Scary Stories From Virginia

Hello, I'm Wilkins' stories all the time.

The lad you are here.

Let's get into it.

I'd signed on for a seasonal job with the State Preservation Program.

Just temporary trail work, mostly maintenance and documentation out in a backwards neoclass

county.

Each of us got a section mine with section D, it was the roughest one according to the

coordinator.

Overgrown, remote, no paved axis roads.

Optimus of old mining pass cut into the hillside back when horses still hold carts.

Some parts hadn't seen a footstep in decades, which honestly I didn't mind.

I liked alone.

There were six of us in total.

We each got his own to cover at a radio with a chicken schedule three times a day every

day.

My spot didn't have cell service, barely even had a trail.

I had to hike in from the south side and follow a fladrat that one of the surveyors had set

up years ago.

Just a couple days, I cleaved brush, flived new erosion, and made notes using a digital

recorder they'd issued.

By the third day, I started feeling familiar with the layout.

The day everything started, I got to the trail early.

Sun wasn't fully up yet, and I wanted to reach an old clearing that had been locked

in the records as the site of a collapsed boundary marker, supposedly from the 19 teens.

Took me close to 45 minutes just to hike in.

The trail twisted through ferns and down timber, and I had to scramble across a couple switchbacks

that were barely holding together.

Once I reached the clearing, I sat my pack down beside the first marker and got to work.

It had slid halfway out of the slope over time, but the top half still had some inscription

left.

I cleaned around it, snapped a few photos, and lobbied a note.

Everything was quiet, dead quiet, actually, but that was done usual.

That part of the woods was always still.

No birds, no buzzing, just a sound of me scraping dirt.

Then I stood up to stretch, and something caught my eye.

Up at the top of the slope, maybe 20 or 25 yards away, there was a wooden stake sticking

out of the ground.

Crooked and thin, definitely not part of any state marker.

Untied to the top was a strip of red cloth.

Looked like I bent on a frayade, soaked through, clinging to the wood.

That wasn't the day before.

I reached for my radio, cold and just a document.

Cut nothing but static.

I checked my watch, still 20 minutes, until the scheduled check-in.

I figured I'd look it manually, so I grabbed my recorder, left my pack by the marker,

and climbed up to take a closer look.

The cloth was weird.

It looked old, but also wet.

Not damp from dew, but soaked, like I'd been buried and pulled up.

There were markings on the stake too.

Chellow carvings, almost like someone had used a pocket knife to dig circles into the wood.

Nothing intricate, just rough outlines, like they were doing in a hurry or with shaky hands.

I took a picture, made a note into the recorder.

Then I turned around, and my pack was gone.

At first, I thought I'd just lost my bearings.

Maybe I'd walked farther up than I thought.

But no, the exposed marker I'd been working on was still right there.

My tools were next to it exactly where I left them.

Just no pack.

I walked back down, checked the area.

No sign of anything.

No broken twigs, no dried mugs in the dirt.

It's not like someone could've snuck up, grabbed it, and left without me hearing.

I went back up toward the stake.

The cloth was gone now.

The impression from where it had been tied was still visible in the bark, but the cloth

itself.

Completely gone.

I hadn't heard anything move.

There was no wind.

Nothing.

I started checking the trail again, walking small loops, retracing my steps.

The whole section wasn't that big, maybe four acres total.

I should've seen it.

The red canvas would've stood out, even underbrush.

But there was nothing.

It was just gone.

Eventually I hacked out early and went straight to the site-shed.

The coordinator didn't say much.

Took my report told me to take the next day off.

He probably thought I lost it and didn't want to admit it.

Honestly, that would've made more sense.

The next morning, I woke up to a voicemail from Mala, one of the other contractors.

She worked section F, which was about two miles from mine.

Her voice sounded, I don't know, shaky.

Not scared, exactly, just strained.

She said she'd found a pack that didn't belong to her.

Said it was red canvas with a torn zipper and an old pot tag.

Scrubbed it exactly.

My pack.

I called her back immediately, but it rang out.

No answer.

When I got to the site that afternoon, the coordinator said Mala had called and sick.

I asked if she dropped off the pack before leaving.

He looked at me like I'd asked if she flew to work.

Said she hadn't brought anything in.

That night I couldn't sleep.

But this feeling like the dream was already waiting for me.

And my usual trail, but something felt wrong.

I wasn't holding my tools.

I was dragging the wooden stake, as tips craving the dirt.

And the bandana?

It was tied around my wrists, snug and damp like a warning.

I woke up with my shirt stuck to my back.

Checked my phone again.

Nothing from Mala, nothing at all.

The day after I did something I probably shouldn't have.

I went out to section F, how I just needed to see it for myself.

I followed the mark of flag she'd left.

Bright orange strips tied low, spaced every 20 yards.

Five minutes in, they just stopped.

Up ahead was a small clearing.

No tools.

No signs of work.

Just a single wooden stake in the center.

Same shape.

Same lean.

Red cloths tied to the top.

I didn't want to get closer, but I did.

And behind a patch of thorns, half hidden under brumbles, I saw my pack.

It was torn open like something had rummaged through it.

My recorder was still inside.

I turned it on.

The first anchors were mine.

Base clogs from that morning.

Me describing the marker.

The red cloth.

Then ten seconds of static.

Then came the breeding.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Not mine.

It sounded too close to the mic, like it was sitting in someone's lap.

Then my voice again.

Except I never said what it said.

Stop bringing them that said three words, but I might exact for us.

I turned it off to the recorder to pack what was left of it and left straight back

through the trees.

No stops back to the shared toll.

The coordinator, I was quitting no explanation.

I packed up the afternoon and drove straight out of Covenant County.

Didn't wait for the last check the job, but Breiber mining is in sounded like a dream

gig when I first got it.

Security.

The guy who used to cover the shift had just retired and they brought in a contractor

to replace him.

And that contractor hired me.

All I had to do was walk the circuit a few times, sign the log sheet every eye or make

sure nobody broke into mess with the exhibits.

Which, to be honest, rarely happened.

The place basically ran itself.

The museum used to be an act of cold processing center back in the fifties.

Now most of it was cleaned up in section into walkable exhibits with bakos and mannequins

and old gear.

There was a freight elevator that ran all the way down to the basement archive.

That area was off limits unless you had a very specific reason to be down there.

Heurators, maintenance staff, maybe an electrician.

I had the key, clipped to my belt with the rest of the ring, along with the backup door

coding case the elevator glitched.

But I wasn't supposed to use it.

My supervisor literally said, don't mess with it unless something breaks or catches fire.

First couple of weeks were smooth, not single weird moment.

I'd show up just before 10 o'clock in, grab a coffee from the little break room, and

plant myself behind a main desk with whatever book I was working for.

Every so often I'd walk around check each wing, look over the displays, shine my flashlight

down the halls just to look official.

Most nights I didn't see another soul, but on the fortieth night something changed.

It was 10.30, give or take, and I had just finished one of my usual laps.

I was settling back into my chair when I had a scraping sound from the back exhibit.

Metallic, low, not super loud, but sharp enough to get my attention.

It sounded like someone dragged a pipe across a concrete floor.

I figured maybe something fell.

There were shells and displays back there, not everything was nailed down.

Or maybe it was a rat.

Place was old after all.

