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Back Gallows Hill Save as PDF
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But she could still hear the breathing. It stuttered. A hiss of air through teeth. Distressed. Trying to be quiet but not quite able to smother the sounds entirely.

What is this? It’s not the dead ones. What am I hearing?

Kant’s words flashed through her mind. “The curse can make you see things. Hear things. Don’t fixate on them. Just keep moving.”

A deep wash of dread moved through her. Margot pressed her light back to her chest. She desperately wanted to leave the room. She couldn’t afford to. Not when the dead one outside the laundry door was growing closer.

The curse can make you see things. Hear things. He hadn’t said it could hurt her, though. Not like the dead creatures that were creeping around her home. She had to keep still. Keep quiet. Or she risked drawing more of them inside.

The breathing was growing closer, though. Margot kept her eyes closed as she pressed her own hand across her mouth. Each shuddering breath left hot condensation across her fingers. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. You’ll make mistakes if you panic. But the sound was nearer again, as though someone stood just behind her shoulder, close enough to wrap their arms around her, close enough that she should have felt the breath on the nape of her neck.

A voice whispered into her ear: “I don’t want to die.”

Her legs nearly buckled. Margot bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood as she staggered away from the words. Her shoulder bumped into a shelf. It rattled. The footsteps out on the porch fell still.

There’s no one here. No one.

She didn’t dare lift her arm, though. Didn’t want to see what the insipid light might reveal.

Her shoulder pressed into the shelf, its sharp corners bruising her skin as she forced herself to stay still and silent. The figure outside the door had heard her. She just prayed none of the others had.

Scraping footsteps moved through the house. Faster than they’d been before. Drawing nearer to her hiding place.

Margot’s heart plunged.

Move. Move quickly!

She ran for the door leading back to the hallway, desperately trying to keep quiet as she raced for a fresh place to hide. She couldn’t remember which of the doors were a dead end and which led to a new path. She tried the first door to her right. Her light flashed over the cold tiles of a cramped bathroom.

The footsteps were growing closer, heavier. She backed out, reaching for the door on the hall’s opposite side instead. It opened to a formal dining room. She couldn’t remember it if had another exit.