Don’t Let it in, Don’t let it out

One

I saw the house. It was beautiful. A big Victorian sitting in the middle of the woods. And I knew I shouldn’t go in. I really shouldn’t go in.
Next thing I know, I’m knocking on the front door. Three knocks. No answer. I tried the handle.
Unlocked.
I didn’t know if I should take that as a sign to go in or a sign to stay the hell out.
I went in.
The house was dated, maybe 1920s or ‘30s. The furniture was ornate and gorgeous. There wasn’t any dust or a single cobweb in sight. That was strange.
A house this big and beautiful, sitting in the middle of the woods. Empty. Vacant. Alone. Yet somehow perfectly clean.
I made my way toward the stairs, noticing the gorgeous gold-and-teal wallpaper. It reminded me of something from Titanic. That’s when I heard it.
A door creaking somewhere in the house.
Which door, I didn’t know. There were so many of them it could have been any one. I stopped walking and listened. Creeeeak.
It was coming from upstairs. Around the corner, exactly where I was headed. At that point, I had to decide.
Do I keep going? Or do I leave?
It could just be a draft. Maybe there was a cracked or broken window somewhere and the wind was coming through. That’s what I told myself anyway. I continued up the stairs.
When I reached the top, I turned the corner into a long hallway. Three doors lined the right side. The middle one was slowly opening. I walked toward it carefully.
That’s when I noticed the smell. Something rotten. Like wet, decaying leaves mixed with garbage. Who knows? It could’ve been a dead animal. A house like this, sitting empty in the woods, could have anything inside it.
Then I heard the low rumbling sound.
Okay.
That was not something coming from a dead animal. Whatever was making that sound was definitely alive. Maybe a bear? A mountain lion?
Either way, I decided it was probably a pretty good time to leave. I turned toward the stairs. The rumbling followed me into the hallway. Then came another sound.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Nails against the wooden floor.
You know in horror movies when someone hears something behind them, turns around to look, and then screams because of whatever they see? That was exactly what went through my head.
So I decided I wasn’t going to turn around. I was just going to run. My pace quickened as I headed for the stairs.
Click-clack.
The sound followed. I reached the corner. And because apparently I hadn’t learned anything from horror movies after all, I glanced back. Standing in the middle of the hallway was no animal.
At least, not any animal from our world. It looked like darkness and wind and dirt and oil had all been swirled together into the shape of something alive.
It had claws. Red eyes. And gleaming white teeth.
I screamed.
Then I ran.
I flew down the stairs as fast as I could without falling. Four steps from the bottom, I could see the front door.
Almost there.
Then there was one enormous WHOOSH followed by a loud crack.
The creature was suddenly standing in front of me.
Blocking the exit.

I hit the bottom of the staircase and spun around as fast as I could. I ran down another hallway, past the living room and through the kitchen, screaming the entire way.
It followed me. I could hear it. I could smell it. And it was close.
I didn’t know this house. I didn’t know which turn led to which room or which hallway would take me somewhere else. All I knew was that none of them seemed to lead outside. I had only seen one exterior door.
The front door. I kept running. Behind me came the rumbling and that horrible clicking of claws against wood.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
I turned another corner. A second hallway. And at the end of it, I could see the front door again. I dug my feet into the floor and sprinted harder than I thought I could. I threw myself through the doorway. I stumbled down the front steps and fell toward the dirt and pine needles below.
And suddenly, I shot upright in bed.
I screamed. My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. I looked around my bedroom.
My bed.
My walls.
My blankets.
Thank God. It was just a dream. Or technically, I guess, a nightmare.
I took a breath and reached for the clock on my bedside table.
3:13 AM.
Then I noticed the date.
November 2.

Two

Two Years Earlier

It was October 30, my fourteenth birthday, and Dad was taking me horseback riding.
My favorite day of the year. I loved horses. They were so beautiful and majestic.
I always rode Cesar. He had this gorgeous black-and-white paint coloring, and Dad always rode his girlfriend, Ginger. We went out that morning, and it was perfect, just like it always was. Dad and I got lunch and then went on our ride.
On the way back, I asked him something I’d been wondering about.
“Do you know anybody who owns horses? Like, instead of us always having to go to a horse ranch?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Dad said. “We don’t have anybody in the family who owns horses anymore.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean, anymore?”
Dad told me my great-uncle Henry used to own a ranch up in the woods.
I wished I could’ve met him, but Uncle Henry had died when I was very little. After he died, the ranch was sold because nobody else in the family had the means or ability to take care of it.
A few days later, on November 2, I was at Grandma’s house. Snow had started falling outside. It was one of those chilly early-winter days where staying inside sounded better anyway.
Grandma and I were watching The Golden Girls while I painted her toenails and she drank her whiskey and smoked a Marlboro Red.
“Grandma?”
“Hmm?”
“Dad told me I had a great-uncle Henry who used to own horses.”
“Yes, honey, he did. He had a beautiful horse ranch that he started in the late 1930s. He’d board horses, sell them, trade them. He loved those animals.”
“I wish I could’ve met him. I love horses, and it would’ve been so neat having someone in the family who owned them. I could’ve ridden all the time.”
Grandma smiled.
“You would’ve loved Uncle Henry. He was real funny. I’m just sorry he passed before you could get to know him.”
“Me too. Do you have any pictures?”
She thought about it.
“Hmm. I think so. Let me check.”
Grandma disappeared for a few minutes and came back carrying one of her photo albums.
She flipped through the pages before pulling out an old photograph and handing it to me.
It was Great-Uncle Henry. He was standing in front of a beautiful Victorian house surrounded by woods. Three horses stood with him.
Henry was a big man, probably six-foot-two and around 220 pounds. He looked like someone who had worked with his hands his entire life. I couldn’t stop looking at the picture.
“Can I keep this, Grandma?”
“Of course you can, sweetie.”
When I got home, I tucked the photograph into my jewelry box. Over the next year, I thought about Great-Uncle Henry often. I’d take the photograph out and look at him.
The house. The horses. I wished I’d known him.

One year later, November 2.
I’d just turned fifteen. I was still excited about the horseback ride Dad and I had taken for my birthday. We’d been going to the ranch for five years by then, and because I finally had enough experience, they let me gallop Cesar for a little while.
It was incredible. And it made me think about Great-Uncle Henry again. About his ranch. His horses. I wished more than ever that I’d gotten the chance to know him. That night, I took his photograph out of my jewelry box. I stared at the beautiful house and the three horses standing beside him. If only there were some way to talk to him.Then I remembered something.
Some of my friends had messed around with a Ouija board. They said they’d been able to contact loved ones who had died. I didn’t have a Ouija board. But maybe I didn’t need one.
I sat in my bedroom thinking about it.
Maybe if I asked whatever was out there, the spirit world, another dimension, whatever allowed people to communicate with loved ones who had died, maybe it could help me talk to Uncle Henry.
I placed his photograph on my bed and stood in front of it.
“Spirits, I seek my great-uncle Henry. Can you help me contact him?”
Nothing.
I picked up the photograph.
“Spirits, I seek my great-uncle Henry. Can you help me contact him?”
I started slowly turning in a circle as I repeated the words.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I don’t know why I was spinning. I was fifteen. I’d seen too many horror movies and apparently decided making up my own séance was a good idea.
By about the seventh time, I was starting to feel stupid.
Then I heard my name.
“Cheryl.”
I stopped. That wasn’t Mom. It wasn’t Dad. I stood completely still and listened.
“Cheryl.”
The voice was low, distant but so close it sounded like someone was standing directly behind me, whispering into my ear. I dropped the photograph. And ran out of my room. After that, I put the picture away. I stopped trying to contact Uncle Henry.

