a Friday morning. The drive from Lewisville
took a few ears, and the last stretch was rough
gravel roads, hotholes, places where I was sure I was
even on the right track. But eventually I found what
looked like the trail had Marcus had described, a barely
the path, half swallowed by weeds. I parked off to
the side and hoisted my pack. The hike was longer
than I expected, almost two ears, with all the gear
climbing more than I had guessed. My legs were screaming
by the time I reached the clear ring, and I
was soaked in sweat that the second I stepped into
that open patch of land it felt worth it. It
was a perfect little spot, flat, wide enough for a
tent and a fire, surrounded by tall trees that made
the whole place feel like a room without walls. Someone
had left a fire ring made of blacken stones. The
ground was soft, but not muddy. No sounds of cars,
no distant voices, no power lines humming, just stillness. I
set up my tent in the center and unpacked. I
had a tiny cooloa with food, a couple of mini
liquor bottles. My camping knife flashed light all the usual stuff, caught,
a small fire going, roasted some hot dogs, cracked open
one of the bottles. I remember sitting there for a
long time, just staring into the fire and feeling more
relaxed than I had in weeks. I even laughed out
loud at how quite it was, not in the spooky way,
just in a my brain finally shut up kind of way.
Then the sun started going down. Right around dusk, I
heard something in the trees behind me, not the kind
of rustling you chwne out, but something with weight, slow steps,
shift in leaves, branch is brushing. I turned my head,
dumped water without even thinking, and for the briefest second
I saw someone. They were between two trees, already half turned,
moving away, but I caught the outline, broad shoulders, a jacket,
the brim of a hat, no face, just a shape
slipping deeper into the woods. I blinked and it was gone.
I stood up and called out, hey, he camping out
here too. My voice sounded weird, not echoing, just swallowed
up like the clearing, took the sound and sat on it.
No one answered. I waited, then said all good, just
didn't expect to see anyone out here. Still nothing, I
told myself it could have been a hiker, maybe someone
passing through, or maybe someone who didn't want company. That's fair,
I didn't either, really, But after that I couldn't stop
glancing at the trees. I kept catching shadows where there
shouldn't be any. The fire crackle, the bugs buzzed, but
I didn't feel alone any more. Maybe an hour or
later I heard another sound, leaves again, this time from
the opposite side of the clearing, like someone circling. I
grabbed my knife, turned on the light, and swept it
toward the noise. Nothing just trees and underbrush. This time
I didn't call out, just stood the waiting. After a
few minutes, I sat back down, but the fire burned lower.
I didn't want to waste battery, so I used my
flashlight sparingly. When everything was quiet again, I climbed into
the tent. It was colder than I expected. I zipped
sleeping bag up to my chin and lay there listening.
The tent creaked with the wind. Everything else was dead quiet,
no owls, no rustling, furious stillness. I must have fallen
asleep at some point, because the next thing I remember
is waking up in the middle of the night. The
tent glowed pale with midnight, and it took me a
second to realize why I was awake. There was a sound,
a soft brushing sound, right next to my head. It
was a tent wall. Something or some one was dragging
fingers slowly across the outside. I didn't move, my body
locked up instantly. It wasn't the wind, it was an animal.
It was the slow, intentional movement of a hand back
and forth, tracing the outline of where I was inside.
I whispered, sharp and hissing, who's there. The sound stopped immediately,
Then no steps, no breathing, nothing. I waited, grewuping a
knife so hard it hurt. Then I an sepped the
tent just enough to stick my head out and flick
the head lambon. The clearing was empty, completely still. The
fire pit was dark, The trees didn't move. I couldn't
even hear a wind any more. It felt like a
scene some one had frozen. I scanned everything twice, then
zip the tent back up. I didn't even try to
sleep again, sat up, knife across my legs, head lamp
still on. Maybe twenty minutes later I heard another sound.
This one made much aslock tight the soft creak of
my cooler opening. It's not a loud sound normally, but
in the silence it might as well have been a gunshot.
I waited her nothing else then, and zipped the tent,
jumped out and swept the beam across the side. The
cooler was closed, same position, same latch, not even moved
a minch. I walked over hard, pounding in checked, totally untouched.
I shouted, then, loud, angry, what do you want? Nothing answered.
I turned in a full circle, shining the light everywhere.
Still nothing. I started doing laps around the clearing, trying
to make sense of it. I didn't want to leave
in the middle of the night. It was too dangerous
in the dark, but I was wired. I couldn't tell
if someone was screwing with me or if I was
losing it. I was half way through a second lap
when I noticed something that stopped me cold. My boots
were gone. I had left them right by a tent flap,
neatly side by side. Now they weren't there. My eyes
shut toward the fire pit, and there they were, not
thrown or kicked, not messed with, just sitting there, perfectly alarmed,
like some one had picked them up, carried them twenty
feet and placed them down with care. I stirred so
long my flashlight flickered. Nothing else had moved. I walked
slowly to the boots and knelt beside them, scanning the
ground for Prince. The dirt looked in touch. It was
the most specific kind of roun I've ever seen. I
backed away and went straight into the tent, sat down,
sipter shot, angled the light at the door, and held
the knife like I was waiting for something to come through.
