The Sound of His Boots

BY SHAFI ULHAQ

At exactly 2:17 a.m., Mira woke to the sound of boots.

Heavy. Slow. Familiar.

Thump. Drag. Thump.

She held her breath, eyes fixed on the ceiling of her childhood bedroom. Her phone screen glowed: no calls, no notifications. Just the time.

2:17.

She hadn’t heard that sound in years—not since the night she ran away. Not since the fire. Not since the night her father died.

The old house creaked the way all old houses do, but this was different. This sound had rhythm. Purpose.

She pulled the quilt over her shoulders, as if it could shield her from memory. But memory was already here, stomping across the hardwood floor outside her door.

She knew those boots. Steel-toed, scuffed, always polished like he was reporting for duty—even when drunk.

Thump. Drag.

As a child, Mira would count the steps to guess how angry he was. Tonight, she didn’t need to count.

She already knew.

Mira hadn’t wanted to come back. But her aunt’s will demanded it—three nights in the house before she could sell it. “To make peace with your roots,” the lawyer had said.

Peace wasn’t possible in a house that echoed violence.

Her father had died here. Official cause: electrical fire. Unofficial cause: years of whiskey and rage.

The second night, Mira locked the bedroom door.

2:17 a.m. again.

The sound returned, closer now.

Thump. Drag. Thump.

The handle jiggled once, then stopped.

Mira didn’t move. She barely blinked.

Morning came, and the house looked normal—if normal meant cracked walls, faded wallpaper, and silence.

But in the dust near her door… a single bootprint.

On the third night, Mira didn’t try to sleep. She sat in the hallway with a flashlight and the same iron crowbar her aunt once used to fend off raccoons.

The flashlight flickered at exactly 2:17.

Down the hall, a shadow moved.

Thump.

Mira gripped the crowbar tighter.

Drag.

Her breath quickened. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Another step.

Then silence.

She inched forward, breath shallow. “You’re dead.”

Behind her, a whisper: “So are you.”

She turned, swinging wildly—hitting nothing but air.

The flashlight went out.

When she woke, she was in the living room. The crowbar was gone. Her arms were scratched. One boot lay at the bottom of the stairs, its leather still warm.

Mira didn’t remember falling asleep. She didn’t remember dreaming.

But she remembered what the voice said.

So are you.

She tried to leave the house. Her car wouldn’t start. Her phone glitched, showing the time as 2:17 no matter what she did.

She walked down the street to find help.

The town was quiet. Still. Like everyone had left or forgotten how to move.

Back inside the house, the clock on the wall had stopped.

2:17.

The exact time of the fire.

The exact time she’d last seen her father alive.

Mira stood at the threshold of the basement door. She’d avoided it her entire life. That’s where the drinking happened. Where the yelling started.

She opened it.

The stairs creaked. The air grew colder.

At the bottom, a single lightbulb swung from the ceiling.

Below it stood the boots.

Empty. Upright.

Waiting.

She stepped closer.

A memory flashed—her father, collapsed on the basement floor. Smoke. Screaming. A match dropped by mistake. Her small hands pushing the door shut.

She hadn’t saved him.

She’d left him.

And then told everyone he was already gone.

Now, the boots moved.

Without feet, without sound—they turned.

Faced her.

And from within them, something stepped forward.

A figure made of smoke and regret, wearing a familiar face and scorched skin.

“You left me,” it said.

“I was a child,” Mira whispered.

“You still are.”

The figure raised its hand—charred fingers curled like smoke—and pointed to the wall.

There, etched into the blackened stone, was the truth.

Mira. Age 10. Died in fire.

“No,” she said. “That’s not true.”

But she remembered now. The burning pain. The screaming that never stopped.

The weightless floating.

She hadn’t come back to face him.

She’d come because she never left.

The house was her grave.

And at 2:17 a.m., every night, the sound of his boots was the sound of her guilt returning.