UNTIL DEATH FINDS US

I should have listened to my mother. That was the thought running through my head when I saw the sign welcoming me to Black Hollow. I had promised myself I would never come here. My mother had made me promise too. Yet there I was, driving through the thick fog with both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, wondering why the hell I had ignored the last warning she ever gave me. If I die, Elena, promise me you won't go back. She had said those words two nights before she died. I thought she was scared. I thought grief had made her paranoid. I was wrong. The road ahead disappeared into the fog. I slowed down. Then the town sign appeared. WELCOME TO BLACK HOLLOW. Someone had carved another message beneath it. TURN BACK BEFORE MIDNIGHT. I stared at it for a few seconds. Then I laughed nervously. "Okay. Very funny." Nobody laughed with me. The silence inside the car suddenly felt too heavy. I drove on. Black Hollow looked nothing like the town I remembered from my mother's stories. Actually, she had never told me much about it. That was the strange part. Whenever I asked about the place where she grew up, she changed the subject. Whenever I asked about the people she knew there, she became angry. And whenever I mentioned the old church, she would stare at me as if I had said something I wasn't supposed to know. Now that I was finally here, I understood why. The town looked dead. Not literally. At least, I hoped not. The streets were empty despite the fact that it was still early evening. Old buildings stood shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the gray sky, their windows dark and lifeless. People watched me from behind curtains. I noticed them. They noticed me. And none of them smiled. I told myself it was because I was a stranger. Then an old woman stepped onto her porch. She looked directly at my car. Her face changed the moment she saw me. Fear. Not curiosity. Fear. She quickly disappeared inside and slammed the door. My stomach tightened. I kept driving. The house my mother left me was at the very edge of town. I almost turned around when I saw it. Almost. But I remembered the envelope I had found among my mother's belongings. My name had been written across it. ELENA. Inside was a photograph of this house. And beneath the photograph were six words. Everything started here. Forgive me. I hadn't understood what she meant. Maybe now I would. I parked outside. For a moment, I didn't move. The house stood silently among the trees, three stories of dark wood and cracked windows. It looked like it had been waiting for me. I grabbed my suitcase and stepped out. The moment I touched the front gate, every bird in the surrounding trees suddenly went silent. I froze. Then I heard something behind me. A whisper. So quiet I almost convinced myself I imagined it. "Elena." I turned. Nobody was there. My heart hammered against my ribs. "Who's there?" Only the wind answered. I hurried inside. The front door opened without a key. That should have frightened me more than it did. But I was tired. I was grieving. And I desperately wanted to believe there was a normal explanation for everything. I switched on the lights. Nothing. I tried again. One bulb flickered above me before going completely dark. "Great." I pulled out my phone. No signal. Of course. I walked into the living room. The furniture was covered with white sheets, and dust covered almost every surface. Then I saw the photograph. It was sitting on the fireplace. My mother. Young. Beautiful. Smiling. I had never seen that picture before. But she wasn't alone. A young man stood beside her. He looked strangely familiar. I picked up the photograph. My fingers went cold. The man looked exactly the same age as he did in the picture. And something about his eyes made me uncomfortable. I turned the photograph over. Nothing. I looked at the man again. Then I noticed the church behind them. The same church I had seen when I entered town. The abandoned church. A sudden sound echoed through the house. Bong. I dropped the photograph. My heart stopped. The church bell. I looked at the clock on the wall. 11:59 PM. That couldn't be right. I'd only been inside for a few minutes. Bong. The second bell sounded. 11:59. Bong. The clock's hands suddenly moved. 12:00. I stared toward the window. Through the glass, I could just barely see the church tower in the distance. And beneath it... Someone was standing there. A man. Dressed in black. Watching my house. Watching me. I couldn't see his face. But somehow, deep inside me, I knew exactly who he was. The man from the photograph. Lightning flashed. For one terrifying second, his face became visible. He was smiling. Not happily. Like he had been waiting. Waiting for me. The lights suddenly came back on. I blinked. The churchyard was empty. He was gone. I stepped away from the window. Then something landed on the floor behind me. A piece of paper. I slowly turned around. It hadn't been there before. My hands trembled as I picked it up. There were only six words written across it. YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME BACK, ELENA. I stopped breathing. Because beneath the warning was a signature. A name I hadn't heard since I was a child. A name belonging to someone who had been dead for fifteen years. Mom.