The rest of the night stretched forever. Every sound felt
like bait, every silence felt like a test. I didn't sleep,
didn't even blink for long stretches. Eventually the light outside shifted.
I saw graver the tent and knew the sun was
coming up. I didn't waste a second through everything in
the pack, skip breakfast, didn't even check if I left
anything behind. I laced the boot slowly. My hand shook
so badly I had to start over twice. Then I
slung the pack over my shoulder and started walking, just
walk fast until I saw my car. I threw the
pack in the back seat, slammed the door, and drove.
Every summer, my family would pack up our beat up
pond and make the long drive from Indianapolis. We spent
a couple of weeks on my uncle Jerrol's farm, in
a quiet little spot outside Maple Hollow. That place felt
like the edge of the earth. You couldn't even get
a reliable radio signal, let alone cell service. My parents
loved the break from the noise. I just liked being
out in the open doing things that felt useful, feeding animals,
moving tools, playing look out when my cousins tried to
sneak out of chores. My uncle's land seemed endless, comfields,
opened pastures, wooded patches, thick with underbrush. It all blurred
into a giant patchwork of green and gold. Sometimes you'd
walk twenty minutes and end up somewhere that looks nothing
like wise started to a city kid like me, it
was another world. Most of the time we stayed near
the barn in the garden and the gravel drively leading
to the big metal gate. But there was one trail.
It cut straight through the woods behind the house, narrow
a little over groan, but the fastest way to the
southern fence line, where the brush grew thick. To us,
it was a secret tunnel between shores. We knew every
twist every root sticking up just enough to trip you
if you weren't careful. That summer at the heat was brutal,
the kind that made your clothes stick to your back
before breakfast and turned metal door handles into branding irons.
My uncle and the older guys left early to clear
brush on the far end of the property. By mid morning,
he waved me over and handed me a huge water jug,
the kind you'd burn to a soccer game, heavy slushing,
ice cold. Take this down to the boys, he said,
nodding toward the woods. They'll be past the ridge. Ye
know the trail, and I did. I'd walked it a
dozen times already that week. It dipped into the trees,
bed left around a thick stump, then opened near the
south gate. Ten minutes tops. I hoisted the jug on
to my hip, adjusted my grip, and stepped into the
trees without the thinking twice, but maybe I should have.
From the start. Something about the trail felt different. The
trees seemed taller, closer together, like they had grown overnight.
The usual shafts of light that filtered through the canopy
weren't there. The path felt dimmer, tighter. I told myself
I was imagining it, or maybe I had started off
slightly wrong. I kept walking, counting steps out of habit
thirty fifty, one hundred, No bend, no familiar stumped, no clearing,
just more trail, more trees. I stopped, shifted the jug
and looked back. The entry was gone, only trunks and
brambles in every direction. I told myself, I just wandered
a little too far and needed to backtrack. So I
turned around, But the path behind me wasn't the same.
Everything went mirrored. The leaning birch that had been on
the right was now on the left. The mussy stones
were gone in a place. A deadlock stretched across the
path like a barrier. My skin crawled, like stepping into
someone else's house that looked almost but not quite like
your own. I turned again and decided to just keep
walking until something looked familiar. The juke was heavy, the
air was thick, sticky, like soup. I counted steps again,
just to stay steady. At one hundred sixty, the trail open,
but it wasn't the pasture. It was a clearing, not large,
but wide enough for sunlight to break through. In the
middle stood a shack. It looked ancient frowned together in
a hurry long ago, then abandoned. The boards were warped
and gray, the roof sacked, the door bound with a
rusty chain and padlock. I froze at the edge of
the trees. That shack didn't belong. No one had ever
mentioned it. My cousins and I had roamed these woods
for years, and we had never seen it. It shouldn't
have been there. I set the jug down without realizing
it and crept forward. The grass was overgrown, but not wild,
down in spots, like someone had walked through recently. The
air smelled musty, like a flooded basement. I circled around
the side. That's when I saw the carvings. At first
they looked like scratches, but the pattern was too neat,
sets of five hatch marks, row after row, dozens of them,
cut carefully stacked. Some one was keeping track of something, time,
day's people. Whatever it was, it wasn't a small number.
My heart doubted. I stepped back, ready to leave. I
turned toward the jug, but the trail was gone. The
clearing was sealed off, trees packed tight, walling me in.
No path, no break, only silence. I spun in a circle,
desperate for an opening nothing. I picked a direction and
shoved through. Branches tore up me, phones ripped my shirt.
I pushed until I was back in the clearing on
the opposite side. The shack was still there, and the
jog right where I'd left it. But I hadn't picked
it up. I hadn't circled back. It had moved. My
throat tightened, my legs froze. I turned back to the
wall of carvings. There were more, just a few extra rose,
fresh pale cuts in the wood. I didn't count. I couldn't.
I grabbed the jug and ran. I didn't know which
direction I was going. Branches cawed at me, my lungs burned.
