When the Bennets renovated their century-old farmhouse, the cellar door was the first thing they ripped out. The wood was blackened, swollen, and covered in deep scratches that looked less like age and more like fingernails. Rusted chains dangled from the hinges even though nobody could figure out what they had been attached to. They hauled it to the dump and tried not to think about how heavy it felt, like it didn’t want to be moved.
The next morning, the same door was lying in their yard, streaked with mud as if it had crawled back. They burned it in a pit until nothing but ash remained. But the third morning, the ashes were gone, and the door was back on its hinges—clean, closed, and locked from the inside.
That night, knocking echoed from the cellar: three slow, deliberate knocks at exactly 3:12 a.m. Every night, the knocking grew louder, closer.
Then one night, the knocking stopped completely.
They opened the cellar door the next morning. The room was empty—except for another door at the bottom of the stairs, identical in every way.
As they stared, its handle twitched.
And began to turn.
