Chapter Two

I had awoken to that sound -faint but persistent. At first, I didn’t know what it was. Maybe the wind. But, as I sat up in bed, the sound sharpened: scratch… scratch… drag.

It came from beneath the floorboards.

I blinked, disoriented, heart skipping a beat as my eyes adjusted to the dark. The glowing red digits of the alarm clock read 3:12 AM. The trailer was otherwise silent, save for what actual was the whisper of wind slipping through the cracks in the kitchen window’s rubber seal.

Scratch… pause… scrape.

That sound was deliberate. Not the skitter of mice. Not the settling groan of old wood. It reminded me of claws- long and dry- dragging across thin plywood. Or fingers. Bony, desperate fingers trying to burrow up from beneath the earth.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed as I shoved the sweat-soaked sheets aside. I took a deep breath, and the scratching stopped.

I froze, waiting. Only silence followed. I stood on shaky legs and headed to Jamie’s tiny room, silently swinging open the door with the fear only a mother could know.

His small form lay still under a bundle of superhero blankets, his chest rising and falling slowly. A soft amber nightlight glowed beside him, but it looked dimmer than it had the night before. Like something had leeched the warmth from it.

I sat down on the edge of Jamie’s bed and listened.

Nothing.

The scratching was still quiet.

I waited a minute longer. Then two.

Still nothing.

“Just an old trailer,” I whispered to myself, brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead. “Just rats. Or… squirrels. Or something.”

But my pulse didn’t settle. The air inside the trailer felt heavier than it had the day before. Thicker. Like the oxygen carried a subtle weight, and every breath I took had to push through it.

I took a calming breath and forced myself to close his door. Everything was fine. It was an old place with creepy neighbors. What else could I expect? Except, I knew the dangers that could lurk around corners, causing mothers to flee with their children. And I also knew there would be no more sleep for me that morning.

I clicked the coffee maker to life and sat down at the musty brown booth, once again assuming my guard post, watching for the morning light to spill across my trailer’s dingy interior.

The trailer creaked with the settling cold, and the wind outside shook the trailer walls. “Just an old place settling,” I told myself. “Or maybe mice.”

But something deep in my chest remained unconvinced.

—

The next day passed in uneasy silence.

Jamie didn’t mention anything about the night before, but I noticed a distracted quality to him that unsettled me. He picked at his cereal, didn’t touch his coloring books, and kept glancing at the floor like he thought it might move.   

I tried to distract him with cartoons, then with a walk around the small, grassy park in the center of the trailer park, but nothing helped. Even when we passed Mrs. Dunn’s trailer and the older woman waved from the porch, Jamie stayed close to me, gripping my fingers until his knuckles paled.

That evening, as the sun sank behind the trees and the shadows stretched long across the gravel drive, I stood at the sink washing dishes. The water was lukewarm, the pipes groaning with every twist of the faucet.  

I looked up- and froze.

Outside, past the row of trailers, a shadow moved.

At first, I thought it was a person. Someone walking behind the lot, near the woods. But the way it moved- fast, jagged, with sudden halts and lurches- made my breath catch.

It was too tall to be an animal. But it was far too fast to be a human.

I shut off the faucet and leaned closer, my breath fogging the window. The glass reflected my own face, pale and ghostlike, floating above the sink. Beyond that, nothing but darkness and skeletal trees.

Still, I felt it- eyes on me. A presence at the edge of the woods. Waiting.

I flipped off the kitchen light and pressed my forehead to the glass, hoping to pierce the darkness.

A shape lingered near the tree line. Not quite visible, but there.

Watching.

Behind me, a sudden creak slit the silence.

I spun around.

A small figure stood in the hallway- Jamie. His head tilted upward, his eyes wide open but blank, mouth parted slightly. His hand hovered near the latch of the front door.

“Jamie?” I spoke.

He didn’t answer.

I stepped forward. “Jamie, baby, what are you doing?”

Still nothing.

I crouched beside him, placing both hands on his shoulders. His skin was clammy, cold.  

“You’re sleepwalking,” I whispered, trying to steady my voice. “Let’s go back to bed, okay?”

Slowly, he let me guide him down the hallway. His feet shuffled across the floor like he truly wasn’t awake- like something else was moving him.

When I tucked him back under the blankets, he didn’t protest. He closed his eyes and sank into the mattress.

As I turned to leave, he whispered:

“They want me to come play.”

—

The next day, I tried to forget it. Tried to pass it off as stress, exhaustion, anxiety. Jamie had sleepwalked before- a few years ago, when his father had started drinking. Maybe all the change had stirred that up again.