I grabbed my flashlight and headed over.

By the time I got there it was silent.

Everything looked normal.

The mannequins were where they always were frozen midswing with rusted pickaxes.

The mining cut was still on its little rail section.

Nothing looked out of place.

I was turning to leave when it happened again.

Another scrape.

This one louder.

From behind the sealed double doors that led to the old freight tunnel.

That tunnel was sealed off on before I ever got there, collapsed in the light-seventess

from what I heard.

There was even a plaque near the door that mentioned the cave in and how the museum

preserved the site for historical context.

Nobody went in.

Nobody came out.

I waited, listened.

It was quiet again.

For the rest of the night I sat with one eye on the hallway that led to those doors,

told myself it was old pipes or an echo from somewhere deeper in the building.

But then it happened again and again three nights in a row, always around the same time,

always the same place, just once each night the scrape then silence.

At a third night I started adjusting my rounds so I'd be standing near the door at 10.30

just in case.

One night I swear I heard something else, like grubble shifting.

Verily audible, but it was there.

I leaned in, held my ear to the door.

Nothing.

No breeze, no warmth, no vibration.

Just still heavy air on the other side.

I gave up on the rat theory then.

Rat's don't keep a schedule.

On the fifth night it changed.

First came the scrape, then faint and soft.

I heard someone breathe out, like they'd been holding it in for too long.

Just one breath, not a gasp.

Just to release it back away I didn't turn my back on the doors until I was down the

hall and around the corner I didn't write anything in the love no damage, no evidence,

no incident, just noise after that something shifted not in the building and me I started

filling watch not all the time, not everywhere just when I passed the elevator I'd walk

past it and get this word buzz in my spine, like there was someone standing right to hand

me, just barely out of reach.

Never moving, just present.

The elevator made a humming noise when it was cold, that's how I knew something was

off.

Night 7, 1028.

I was in the central hall, nowhere near the panel.

I heard the hum, gears turning, then the thunk as it stopped on my floor.

I walked over slowly.

The doors were still shut.

I swiped my key and opened them.

The inside.

That there was a footprint in the dust.

Just one smaller than mine, facing the wall in the back corner.

I locked the whole thing down after that.

Disable the panel, flipped the breaker on the elevator circuit.

I didn't mention it to anyone, just rode a vignette in the lock.

Maintenance requested.

Elevator cycling.

Tour it as soon as I part.

Almost drove back, but the side entrance had been left open for a delivery.

I figured I could close up from the inside, skip the basement and deal with it tomorrow.

Things seemed fine.

Until I heard the elevator hum again, I didn't have the key.

Couldn't open it.

Couldn't stop it.

I just stood there as it rose to the ground floor and stopped.

The doors didn't open right away, but I could see something inside.

A shadow.

A shape.

Not standing straight bent high, way to my legs started to lock up then the doors slid

open empty or at least it looked that way the walls were clean floor bare but the air

but the air felt run like something heavy was hanging at the silence and that moment

felt physical like pressure on my chest.

The doors closed on that only elevator went back then the next night I brought the

keys and decided to take a look for myself.

I had to see what was going on down there.

I waited until after 10 then took the elevator to the basement.

The moment I stepped out I felt the air change.

Dicker.

Damn, almost like the whole place had been underwater a few Ios before and was still

drying off.

My flashlight cut through these big, lazy swirls of dust.

Every step echoed longer than it should have.

I passed shells of old helmets, stacks of rotting crates.

The money log room was straight ahead.

Right before I got to it the air dropped.

Cold not as he cold.

More like walking into a stone cellar after rain.

The tunnel door at the one that was supposed to be sealed shut was cracked open.

I stopped just stood there for a long second staring.

That door hadn't moved in decades.

Then I heard it, my name Jonah soft whispered like someone testing it out.

I didn't move, didn't breathe.

Then it came again stretch longer this time.

Like whoever was saying it was trying to remember how to form the word.

Jonah I shut the door locked it manually.

I didn't turn around until I was in the elevator.

As the doors close I heard it again.

Closer now.

My name repeated in a breathy rhythm like someone was practicing it underwater.

I rode up and stayed at the desk until daylight.

I didn't quit.

I didn't transfer.

I still worked the shift.

Same nights, same rounds.

But I don't go near the elevator anymore.

My cousin Micah had just bought this old triplets in a little place called Fulton Ridge,

not far from Elkins, West Virginia.

The building sat on a slope just off a back road, kind of half sunken into the hillside.

Three stacked units, all the same layout, kitchen and living room in the front, two small

bedrooms in the back, and a bathroom tuck between them.

The top unit hadn't been touched in years.

Micah had already hired people to deal with the big stuff.

New H-Rack, updated plumbing, cleaned out the gutters.

He needed help with the odds and ends.

Finding, fixing broken cabinets, maybe reinstalling a doorbell if I was feeling generous.

He said if I came up for a few days, he'd cover gas and I could stay in the third four

unit to save time.

He even left me some basic groceries in the fridge microwave burritos, a loaf of bread,

and a six pack of something unremarkable.

I figured why not.

I'd been between projects, and honestly, at the idea of getting away from my nausea

apartment for a few quite days of manual sound it almost like a vacation.

That third four unit had electricity, but no WiFi yet, and barely any cell signal and

less used to it at one weird angle in the living room.

But it was peaceful.

Just me, my tools, and the slow-tick of an old thermostat.

The first two days went fine.

I fixed the sag and kitchen drawer, sanded the walls in the bathroom, and started the

first coat of paint in the smaller bedroom.

I'd usually work until about ten, eat something quick, and crash on the couch with the podcast

I pre-downloaded.

Nothing spooky, just me being productive.

Then came night three.

It was a little after midnight when I heard it.

I was half asleep, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, when the soft, they'll knocking

pulled me back up.

Not from the hallway, not the stairwell above me.

Slow, rhythmic.

Three knocks.

A few seconds of silence.

Then three more.

At first, I told myself it was just the building settling.

It was an old place full of odd angles and weird drafts.

Maybe something had shifted on the roof.

A loose gutter.

A tree branch scraping in the wind.

I weeded it out.

When else happened?

Still, it stuck in my head.

The next morning, I mentioned it to make a while we were unloading some supplies from

his truck.

He just laughed and said, dude, that place is always creaking.

I swear it's got afraid of this.

Then he added, kind of off-end, that the attic door sometimes jammed.

The last tenants had used the space for storage, but no one had been up there since.

I asked if it was locked.

He scratched his head and said, it should be, but sometimes the latch doesn't catch

all the way.

That made me pause.

Back inside, I took a better look at the end the whole way.

Sure enough, there was a pulled-down attic door just above the coat closet, the kind with

the rope loop you can tug on.

I didn't open it.

Just moved a chair underneath, partly out of curiosity, partly to keep an eye on it.

That evening, I was back in the bedroom, painting around the window frame, when the lights

flickered.

Not just a little dim like a surge, fully blinked on and off three times.

Exactly three, then nothing.

Just steady light like it happened.

I stood there holding my brush mid-air, trying to decide what I'd imagined it.

One came the footsteps, right above me, not fast, not heavy, just slow, deliberate pacing.

One step, pause, another, directly overhead, and then the knock, same pattern, three slow

hits, soloms, then three more.

That was enough.