I ran until my legs gave out, and then I
was out. I tumbled into the southern pasture. The fence
line was there, and my uncle and two farm hands
leaned against the fence, sipping from a canteen. He looked
at me, surprised what to acquise, so long he asked,
I shoved the jug into his arms and tried to speak.
The words spilled out A shack, carvings, vanishing trails. He
stared at me, then said flat and quiet. There ain't
no shack in those woods, no teasing, no raised eye brow,
no follow up, just nothing. And it wasn't the words
that scared me. It was the way he said them.
He needed the conversation to end, so I dropped it.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in my cousin
Khaled's rooms, stirring at the ceiling fan. My dad had
this idea that a few weeks of hard work in
the middle of nowhere would build character. That's how I
ended up spending part of my summer at my uncle
Rick's place out in Kentucky. He left alone on this
beat up patch of land, faw past anything you'd call civilization,
the kind of place where you lose cell signal halfway
down the road and only get it back if you
hiked to a certain hill and stand there like a
weather vane. Just trees fields and a crack drive whid
I felt like it had been paved with regrets. The
house was small and old, one of those one story
rectangles that looked like it had sunk too far into
the ground. The siding was chipped and flaking, like it
wanted to leave. The porch sagged in the middle. Every
step air and you to test it. Stairs groaned in
a way that wasn't exactly reassuring. Out back, there were
acres of woods, thick cream growth stretched like a wall.
In the daylight, it was almost peaceful, a little spooky
feel at your mind wander, but mostly quiet. At night,
though it was different. The trees seemed closer, like they
leaned in when you weren't looking. You could almost believe
they were listening. The first week, I didn't think much
about it. Uncle Rit put me to walk right away,
hauling chop wood into piles, cleaning out an old shed
that smelled like meldium bugs, patching up fencing that was
one storm away from collapse. Most nights I ended up
filthy and sore, ready to eat and crash. After dinner,
he'd head into town, said he liked to play cards
with buddies or grab beer at a place called Dolly's.
I didn't know if Dolly's was a bar or a
woman with interesting priorities. Eat away. He always left me
the house to myself. At first, I didn't mind. I'd
sprawl on the couch with the book, or set by
the screen door, letting the night sounds in the staddy
buds of crickets and frogs. Was like nature static. Sometimes
I'd fall asleep with the window open, cool air drifting inside.
It was nice, simple, no distractions until nightfour. That's when
things started getting weird. The first thing was so small
I almost didn't notice. I'd left us a roumic mug
on the counter before bed, half full of water. In
the morning, it was gone. When I found it. It
was rince turned upside down and set neatly in the sink.
I stared at it for a while. I knew I
hadn't done that, and my uncle hadn't come home. He
told me he was crashing at friends after a late
poker game. I told myself maybe I'd forgotten people do
things on out of pilot. Sometimes it bugged me, but
not enough to dwell on. The Next morning, though, was different.
My boots. I'd left them by the back door, caked
in mud laces and done and flopped open. But when
I woke up, they were side by side against the wall, plain,
laced up boys, tied neatly like my mom used to do.
The floor around them was swept, botless, no dirt, no leaves,
just shining wood. I stared at them too long. My
heart was stumping. How could I explain it? Sleep walking?
Unlikely a prank who would sneak in just tidy boots.
Later that day I told Uncle Rick. He laughed, said MIDDI,
I was doing chores in my sleep, and offered me
a beer. I laughed too, but it left a cold
naught and my stomach that didn't go away. Two nights later,
I woke up to the sound of the back's green
door creaking open. It wasn't loud, but it was clear,
that slow squeak of old hinges shifting just enough to
let something through. I froze under the blanket. My heart
hammered like it wanted out of my chest. I waited
for footsteps, nothing, just silence. After what felt like forever,
I got up. Every light switch I touched, I cooed
in the stillness. The door was shut and latched, but
the sinking feeling in my chesthead otherwise. Then I saw
it on the kitchen table, sitting dead. Santo was a
folded napkin. I picked it up, handshaking one word Scolton,
an even childlike handwriting. Stay. That was when things stopped
being weird and started being wrong. I didn't sleep the
rest of the night, just sat in the arm chair,
watching the sky light and from black to great pink.
I kept expecting to see some one walk past the window,
but no one did. The next day I barely spoke
Uncle Ric didn't notice, or pretended not to. I wanted
to tell him, but how some one might be sneaking
into your house to clean and leave creepy notes. I
didn't want to sound insane, and I still wanted to
believe there was a normal explanation. That night, Rick went
her neighbors to play cards, said he might be outlay.
I locked every door and window, double checked them, shoved
the chair in front of the back door for good measure.
I left every light in the living room and fell
asleep after midnight. Then I woke up again, no dream,
just wide awake, harp racing, like something had yanked me
out of sleep. I lay still listening. That's when I
heard it, A slow, dragging shuffle across the porch, not footsteps,
bare feet sliding across the boards, deliberate, measured, measured. Then
it stopped. I held my breath for what felt like iyres.