Three

Two years passed. I’d just turned seventeen. I had my driver’s license. Life was good. It was going to be a good day. Or so I thought. I woke violently, my entire body shaking. I screamed. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was in my bedroom.
My room
My blankets.
My clock.
November 2.
3:13 AM.
The same nightmare. Great-Uncle Henry’s house. Me running through it. Being chased by… Something. Recurring dreams happen. They’re brought on by memories or things you’ve been thinking about. And I’d just gone on my annual horseback ride with Dad.
That was probably it.
The horses made me think about Uncle Henry. Thinking about Uncle Henry made me remember the photograph and that stupid thing I’d done when I was fifteen. As for the dark creature? Who knows. I loved horror movies.My brain probably pulled it from one of those.
That had to be it.
Still, I felt nervous and agitated the entire day. That night, I went to my friend Stacey’s house for a party. Her house was only a few blocks away, so I walked. She lived in a heavily wooded part of the neighborhood. I turned onto her street and passed the first house.
Stacey’s property was next. She had a huge wooded front yard with the house sitting farther back from the road. I started up toward it.
“Cheryl.”
I stopped.
No.
That voice.
That fucking voice.

The same one I’d heard two years earlier while holding Uncle Henry’s photograph. I spun around. Nobody was there. I started walking again. Faster this time.
“Cheryl.”
I stopped.
Just ahead of me, between two trees on the left side of the yard, something moved. Swirling shadows. Two red eyes. Gleaming white teeth.
My stomach dropped. It was the thing from my nightmare.
I ran.
I didn’t stop.
I didn’t look back.
Thankfully, when Stacey had parties, she never locked the front door. I threw myself inside and slammed it behind me. Everyone was downstairs, so nobody saw the terror on my face. I stood there for a moment, trying to catch my breath. It was just nerves.
That’s all.
I’d had that nightmare early this morning, and now I was walking alone through a dark, wooded neighborhood. My imagination got the better of me. That was it. I shook it off.Then I walked downstairs and poured myself a drink.

Stacey had invited a lot of people to the party, including quite a few I didn’t know. When she saw me, she immediately noticed something was wrong.
“Hey, you made it. Is everything okay? You look a little freaked out or something.”
“Oh yeah, I’m good. It’s just really dark outside. You know, gotta freak yourself out a little bit to have some fun, right?”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s right after Halloween, and we just went to that haunted house too. Doesn’t help that I basically live in the middle of the woods.”
We both laughed. She was right. We had just gone to a haunted house. I’d had that nightmare. Everything was still fresh in my mind. I was seeing things. It was normal. At least, that’s what I told myself.
“Stacey, do you remember a couple years ago when you had those friends who played with the Ouija board?”
Her expression changed.
“Yeah. I remember that, unfortunately.”
“What do you mean, unfortunately?”
“Wait. You didn’t hear what happened?”
“No. Did something happen?”
“Yeah. There were three girls playing that night. One of them started having constant nightmares about some creature chasing her through the woods. It got so bad she ended up in counseling.”
My stomach tightened.
“A creature?”
“Yeah. Then there was Rebecca.”
“What happened to her?”
Stacey lowered her voice.
“She took her own life.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“She kept saying something was after her, but she didn’t know what it was. She said she constantly felt some kind of presence around her. Everyone thought she was losing it.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I never heard any of that. That’s insane. Do you think what they were saying was actually true?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Samantha? What happened to her?”
“She moved away. She was the first one who left the group that night. I guess she yelled ‘goodbye’ even though the planchette hadn’t actually moved to the word goodbye. Then she got up and left. The other two kept playing.”
“And?”
“When Samantha’s mom found out what they’d done, she moved her away from the area. I haven’t heard anything about her since, so I’m assuming she’s fine.”
I thought about that.
“Wow. So they aren’t kidding when they say not to mess around with that spirit stuff, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess not.” Stacey grabbed my arm. “Come on. Let’s get a drink.”
The night went on.
We partied like the teenagers we were. I laughed. I drank. I tried to have fun. But I couldn’t stop thinking about those girls. The Ouija board. The spirits.
And that damn shadow creature.