It didn’t have to mean there was something else going on here.

But something else was happening. I could feel it deep in my bones.

That afternoon, I was sweeping off the front porch when a trailer door opened across the lot. A man emerged slowly, hunched like a closing pocketknife, his joints stiff and reluctant.

I paused.

He wore a stained white undershirt, and jeans held up by twine. His skin was leathery and sun-damaged, the color of driftwood, and a cigarette dangled from his lips though it wasn’t lit. His eyes were cloudy with cataracts- yellowed, distant, and yet locked directly on me.

“You the new one?” he rasped.

I nodded warily. “Yeah. I’m Leah.” I motioned to my son who was pushing a metal car around on the wooded slats of the porch. “And this is Jamie.”

The man didn’t even glance at him. His eyes stayed fixed on me like he was watching something beneath my skin.

“You need to leave,” he said flatly.

I blinked. “What?”

‘’I seen it before. Too many times.” He took a slow drag of air through the unlit cigarette. “The ground here… it don’t forget. It remembers. When the season turns, it starts remembering hard.”

I furrowed my brow. “What season?”

The old man turned towards the trees at the edge of the lot. “You think it’s quiet here, but that’s just the land beathing in.” He paused. His lips twitched. “It will exhale soon.”

I wanted to ask more, but he’d already started hobbling back towards his trailer, door slamming shut behind him with a hollow bang.

Jamie looked up from his car. “He’s scared.”

“Of what?” I asked.

Jamie shrugged. “The man in his walls.”

—

The next morning, the old man was dead.

I was pouring cereal for Jamie when the sirens arrived- too quiet at first, then rising in volume until they filled the whole trailer park. I stepped outside to see an ambulance and coroner’s van idling in front of the old man’s trailer. A small knot of neighbors had gathered, whispers running through the crowd.

I joined them, clutching Jamie’s hand.

“Was it a fire?” someone murmured.

“No smoke,” said another. “Nothing at all.”

Two paramedics emerged from the trailer, a black body bag on a stretcher between them. I caught sight of Mrs. Dunn standing on her porch, face pinched, arms crossed tight over her chest as she watched the uniformed men with weary eyes.

One of the paramedics spoke softly to another man in uniform, who nodded grimly.

“Burned from the inside out,” the man had said under his breath. “No burns on the skin. Just… cooked.”

I felt my knees weaken.

They wheeled the stretcher to the van. As they passed, something in the air changed. A sudden gust of wind swept across the lot, strong enough to rattle the trailer doors.

And from the woods came a sound- it wasn’t the wind and not quite an animal.

A low, humming moan.

Jamie turned to look at the trees. His eyes were wide, not frightened, but curious. Like someone had just whispered his name.

I crouched down, grabbing his face between my hands. “Jamie, listen to me,” I said. “If you ever hear someone calling you from the woods… you don’t go. Not ever. Do you understand?”

He nodded slowly.

But when I looked back towards the trees, I swore I saw something.

A shape.

Fading into the trunks.

Watching.

Waiting.

—

That night, I barely slept at all. Every creak of the trailer, every gust of wind outside the window set my nerves on edge. I paced from room to room after Jamie fell asleep, checking locks, shining my flashlight under beds, inside closets, even down the thin crawlspace gap where the underbelly of the trailer lay exposed.    

 Nothing. No sign of rats. No sign of damage.

But around 3 am, the scratching started again.

This time it came from the walls.

Faint. Sporadic. Like something trapped in the thin insulation, working its way-out inch by inch. Not chewing. Not clawing.

Dragging.

I pressed my ear to the drywall. The sound was right behind it.

I stepped back, heart thudding so hard I thought it might actually wake Jamie.

Then a whisper.

Soft. So soft I wasn’t even really sure it had happened.

“Let him come out and play.”

I ran to Jamies room.

He was gone.

The bed was still warm. The nightlight was still glowing. But the blankets were pulled back and the door stood ajar.

Panic swallowed me whole.

I tore through the trailer- hallway, bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen- before throwing open the front door and sprinting barefoot across the gravel.

“Jamie!” I screamed.

I found him standing at the edge of the woods, barefoot in the dirt, eyes wide and fixed on the trees.

I grabbed him. “What are you doing out here?! Jamie, look at me!”

He blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream. “They were singing,” he whispered. “Under the dirt.”

I carried him back inside, shaking, locking every door I could.

And far off, behind the walls and under the floor, the scratching began again.