I didn't move, didn't make a sound. I was sure
if I did, i'd hear the door creak, or worse,
I wouldn't. Eventually morning came. I waited until the sun
was up before stepping outside. The porch looked normal, the
wood pressed close and still. Then I saw them footprints
bare feet deep in the mud space, like someone had
walked slowly from the woods to the house. No shoes,
no tread, just human feet. And here's the pot that
still makes my skin crol. There weren't any footprints going back,
only a straight path to the porch, nothing away. I
didn't wait for more. I grabbed my duffel bag, shoved
everything inside, and left wp The long gravel rode into
turn hot pounding. Here was straining for footsteps behind me.
I saw in a diner, drinking cup after cup of
watery coffee until Uncle Rick came. When he did, I
told him everything, every detail. He just shook his head,
said it was probably some localscrewing around, maybe a hunter,
maybe a ki harmless, he said. I didn't argue. I
just told him I wasn't going back. My uncle jasper
on this aging stretch of land, just outside a town
called Lynwood. It was one of those places you'd miss
if you blinked in the highway, the kind of town
with a single gas station, a diner everyone still called
by its original owner's name, even though we're had changed
hands four times, and a feat store that doubled as
the post office. Jasper's property sat maybe fifteen minutes past
the last gas station out where the pavement started cracking
and the GPS got confused. He was heading up to
a hire for the week, some trades, soho I think,
and asked me to how sit well he was gone.
It wasn't a huge ask, just checking on things, feed
his two MutS, make sure nobody was poking around the sheds.
He even offered to leave some cash on the kitchen
table for groceries. I didn't need convincing. I just finished off.
Some mess was between jobs, and the thought of a
quiet week in the country sounded like a decent way
to Hiverset. The house was old, not charming old, but
tired old. The porch sided with mismatched boards. The siding
had once been white, but now wore a dully yellow tint.
The whole place leaned just enough to make every room
feel slightly off clter. You could tell it had been
added to in pieces. The living room had ugly floral
wallpaper that stopped out at a doorway and gave way
to wood paneling. In the kitchen, the furniture was worn
but solid, heavy stuff that looked like it had been
there since the seventies. The air smelled like dust and
dry wood, with a faint trace of engingeres strifting and
from the garage. The land itself was bigger than I expected,
flat for a while behind the house, maybe a few
acres of patchy grass and weeds, before dipping into dense woods.
The trees grew thick and close together, too uniform to
be completely wild, but overgrown enough to feel untouched for years.
Jasper used to hunt back there. I think beyond the
tree line, it was just wilderness. No houses, no trills,
just trees, just trees. The first day was quiet. I
unpacked my stuff, fed the dogs, and wandered around. One
of the sheds looked like it hadn't been opened in years,
but the other was clearly in use, fresh tracks in
the dirt. A padlock shiny enough to stand out against
the rusted hinges. Out of curiosity, I unlocked it and
stepped inside. It smelled like soldist and all boil tools
lined the peg boards. Shells were labeled knee handwriting, clamps, blades, rope, fuel.
The place felt worriedly meticulous, like a museum of forgotten work.
I moved a few things around, just small stuff, picked
up an axe, shifted a coil of rope to peek underneath,
opened a drawer or two. I figured I might come
back later and help Jasper reorganize. He always liked things neat,
but he wouldn't have minded a little rearranging. That night,
I made instant noodles and sat at the kitchen table
with my laptop. No Internet, of course, but I had
a few movies downloaded. What got me was the boredom, though.
It was the silence, not peaceful silence, something heavier. No bugs,
no wind, not even the faint hum of distant traffic,
just this pressing stillness that made every sound inside the
house feel sharper than it should. The creak of a
fridge door, the tick of the wall clock, the groan
of the upstairs four boards. I started locking every window
without even thinking about it, just a quietch in the
back of my brain telling me to be sure. Before bed,
I double checked the back door whisted the lock, tried
the knob. All good. I woke up around two in
the morning to the dog's barking light. They were ready
to tear through the walls. I didn't even grab shoes,
just stumbled out of bed, aked on a hoodie, and
ran down stairs. I flipped on the porch light and
opened the back door. The barking stopped immediately. Both dogs
stood about twenty feet from the porch, frozen, not moving,
not growling, just locked in place, staring into the woods,
not at anything in particular, just straight ahead, like whatever
it had seen had already passed. I called them, but
neither moved. They didn't even flick their ears. I stepped
on to the porch, the board called under my feet
and walked half way to them. Still nothing. I stood
there for a solid minute, hot pounding louder than I liked,
before retreating back inside. I locked the door and watched
them through the glass. Finally, after ten minutes, they turned
and trotted back to the porch like nothing had happened.
