The Voice at the Door

The rain was a steady, mournful rhythm against the windows, a soundtrack to the oppressive silence inside our small cottage.
Three days. It had been three days since we’d buried my mother, Clara. Three days since her vibrant laughter, her comforting presence, had been reduced to a cold, sterile memory. The grief was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making every breath an effort.

My wife, Sarah, sat across from me, her face pale and drawn. She hadn't cried much, not openly, but I could see the sorrow etched in the lines around her eyes, the way she clutched the steaming mug of tea, as if seeking warmth against an internal chill. She had loved my mother, truly loved her, and her quiet suffering was almost harder to bear than my own.

A sudden, sharp rap echoed through the house, cutting through the rain and our unspoken grief.
We both stiffened, our eyes meeting across the dimly lit room. It was late, past midnight. Who could it be?

Another rap, louder this time, more insistent.

I pushed myself up from the armchair.
“I’ll get it,” I murmured, my voice raspy.

“No!” Sarah’s voice was sharp, a sudden tremor in her tone.
She stood up, her eyes wide, almost pleading.
“Don’t, Daniel. Don’t open it.”

I paused, surprised by her vehemence.
“Sarah, it’s probably just a neighbor, or someone lost. It’s pouring outside.”

“No,” she repeated, stepping towards me, her hand reaching out to grasp my arm. Her fingers were cold.
“Please, just… don’t.”

Before I could question her, a sound, faint but unmistakable, drifted from the front door. A voice.
A voice that sent a jolt of ice through my veins, making the hairs on my arms stand on end.

“Daniel? Are you there, my son? It’s your mother. Let me in, it’s so cold out here.”

My blood ran cold. It was Mother’s voice. Her gentle, slightly reedy tone, the familiar way she elongated the ‘so’ in ‘so cold.’ Impossible. My mind screamed in protest. This had to be a cruel, sadistic prank. But who would do such a thing?

I turned to Sarah, my face a mask of disbelief and dawning horror.
“Sarah… did you hear that? It’s Mother! But… how?”

Sarah’s grip on my arm tightened, her nails digging into my skin. Her eyes, usually so warm, were filled with a profound, terrifying dread.
“Don’t open the door, Daniel!” she hissed, her voice barely a whisper, yet filled with an urgency that terrified me.
“Please, for God’s sake, don’t!”

Another series of knocks, more frantic now, accompanied by that voice, pleading, cajoling.
“Daniel, darling, please. My old bones are freezing. Just a moment, let me come in. I need my son.”

My heart was a war drum in my chest. Every fiber of my being yearned to rush to the door, to throw it open, to embrace the mother I had just buried. My grief-stricken mind wrestled with the horrifying reality. She was dead. We had stood by her grave just three days ago, watched the coffin lowered into the earth.

“It’s not her, Daniel,” Sarah choked out, tears finally streaming down her face.
“It can’t be. It’s… it’s something else. Something trying to get in.”

Her words made a chilling kind of sense, even as my emotions fought against them.
The raw, desperate need in that voice, the way it played on my deepest sorrow, felt predatory.
But the resemblance was uncanny. Every inflection, every nuance, was exactly like Mother.

The knocking escalated into a frantic pounding, rattling the doorframe.
And the voice changed, subtly. The soft pleading took on a sharper edge, a hint of impatience, even anger.

“Daniel! Are you going to leave your mother out in the storm? After all I’ve done for you? After all these years?”

A shiver of genuine fear ran down my spine.
Mother, for all her love, had never resorted to emotional manipulation, not like this.
This was a twisted mimicry, a violation of her memory.

“Who are you?” I yelled back, my voice trembling, cracking.
“Leave us alone!”

A silence fell, thick and unnerving, broken only by the relentless rain. My heart pounded so loudly I thought Sarah must hear it.
Then, a low, guttural chuckle emanated from the other side of the door.
It wasn't Mother’s laughter. It was something else.
Something ancient and malevolent, devoid of humor, filled with contempt.

And then the voice returned, but this time, it was a chilling, distorted parody of my mother’s voice, stretched and deepened, laced with a faint, gurgling sound, like water bubbling through mud.

“You buried me, Daniel. You put me in the cold, dark ground. But I’m still here. And I need to come home.”

The pounding on the door intensified, becoming violent, as if something heavy was slamming against it.
The entire frame shuddered. Sarah let out a strangled cry, burying her face in my shoulder.
I could feel her shaking uncontrollably.

“It knows,” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the trembling wood of the door.
“It knows we buried her.”

“It’s not her, Daniel,” Sarah sobbed into my shirt.
“It's using her… to get to us.”

Suddenly, the pounding stopped.
Another silence, even more terrifying than the last.
Then, a scratching sound began, slow and deliberate, like long, sharp nails dragging across the wood, moving from the doorknob, upwards.

And then, I heard it.
A faint, wet sniffing sound from directly outside the keyhole, followed by a soft, almost inaudible sigh.

Then, the voice again, a whisper now, right at the keyhole, raw and intimate, filled with a horrific intimacy that turned my stomach.

“I can smell your fear, Daniel. And I can smell your grief. Such a heavy grief. It’s almost as heavy as the earth on my coffin.”

I stumbled back, pulling Sarah with me, away from the door. My mind reeled.
This wasn't some trick of sound or light.
This was real.
Something was out there.
Something that had taken on my mother’s voice, her memories, to gain entry.
Something that was preying on my sorrow.

The scratching continued, now higher up the door, then lower, as if whatever was outside was circling, testing, searching for a weakness.
A faint, earthy scent, like damp grave soil, began to seep through the cracks around the doorframe, mixing with the clean smell of rain.

Sarah clung to me, her face buried against my chest.
“What does it want?” she whimpered.

The voice answered, a low, satisfied murmur from the other side of the door.

“I want to be warm again, my son. And you are so warm. You held my hand when I was cold. Now, let me hold yours. Forever.”

A chilling sound, like a wet, sucking noise, came from the keyhole, followed by a faint, clicking sound, as if something was attempting to turn the lock from the outside.

Panic surged through me, cold and absolute.
It wasn't just a voice.
It was trying to get in.
It was trying to claim me, just as it had claimed Mother’s voice.

I dragged Sarah back, away from the door, towards the deepest part of the house, the small, enclosed pantry where we kept emergency supplies.
We huddled there, in the oppressive darkness, listening to the rain, and to the faint, persistent scratching that continued at the front door.
It went on and on, punctuated by the chilling whispers of a voice that was both familiar and utterly alien.

I knew then, with a sickening certainty, that the grave had not held her.
And now, the thing that had followed her back was patiently waiting, clawing at the door, to finally claim what it believed was its due.
My mother's voice, transformed into a siren's call from the abyss.

And the night was long.
So very long.