Every night, at exactly 3:07 AM

February 22, 2025

by Dorris

2 min read

Story Premise 2 min read (290 words)

"Every night, at exactly 3:07 AM, I wake up to the sound of scratching at my bedroom door. I know who it is. I don’t want to look, but I always do. Standing there in the dim light is my old dog, the one we buried years ago. His fur is mostly gone, his skin […]"

Every night, at exactly 3:07 AM, I wake up to the sound of scratching at my bedroom door. I know who it is. I don’t want to look, but I always do.

Standing there in the dim light is my old dog, the one we buried years ago. His fur is mostly gone, his skin torn and rotting, his jaw slightly unhinged. One of his legs drags as he moves, and his breathing is heavy—too heavy. The worst part? The smell. It’s thick, sour, like something that’s been dead for far too long.

Then, like always, he limps toward my bed. I can’t move. I can’t scream. He climbs up beside me, getting so close that I can feel his cold, damp breath on my face. His head tilts, and for a few seconds, he just stares.

It happens every night. The same way. The same timing.

I’ve tried to explain it, but no one believes me. My brother laughs it off. My mom says I must be dreaming. But I hear his claws tapping on the wooden floor, the deep growls in the corner of my room. Sometimes, I even hear him whimpering—just like he used to when he wanted to go outside.

We buried him near the old tool shed in our backyard after he got hit by a car. It wasn’t quick—he suffered. I was there, holding him, telling him it was going to be okay even though we both knew it wasn’t.

Maybe that’s why he comes back. Maybe he’s angry. Maybe he doesn’t understand why we left him in the cold ground.

Or maybe… he just doesn’t want to be alone.

Related Horror Movies to Watch

November

2017

Dinosaurus!

1960

Sasha's Hell

2019

Santastein

2024

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Unbidden Bloom

The old house perched on the cliffside overlooking the churning, grey expanse of the North Atlantic was perpetually damp. Even in the height of summer, a clammy chill clung to the stone walls and seeped into the very bones of its inhabitants. It was here, in this remote corner of coastal Ireland, that young Liam […]

The Crimson Carpet’s Secret

The old Victorian house loomed against the bruised twilight sky, a silhouette of gables and shadowed eaves. Inside, the air hung thick with the scent of lemon polish and something older, something cloying like dried flowers. Elias, a boy whose years numbered just past seven, knew every creak of the dark oak floorboards, every draft […]

The Night the Bell Froze

The first time I heard the story, I was eight, sitting cross-legged on the cold linoleum of Grandma May’s kitchen while she stirred a pot of stew. She told it the same way every year, her voice low and deliberate, as if she were reading from a script written by the dead themselves. The setting […]

The Carpet That Knew My Name

I was six when we moved back into Aunt Hilda’s house, the one my mom swore we’d never see again. The moment we pulled into the gravel driveway, a cold dread settled in my stomach, a feeling I couldn’t explain but knew as intimately as my own name. The house was a Victorian relic, its […]

The Pattern in the Carpet

When I was four, we lived in a house that breathed. It was a narrow, three-story Victorian on a street where the trees leaned in like they were listening. The carpet was thick and the exact color of dried blood, and it ran up the stairs and down the hallways in a continuous, dizzying pattern. […]

The Ferryman’s Toll

In the winter of ’98, my family was stationed in a remote research outpost in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The sun hadn’t risen in weeks, and the perpetual twilight painted everything in shades of blue and gray. My parents, both glaciologists, were called away to an emergency survey on the mainland, leaving my older […]

The Lamplit Room

When I was nine, we moved into a house in the outskirts of a small town called Ashwick, known for its endless fog and the old mill that had been silent for decades. My parents bragged about the bargain price and the quiet street, but the moment I stepped through the front door, I felt […]

The Unwinding of the Loom

The old house sat on a bluff overlooking the churning, slate-grey sea, far from the manicured lawns of Burlingame. When Eleanor’s parents bought it, the salt-laced wind seemed to whisper secrets through the eaves, a mournful tune that the real estate agent conveniently overlooked. Even at ten years old, Eleanor felt a profound chill seep […]

The Uninvited Current

The day my parents signed the deed on that old Victorian in Ashford, Maine, I remember standing in the empty living room and telling my mother, “It’s so heavy in here.” She laughed, saying it was just the dust and the faded wallpaper, and that a fresh coat of paint would fix everything. But I […]

The Porcelain Visitor

I was seven, spending the summer at my grandmother’s old farmhouse in the hills of Vermont. The house had been in our family for generations, and it was a creaky, sprawling structure with a musty attic that no one ever entered. My parents had sent me and my cousin Derek to stay with Grandma while […]

The Loom

The first time it happened, I thought it was the wind rattling the windowpane of my studio apartment in the old mill town of Gravesend. But the air was still, heavy with the scent of dust and dried lavender from the sachet my grandmother had given me. I lay on the futon, the thin blanket […]

The Pacing Below the Pines

I was eight when we moved to the old cottage at the edge of the pine woods. My parents had inherited it from a distant aunt, and they were thrilled to escape the city. I, on the other hand, had always been a city kid, and the silence of the countryside felt like a held […]