I didn't sleep much after that. Next morning, I found
the back door slightly ajar, just an inch enough to
notice the dead bolt was still turning, but the door
looked like it had been pushed from the inside, like
someone had noticed it open without pulling it shut. But
I'd shut it. I remember testing it twice. I could
even hear Jasper's voice in my head. Always check the latch,
wind'll catch it. Otherwise. I didn't mention it when I
called him that afternoon, just said the dogs were fine
and the house was still standing. I wore the popperty
a bit to burn off the nerves. When I called
for the dogs, only one came, Rusty. The older one
was still sitting at the edge of the field, same
place as the night before, same posture, same direction, just
stirring into the trees. He didn't bark this time, didn't move.
I walked over, careful not to spook him, and reached
for his collar. He came along reluctantly, feet dragging, like
a kid being pulled out of a theater. I glanced
back as we walked, just told Crush, shifting slightly, that
there was no wind. I remember thinking those exact words,
there's no wind. That night, I pushed a chair under
the back door handle, locked every window twice, left the
hallway light on. I couldn't sleep. At some point I
must have dozed off. I awoke to a feeling, not
a sound, that something had changed. The air was heavier.
The bedroom door was open. I had shut it. I
knew I had. I got up, slowly, trying not to
breathe too loud, and crept into the hallway. The kitchen
was dark, but the hallway light reached just far enough
to show me the chairs. They were pulled out from
the table, not just pulled out, but turned, each one
faced the back door, arranged in a meat arc, like
an audience waiting for something to appear. The door was locked,
but the cutting over its window had been pushed aside,
like someone had been watching. I don't know how long
I did there. Eventually I put the chairs back. I
didn't sit down. I didn't turn off the light. I
just went back to the bedroom, locked the door, and
stayed amid the covers until the sky turned gray. By
day three, I was done pretending it was nothing. I
tacked my bag, called Jasper and said I wasn't feeling well.
He didn't argue, just told me to leave the dogs
with his neighbors stand down the road. Before leaving, I
checked the shed one last time. When I opened the door,
my stomach twisted. Every till I had touched on the
first day was back in place exactly. The axe was
on its original hook, The saws were in their labeled spots.
The rope was coiled tighter than I remembered, like I
had never touched them, like someone had watched me move them,
then quietly put them back while I slept. I didn't
shut the shed door gently. I sound it, locked it,
and walked straight to the car. The dogs jumped in
without needing to be called, no barking, no hest station,
just climbed in like they were ready to go. I
dropped them off as Stance, handed him the key and
told him Jasper would be back in a few days.
I didn't look at the house again. Working the night,
shifted at a gas station off for a twenty eight
near a quiet little place called Marlow, Kentucky, not really
a town, more like a scattering of buildings pretending to be.
One blink and you'd miss it. The station sat alone,
a few hundred yachts from the highway, surrounded by weeds, gravel,
and a thin line of trees that always looked closer
at night than during the day. It was the kind
of place where the neon sign buzzing above the pumps
was the only proof he hadn't been abandoned, always flickering,
always casting that strange pink blue glow that made everything
look a little off. Inside, the station had its own personality,
a mix of stale coffee, rubber floor mats, and that faint,
permanent hint of motoroil that clung to you close long
after you left. I worked there four nights a week,
six to midnight, sometimes later if on the manager was
too lazy to close up himself. It wasn't a bad gig, quiet, predictable.
Most of the customers were regulars, truckers passing through, locals
grabbing smokes or lake coffee, a few folks from town
who just liked to calm. I didn't mind the solitude.
In fact, I liked it. After a while, I knew
what every sound meant, the low hum of the color fans,
the way the ace he kicked on with its two
second delay, even the subtle thunk of the storage door
settling in its frame. It gave me a sense of control,
like nothing unexpected could happen if I just stayed ahead
of it. That night started like any other I clocked
in a little early, brewed a pot of coffee. No
one would drink and restock the energy drinks. But round
six thirty two guys in reflective vess came in for snacks.
Cherky giteraried prudeine bars truckers. Probably we nodded, bit didn't tuck.
Then old mister Dalty from out near the edge of
town wandered and for a fifty pound sack of goat
feed exact change. Polite smile always told me he appreciated
the service. Like her, I was doing more than standing
behind a register. By seven, the place was dead quiet.
I wiped down the coffee station, rotated the chip bags,
refolded the dusty t shirts no one ever bought. That's
when I noticed the back door cracked open, barely an inch,
but enough to notice. That door is steel heavy, and
it doesn't swing open on its own. It groans when
it moves. I always locked it at the start of
my shift. Roan was strict about that. So seeing how
d'Or stopped me cold, I stood there running through possibilities.
Maybe I hadn't shut it, Maybe I got distracted, Maybe
some one came in while I wasn't looking. I walked
over a push it shut, locked it tight even to
have done it, to be sure, didn't budge. Just a door,
I told myself. But back at the counter, I saw
the gum display. It had been changed. I'd straighten it earlier,
like always part of my little ritual. But now every
pack of peppermints, spearmens cinnamon was lined up perfectly. All
o goes facing forward, spacing exactly like some one measured it.