My eighteenth birthday came a year later. Over the previous year, I’d done as much research as I could into everything I’d seen and heard. I couldn’t find anything specifically connected to the shadow creature. I found plenty of stories about people messing around with Ouija boards and supposedly experiencing strange things afterward. Nightmares. Apparitions. People claiming they were being followed or watched.
But nothing that explained my creature.
Besides, I was pretty sure it had all been in my head anyway. Almost an entire year had passed without anything happening. Maybe it was finally over. Wanting to put all of it behind me, I told Dad I didn’t want to go horseback riding for my birthday that year.
I still wanted to spend the day with him. I just didn’t want the horses. They reminded me too much of Great-Uncle Henry. The photograph. The nightmares. That creature.
So instead, Dad and I went to lunch and played mini golf. We had a great day. I beat him, which he wasn’t particularly happy about.
“You know it’s my birthday,” I reminded him. “You’re supposed to be happy I won.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m supposed to let you win.”
I laughed. Dad was competitive. That’s just the way he was. We laughed about it the entire way home. But when we walked inside, Mom was waiting with bad news. Grandma was sick.
Cancer.
Terminal.
She was going on hospice. We all knew what that meant. She didn’t have much time. The next morning, I went to Grandma’s house to spend the day with her. Grandma loved Halloween. She loved putting skeletons up around the house and handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.
Although if you looked older than sixteen, good luck getting anything from her. Grandma only lived a few blocks away, so I rode my bike. It was a beautiful late-October day in North Idaho. Sunny and probably around sixty degrees. Couldn’t complain about that. When I walked inside, Grandma smiled.
“Hi, Cheryl’s pie. How’s my favorite birthday girl?”
“Well, my birthday was yesterday, but I’ll take it anyway.”
She laughed.
“How are you feeling, Grandma?”
“Oh, I’m right as rain. It’s a wonderful day, don’t you know?”
Then she paused.
“I was thinking about my brother the other day. You still have that photograph I gave you? It’s the only one I had of Henry with his horses. I’d like to see it one last time.”
“Of course I still have it. I’ll run home and grab it. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay, sweetie. See you in a few.”
I pedaled home as fast as I could. At that point, I would’ve done anything Grandma asked. I grabbed the photograph, shoved it into my pocket without looking at it, got back on my bike and rode straight back.
When I returned, Grandma was upstairs in bed watching The Golden Girls. Of course she was. Our favorite show.
“Cheryl’s pie, how about you paint my toes and we’ll watch Golden Girls?”
I smiled.
“Of course, Grandma. That sounds amazing.”
“Did you get the photograph?”
“Oh yeah. It’s in my pocket.”
I sat in the chair beside her bed and pulled it out.
Then I looked at it. There were four horses.
Wait.
That wasn’t right. There had always been three. I stared harder. The fourth horse stood slightly apart from the others. It was black. Not normal black. Pure black. Midnight-oil black. And I could’ve sworn there was something swirling around its body.
Smoke.
Or fog.
Something.
Maybe I’d remembered the picture wrong. Maybe it had been a foggy day when the photograph was taken.
“Cheryl, can I see it?”
I jumped.
For a second, I’d forgotten Grandma was even there.
“Oh. Yeah. Here.”
I handed her the photograph. She smiled as she looked at it.
“Oh, that house was so beautiful. And there’s Henry. My big brother. I miss him so much.”
Her finger moved across the photograph.
“And there’s Stella, Gracie and Champion. His three favorite horses.”
Three. There were only supposed to be three.
I quickly moved from the chair to the edge of Grandma’s bed and looked over her shoulder. Three horses. The black one was gone. My mind was playing tricks on me. That was all. Maybe I’d had something in my eye. Maybe I was getting sick. Anything.
“Grandma, what happened to the horses? Is that house still there too?”
“No, honey. They tore the house down. It was so old, and the electrical system was terrible. Everyone was worried it was going to cause a fire. They built something newer there. More modern. Definitely not as beautiful.”
She looked back at the photograph.
“As for the horses, Champion was sold after Henry died. He was Henry’s newest horse. Stella and Gracie went to another ranch.”
“Did Henry ever have any black horses?”
Grandma shook her head.
“No. He had these three. Before them, he had a quarter horse. Tan and white. No black horses that I can remember.”
She smiled.
“He actually won that quarter horse at the fair on his birthday.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh yes. Henry thought it was the greatest birthday present he’d ever gotten.”
“When was his birthday?”
“March thirteenth.”
Something about that number made me pause.
“March thirteenth?”
“Mmhmm. And you know what else he thought was funny? When he found the ranch, the address was 313 Miriam Drive. He always said it was fate.”
313. 313.
I stared at the photograph.
“Why do you ask about a black horse?”
“Oh, nothing in particular. You know how much I love Black Beauty.”
Grandma smiled.
“Yep. I absolutely do. That’s your favorite. I know how much you love horses, honey. I still wish you could’ve met him.”
I smiled. Maybe I had. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to anymore.

I was standing in a large bedroom. A circular window overlooked the woods.
Outside, it was a beautiful fall day. Golden-brown leaves covered the ground, moving gently in the breeze. Sunlight filtered through the trees in thin trails.
Then I heard it. The low rumbling.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
I turned. I’d never been in this room before. It was beautiful and ornate. A huge wooden four-poster bed dominated one side of the room. There was a sitting chair in the corner and a desk with papers scattered across it.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
I rushed toward the door and peeked into the hallway. Something dark moved around the corner. Tendrils of black smoke. Oil? It seemed to float in the air. Then I realized where I was. Henry’s house. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I stepped into the hallway.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
I didn’t look back. I ran. I didn’t care if it was a dream. I wanted out. I flew down the stairs, through the foyer and out the front door. This time, I made it all the way down the steps.
Onto the lawn. The rumbling came from behind me. It was standing in the doorway. But I was safe. Every time I’d seen it before, it had stayed inside. It couldn’t come out. At least, that’s what I thought. I turned around. Black tendrils of smoke, oil and dirt swirled around two red eyes.
White teeth.
Those claws.
It stepped one foot through the doorway. I backed away. It took another step. I backed away again.
No.
It couldn’t come out of the house. Why was it coming out of the house? How was it coming out of the house? The creature roared. Then it lunged. Claws outstretched. Black smoke rushing straight toward me.
I screamed. And shot upright in bed. Sweat ran down my forehead. I couldn’t catch my breath. I looked at the clock beside my bed.
3:13 AM.
Then the date.
November 2.

Grandma died three days later. Everyone was devastated, but she had been really sick. At least she wasn’t suffering anymore. The next week, I went to see a counselor. Grandma and I had been incredibly close, and I needed someone to talk to who wasn’t grieving right alongside me. Eventually, I told the counselor about more than Grandma. I told her about the dreams. Great-Uncle Henry. The photograph. The things I’d seen. The things I’d heard.
She told me the brain has a way of connecting experiences, memories and emotions, especially during periods of grief or stress. The creature in my nightmares, she explained, could be my mind’s way of giving anxiety a physical form. I didn’t have anxiety.
At least, I didn’t think I did. I’d never considered myself an anxious person before. She prescribed a low-dose anxiety medication and a sleep aid. I didn’t take either one. I didn’t like prescription medication. More specifically, I didn’t trust the companies making it.
And for the next year, nothing happened. Maybe she was right. These things only seemed to happen around the same time every year. Maybe it really was some strange form of anxiety. Maybe my brain had latched onto certain details and kept bringing them back.
The counselor had also suggested that if I ever felt ready, I could destroy Great-Uncle Henry’s photograph. Cut it up. Burn it. Something symbolic to tell my brain I was letting go. I couldn’t do it. That photograph was the only connection I had to him.
So I left it in my jewelry drawer. I didn’t take it out. I didn’t look at it. But it was there.

My birthday came and went. Dad and I skipped the horses again and played mini golf instead. Apparently, that was our new tradition. I went to two Halloween parties that year.
I was eighteen. I could do what I wanted. Or so I thought. I regretted that attitude the following morning while alternating between lying miserably in bed and throwing up in the toilet. Mom once told me she’d gotten actually drunk one time in her life and ended up with a three-day hangover. I finally understood. By that evening, I was still lethargic and weirdly agitated. I sat in bed reading and slowly drinking electrolytes when I heard something.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
I lowered my book. Listened. Then came a low rumble.
My heart started beating faster. A second later, the heater kicked on. I let out the breath I’d been holding. It was the heater.
You dumbass. Quit overthinking everything.
Except it was November 1. I opened my drawer.
The anxiety medication and sleep aid were still sitting exactly where I’d left them. I took one of each. That night, I slept straight through.
No nightmares.
No house.
No creature.
Nothing.
Maybe I should’ve been taking the medication the entire time. Or maybe my senses were still dulled from the alcohol and I’d basically knocked myself into a stupor. Either way, I didn’t care.I hadn’t woken up screaming at 3:13.