I grabbed my flashlight, pulled that accord, and let the ladder unfold.

It came down stiff, joints creaking like they had moved in years.

I climbed up just far enough to poke my head through the opening and sweep the beam

of light around.

Nothing.

No boxes, no insulation, no furniture.

Just bare wood and dust.

But in the center of the floor, the dust was disturbed.

Not footprints exactly, more like smudges.

Long, dragged, heal marks, like someone had sat down and scooted backward slowly across

the boards.

That image lodged in my brain.

I didn't sleep.

I stayed in the couch, lights on, he is tuned to every creek and pop from the ceiling.

In the morning, I told Mike I'd stick around to finish what I'd started, but I was only

working during daylight.

No more overnight shifts.

Around four that afternoon, I was reorganizing the till bin when I heard footsteps and the

whole way again, just regular walking.

I figured maybe Mike I'd come back, or one of the contractors had dropped in without knocking.

I opened the door.

No one.

Always was empty.

I checked a stairwell.

Front door still locked from the inside.

I started moving from room to room, calling out just in case someone was being weird.

All the rooms looked in touch until I got to the bathroom.

There, on the mirror, were these two long, smeared handprints.

Olli, cloudy, streaks running from a bad eye level all the way down to the counter.

Like someone had pressed their palms flat against the glass and slowly drive them downward.

I stared at them for a while.

My stomach did that slow, uneasy flip.

I didn't wipe them off.

That night, Mike came by again to help me pack up the heavier stuff.

As we were locking up, he suddenly stopped on the driveway and pointed up.

Did you open that?

He asked.

The kitchen window on the third floor where I'd been sleeping was cracked halfway open.

I said no.

I'd never touched it.

The windows in that place were old and a pain to move.

I hadn't even tried.

We went back upstairs and checked it out.

The latch was technically still engaged, but the wood around it was splintered and soft,

like it had been forced open from the inside, not pried from the outside, pushed with pressure.

We looked at each other, then at the attic door, one last check.

We climbed up both of us this time.

Nothing empty space, same dusty floor.

But there was something new right near the top of the ladder.

A tightly rolled piece of newspaper, just sitting there like it had been placed deliberately.

Mike unrolled it.

The paper was yellow dated July of 1987.

Inside, someone had circled an obituary in thick red ink.

I didn't recognize the name.

Neda did he.

But underneath it, written in faint, curkid pencil, or five words, you're not supposed

to be here.

We didn't say anything.

We just climbed back down, closed the attic, and locked everything we could.

I left early the next morning.

I didn't even stop for coffee, just drove.

My shift at the reclamation office started at 7, and I was already sorting in tick-locks

when the first odd entry showed up.

A pallet of old socket panels had been marked as delivered even though I knew for a fact

it hadn't signed anything.

I'd even checked the yard myself.

Nothing there.

I'd only been working there a few weeks.

Contract position, nothing permanent.

But it was decent money, steady iris, and quiet.

I like quiet.

It.

The office sat at the edge of Rivermont's old industrial strip tucked between a recycling

centre and a defunct textile plant.

So when that entry popped up in the lock, it caught me off guard.

I double-checked everything, date's timestamps, even the electronic sign-off locks.

Nothing matched.

It looked like someone had delivered that pallet scandered into the system and then vanished

it.

I locked the discrepancy and moved on.

Weird but not unexplainable.

About an eye or later, I was doing a walkthrough and noticed a single panel same type as the

ones on the missing pallet leaning against the conveyor, just sitting there like someone

had placed it carefully to be noticed.

I stood there for a while thinking maybe one of the other workers moved it without updating

the locks.

I happened sometimes.

I asked Karl and Elva the only two others on that shift but both just gave me blank

looks.

Karl muttered something about, probably, inventory screw-ups, then went back to taping

up boxes like he couldn't be bothered.

Elva didn't even respond.

I marked it down, moved the panel to holding, and tried to let it go.

But the next day, there were two.

Both were the exact same model, same condition, old green housings, dented corners, the kind

we usually pull from demolition sites.

One was by the loading bay, the other propped against my desk.

Now that got under meskin, the office stays locked overnight.

I'm the one who opens.

So unless someone had keys or it stayed late without signing out, it didn't make sense.

I checked the locks.

Nothing.

Of course, the camera near the entrance had gone out three days earlier, still waiting

on maintenance.

I moved the panels again, this time into the back storage room, and wedged a dolly against

the door.

It wasn't high security, but I just wanted to see if this day'd put.

That evening, I met a guy named Farrell, said he'd been brought in for evening inspection

since we were short staffed.

He was probably mid fifties, then, sun-worn skin, walked with a hitch and it stepped

like he'd spent most of his life hauling things that weren't meant to be hauled by hand.

He asked quite questions.

Always looked past you when he talked, like he was watching the corners of the room.

First time I mentioned the panels, he didn't seem surprised.

Just said, yeah, sometimes they show up in twos.

It's when there's three you got to worry.

Then he laughed in the slow, rasped out way like he told a joke only he understood.

I asked what he meant, but he changed the subject.

Asked me if I ever worked near electrical dumps.

Told me to let him know if the lights in the break room flickered for more than three

seconds.

That kind of thing.

The next week, Farrell didn't show.

No call, no warning.

His badge was still in the system, but he stopped clocking in.

The supervisor shrugged it off.

Seth contract workers were always flaking.

I got moved to evening shifts to cover.

First night alone, I did the walk through end surprise, three panels now.

I'll prop neatly against the inside of the back office door.

I remember standing in the hallway for a solid minute, not moving, just listening.

Not for foodstuffs or voices, but for that quiet, charged kind of stillness that makes

your stomach feel heavy.

I pushed them outside and stacked them near the dumpster.

15 minutes later, when I came back from lugging disposal weights, they were gone.

I didn't see anyone.

The yard was empty.

No wind, no animals, nothing.

I left early that night.

Told the supervisor the sorting bay was leaking coolant and someone needed to look at

it.

Two mornings later, I woke up to a soft sand from the front room, like something metallic

shifting against the nolium.

I set up too fast, pulled something in my neck.

When I walked into the living room, one of the panels was there.

Just one.

Standing upright beside my bookshelf.

I hadn't brought it home.

I hadn't even touched one since I left them outside.

I stood across from it for a while.

Didn't move closer.

Eventually, I got a heavy blanket, wrapped it up, carried outside and shoved it in the trunk

of my car.

I drove it all the way out past Granger Hill and dumped it in the old quarry lot behind

some broken fencing.

Didn't think twice.

But the next night, it was back.

Same spot in my living room.

Same dust on the bottom edge.

I don't know how it got there.

Nothing in my apartment was broken.

The door was locked.

I started staying at a friend's place for a while.

Jenna, someone I knew from back when I worked municipal inventory.

She had a pull-up sofa.

Didn't ask too many questions.

When I finally came home, the panel was gone.

But there were three small indentations in the floor where it stood deep enough to mark

the vinyl.

That's when I stopped sleeping properly.

I tried burning one of them.

Pick it up behind the reclamation lot, Dalsa was ethanol, lit it.

It burned, sure.

Or at least the casing did.

Multiplastic.

Stinking smoke.

But the next morning, when I pulled into the lot, a matching panel was waiting at my

station.

Brand new casing.

No burn marks.

Same serial number itched on the corner.