That wasn't me. I opened the register, trying to distract myself,
but even that felt wrong. The bills wouldn't stackle like
I had left them, some outside down, some folded at
the corners, others sticking out like some one had fitted
through them carelessly. I just stood there, staring at the drawer,
then the gum, then the door. That's when I noticed
the wall clock. It said seven point forty eight, but
my phone still said seven point twenty nine, almost a
twenty minute jump. I stared at both, waiting for one
to fix itself, but they just kept taking forward and sinked,
and I knew the clock had matched my phone earlier.
I remembered because I texted my governor to say i'd
call her at midnight. There's no way A lost twenty
minute stocking soda. I called ron straight to silence, no ring,
no voicemail, deadline. Tried again, tried again, same thing, tread
my cl nothing full bars. By then the building fell wrong.
It was too quiet, like the walls were holding their breath.
Every little sound, the hum of the lights, the freezer
buzz sounded sharper, like they were covering something else. Up
I walked toward the coolers, didn't know why. Maybe I
thought I'd find an explanation there. But the cooler doors
were wide open. I had shut them, I knew I had,
And the top shelf empty, every single soda i'd stock
just twenty minutes before, gone, not moved, not misplaced. Then
I took a step back, and that's when I saw
them footprints, muddy boot prints, fresh and damp, leading him
from the front door. But I hadn't heard the chat,
hadn't seen the door move, No tires, no footsteps outside.
The Prince crossed the tiles, passed the candy aisle, and
stopped at the supply closet in the stock room. A
froze because I had left the closet open earlier. I
remembered the paper towel still on the counter. Now the
door was shut, and then all the lights cut out,
no warning, no flicker, just darkness. I didn't hesitate, pulled
my phone out, fluff light on the beam, hit the tiles.
I followed the prince. They stopped right in front of
the closet door. I said out loud, I'm not opening that,
and I started backing away. It's low kerefel. My phone's
light bounced off the floor at the shelves, throwing shadows.
It felt too close. When I reached the front, I
grabbed the door handle. It spun freely. No latch, wouldn't move,
wouldn't rattle, like it was fused to the frame, like
it had never been a door at all. Then the
bathroom door slammed open at the back, a violent crack
through the dark. I almost dropped my phone. My body
just moved. I ran behind the counter, shoved the emergency exit,
slammed my weight into the bar. It opened. I stumbled
into the gravel, gasping like I'd been under order, and
I ran. Didn't stop until I hit the diner a
quarter mile down. Lights on down behind the counter, staring
at me. I didn't explain, just asked to use the phone.
When I looked back toward the station, everything looked normal.
Lights on, door open, nothing out of place, just a
regular store on a regular night. I didn't go back.
I was sixteen when it happened. My uncle Rick asked
if I dried out with him to chick on an
old rental property he owned out in the middle of
Nowad just outside Newfield, Kentucky. The house had been sitting
empty for years. Talk down the lawn uneven gravel road
that cut through corn fields and cap pastures like it
was trying to disappear. You could drive twenty minutes without
seeing another person, just the occasional bob wire fence or
a collapsing barn in the distance. Rick said he wanted
to make sure the roof hadn't caved and other pipes
hadn't burst, But I think he just didn't want to
go out there alone. It was one of the slow
summer days when nothing was happening, so I didn't mind
taking alarm. He gave me something to do. At least.
The house itself was much to liquor, an old white
farmhouse with flaking paint and warp shutters. The kind that
looked one good breeze away from flying off front porch,
shagged hard on the left side, like a edge finally
given up holding itself up. I'd only been there once before,
years earlier, when the last tenant moved out. I was
maybe nine or ten, and all I remembered was that
it smelled weird and the wallpaper in the hallway was peeling.
This time, I expected more of the same, a quiet,
dusty walk through than a long drive home, But right
away things felt off. Before we even stepped inside, Rick
pointed out the little shed behind the house. It used
to be chain shot with this thick padlock, one of
those old school ones that looked like it belonged on
a bent vault. When we walked past, the chain was
still looped through the handles, but the lock was gone,
just gone. The ends of the chains weighed slightly, like
they'd been disturbed not too long. I crouched down to
get a better look. The metal wasn't rusted or broken.
It looked like it had been sliced clean through, not jagged, clean,
too clean to be natural. Rick muttered something about the
chain probably rusting out and breaking on its own, but
even he didn't sound convinced. I didn't argue. I just
stood up and followed him to the back door. Inside
the house, the first thing I noticed was the air.
It was heavy, like it didn't want to be breathed.
Then des floated in lazy spirals every time we moved,
and our footsteps sickuled more than they should have. The
whole place felt tense, like it was holding its breath.
We started in the kitchen, and that's where the weird
stuff really began. There was a plastic grocery bag sitting
on the counter, one of those cheap ones from a
corner store. Inside was a water bottle, half empty. The
label wasn't faded, no dust on it. It looked like
it had been dropped there earlier that day. The plastic
still had the crinkly fresh sound when I brushed past it.
Rick noticed it too. He didn't say anything, but I
saw his eyebrows creep up slightly. He glanced around the
room like he was trying to figure out what else
he missed. I followed him toward the back door. That's
when I spotted it right down the floor, in the
thick layer of dust that coated everything, A single bootprint
just one, no match in pair. It was clear, deep
and fresh. We both stared at it for a moment.