Four

The following year passed without a hitch. I moved into my first rental house with my first serious boyfriend, Chris. Mom and Dad weren’t thrilled about it. But what could they really do? I was an adult now.
Right?
The house was small and cute. 313 Crown Street. You walked through the front door into a little living room. The kitchen was straight back, and a hallway to the right led to two bedrooms and a bathroom. It was perfect for two nineteen-year-olds.
Let’s get real. It was all we needed.
We threw our first Halloween party there, partly as a housewarming party, but with more style. Way too many people showed up. At one point, one of our neighbors knocked on the door and told us the neighborhood had always been quiet.
I apologized and explained that we were just excited about having our first place. He understood. He just asked us to keep it down.
We did.
The next day, I spent most of my time cleaning up after the party while chris worked on his car out back. Thankfully, neither of us had drunk too much. We’d actually wanted to enjoy the party instead of drowning in our own sorrow the following day.
The house had hardwood floors, plain white walls and old yellow appliances straight out of the 1970s. I didn’t care. They worked. That’s all that mattered. I loved that house. It was ours. At least for a while.
I was in the bedroom unpacking the last few boxes when I pulled out a small shoebox. I couldn’t remember what was inside. I lifted the lid. Great-Uncle Henry’s photograph was lying on top. Henry. The Victorian house.
And four horses.
No.
No.
I dropped the photograph.
There were only three horses in that picture.
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
It’s your mind playing tricks on you.
I picked it up again. Four. The fourth horse was midnight black. Its coat looked wet. Almost like black oil was dripping from it.
Click-clack.
The sound came from the hallway.
Click-clack.
I shoved the photograph back into the box, slammed the lid on and pushed it underneath the bed. I stood. My breathing had become shallow. My hands were shaking.
I walked toward the bedroom door.
Click-clack.
I opened it.
Click-clack.
I looked into the hallway. Nothing.
Click-clack.
Chris suddenly came around the corner.
“Hey, have you…”
I screamed.
“Jesus!” He jumped backward.
“Chris! You scared the shit out of me!”
He stared at me.
“I called your name like three times.”
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I was wondering if you’d seen my toolbox. I couldn’t find it in the garage. Thought maybe it ended up in here somewhere.”
I let out a long breath.
“No. I haven’t. Let’s check the back of the car.”
We went outside. The toolbox was there. Of course it was. I went back to organizing the house.
Chris went back to working on his car. And that night, I didn’t dream.
No nightmares.
No Victorian house.
No creature.
I took the medication again. It dulled everything just enough. And I slept like a baby.

Five

St. Patrick’s Day was only a few days away, and I was excited. We were hosting an Irish party. Considering I was Irish, I was probably more excited than anyone else.
“Are you gonna be able to stop by the store and grab a few things we need for the party this weekend?” Chris asked.
“Yeah. I’m gonna do that tomorrow. Today I’m gonna work on getting the house organized and put some of the decorations up since I have to work the fifteenth and sixteenth.”
“All right, babe. Sounds good. Have a good day. I’m off to work.”
He kissed me. We said our I-love-yous, and he left. I spent the next few hours organizing the house and setting decorations around each room. I loved organizing. Always had.
Something about putting everything exactly where it belonged made me feel in control. It was just after three when I decided I should probably start getting dinner ready. Chris would be home soon, and we usually ate pretty early.
I finished folding the towels on the bed.
The clock read 3:12 PM.
He’d probably be home in about fifteen minutes.
Click-clack.
I froze. Maybe it was the heater. It was March. Still chilly outside.
Click-clack.
There had to be an explanation. I looked at the clock again.
3:13 PM.
Rumble.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
My stomach dropped. I walked shakily toward the bedroom door and opened it. I peeked into the hallway. Nothing. There was nothing there.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
It sounded like it was coming from inside the walls.
Rumble.
The hallway seemed to vibrate.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
I needed to get out of the house. My purse was on the dining-room table near the kitchen. My keys were inside it. I fast-walked down the hallway. When I turned the corner toward the kitchen, I stopped dead. Black smoke was swirling in the middle of the room.
Nothing inside it.
No creature.
No eyes.
Just smoke.
Behind me, the click-clacking continued.
Then the rumbling.
“Fuck it.”
I turned around, sprinted for the front door and ran. I didn’t have my purse. Didn’t have my keys. Didn’t care.
I made it about two blocks before my lungs forced me to slow down.
“What the fuck?”
I bent forward, trying to breathe.
“What the fuck?”
This didn’t make sense. I wasn’t asleep. That wasn’t a nightmare. I had been completely awake. Whatever had just happened felt real. Then something hit me.
“Wait.”
I pulled out my phone.
“No. Fuck!”
March 13.
It had happened at 3:13 PM. Uncle Henry’s birthday. March 13. His address. 313 Miriam Drive. My nightmares. 3:13 AM. And now my house. 313 Crown Street. What the fuck did any of that have to do with anything?
I didn’t understand. And honestly, I didn’t want to. I just wanted it to stop.
I called Chris.
“Hey, babe.”
“Chris?”
His voice immediately changed.
“Yeah. Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Something really weird happened in the house. It freaked me out. I’m a couple blocks away. I had to get out.”
“I’m right by you. Let me grab you. I’m almost home.” A few minutes later, his car came down the street. I climbed inside. We drove back toward the house.
“I have something I need to tell you.”
Chris glanced at me but didn’t interrupt. So I told him everything.
Great-Uncle Henry. My love of horses. The photograph. The stupid attempt I’d made to contact someone who was dead.
The nightmares. The things I’d seen while awake. The sounds. Everything. When I finished, Chris was quiet for a moment.
“Maybe you should go back and talk to your therapist. Do you think any of this could have something to do with what she said about anxiety?”
“I don’t have anxiety!”
I practically screamed it.
“Hey. Don’t get mad at me. I’m just trying to help.”
He softened his voice.
“I’m sorry. What can I do?”
“I don’t know. I just… I don’t know.”
I looked toward the house.
“I’m freaked out. I really don’t want to go back inside. Can you go in first?”
“Yeah. Of course. Stay here. I’ll come back and get you.”
Chris went inside. He was gone for a few minutes. When he returned, he opened my door.
“Everything’s normal. No smoke. No noises. Nothing.”
I went back inside with him. He was right. Nothing. Maybe I’d imagined it. It was the date. The time. That number.
313. 313.
I’d gotten inside my own head. Maybe I’d had some kind of waking dream. A daydream. Something. Anything that made more sense than what I’d seen.
Our St. Patrick’s Day party came a few days later.
It was a hit.
Everybody had a great time.
Lots of green beer.
Lots of green vomit.
Normal teenage stupidity.
And for a while, that was exactly what I needed.