I stopped touching them.

Started documenting everything with photos.

Dated logs.

I even recorded audio one night when I left one in the hallway.

The playback just had this faint start to come under everything, like the sound of

the RT used to make when you weren't looking directly at it.

But there were also clicks rhythmic, almost like typing.

I sent the recording to a friend who does audio engineering.

He said it was probably electromagnetic interference.

Then he asked if I'd been recording in a room with any live transmission equipment.

I hadn't.

Then Varyl came back, out of nowhere.

One night I pulled into the lot and his truck was there, parked side with near the exit gate.

He was sitting inside, engine off, windows down.

When I walked over, he didn't look at me.

He said, I saw it again, but it's not staying underground anymore.

I didn't ask what he meant, but I noticed his hands were shaking.

I asked if he needed help.

He just looked at me and said, it wants patterns, that's how it spreads.

Then he started his truck and drove off.

The next day, the reclamation office hit a fire.

Electrical fault.

Total loss.

They never found Varyl.

I quit.

Didn't even give notice.

Just packed up, turned off my phone and drove until I ran out of highway.

I'm in a small town now.

Off the grid, more or less.

No job tied to logistics or data systems.

I was clearing out, brushing the old side trail behind Bramble Creek when I noticed the rocks.

I've been doing seasonal work with the Cedar Hollow Trail's department for a couple years now.

That rude section hadn't been touched in years.

Maybe longer, wasn't on the current trail maps.

I only found it because a windstorm had knocked over a few trees,

and I was ridden hikers around the damage.

I ended up busherking out the sidepath just to see where it led.

That's when I came across the stones.

Later that day, when I mentioned the rich trail to my supervisor, Karen, she got this odd look,

like I'd said something she didn't expect to hear.

You mean the East Fork?

She asked.

That thing's been closed off since before I started.

Don't mess with it.

Too dangerous.

Dead trees, old sinkholes, and stable everything.

She said it casually, but her voice had this weird edge to it.

Like she wasn't just talking about safety.

More like she didn't want to hear another word about it.

I let it drop.

Didn't tell her about the markers, but I couldn't stop thinking about them.

That whole week, it stuck in the back of my mind.

Those stones weren't random.

Fifteen of them.

Each went a little different in shape, but all about the same size.

Placed in such a precise way that you just knew someone meant for them to be found by someone.

But who?

And why?

I was so lucky to get it.

I went back.

After work one day, I hacked him from the south, where there aren't any warning signs

or flagged off barriers.

I climbed the slope again, ducked under the same dead fall, and found them right where

I left them.

This time, I looked closer.

Some of the nails looked nearer.

A few were driven so deep into the stone I couldn't imagine how someone did it without

breaking the rock.

Others were older, crusted with rust, spreading out and faint halos across the surface.

But not one of them looked accidental.

It was deliberate every inch of it.

No names, no dates, just nails and stone.

I said there a while trying to figure it out.

My best guess was maybe a forgotten pet cemetery, or one of those old mountain family plots

that never got official records.

But still, even those usually hit across our initials.

Something.

This had nothing but nails.

I should have told someone.

Should have at least mentioned it to Rey.

His one of the old timers.

Worked the area long before me.

But I didn't.

That was my mistake.

The third time I went back, maybe five days later, there was a new stone.

Same shape.

Same nail.

Same placement.

It was set at the far end of the last row.

Perfectly aligned.

I worked the line twice to be sure.

There had been.

Fifteen.

Now there were.

Sixteen.

I stood there for maybe ten minutes, just staring.

I tried to talk myself into believing I'd counted wrong the first time.

That maybe I missed it.

Maybe I was tired, but I wasn't.

I turned around and left fast.

About twenty yards back down the trail.

I saw something that stopped me cold.

A paper tag hanging from a low branch.

It was tied on with bright orange twine trail marking twine.

The kind we use for warning signs, houses, maintenance boundaries, except we hadn't flagged

anything up here.

Not for years.

This whole section was off limits.

I walked over slowly and read what was written in faint pencil.

Not for you.

I stood there with the tag in my hand for a while.

I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I ended up just leaving it there, like maybe it wasn't a good idea to take it with me.

I didn't mention any of this at work the next day or the day after that.

Friday afternoon, I took a longer lunch and drove out for a burger.

I parked in the shade, eating the truck, just trying to forget about it all.

When came back out, there was a tag under my windshield wiper.

Same kind of paper.

Same handwriting.

Same orange wine.

Don't remove the nail.

That one actually made me lightheaded for a second.

I just stood by the truck, staring at it like an idiot.

I hadn't touched a single nail.

I'd barely gone near them.

Someone was watching.

Someone knew.

That night, I waited until we were closing up shop and casually asked Ray about the old

east fork.

He was packing up chainsaws when I brought it up.

Didn't even look at me at first.

He'd been up there.

He asked.

I shrugged.

Just wandered past.

Thought he saw some old markers.

That's when he looked at me.

Really looked at me.

You kick any?

No.

He nodded once slowly.

Like he wasn't totally convinced, but wasn't going to argue.

You don't want to find the grave.

That's not buried, he said.

Because if you do, you won't come back the same.

Might not come back at all.

He said it like it was just a fact.

No drama.

No trying to scare me.

You're not from here, right?

He asked.

I shit my head.

Then stop acting like you are.

That night, I kept the blinds closed.

Lock the doors.

Double check the back windows.

I live alone in a rental cabin way out off a gravel road.

Pretty isolated.

Around two in the morning, I heard tapping at the kitchen-winter.

Not constant, not aggressive, just soft uneven,

like someone lightly knocking with a knuckle.

I stood there on the other side of the kitchen wall,

not moving, just listening.

When I finally worked up the nerve,

I grabbed my flashlight and went outside.

No one was there.

No prints, no signs, nothing.

But in the morning, there was another paper

tagged nail to the edge of the porch.

You stepped too close.

I didn't go to work Monday, just said I was sick.

Didn't give a return date.

That afternoon, Ray showed up.

No call, no knock, just standing on the porch

when I opened the door.

You need to take a drive, he said.

Now he wouldn't explain, just kept repeating it.

It's worse if you ignore it.

So I packed a bag, got in the truck, and drove west.

Didn't tell anyone where I was going.

Ended up to count his over at this cheap motel

off route 60.

After I lost my job at a warehouse in Pittsburgh,

one of those big distribution centers

where everything's loud fast and constantly being scheduled,

I didn't have much of a plunso.

When my uncle Ray said I could crash with him for a while,

I didn't hesitate to hear this trailer sitting near

the edge of a ridge in Fayette County, West Virginia,

so that maybe a half-hour outside

of a tiny town called Hollow Creek.

One gas station, one grocery store,

a laundromat that barely ran.

If I needed real cell signal

or something that was fried food or canned beans,

I had to drive down to Medovill.

Still, for the first couple weeks, I got used to it.

I'd wake up, drink drunk coffee,

tinker with whatever Ray wanted fix,

then read a scroll my phone

until I ran out of signal.

Pretty low stakes living.

Then I met this girl at the gas station

just outside Hollow Creek, Lazy.

She worked at the checkup counter,

had this quiet confidence about her

and laughed at all my dumb jokes.

We talked a couple times while I bought snacks

or filled up the truck,

and eventually I asked if she wanted to hang out.