Rick didn't say a word. He just moved on more
alert now, like a switch had flipped. We walked through
the wrist of the downstairs, and every room had something
that didn't sit right. A chair wash slightly out of place,
a window cracked open when all the others were sealed shut.
A cabinet door swinging halfway open while the rest were closed.
Up Stairs was worse. The bathroom at the end of
the hall had a towel hanging from the rail. I
touched it without thinking. It was still damp, not wet
enough to drip, but far too wet to have been
there for years. Then there was the bedroom door. It
was shut tight. Rick said everything was left open the
last time he took the place, and I believed him.
He didn't strike me as some one who forgets details
like that. I reached for the knob and paused for
a second. I thought I heard something on the other side,
a faint shuffle, maybe a breath, but it was gone
before I could be sure. Brick was already pulling out
his phone. He told me to walk through the upstairs
bedrooms while he called the sheriff. His voice was calm,
but there was a tightness in it that made me nervous.
I opened the first door on the right. It creaked loud,
which didn't help. The room was mostly empty, old floorboards,
water stained ceiling, a broken lamp in the corner. But
the closet door was cart just enough to notice. Something
about the way it sat there made my stomach twist
like it was waiting. I stepped closer, my handshaking just
a little. I don't know why I opened it curiosity maybe,
or maybe I was hoping it would just be full
of junks so I could laugh at myself. It was.
Inside was a crue little bed, blankets bunched up in
the corner, a flattened pillar that had been dragged out
of some one's car, and next to it a bag
of chips, half eaten, still open, still fresh. I swear
I could smell the salt and grease. I backed out fast,
my feet tangled, and I nearly tripped into who was
suddenly behind me. He didn't even ask what I saw.
He took one look into the closet, then turned and
said the sheriff was on his way, told me to
stay where you could see me. We went downstairs and
waited in the living room. The silence in that house
had changed. It was empty anymore. It felt like it
was watching us. Then we heard it. Footsteps upstairs. Not
old wood shifting, not the wind. Real saw a deliberate footsteps,
so like some one walking tow to heel, careful not
to make too much noise, but heavy enough that he
could feel them through the floor. Rick didn't speak, He
just leaned and whispered, we're leaving right now. We didn't run,
not exactly, but we didn't take our time either. We
stepped onto the porch and crossed the yard to the
truck without looking back until I did. Halfway to the truck.
I turned around the curtain in the other stairs bedroom
moved just a little, just enough for a pale hand
to curl around the edge and pull it back. Not fast,
not stop. It was slow, casual, like they wanted me
to see them. We got in the truck, locked the doors,
and waited for the sheriff. When they showed up, two
deputies and a third guy who didn't say much. They
went in quietly, no sirens, just flashlights and hand signals.
I stayed in the truck while Rick talked to them.
They searched the whole place topped to bottom. Fifteen minutes
later they came back out and told us the house
was empty. Nothing inside. But then one of the mast
of theatic door was supposed to be open. Rick blinked, no,
He said, that thing's been nail shut since I bought
the place. Unsafe floorboards it sealed. The deputy nodded, well,
it's open now. Nails all over the floor, doors hanging.
Looks like someone's been using it. Later that night, Rick
went back with the hammer and nails boarded it shut again. Himself,
sealed the windows, checked every lock. Didn't say a word
during the drive home. I was twenty four when I
started working the front counter at the Old Bright Tavern.
It was a place that looked like it had been
built by hand and held together by stories. The tavern
sat at the edge of Dandridge's historic district, tucked between
a row of antique shops and a church that hadn't
chined in decades. It was older than Tennessee itself. Stonewall
stat back in seventeen seventy nine, still standing like they
doubt anyone to try and knock them down. People didn't
just come for the drinks. They came for the history
the place at this lived and field, with wooden beams
low enough to bump your head on and mugs that
looked like they belonged in a museum. Each room had
a name, mostly after famous folks who supposedly passed through
back in the day, outlaws, General's Riverbook Cappins. The most
popular room was the Clayton Room, named after Elijah Clayton,
a bank robbert owned local legend. According to the stores,
he'd been shot dead in a tavern and never quite left.
Guests loved the idea of him still pacing around upstairs,
and the staff leaned into it hard. We had framed
blobs in each room explaining their historical significant pulse laminated
cheek called haunted highlights that I was expected to hand
out with a wink and a bourbon fly. I didn't
believe any of it. I mean I liked the stories.
They were fond entertaining good conversation staughters. When guests asked
about the buildings passed, I tell them about the rumors
a girl running through the dining room shadows at the
edge of mirrors, Clayton himself rattling the doors to his
namesake wheet, but gos now. I figured it was all
part of the ambience, a little color to go with
the cobwebs that lasted exactly two weeks. It started small,
the way these things always do. One night, I stayed
late to a stock after the dinner rush. Every one
else had cleared out, and the place was quiet, quiet
enough that you could hear the fridge compressor homming in
the kitchen, and the occasional groan from the old plumbing.