Six

Months later, Chris looked at me one afternoon.
“Are we having our Halloween party again this year?”
“If you want to. I think everybody really enjoyed it last year.”
“Yeah, we should. It was a good time. Let’s plan it.”
And we did. For the next week, we planned games, costumes and decorations.
Chris picked out this ghoulish-looking thing to hang from the ceiling. It reminded me of a Death Eater from Harry Potter. A long dark figure hanging down with this blank, almost nonexistent face reaching toward you. It was creepy as hell. I hated it.
Chris loved it. So I let it stay. The party was a blast. Everyone loved the decoration.I still hated it. The next morning, I was so hungover there was absolutely no chance I was putting any decorations away. I didn’t even get out of bed until almost noon.
I made some toast and eggs, crawled back into bed and decided I was going to spend the rest of the day watching movies. At some point, I fell asleep. I was back at Uncle Henry’s house.
Running.
Out the front door. Across the lawn. Into the woods. I couldn’t see anything chasing me. I couldn’t hear anything either. But I was running. So something had to be there.
Right?
I tore through the trees. Then I looked over my shoulder. And screamed.
I shot upright in bed.
The clock read 3:12 PM.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
What the fuck?
The sound was coming from inside the bedroom. I looked at the clock again.
3:13 PM.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
Something moved in my peripheral vision. A shadow. I looked up. The Death Eater decoration was hanging directly above me. Except it wasn’t just hanging there. It was floating. Two red eyes stared down at me from that blank face. Then came the gleaming white teeth.
I screamed.
And shot upright in bed.
Again.
“Fuck!”
“Hey, what’s going on?”
I whipped my head to the right. Chris was lying beside me. I hadn’t even realized he’d been napping too.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked back at the ceiling. Nothing. No decoration. No creature. Nothing.
“Sorry. Just a bad dream.”
I rubbed my face.
“I’m gonna make some coffee. Want some?”
“Sure.”
I made coffee and another couple pieces of toast. We spent the rest of the day watching movies. By around 7:30, the hangover was mostly gone, but I was exhausted and had a headache. I didn’t even bother with dinner.
“I’m gonna go to bed early. My head hurts, and I’m still pretty tired from last night.”
“Okay, babe. I’m gonna hang out in the living room for a while.”
I crawled into bed. Then I thought about what had happened earlier. The nightmare. Daydream.
Whatever the hell it had been. I opened the bedside drawer and took out my anxiety medication and sleep aid. One of each. I lay back. And fell asleep.

I woke suddenly. No nightmare. No screaming. I just opened my eyes.
The clock read:
3:13 AM.
Chris was beside me now. I didn’t even remember him coming to bed. I had to pee. I got up and walked into the bathroom. Still half asleep, I sat down and rubbed my eyes. Then I looked toward the mirror.
The digital clock on the wall behind me was reflected in it.
3:13.
I stared. Wait. That was weird. I’d never noticed it before.
313 backward was still 313. Why had I never thought about that? I finished, stood and looked directly at the clock.
313. 313.
I looked into the mirror.
313. 313.
Exactly the same. Of course. It was the same forward and backward. Then my eyes moved lower. The toothpaste sitting on the counter.
Crest. Perfectly readable. I frowned. That wasn’t right. The toothpaste should’ve been backward.
“What the hell?”
Click-clack.
I spun around. Nothing.
Click-clack.
I slowly turned back toward the mirror. And realized I wasn’t looking at myself anymore.
It was my body. My shape. But black smoke swirled around it. My face looked like it was made from dripping black oil. Two red eyes stared back at me.
White teeth burned through the darkness. I stumbled backward until I slammed into the shower door. The rumbling began.
Low at first.
Then louder.
And louder.
And louder.
I covered my ears. It kept getting louder.
I screamed. And shot upright in bed.
“Babe! Hey. It’s just a dream. Shh. You’re okay.”
Chris rubbed my back while I struggled to breathe. I slowly turned toward the clock.
November 2.
3:13 AM.

“Babe, I really think you should go back to your therapist.”
I looked at Chris.
“I want to help you. I do. But I don’t know what to say about these dreams or whatever is happening. I don’t think I can help you with this by myself.”
I nodded.
“Okay. I’ll make an appointment.”
The following Wednesday, my appointment with Martha was at three o’clock.
Her office was bright and clean, with a navy-blue couch you could sit on or lie down on, depending on how dramatic you felt like being that day.
“Hi, Cheryl. It’s good to see you. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing okay, but…”
I trailed off.
“You know this is a safe space.”
“I know. It’s just hard to say out loud. It makes me feel crazy. And I know I’m not crazy.”
“You’re not crazy, Cheryl. Tell me what’s been happening.”
So I did. I told her about the nightmares starting again. The things I’d seen while I was awake. The sounds. The smoke. The mirror. The feeling that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to end.
Then I asked the question I’d been thinking about since March.
“Is there any significance to the number 313?”
Martha thought for a moment.
“You’re looking at 313 as a sequence of events,” she said. “A birthday. An address. A time that keeps appearing in your nightmares. But there is something interesting about the number itself.”
She picked up a yellow legal pad.
“It’s a palindrome. It reads exactly the same forward as it does backward.”
She wrote:
3 1 3
“In psychology, there’s something called apophenia. It’s our tendency to find meaningful connections between things that may not actually be related. When we’re grieving, frightened or under stress, our brains can become especially good at finding patterns.”
She turned the pad toward me.
“But let’s follow the pattern your mind has created for a minute. Think about the number almost like a mirror. The three on one side reflects the three on the other, with the one sitting directly between them.”
I stared at the numbers.
“Your uncle’s birthday was March thirteenth. His address was 313 Miriam Drive. You now live at 313 Crown Street. And you repeatedly wake at 3:13.”
She tapped her pen against the one.
“If your subconscious has connected all of those things, maybe this is where it placed the dividing line. Past on one side. Present on the other. And this in the middle.”
“A dividing line between what?”
“I don’t know,” Martha said. “That’s something we’re trying to understand.”
I swallowed.
“Like a doorway?”
“Maybe that’s how your mind is representing it. Or a mirror. A threshold. Something separating one place from another.”
My stomach tightened.
“And 3:13 AM?”
“That could simply be when your brain expects something to happen now. You’ve woken at that time frightened enough times that your body may have learned the pattern.”
She paused.
“Or, at least in the story your subconscious seems to be telling you, perhaps 3:13 is the moment when that dividing line feels thinnest.”
I stared at the one between the two threes. A thin line. A mirror. A door.
I thought about the bathroom mirror.
For sixty seconds, maybe my mind believed the door was unlocked.
Click-clack.
My entire body stiffened. The sound had come from the large frosted window behind Martha’s desk. Outside, the bright afternoon light suddenly seemed to dim. Something black pressed against the other side of the glass.
Smoke.
Thick, swirling black smoke. My breathing became short and ragged. The black vapor churned against the window as if it were alive.
“Cheryl?”
Martha’s voice sounded far away.
“Look at me. Breathe. What do you see?”
She turned toward the window.
“I don’t see anything out there. Is it the light?”
I couldn’t answer.
Click-clack.
My phone was resting on my knee. The screen was illuminated.
3:13 PM.
The smoke pressed harder against the glass.
Click-clack.
Then the clock changed.
3:14.
The smoke vanished. Reality slammed back into me. Martha was directly in front of me, gripping my shoulders and gently shaking me.
“Cheryl! Cheryl, can you hear me? Look at my eyes. Breathe.”
I sucked in a huge breath. The office snapped back into focus. Sunlight. The couch. The desk. The courtyard outside. No smoke. Nothing.
Martha slowly released my shoulders.
“You completely checked out on me,” she said. “You were sitting right here, but it was like your mind was somewhere else.”
I wiped the cold sweat from my face.
“It was there, Martha. Right outside.”
She didn’t argue. Instead, she returned to her desk.
“I’m not going to try to explain away what you felt. But your nervous system is operating in a state of chronic red alert. Your brain is exhausted, Cheryl.”
She wrote two prescriptions. One was for a stronger anti-anxiety medication to help control the daytime panic. The other was a stronger sleep aid.
“Take the anxiety medication before you drive home. Take the sleep medication about thirty minutes before bed tonight. I want to try to break this 3:13 cycle. If we can keep you asleep through that window consistently, your body may stop anticipating it.”
I nodded.
“Keep the blinds closed tonight. If you wake up, focus on physical things around you. Things you can touch. Things you know are real.”
“Okay.”
Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the driveway. The medication had already started dulling the edges of my nerves. Before getting out of the car, I looked toward the porch. The old metal numbers caught the fading sunlight.
313.
I stared at them for a moment. Then I went inside. The house was completely ordinary. Quiet. Still. But something about the air felt different. Dense. Expectant.
I went into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water and lined the pill bottles up on the counter.
Then I waited for night to fall.