First time, we met up at a little diner

and just talked for hours.

She was funny, sharp, a little sarcastic,

felt like we clicked fast.

A week later, late October, starting to get call,

she asked if we could hang out again.

I said, sure.

She didn't want to go back to her place,

said her brother was crashing there, so I offered up mine.

I figure Ray would be out anyway.

He often drove up to Glen Hollow

to drink and walk sports with some guys,

he'd known since high school.

That night, I picked her up,

we grabbed some food and headed back to the trailer.

We pulled in around 10.

Hot light was on flickering as usual.

I unlocked the door and noticed the dome

I was pushed off to one side.

Not a big deal, but I always straightened it

when I came or went.

One of those little habits you don't even think about

until something's off.

Inside, things felt normal enough,

except I noticed two of the upper kitchen cabinet doors

were hanging slightly open.

Just an inch or two.

I paused, staring at them,

trying to remember if I'd left them that way.

I hadn't.

I'm not tidy exactly,

but I'm not the kind of guy who leaves cabinets hanging open.

I asked Lisa if she ever had raccoons

or anything get into her house.

She laughed and said,

maybe my uncle was just forgetful.

Could've been that.

Still, it was a strange detail to let go of.

We sat on the couch and ate half watch

some old movie playing on TV.

The vibe was good, comfortable, kind of lazy.

I started to relax.

Around 11, I got a text from Ray.

He said he was staying at his buddy's place for the night.

That made me feel better.

Knowing we had the place to ourselves

helped me shake off the word feeling from Ella,

somewhere between then and midnight, the lights flickered.

Just once, Lacey made a joke about haunted trailers.

I laughed but didn't feel like joking.

She got up to use the bathroom.

I wandered into the kitchen to grab a soda.

That's when I noticed the back screen door was cracked open.

Not white, but definitely not closed.

It hung maybe two or three inches off the frame.

The latch was loose sometimes,

so part of me thought it could've just bounced open.

But I knew I'd shut it earlier.

Locked it too.

I stood there for a while,

staring at the gap,

one hand still in the fridge.

Eventually, I pushed it closed and slid the bolt tight.

My shoulders felt tense,

like I was waiting for something to explain itself.

Lacey came back and noticed the look on my face.

I didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

Told her the back door had blown open.

She shrugged it off.

Us, if we could step outside first muck.

We went out the back,

stood in the small wooden steps.

The woods beyond the ridge were pitch black.

No moon, no stars, just this wall of trees and darkness.

I kept looking at it like my eyes were trying to focus on something,

but there was nothing.

No sounds, no breeze.

The stillness felt heavy.

We didn't stay out long.

When we went back inside,

I triple-checked the door latch,

bolt, and I even shoved a small folding chair under the handle.

Lacey gave me a look,

but didn't say anything.

We went to bed.

She fell asleep pretty quick,

but I just laid there,

staring at the ceiling.

The silence was louder than usual.

I couldn't shake this feeling that something was off.

Around two in the morning, I heard it.

Not a creek.

Not the usual trail of settling.

Footsteps.

Slow, deliberate, on the hallway linoleum.

I froze.

The door to my room was shut,

but the gap underneath it

led in just enough life

from the hallway to sea movement.

A shadow passed by, slow and smooth.

Someone walking by the door.

For half a second,

I thought maybe Ray had come back after all,

but I hadn't heard his truck.

No doors, no gravel crunching, nothing.

And whoever this was,

they weren't moving like someone who lived there.

I leaned over and tapped Lacey's shoulder.

She stared, blinged, looked at me.

I whispered.

I think someone's in the trailer.

Her face shifted instantly.

She didn't speak.

Just stayed still and listened.

Two more steps, then nothing.

I reached into the nightston

and pulled out Ray's big metal flashlight.

It was heavy with chip paint along the handle.

Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.

Then the door nub turned.

Thought.

Slow.

A little click.

A little click.

Just testing it.

Lacey shot up in mild.

What the hell?

I moved closer to the door and called out, Ray.

Loud enough to carry, but not a yell.

No answer.

The door nub stopped moving.

Dequiet, I pressed my air to the door,

nothing, no shuffling, no shuffling, no breathing,

just silence, I cracked it open an inch,

and aimed the flashlight into the hallway empty,

I opened the door wider and stepped out,

chipped the front door still locked

from the inside living room,

clear kitchen, same bathroom, nothing,

then I remembered the call space.

There was a square hatch in the hallway floor,

just passed the bathroom,

covered by a faded overrug.

I walked over and peeled it back.

The word and cover was shifted a few inches,

not wide open, but not sealed like it had been before.

I'd vacuumed that rug earlier in the week.

I would have noticed.

I didn't open it.

I turned to Lacey and told her to grab her shoes,

coat, anything she needed.

We were leaving.

I locked the door behind us and we got in the track.

I drove straight to a motel and hollow creek

and didn't say a word the whole way.

The next morning, I called Ray, told him everything.

He came back with a shotgun in his truck bed

and opened the call space.

Inside, there were boot prints in the dirt,

an empty water bottle in the corner.

Someone had been down there living, sleeping,

watching probably.

The cops came to the search.

They found a tone scrap of flannel, a rusty pocket knife,

a matchbook from a bar in Beckley,

and a trail of broken branches leading off into the woods.

No ID, no fingerprints, nothing naked Jews.

Ray put in a steel grate over the hatch that same day,

bolted it to the frame.

I packed my things and left a week later.

Moved to Charleston, found work.

Tried not to think about it.

Now I live in an apartment on the third floor

with double locks and motion lights.

I check under the bed every night.

Pause it, too.

Thanksgiving that year was at my cousin's place.

Tucked out in the woods near a little tongue-cold ashered

about 20 minutes passably filled

in southern West Virginia.

Drew met me out front when I pulled up.

Same wire, Ray, and Simba's cut from college,

but now with a pair of neon orange

and a new fiancine named Hailey

who waved from the porch like we'd met before.

I got out of the car and was immediately pulled

into the chaos-food smells pouring out of the front door

football yelling from the TV inside.

Someone's toddler making siren noises for no reason.

The house was huge, way too big for just Drew and Hailey.

Five bedrooms, wraparound porch, even a fire pit up back.

He said the place used to be an old hunting lodge

that got gutted and renovated.

Now it was just his house.

No big deal.

Inside, it was shoulder to shoulder.

I counted it eating people cousins, in laws, kids.

People I wasn't even sure were related,

but smiled like we grew up together.

The kind of party where you start off checking

your phone in the corner,

and by the end of the night you're laughing over beers

with someone who once pushed you off a trampoline

in fifth grade.

Dinner was chaos.

Blades piled high with everything.

Hailey made three different kinds of pie for some reason.

At a time we sat down to eat.

It was already dark out and the windows

just showed your own reflection.

That weird kind of night where it's so quiet outside,

it feels like the woods are pressing in on the house.

I crashed in the guest room upstairs,

the one with the floral quilt

and a window that looked out over the gravel driveway.

Around midnight after brushing my teeth

and trying to ignore the suns of someone snoring

loudly down the hall, there was a knock at my door.

It was Drew.

He leaned in with a sheepish look,

scratching the back of his neck like he was about

to ask for a ride to the airport.

Hey man, you awake?