I was stacking glasses behind the bar when I heard
something upstairs, just a few steps, nothing loud, soft, careful,
like some one walking hill to tow across the hallway
above the lobby. I figured maybe Denis, the night porter,
was doing his rams. But when I called out, no
one answered. So I climbed the stairs. The second floor
stretched out in front of me, narrowed dim with the
carpet runway warnford, but down the middle. I stood there
for a minute, just listening nothing. I checked every room
that wasn't locked, empty, quiet. I went back downstairs, a
little unnerved, but I choked it up to the building settling.
That's what we always say, right, All places make weird noises.
I kept saying nat to myself, over and over. A
few nights later, I passed the Clayton room while dropping
off towels. It was unoccupied, locked, and the key was
still in the drawer behind the counter. But as I
walked past, I heard the latch click. Not loud, just
a quick metallic click, like someone had turned the knob
from his side and let the door settle back into place.
I stopped, listened nothing. I touched the handle. It was cold,
but the door wasn't locked any more. I pushed it open, slowly,
half expecting Dennis to jump out and tell me I
was on some hidden camousher. It was pitch black inside.
The windows were shut, the beds still made from the
morning shift. Everything exactly how it should have been, except
there was this sound. It wasn't music. It wasn't a voice,
more like a low, regular hum, something between a radio
stuck on static in the vibration of an old florescent light.
I couldn't place it. Then something brushed past my elbow.
It wasn't fabric, it wasn't there. It was just cold, shop,
like a breeze with weight, if that makes sense. I
yanked my arm back and slammed the door, but took
the stairs two at a time. I didn't even finish
the towel drop. A few days after that, Missus Bakie
been stopped by. She's sort of a fixture around the place.
Her family's been in town for generations, and she used
to help run the tavern years ago. Now she comes
in every so often, usually when there's a new employee
to warn. She sat at the bar and waited until
I poured her the usual straight rye no ice. You've
heard him yet, she asked, not even looking at me.
Her too, She glanced up Clayton, Room thirteen. You'll know
when it's him. He walks real heavy, doesn't like being ignored.
I tried to laugh it off, but she just tapped
her glass against the counter, like knocking on a coffin lead.
He got shot right there in the hall, she said,
tried to drag himself to the door, didn't make it.
Some nights, I still hear his boots. You can tell
when it's him because it sounds like he's pacing left
to right, right to left, never going anywhere, I mumbled,
something like, well, he hasn't said hello to me yet.
She didn't laugh. It wasn't just miss Eskibbins either. There
was a writer from Columbus staying in the Maple Room,
which shares a wall with Clayton's. He came back from dinner,
pail and jumpy, like he's seeing something you couldn't quite explain.
I heard music, he said, upstairs. Not loud, just soft piano,
like someone practicing a tune they hadn't played in years.
He paused, tried to smile, but the front desk said
there's no piano in the building, not any more. I
didn't know what to say. I just shrug and made
a joke about Dandridge having some talented raccoons. A few
nights later, I heard it too. I'd locked up, shut
off the lights, and was heading down the back stairs
when I heard a slow, clumsy melody drifting from the
second floor, just a few notes, hesitant and even, like
someone were learning an old song. There's no piano in
the tavern, as have been for years. I walked back
up stairs, followed the sound, pressed my ear to the
wall of the claysing room. Silence, but the wood was warm.
Not just rooin. Temperature warm, like someone had been standing
right on the other side of the wall. The night
that finally broke me happened just after midnight. The tavern
was dark, windows going with minlight. I was in the
back office, counting like the bottles for the weekly inventory.
Everything had been locked for the night. Front door off
a storage I know because I double checked. The office
door creaked open. No big slam, no burst of air,
just slow, smooth movement. I looked up from my clipboard
and froze. There were footsteps in the hallway, clack clack, heavy, deliberate,
coming closer. I couldn't see anyone. I couldn't move. I
stayed completely still, breathe shallow, like my lungs were trying
not to be noticed. Then the temperature drop, not metaphorically,
it actually dropped. I saw my breath. My flashlight slipped
out of my hand and hit the floor. The sound
echoed like a gunshot. The footsteps stopped for a second.
There was absolute silence. Then I heard it right behind me,
just beside my earco It wasn't a voice, not really.
It was a sound of shape, a word that didn't
need longso lips just force. I bolted. I didn't even
shut the office door. I ran straight out the back,
keys still in my pocket, lights still on. Everything forgotten
except getting as far from that hallway as I could.
I quit the next day. Didn't explain why, just left
my badge and my apron on the counter and walked out.
I changed my number, ignored every call from the tavern.
Dennis texted me once you okay, but I never reply.
I still passed through Dandridge sometimes. The tavern still there,
of course, looks the same, a little more weather maybe,
but the same. One of the second four windows always
the same. One above the Clayton room is always cracked open,
even in the dead of winter. I've seen snow piled
up on the sill, and nobody closes it. I don't
go inside, and that is the end. Thank you for listening,
and I will see you in the next one.