The Parker house had always been small, but it had never felt claustrophobic until that night. Emma sat rigid in the living room, the lights burning too bright, the silence between their clicks and hums like a suffocating second skin. Violet was curled in the corner of the couch, knees drawn to her chest, her gray eyes wide and unfocused as if she was still listening to something Emma couldn't hear.
And from down the hall, Caleb's room waited.
It wasn't just waiting — it was breathing.
Emma's auburn hair clung damply to her face as she pushed herself up. Her legs trembled, but she forced them forward. Every step toward the hallway felt like walking deeper into a cave, the kind where the air grows heavier and the darkness tastes of earth and rot.
"Stay here," she whispered to Violet.
Violet didn't argue. She only clutched the throw pillow tighter, her fingers pale.
Emma's bare feet sank into the old rug as she moved past the framed family photos. She avoided looking at them. For a second, she was afraid they might be smiling when they shouldn't be, or worse, not smiling when they once had.
She reached Caleb's door. Her hand hovered above the knob.
The laugh came again, soft, innocent — but wrong. A laugh shouldn't echo in a small bedroom, but this one did. It stretched, curled, bent against the walls like it was testing how much space it could take up.
Emma's throat tightened. "Caleb?"
No answer. Just the sound of something shifting inside.
Her fingers curled around the knob. It was cold. Too cold for a room heated all evening.
She opened the door.
The nightlight still glowed faintly in the corner, shaped like a little rocket ship. It painted the walls in a dull orange haze. Toys were scattered across the floor, the small wooden train tracks winding in loops like veins. Caleb wasn't in bed.
The sheets were mussed, twisted, damp with sweat.
"Caleb?"
She stepped inside.
The laugh came again. This time from the closet.
Emma's stomach dropped. The door to the closet was ajar, blackness spilling from it like a second night within the room.
Her hand shook as she reached for it.
And then—
"Mom?"
She spun around. Caleb stood in the doorway behind her, hair mussed, hazel eyes wide with sleep. His voice was small. "Why are you in my room?"
Emma's heart slammed. She looked back at the closet.
Silent. Dark. Still.
She didn't open it. Not then. Not yet.
Instead, she scooped Caleb into her arms and kissed his head. "Stay with Violet, okay? Don't go anywhere. Please."
Caleb frowned but didn't argue. Something in his mother's voice told him not to.
Emma walked him back to the living room, her pulse still hammering. Violet looked up at them, her pale face strained.
Before Emma could speak, a low thud rattled through the house. Not from the front door. Not from the windows.
From inside the walls.
---
Meanwhile, across town, Daniel Mercer sat in the kitchen chair like it was the only solid thing left in the world. The window reflected him and Claire both, pale and tight-jawed, their faces drawn by sleepless fear.
"Did you see it?" Claire whispered.
Daniel's knuckles whitened against the edge of the table. "In the reflection, yeah. Behind me."
Claire's breath trembled. "What did it look like?"
He hesitated. Saying it aloud made it more real. His mind clawed for the right words, but all he could manage was: "It looked like… me. But not me. Taller. Hollow."
The silence ticked.
Then came the faint scratching. Not at the window this time. In the walls, too.
Claire's hand flew to her mouth. Daniel stood sharply, dragging the chair back with a screech against the linoleum.
The scratching moved. Crawling up. Across. Down. Faster than any animal.
Claire's whisper quivered. "It knows we're listening."
Daniel turned toward the hallway. Their father's old study door stood half-open, a sliver of shadow cutting across the carpet. He remembered the way his father used to sit in there, the radio humming faint static, his voice low as if bargaining with someone invisible.
For years, Daniel had convinced himself it was just madness. Now he wasn't so sure.
"Stay here," he muttered to Claire.
But Claire caught his arm. "No. If you go, I go."
The scratching stopped.
Silence again. But not peace. Silence like lungs full of held breath.
---
On the other side of town, Jake Miller and Maya Singh walked the railroad tracks with Ryan Holt, the three of them restless, reckless, pretending they weren't scared. Jake's brown hair fell in his eyes as he tried to light another cigarette with shaking fingers.
"This is stupid," Maya muttered. She pushed her glasses up, eyes scanning the fog that clung to the treeline. "You know people are saying not to be out here at night."
Ryan snorted, though his laugh was too sharp, too thin. "What, you think the big scary Sound is gonna eat us?"
"Shut up," Jake muttered. He finally got the lighter to work, the flame flickering against his nervous face. "You've heard it too."
Ryan didn't answer.
The fog pressed thicker, swallowing the rails ahead until the tracks just disappeared. The woods on either side loomed, too quiet, too heavy.
Maya's skin prickled. "Jake… where's the end of the line?"
Jake frowned. "What do you mean?"
She pointed.
The tracks ahead didn't vanish into mist. They ended. Cut clean, jagged metal, as if something had sheared them off.
Ryan's breath caught. "Tracks don't just… stop."
And then the sound came.
Not a hum. Not a whisper.
A train.
Far off at first, the shriek of metal on rails. But there were no rails.
The ground vibrated beneath their feet.
Jake's cigarette dropped. "Run."
---
Back in the Parker house, Emma sat frozen on the couch, Caleb tucked against her side, Violet staring at the wall as though she could see through it.
The thud came again. This time, followed by a low, dragging scrape.
Emma whispered to herself. "It's inside the walls."
Violet slowly turned toward her, eyes glassy. "It remembers us. That's how it finds the way back in. It never forgets a name."
Caleb stirred, whispering into his mother's sleeve. "It keeps saying mine."
Emma's arms tightened around him, her heart breaking against her ribs.
And then — the living room light went out.