Kind of, I said.

I said, what's up?

He explained at his neighbor, a guy named Curtis,

had asked him to check on his dogs while he was away

for the holiday.

Nothing major.

Just let them out, top off the water,

maybe 10 minutes max.

The only problem was Drew had knocked

back half a bottle of wild turkey

and wasn't about to drive anywhere.

He'd be doing me a huge favor, he said.

I was about to say no.

I was tired.

I didn't want to drive in him familiar back was at night.

But then he hit me with remembered junior year?

That night in Huntington, when I,

okay fine, I said, cutting him off.

What do I have to do?

He handed me the keys to his truck

and gave fake directions.

Down the main road, past a busted mailbox,

then a gravel path to the right after a bend.

You'll see a tree with a bunch of reflectors

nailed to it, he said.

That's the turn, long driveway.

House sits behind a hill.

You'll know it when you see it.

So off I went.

The truck was old but steady.

Tires crunched over the gravel

and headlights cut through trees

that looked like they'd been there since the Civil War.

I found the turn, barely almost missed it

because the reflectors had fallen

and were now just hanging crooked like they'd melted.

The driveway stretched longer than I expected.

When I finally saw the house, it looked lonely.

Single story, dock porch, no cars.

The only thing that stood out was the basement

like glowing faintly through a window near the back.

I parked, left the headlights on

and walked around to the porch.

There was a small note tip side to basement door.

Dogs in back room, let them mountain yard,

water and bowl by sink.

I opened the door.

The smell hit me first.

Not bad, just musty.

Like a space that hadn't seen fresh air in a while.

The dogs, two black labs,

were called up in the corner on an old blanket.

They perked up when this on me

tells wagging low and lazy.

Hey guys, I mutter, flipping the light switch.

This stood, stretched, petted over.

One nuzzled my leg.

Friendly, mellow, mellow.

I opened the back door, let them out

and leaned against the door frame waiting.

My phone had zero pause.

I tried to check messages out of habit

but it was like holding a dead brick.

Fine.

I watched the dogs instead.

This sniffed around for a bit,

walked toward the edge of the yard,

near where the tree lined up into a shallow slope.

Then they stopped both at once, just froze.

Their bodice stiffened, ears up tail straight,

eyes locked on the woods.

I swintered trying to see what they saw.

Nothing.

No rustling.

No going eyes.

Not even a breeze.

Then the bigger one took a slow step back,

keeping its eyes locked on,

whatever it thought was out there.

A low growl rumbled from its chest.

The other one whined softly.

And that's when I heard the knocking.

Not behind me.

Not at the front door.

Under the porch.

Tree knocks.

Slow.

Even, solid like someone tapping with the knuckles

against the wooden beams.

I didn't move.

It didn't sound like a branch or an animal.

It had rhythm intent.

Tree more knocks.

The dogs turned and bolted straight back

to the basement door.

I opened it without thinking.

They ran in, tails tucked,

and immediately huddled in the father's corner

like they couldn't get far enough way.

I locked the door, didn't check into the porch,

didn't even glance back.

I walked fast, almost jogged back to the truck,

cland in, and peeled out down the gravel.

When I got back,

Drew was still up, sitting on the porch with a beer.

You good?

He asked.

I told him what I heard.

The dogs.

The knocking.

He raced his eyebrows, but didn't say much.

Just mattered something about sound carrying in the hills.

Probably a possum or raccoon messing around under there.

Possums don't knock, I say.

He just shurped.

Weird place.

That house has been empty on and off for years.

Curtis inherited it last spring.

I didn't sleep great.

Around three in the morning,

I woke up with my mouth dry.

I slept downstairs quietly,

stepping over bodys and sleeping bags

and half finished puzzles.

As I opened the fridge,

something outside caught my eye.

There was a woman standing in the field behind the house.

No flashlight, no jacket, long hair hanging down,

not bowing even slightly.

She was walking, wasn't looking around,

just standing face in the house,

directly toward the window I was looking through.

I blinked still there.

I leaned back slowly,

hot knocking against my ribs.

We did.

Looked again.

Fun.

I didn't check the field.

Didn't ask about her in the morning.

Just acted like nothing happened.

Help clean up.

Thank Haley for the pies.

At my back and plan to be back on the road before four.

As I was loading up my car, drew came out.

Hey, he said.

Curtis texted.

Said thanks again for helping out.

But now the dogs won't go near the yard.

They just bark at the basement door.

I paused.

Wait, what?

He nodded like it was nothing.

They wouldn't even eat this morning,

just sat there growling.

He said it started last night.

I told him again about the knocking,

the porch, the dogs.

He just gave me a crooked smile.

That house is weird, man.

Always has been.

Always has been.

Someone said his uncle guy who used to live there

died in the basement.

That was enough.

I didn't say goodbye to anyone else.

Just got in the car and drove.

We were living in this quite stretch of southern West Virginia,

the kind of place where the highway eventually fades

into nothing and the wood start to reclaim everything.

Our house sat just a couple miles up

from what used to be a mining zone,

one of the older ones lawn shut down.

Most of the shafts were boarded up and slowly collapsing

and the forest had been creeping back in for years.

He'd see rusted metal half-sunk into the dirt,

old fencing tangled in vines, warning signs

that had faded to white.

Nobody really paid attention to it anymore.

That land still technically belonged to a private company,

though.

Some offshoot of an energy group that didn't do anything

with it anymore except keep liability at bay.

My uncle Rick worked for them,

not in any kind of a fish or barge in uniform way,

just low-key contract security.

His job was to make sure people weren't messing

around on the property,

mostly keeping drunk teenagers out

and keeping scavenges from getting crushed in old structures.

That fall, Rick fell for a rotted floor

while checking an old up building near shaft three,

broke his leg bed enough to need surgery

and a long stint on crutches.

A few days after it happened,

he asked me if I'd cover a few of his night patrols

until he could get around again,

said it would just be temporary and off the books.

Cash pay, no paperwork, he'd vouch for me.

At the time, I didn't think twice.

I was between things.

Some odd jobs, no college plans yet

and not much else going on.

It sounded easy enough.

Walk a loop, shine a flashlight,

make sure no one's around.

Maybe bring a snack.

He gave me the key to the Axis Gate,

a rough map of the area

and a short checker's tonic at board

I was supposed to fill out during each shift.

The loop itself was about a half mile around.

It started at the perimeter fence

and curved around two old mining structures,

long since gutted and then circled the main entrance

to shaft three, which had a gate over it

and fencing that extended a good 30 feet on either side.

All I had to do was walk the loop once,

check the locks and log anything unusual.

The first couple nights were uneventful, quiet actually.

Almost too quiet.

Out there, past midnight,

it was the kind of still where your own breathing felt loud.

You could hear animals moving into brush ruckians mostly,

maybe the occasional deer.

And sometimes you'd hear snapping twigs

from way off in the woods,

but nothing ever felt close.

I always stayed outside the buildings.

Rick told me not to bother

unless something really looked off.

The structures were dangerous anyway.

No foes, sharp metal, masts.

I didn't argue.

Just gave them a wide breath and kept moving.

But on the third night,

something caught my eye near the shaft gate.

One section of the fence looked newer.

The chain links were cleaner,

like they hadn't been sitting out in the weather as long.

The posts were brighter too.