For the next year, everything was mostly normal. I took the medication every day, exactly as prescribed, and for a while it seemed to work. No nightmares. No click-clacking. No swirling black smoke. Nothing.
That was until early October, when I decided to stop taking it.
I hated the way it made me feel. I had less motivation, I wasn’t working out as often, I wasn’t eating as well, and I was constantly tired. I was sick of feeling like I was walking around in a fog. Besides, almost an entire year had passed without anything happening. Maybe I didn’t need it anymore.
October passed quietly.
Then Halloween came, and so did our annual Halloween party. By now, it had become a tradition. Everyone came over, everyone had a great time, and for once I didn’t spend the night thinking about Uncle Henry, that photograph, or the number 313.
The next day we cleaned up the aftermath of the party, had dinner, and went to bed. Everything felt completely normal. And normal felt really good.

Seven

I was standing in front of my house at 313 Crown Street, right in the middle of the yard. It was pitch black outside. I looked around. What was I doing out here? Why was I standing outside in the middle of the night?
Was I sleepwalking? Then I heard it behind me. A low rumble.
Click-clack.
I turned around. Nothing. I turned back, and I almost screamed. My house was gone.
I was standing in front of Great-Uncle Henry’s Victorian house, surrounded by woods.
“This can’t be happening,” I said aloud.
The front door cracked open. Slowly, it began to creak wider, almost like the house was welcoming me home. But this wasn’t my home. This wasn’t where I lived, and it sure as hell wasn’t where I wanted to be. It had to be a dream. It had to be.
I squeezed my eyes shut and slapped myself across the face a couple of times.
It hurt.
It actually stung.
I thought things weren’t supposed to hurt in dreams. Wasn’t that why people pinched themselves to wake up? I opened my eyes. The door had opened wider.
Black smoke began swirling through the opening.
Click-clack.
The creature casually stepped out onto the porch. Those red eyes stared directly at me. Through me.
“What do you want?” I screamed.
For the first time, the rumbling became something else.
A voice.
Low. Deep. Wrong.
“Let me in.”
“Fuck you!” I screamed.
“Let me in, Cheryl.”
I woke with a start. I had fallen asleep on the couch. The living room was exactly as it should be.
Except for one thing.
The figure made of swirling black smoke was standing directly in front of me.
I shot up, stood on the couch, flung myself over the back of it and ran into the bedroom.
The digital clock on my nightstand glowed in the darkness.
NOV 2
3:13 AM
“Chris! Chris!” I screamed, shaking him.
“What? What’s wrong?”
He sat up suddenly, his eyes trying to focus on me.
“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”
“It’s in the living room.”
That was all I could get out.Chris climbed out of bed and left the room.
I sat on the edge of the bed, breathing so hard my chest hurt. A moment later, he came back.
“Cheryl… there’s nothing there.”
And I cried. I cried because I was scared. I cried because I didn’t understand. And I cried because somewhere deep down, I knew this was my fault.
I had summoned it. I had invited it. All because I wanted to know a dead relative I had never gotten the chance to meet.
Stupid.
So fucking stupid.
After that night, I started taking the medication every day. Exactly as prescribed. I didn’t care anymore that it made me tired.
I didn’t care that I wasn’t working out as much or that I spent more time sitting on the couch than I used to. I didn’t care that sometimes I felt like I was walking around in a fog.
Because I slept. And when I slept, nothing happened.
No nightmares.
No Victorian house.
No red eyes.
No black smoke.
No click-clacking.
No waking up at 3:13.
Nothing.
November 2 came and went without incident. Then another year passed. And another. Eventually, Chris and I moved out of 313 Crown Street.
On moving day, I stood outside for a moment and looked at those rusty numbers on the porch.
313.
For the first time, I almost laughed at myself. Maybe Martha had been right all along. Great-Uncle Henry had been born on March 13 His ranch had been at 313 Miriam Drive. I’d happened to move into a house at 313 Crown Street. And somewhere along the way, my brain had learned to wake itself up at 3:13.
That was all. A pattern. A really fucked-up coincidence. While packing the bedroom, I found the shoebox. It was taped shut. I knew exactly what was inside. Great-Uncle Henry’s photograph.
I didn’t open it.
I didn’t look at it.
I just packed it into another box with everything else and moved on. And life did too. Years passed. Normal years. Bills. Work. Groceries. Stupid arguments. Making up after stupid arguments.
Birthdays. Christmases. Vacations. Lazy Sundays. Normal life.
Every October, though, I became a little more careful with my medication. Especially around Halloween. And especially on November 1. It became almost like a ritual. Take the pill. Drink some water. Go to bed. Wake up November 2.
Every year I woke up the next morning and nothing had happened, I felt a little more ridiculous for ever being afraid.
And a little more victorious. Whatever had been happening to me was over. Eventually, I stopped seeing Martha regularly. There wasn’t anything left to talk about.
Then one November 2, I opened my eyes and looked at the clock.
8:17 AM.
Sunlight poured through the bedroom window. I smiled.
“Made it. Again.”
I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen.
Chris was already sitting at the table. Something about him looked off. He wasn’t drinking his coffee. He was just sitting there. Watching me.
“What?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“What?” I asked again.
“You scared the shit out of me last night.”
I laughed a little.
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t remember?”
My smile disappeared.
“Remember what?”
Chris stared at me.
“You got out of bed last night.”
“So?”
“No, Cheryl. You got out of bed, walked into the hallway and just stood there.”
A cold feeling started creeping into my stomach.
“What do you mean, stood there?”
“You were just standing in the hallway looking toward the living room.”
“Was I sleepwalking?”
“I guess. I called your name a couple times, but you didn’t answer me.”
I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
“What did I do?”
“At first, nothing. You just stood there.”
He paused.
“Then you started talking.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did I say?”
“I couldn’t hear you at first. You were whispering.”
“chris.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“What did I say?”
He stared at me for another second.
Then finally answered.
“You said, ‘Okay. You can come in.’”
Everything inside me went cold.
“What?”
“That’s what you said.”
“No.”
“Cheryl, I heard you.”
“No. I wouldn’t say that.”
“You were asleep.”
I stared at him.
“Are you sure those were the exact words?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. You can come in.”
My mind immediately went back to the creature.
Standing on the porch of Uncle Henry’s house. Those red eyes staring through me.
That horrible voice.
Let me in.
Again.
Let me in, Cheryl.
Every time, I’d said no. Every time, I’d refused it. I’d run from it. I’d screamed at it. I’d told it to fuck off. But last night…
I hadn’t been awake. I hadn’t been in control.
“Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“What time was this?”
He thought for a moment.
“I don’t know. Around three?”
“What time?”
“Cheryl, I don’t know.”
“Did you look at the clock?”
He went quiet.
Then his expression changed.
“Actually… yeah.”
My heart started pounding.
“When?”
“When you got out of bed. I looked because I was pissed you woke me up.”
“What did it say?”
Chris stared at me.
“3:13.”
I stopped breathing.
Martha’s voice came back to me.
A mirror.
A threshold.
Something separating one place from another. Then the creature’s voice.
Let me in.
I’d always said no. Until last night. Until I was medicated. Asleep. Unconscious. I hadn’t opened a door. I had given it permission.
Click-clack.
I froze.
Chris looked at me.
“What?”
Click-clack.
His head turned toward the hallway. For a few seconds, neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed. Then Chris slowly looked back at me. His face had changed. He’d heard it. And for the first time in my life, I realized something far more terrifying than seeing the creature myself.
Chris had heard it too.
After I let it in, everything changed.

