The Gate That Moaned

I spent my childhood in a hollow in the Appalachians, where the fog crawled down the hills like a living thing and the trees leaned in to listen. Our house was a weathered clapboard with a porch that sagged, and the neighbor’s property was separated by a rusted gate that hung crooked on its hinges. I was maybe seven when I first noticed the gate was wrong. It had a gap beneath it, and when the wind blew, it didn’t rattle—it moaned. A low, constant sound that seemed to come from the ground itself.

My brothers and I would dare each other to touch it. The metal was cold even in summer, and it left a greasy residue on our fingers. Old Man Harlow—we never knew his first name—would see us from his window and come out shaking his fist. ‘You kids get away from that gate!’ he’d yell, his voice cracking like dry leaves. But his eyes were always on the ground, and he walked with a limp that seemed to get worse each year.

His wife, Mrs. Harlow, stayed mostly inside. When she did come out, it was to sit on her porch rocker, wrapped in a faded quilt even in July. She never spoke, just nodded if you said hello. Once, I ran up to ask her if she wanted some blackberries we’d picked, and she turned her head so slowly it seemed to take forever. Her eyes were milky, and there was a thin line of dirt under her nails. She shook her head and went back to staring at the gate.

My curiosity got the better of me one autumn. The leaves had turned the color of dried blood, and the air smelled of rot. I snuck over to the gate, not to swing on it, but to look through the gap. There was nothing new to see—just a dirt path leading to a small shed that had been padlocked for as long as I could remember. But then I heard a sound like a child crying. It came from the shed. I pressed my face to the bars, and the moaning grew louder, until I felt it in my teeth.

That night, I dreamed of a woman with no face, standing behind the shed, swaying. She wore a long dark dress, and her arms were covered in scratches. She pointed at me, and I woke with a scream. My mother came in, but I couldn’t tell her what I’d seen. I just said a nightmare.

The next day, I told my older brother, Caleb. He laughed and said it was probably a cat in the shed. But when I looked through the gate again, the crying was unmistakable. It was saying ‘Mama’ over and over. I ran to tell Mr. Harlow, but he slammed the door in my face. From inside, I heard a crash and a long, low moan.

Weeks passed. The moaning grew louder, and the gate began to bow under its own weight, as if something was leaning on it. My mother started locking our doors at night, and my father took to carrying a shotgun. I stopped going near the gate, but the sound followed me. It was in the walls, in the wind, in my own breathing.

Then, one night, I woke to a light flickering in the shed. I looked out my window, and through the gap in the gate, I saw the woman—the faceless woman—carrying something. It was human-shaped, wrapped in a dark cloth. She placed it in the shed and knelt beside it. The moaning stopped.

I didn’t sleep for three days. When I finally did, I dreamed of the gate opened wide, and behind it, the shed door ajar, and a figure beckoning. I woke with the covers drenched.

The next day, I told my father everything. He listened, his face gray, and then he took me to the neighbor’s house. Mr. Harlow stood on the porch, his eyes hollow. He didn’t deny anything. He said, ‘She’s not my wife anymore. She hasn’t been for years. That thing in the shed—it’s what’s left of her.’

He led us to the gate. He unlocked it with a key he wore around his neck. The moan came again, but this time it was a wail. The shed door was open. Inside, on a mattress, lay a woman—or what had been a woman. Her skin was gray, her eyes gone, her mouth open in a silent scream. And next to her, a bundle of rags that moved.

Mr. Harlow whispered, ‘She wanted a child so badly. She went into the woods and came back with that… thing. It fed on her until she was empty. Now it needs a new mother.’

The faceless woman stepped out of the shed, and I saw that she was my mother. No—she was wearing my mother’s face. She smiled, and the moaning became a lullaby.

My father grabbed me and ran. We left that place, that hollow, that gate. But I still hear the moaning sometimes, especially at night. And I feel a cold hand on my shoulder, and a voice that says, ‘Mama.’

But I’m not a mother. And I pray I never will be.