At first, I figured maybe the company

had sent someone up to patch of recently,

maybe after Rick's accident,

but there wasn't any note about it

on the checklist or in the low book.

I knelt down for a closer look.

No rust, nowhere.

And then I noticed the lock on the gate was different.

The one I'd seen the past two nights was old and dull,

all scratched up.

This one, brand new, shiny.

You could still see the barcode sticker on the bottom.

It hadn't been there before

and no one had told us to expect any replacements.

I jotted it down on the clipboard and finished my loop.

Nothing else seemed out of place.

The next night I showed up like usual around quarter

after midnight walked the path.

When I got close to the shaft gate, I stopped.

The new lock was gone.

The gate was wide open.

It was just cracked, maybe four or five inches,

but enough that someone could slip

for if they wanted to.

I stood there for a while, just listening.

I didn't hear anything, no wind, no movement,

but that tiny opening just sat there waiting.

I got the weirdest sensation

that if I stood still long enough,

something would step out from the darkness behind it.

I didn't go near it.

I didn't touch the gate.

I backed up, walked the entire loop again

and logged the anomaly.

Later that morning, I told Rick,

he just stared for a second like he wasn't surprised.

Then he sighed and said, just don't go near it.

Let them handle it.

I wanted to ask who them was, but I didn't.

Two nights after that, the gate was shut again,

but the lock still wasn't there.

Someone had twisted a piece of wire

around the latch instead like a temporary fix.

That night, I noticed something else.

There were no signs of activity.

No footprints, no dried marks,

no tie trucks in the access road.

The dirt there were usually held marks pretty well,

but nothing.

Then came night six.

It was just past two a.m.

I remember because I just checked my phone

after passing the northern corner of the loop.

I was coming up toward the shaft again

when I heard a sound, something inside the tunnel.

It was an animal.

I know what you sound like.

I know what raccoons when foxes sound like.

This was slower.

Hevia, it was a dragging sound,

like something thick and heavy being pulled across stone.

I froze.

I didn't shine a flashlight straight at the tunnel.

I just kept it aimed a few feet ahead of my boots.

My heart was thudding in this weird offer the way

like it was trying to warn me.

The dragging stopped.

Then a few seconds later started again.

But this time, it sounded farther away

like whatever it was had moved deeper into the tunnel.

I turned and walked away.

I didn't log anything.

I didn't speak.

I got in the truck and drove home.

Seventh night, the air felt off before I even got out

of the truck.

Still and heavy, like the whole area was holding its breath.

I got halfway through the loop before I noticed a smell.

It hit me like wet meat left in the sun.

They're complaining.

Not sharp like Rougal, but deeper like.

Something had been rotting underground

and finally cracked the surface.

I kept walking, slower now trying to figure out

where it was coming from.

The closer I got to the shaft gate, the stronger it got.

The wire was gone.

The gate was slightly open again.

I should have walked away.

I told myself that.

I remember thinking, just finished the loop.

Just turn your back and leave.

But I didn't.

I stood there at the fence, not moving,

staring into the dark space behind the gate

like it was staring back.

That's when I saw it.

Something was lying on the ground just inside the gate.

It looked like a bundle at first,

like a top or maybe a big sack of tools,

but it hit a shape to it, a long cuff pale against the stone,

almost like a spine.

There was no blood, but something about it looked wrong.

It looked opened like it had been torn along the side.

Then it twitched.

Not fast, just a tiny reflexive jerk.

That was enough.

I turned and walked, not when I walked, but fast.

Kept my flashlight on the path, didn't look back.

I didn't even drive home.

I went straight to Rick's house,

pounded on the door until he answered.

I told him everything, start to finish.

He listened, didn't interrupt.

When I was done, he just nodded and said, don't go back.

He left the job a few weeks later.

About a week after all that, the company posted signs.

Private security enforced.

No trespassing.

That sort of thing.

The patrol stopped.

They didn't hire replacements.

I was working maintenance at the courthouse and briar field,

Virginia.

The records lived in the basement.

Old court documents.

Marriage licenses from couples probably lawn-barred.

Land deeds from back when half the time was still forest.

Floor to ceiling boxes down there.

The woman who used to handle older had passed the year

before I started.

No one replaced her, so the basement just stayed

the way she left it.

I was told not to touch it,

unless someone needed something specific.

One Thursday evening, I was tightening a valve

in the break room sink.

One of those little leak jobs where you know the wash is gone,

but you're still hoping it'll hold together for another month

when Melinda Kinn downstairs with a paper in her hand.

Melinda was a clerk, always polite but sharp.

She didn't like wasting time.

Can you grab a probate file for me?

She asked handing me the slip.

It had the box number, shelf code, and you're written on it.

I nodded.

Easy enough.

Gave me a reason to stretch my legs.

The lights in the basement had been a problem since I started.

I replaced the bulbs checked to fixtures,

even swapped the few wires,

but they always flickered like a bad horror movie.

So I kept a flashlight clipped to my belt.

Not out of fear, just habit.

You loaned to come prepared.

When I pushed the basement door open,

I felt that flat kind of error again.

Not coal, not musty, just stay like whatever circulated

down there had stopped trying a long time ago.

I'd been in the the week before frilly

under the old water heater,

so it wasn't like it was sealed off or anything,

but it didn't feel used.

It felt forgotten.

The filing system was simple enough.

Floor tiles had numbers.

Shells were labeled with letters.

Rose were divided by year.

Follow the grid and you'd end up in the right corner eventually.

I'd used it maybe twice before.

Shell 14b, third row from the bottom.

When I got to it, the box I needed was already sticking out a bit

like someone had set it down in a hurry.

Same kind of box as the others.

Thou cardboard, black mark a label,

old masking tape yellowed in the corners.

But something about it didn't sit right.

The label was too crisp.

Ink didn't bleed like the others.

No smudging, no age.

Still, it matched the code.

So I pulled it down, rested it on a low shelf,

and opened the lid.

Right on top was a file with my full name.

Not initials.

Not I just stared at it for a second.

Could have been a coincidence, maybe.

Maybe someone filed a complaint or left a note.

But when I opened it, it was the complaint.

It was a maintenance report.

Standard form.

But all the handwriting inside was mine.

I knew it.

The weird little code I make on my SS.

The way I underlined it's when I'm annoyed.

It was like I'd filled it up myself.

Only I hadn't.

The report listed a light fixture repair

in the second floor hallway.

Scheduled for the following Tuesday.

I hadn't been assigned anything like that yet.

I closed a folder.

Lifted the box to slide it back in the shelf.

But the space behind me had changed.

The spot where I'd set it down was empty.

And now there were three more boxes at my feet.

All stacked.

All labeled in my handwriting.

Each one had to date.

None of them matched.

One said July 22nd, two years ago.

One said next month.

The third didn't have a year at all, just a range.

I'm moving.

I opened one.

Then another.

Every file was a job I hadn't done yet.

Some I didn't even understand.

East sterile inspection.

Wall cavity exporter.

We didn't have any sterile.

One form mentioned a mechanical sub-basement access to Nye.

I'd never seen that space on any blueprint.

Another said storage room 3B sound observed.

Locked jammed.

There is no storage room 3B.

Not in that building.

I stepped back.

I hadn't even realized how far I'd walked in.

The shelves looked taller now.