November 13 was the first time.
At exactly 3:13 in the morning, Chris woke to the sound of kitchen cabinets opening and closing.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
He reached over for me. I wasn’t there. He found me standing in the kitchen. Every cabinet door was open.
I was standing in the middle of the room in my pajamas, staring into one of them.
“Cheryl?”
I didn’t answer.He walked toward me.
“Babe?”
I slowly closed the cabinet. Then another. Then another. I never looked at him.
“Cheryl, what the hell are you doing?”
Apparently, I turned around, walked straight past him, climbed back into bed and went to sleep. I remembered none of it.
At 3:13 that afternoon, the click-clacking started. This time Chris heard it too. December 13 was worse.
At 3:13 AM, Chris woke up alone again.
This time he found me standing outside our bedroom.I was dragging my fingernails slowly down the wooden door.
Click-clack.
Scratch.
Click-clack.
Scratch.
“Cheryl.”
I stopped. He said I stood completely still for several seconds before turning my head toward him. My eyes were open. But according to Chris, there was nobody behind them.
He led me back to bed. Again, I remembered nothing. At 3:13 that afternoon, I was completely normal. Until I walked into the bathroom.
The mirror was fogged over.
313 had been written across it.
“Chris!”
He came running.
“What?”
I pointed at the mirror. His face went pale.
“What?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“chris?”
“You did that.”
“What?”
“Last night.”
My stomach dropped.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
He swallowed.
“You stood right there and wrote it with your finger.”
I stared at the numbers.
313. 313.
January 13 was worse. Then February.
Every thirteenth, at 3:13 AM, I did something. Sometimes I wandered through the house. Sometimes I stood in the hallway whispering to someone Chris couldn’t see. Once, he woke up and found me standing at the front door with my hand wrapped around the knob.
Another time, I was sitting on the living-room floor with Great-Uncle Henry’s photograph in my lap. The box I’d taped shut years ago was sitting beside me.
Open.
“What were you doing?” I asked Chris the next morning.
“I don’t know.”
“What was I saying?”
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Chris. What was I saying?”
He hesitated.
“You kept saying, ‘He’s not Henry.’”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“Over and over.”
He’s not Henry.
He’s not Henry.
He’s not Henry.
I remembered none of it.
By early March, Chris couldn’t take it anymore.
“I can’t keep watching this happen to you.”
I was sitting at the kitchen table staring into a cup of coffee.
“So you’re leaving me?”
“No.”
He answered immediately.
“No, Cheryl. I’m not leaving you. I’m getting you help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He grabbed his jacket.
“But this isn’t anxiety. And it isn’t nightmares anymore. I’ve watched you do these things with my own eyes.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“I believe you.”
Those words nearly broke me. Chris was gone most of the afternoon. When he came home, he wasn’t alone. A man I’d never seen before walked in behind him.
“This is a friend of mine,” chris said. “He’s Catholic. I told him what’s been happening.”
We sat around the kitchen table, and I told him everything. Great-Uncle Henry. The photograph. The horses. Trying to contact him. The nightmares. The Victorian house. The creature. The red eyes.
313. 313.
And finally, the night I stood in the hallway and said words I couldn’t even remember saying.
You can come in. The man listened without interrupting. When I finished, he asked me one question.
“When you first tried to contact your uncle, how did you know the thing answering you was Henry?”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Because I didn’t know. The man leaned forward.
“Cheryl, I don’t believe you ever contacted your uncle.”
My stomach twisted.
“Then what did I contact?”
His answer was immediate.
“Something that wanted you to believe it was him.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“It needed your attention first. Then your trust. Eventually, it needed permission.”
My mouth went dry.
Let me in.
“I think you’ve let something attach itself to you.”
“A demon?”
He nodded.
“It was never Henry. It couldn’t have been.”
I felt sick.
“So we bless the house?”
“Yes. But the house isn’t what I’m most concerned about.”
“What is?”
“You.”
Silence.
“The activity follows you. And now, when you’re unconscious, it’s using you.”
I wrapped my arms around myself.
“How do we stop it?”
“If 313 is the symbol it has attached to your life, then we use that against it.”
“When?”
“March thirteenth.”
Of course.
March 13.
Henry’s birthday.
313 Miriam Drive.
313 Crown Street.
3:13.
“We bless the house,” he said. “And most importantly, we bless you. Whatever door was opened, we close it.”
“And until then?”
His expression hardened.
“If Chris finds you awake at night, he doesn’t argue with you. He doesn’t answer anything you say. And he doesn’t let you open that front door.”
A cold feeling crawled up my spine.
“Why?”
He looked directly at me.
“Because the next time it asks to be let in…”
He paused.
“…it may be asking you to let something else out.” They left shortly afterward. And then we waited. March 13 was coming.

March 13 finally came. Chris friend returned that evening, but this time he wasn’t alone. He brought a priest. I stood there staring at the two of them in my living room and couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous all of this was.
A priest. A cleansing. Candles. Prayers. This was all too much like the horror movies I watched. Except this wasn’t a movie. This was happening to me. In real life. This wasn’t supposed to be real.
They explained that we would wait until 3:00 AM to begin. Whatever had attached itself to me seemed strongest at 3:13, so they wanted the cleansing already underway when that time came.
Apparently, if we were going to fight this thing, we needed it awake. That sentence didn’t make me feel any better. By three in the morning, everything was ready.
Candles surrounded us. A small table had been set up with a cross and everything else the priest needed. Chris sat beside me, his friend on the other side.
I held Great-Uncle Henry’s photograph in my hands. I looked down. Four horses.
Stella.
Gracie.
Champion.
And the black one.
The one that shouldn’t exist. Its body looked almost wet, like black oil was dripping from it.
“Do you see it?” I whispered to Shawn.
“See what?”
Of course. Still only me. The priest began to pray. At first, nothing happened. The minutes passed.
3:05.
3:08.
3:10.
The prayers continued. I kept staring at the photograph.
3:12.
Then the clock changed.
3:13 AM.
And the room disappeared. I was standing on the lawn in front of Great-Uncle Henry’s house. The Victorian. The woods surrounded me. The night was completely black. And standing on the porch was the creature. Its red eyes burned through the darkness.
“Let me out, Cheryl.”
Its voice was deeper than I had ever heard it.
“Let me out, and I will reward you with freedom.”
“No.”
It stepped down from the porch.
“Let me out.”
“No!”
Another step.
“Let me out.”
“I won’t!”
It began prowling toward me.
Slowly.
Almost patiently.
“Let me out, Cheryl.”
“Never!”

