Weeper's Ranch

There was only one rule: Don’t open the door. Especially if the knocking stopped.

Colby Jones was a wanderer, but when he heard how well the ranch job paid, he jumped at it like a cat with its tail a-fire. The tales that sent others away in droves had no effect on his determination. He expected to slip into the routine of work and rest as easily as a hand in a glove.

The ranchhands warned him of the door his first night there. Once night drew in, the bunkhouse door locked, and it stayed put until first light. No matter what, it stayed locked.

What is it, he’d asked, knocking? They couldn’t tell him. No one had ever seen it and stayed sane enough to tell the tale.

The knocking began at midnight, the lantern burning low. Colby jolted awake, and despite his annoyance, a morbid curiosity welled in his belly.

At the sound of his feet on the floorboards, the knocking stopped. He crept to the door.

“Let me in.” A voice whispered.

Some sliver of common sense resisted. “No.”

“Let me in, Colby, please.”

Lettie’s voice. It wasn’t right. She’d been gone these three years past. There was a tremulous sound like fingernails against the door.

“Please.” Her voice faded. She was slipping away- again.

He couldn’t lose her again. He opened the door.

A shadow with blood red eyes and a foxy grin smiled at him. In Lettie’s voice it greeted him.

“Hello, darling.”

When the screams stopped, all his bunkmates could find of Colby Jones was his boots by his bunk and his blood on the floor.