Or maybe I just felt smaller.

I turned trying to get my bearings.

But every room looked the same stacks of old cardboard and stale air.

That's when I noticed the cabinet.

It sat low in the corner.

Beige metal.

Medical looking.

Like something pulled from a nurse's office in the 60s.

It didn't belong in there.

Not with the rest of the records.

The tuck drawer was open just a little.

Inside was a folded maintenance jumpsuit.

Identical to mine.

Same navy color.

Same patch on the arm.

One turn in the knee from crawling under the boiler last month.

I hadn't left a spare down here.

I didn't touch it.

I turned back to the stairs.

I needed to leave.

Idea.

Idea.

Pretend I didn't see any of this.

Right as I reached the top step, the door slanshot.

Hard.

Like someone had yanked it.

I ran up and shoved out it.

But it wouldn't move.

There's no lock on that side.

No bolt.

But it didn't budge.

I knocked.

Then again.

Louder.

Then I stopped.

Because I heard something.

It was for steps.

Not breathing.

Just a soft sound right behind me.

The kind of dry scrape you hear when cardboard slides across concrete.

I turned around.

There was a box in the step below me.

I hadn't heard it move.

I hadn't seen it fall.

But it was there.

No label this time.

Just my name and big block letters across the lead.

I opened it.

Inside was a photograph.

Lock and white.

Barraini.

Looked like a still from a security camera.

The time stamp matched that day.

It was me.

Ben over, flashlight in hand, standing at shelf 14b.

Just like I had ten minutes earlier, I dropped the box.

Shove the door again hard of this time.

It gave.

I almost fell forward into the hallway.

Melinda looked up from her desk like nothing had happened.

You find it she asked.

No, I said.

Records are a mess.

I'll try again later.

She nodded, already typing again.

I went home and didn't sleep that night.

Just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself I'd imagined it.

That I was tired.

Stressed.

Anything but what it felt like.

Next morning, I showed up early.

Told the count in manager I wasn't going into the basement anymore.

Exterior jobs only.

I didn't tell them about the files.

Or the boxes.

Or the photograph.

They wouldn't have believed me.

I'm not sure I do.

Now I don't even go near the basement level.

If a pipe burst down there, someone else can figure it out.

Then it called me in late August, just as I was wrapping up a rough week at work.

She was moving into a rental house near a lake in West Virginia and asked if I could come

help her settle in.

She landed a librarian job at small college out there and found a cheap place not too far

from campus.

I figured why not.

I had some PDO saved up and hadn't seen her in months.

The house was remote.

One story, older, and surrounded on all sides by woods that seemed to crowd close

so the further you drove in.

The road it sat on didn't even show up by name on Google Maps.

Just a thin grey line.

Her nearest neighbours were an older couple who lived two lots over and barely came outside

and a broken downhouse cross a road that looked like a half-clapsed barn.

The back corner of its roof was caved in and there were no curtains in the windows, just

big glass reflecting trees and sky.

I drove down from Pittsburgh on a Monday, made good time.

In it didn't have a lot of furniture, just boxes and a few bigger pieces she bought

secondhand.

We had it all inside by dinner.

That evening we sat out in the yard with drinks still sweaty from hauling stuff letting

the cicadas hum in the background.

There was a quiet stillness out there that was peaceful and theory but the kind of quiet

that also makes you keep glancing over your shoulder.

We kept looking at the old house across the road.

It wasn't boarded up, just neglected.

Like someone meant to fix it once but gave up halfway through.

The windows looked fogged up from the inside.

There wasn't even a wheel driveway, just a patch of gravel sinking into weeds.

I joked that if anyone was living in there they were either a ghost or a meth head.

Dinner laughed, sort of, then said her real estate agent told her the place had been empty

for six years.

She didn't sound convinced.

The next morning I woke up to this soft, steady hammering, just enough to break the quiet.

I rolled out of bed, looked out the window, and saw a man in a blue shirt standing next

to that house across the road.

He was nailing something to a wooden post-know the edge of the yard.

I couldn't make out his face, and there was something worried about how he moved.

Slow, like his joints didn't quite work right.

I figured I'd go out and say something, but by the time I got dressed and stepped outside,

he was gone.

Just gone.

No sound, no truck, no footsteps on gravel.

I asked Dana if she saw him.

She hadn't heard a thing.

We walked across the road together to see what he'd been doing.

There was a piece of weathered wood-nail crookedly to a spinted poet, covered in rusted nails

and tangled wire, not like a sign or anything, more like something meant to hurt someone

or warn them.

We just stood there staring at it for a while.

Then we went back to the house and didn't bring it up again.

That night I had trouble sleeping.

I don't know why, it wasn't hard and it wasn't nosy, but every time I closed my eyes,

I felt like something was slightly off, like I'd left a door cracked open.

Around one in the morning I heard tapping, not banging, not knocking.

Just a soft, deliberate tapping.

It was coming from the front room.

I got up trying not to wake Dana and walked slowly down the hallway.

The tapping didn't change rhythm.

It was coming from the front window at the one that faced the road.

I pulled up the blind.

The old house had a light on.

Second floor, left window.

There had never been a light on in there.

No electricity, no movement, nothing.

But now it glowed with a soft yellow light and behind the glass door to figure a dog-shaped

still a stone.

I just stood there watching it.

It didn't move.

The light didn't flicker.

Then, after what felt like a full minute, the light snapped off.

No fade.

Just dark.

I stepped back from the window and sat on the floor until sunrise.

Couldn't bring myself to go back to bed.

The next day with a coffee, it told Dana.

She was already stressed from the job orientation and just waved it off.

Saved maybe someone was checking on the property.

Maybe a squatter brought in a generator.

She didn't want it to become a thing.

I didn't press it.

But that afternoon, something else happened.

We were outside and loading groceries from her car when a man stepped out of the woods

behind the abandoned house.

Same blue shirt.

Same build.

Same woods, if what he didn't purchase, just stood at the tree line and stared at his face

was lawn and pale blank as paper.

I called out asked if he needed something no response after a few seconds.

He turned around and walked back into the tree's not-san.

No twigs cracking, no leave, russing he was just absorbed back into the woods that night.

I didn't even pretend to sleep, I kept the TV on low and sat up in the arm-gainier

the whole way, just listening.

One midnight, the light of the kitchen sink started to pulse.

It didn't flicker like a bulb about to go.

It pulsed like it was breathing.

Then it stomped.

Then the whole way life looked on.

I was still staring at him when the smell hit me.

Smook.

Chop backered.

The kind that catches in the back of your throat.

I ran into the kitchen.

Nothing.

The stove was cold.

No fire.

But the smell was thick, like something had just burned and vanished.

Denny came up coughing, scared.

They searched the house top to bottom, checked every outlet, every wall.

Nothing.

Then I opened the front door to let the air out and that's when I saw it.

Bright at the edge of the yard, near the ditch, was a mound of dirt.

It hadn't been there earlier.

I walked toward it with a flashlight.

The soil was loose, damp, uneven, like someone had just dug it and covered it up again.

Denny stood on the porch behind me, whispering, we need to leave.

We didn't argue about it.

We packed what we could in five minutes and left everything else behind.

We got a room at a cheap motel near campus.

And that is the end.

Thank you for listening and I will see you in the next one.