My body was still sitting in the circle. I just wasn’t in it anymore.
Chris watched as my head fell backward and my eyes rolled up until almost nothing but white showed.
“Cheryl?”
The priest continued praying. Then my mouth opened.
“No!”
My own voice.
A second later, something answered through the same mouth.
“LET ME OUT.”
chris recoiled. The voice wasn’t mine. It was low. Guttural. Almost animal.
“Jesus Christ,” Chris whispered.
“Don’t stop,” the priest ordered. The prayers grew louder. Chris stared at me helplessly. Then he looked down. The photograph had slipped from my hands onto the floor.
He froze.
There were four horses.
“Wait.”
His friend looked at him.
“What?”
“The picture.”
Chris picked it up. His face went white.
“There are four horses.”
His friend grabbed his arm.
“What did you say?”
“I can see it now. The black horse. I can fucking see it.”
His friend immediately told the priest. The priest looked at the photograph. Then at me. He moved closer while the other prayers continued.
“Cheryl.”
Nothing. He leaned closer.
“We have to burn the photograph.”

His voice echoed through the woods behind me.
Burn the photograph.
I looked around.
“Can you hear me, Cheryl?”
The voice was everywhere. Inside the trees. Inside the house. Inside my head. We have to burn the photograph. I looked down. It was in my hands. Henry’s photograph. Except there wasn’t a black horse anymore. I stared at the fourth figure.
Two red eyes looked back at me. White teeth. Black smoke. It had never been a horse.
I looked up. The creature was still coming.
“Let me out.”
I turned and ran. I sprinted across the lawn and around the side of the house. Branches tore at my clothes as I reached the back. Then I saw it. The trellis. I grabbed it and climbed.
Behind me:
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
I climbed faster.
At the top was the window.
Open.
It probably shouldn’t have been.
I didn’t care. I knew what I needed to do. I pulled myself through and landed hard on the bedroom floor. Henry’s bedroom. The desk. The candles. I’d seen them before. And if there were candles, there had to be matches. Or a lighter. Something.
I ran to the desk and started ripping open drawers.
Click-clack.
Click-clack.
Rumble.
The creature was back inside the house.
Coming up the stairs.
“LET ME OUT.”
I ignored it. My hands shook as I searched. Paper. Pens. Old envelopes.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then I found them. Matches. I ripped one out.
Struck it.
Nothing.
Again. It lit. For half a second. A sudden gust of air swept through the room. The flame went out.
“No.”
I grabbed another.
Click-clack.
“LET ME OUT.”
Strike. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
“Come on!”
Click-clack.
Creeeeeeak. The bedroom door slowly began to open behind me. I didn’t turn around.

Another match. Strike.
Flame.
I cupped my hand around it. Behind me, black tendrils of smoke curled through the opening around the door. The rumbling became so loud the room shook.
“LET. ME. OUT.”
I turned. The creature filled the doorway. Red eyes. White teeth. Black smoke pouring from it. I held Henry’s photograph over the flame.
“Fuck you!”
The corner caught. The fire crawled across the paper. The photograph curled. Blackened. Burned.
“NO!”
The creature slammed the door completely open. It lunged. I ran for the window. The photograph burned in my hand. The creature screamed. And I laughed. I climbed onto the window ledge. I knew this was a dream. I knew none of this was real.
So I jumped.

My eyes flew open. I sucked in a huge breath. Everyone was around me. Chris was directly in front of me, gripping my shoulders, tears running down his face.
“Cheryl! Cheryl, are you okay? Cheryl, come back to me. Please!”
“Chris?”
The moment I said his name, everything stopped. The rumbling. The sounds. The flickering lights. Everything. The lights came fully back on.
“Chris.” I threw myself into his arms and sobbed. He held me so tightly I could barely breathe. But I didn’t care. It was over. After all these years, it was finally over.

Ten years passed.
And life went on.
Normal life.
Beautifully boring life. I still took a low-dose anxiety medication, nothing that completely numbed me. Just enough to take the edge off. The nightmares never came back. Neither did the click-clacking.
Or the rumbling.
Or the black smoke.
Eventually, 313 became nothing more than a number again. For my fortieth birthday, Shawn surprised me with horseback riding. It was the first time I’d been on a horse in years. And I loved it. Beautiful animals. Beautiful day. Just me and Chris.
For my birthday weekend, he’d also rented us an Airbnb in Sandpoint. We were staying through November 2. We even skipped Halloween that year. I was forty. I didn’t really feel like partying anymore.
“You aren’t going to believe this house I found,” Chris told me as we drove. “It was only a hundred and twenty bucks a night, and it’s beautiful. You’re gonna love it.”
We turned down a gravel road. Trees surrounded us.
I looked out the window.
“Is this house in the middle of the woods?”
“Well, not really in the middle,” Chris said. “But yeah, there are a lot of trees around it.”
I laughed. Then we turned onto a short driveway that curved around toward the front of the house. And I stopped laughing. A white Victorian stood in front of us. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Then I saw the address.
313 Miriam Drive.
“Where did you find this?”
chris looked at me.
“What?”
“This house.”
“Online. It was some special advertisement. Limited deal or something. Fifty percent off.”
I stared at the numbers. 313 Miriam Drive.
No. It couldn’t be. There had to be other Miriam Drives. Other towns. Other states. Great-Uncle Henry’s house had been in Washington.
We were in Sandpoint, Idaho. It couldn’t possibly be the same place. Besides, Grandma told me Henry’s house had been torn down. It was a coincidence. Just a coincidence.
I smiled. We grabbed our bags and went inside. The weekend was beautiful. We hiked. Explored. Came back to the house and made pasta for dinner. My favorite.
Alfredo.
We drank a couple glasses of wine and went to bed. And for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t think about Great-Uncle Henry. I didn’t think about the photograph. I didn’t think about the creature.
I didn’t think about 313.
Until I woke with a start. My eyes flew open. The bedroom was quiet. Everything looked completely normal.
Almost.
Something hung in the air at the foot of the bed. Thin tendrils of black, oily smoke.
My heart stopped.
“What the fuck?” I scrambled backward across the bed.
Chris jerked awake.
“What?”
“Do you see that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That! Do you see that?” I screamed
Chris jumped out of bed and flipped on the light.
Nothing. The smoke was gone. The room was empty. I stared at the place where it had been.
No. No fucking way.
My eyes slowly moved toward the clock beside the bed.
November 2.
3:13 AM.

Credit: CherryLane