The Gate’s Creak

I was eleven that summer, and my cousins Mira and Lena, ages ten and nine, were sleeping over at our farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. We’d gone to bed early because we planned to explore the old barn at dawn, when the air was still cool. I woke to Mira’s small hand shaking my shoulder. The clock on the nightstand glowed 1:42 AM.

‘There’s someone walking outside,’ she whispered, her voice trembling. ‘They opened the gate. It creaked.’ The gate to the pasture was a heavy iron thing that always screeched, and I knew the sound. We listened, but heard nothing but the wind in the corn. We decided it was just a neighbor, and rolled over to sleep.

But then the back door slammed shut, hard, like it does when you let it go. We froze. Then we heard footsteps in the kitchen, slow and heavy, and the creak of the floorboards under the hallway. We huddled together, too scared to move. The footsteps came closer, stopping just outside our door. The doorknob rattled.

I held my breath, praying it was locked. It wasn’t. The door swung open, and a figure stood there, silhouetted against the dim light from the window. It was tall and thin, with long arms that hung too low. It stepped into the room, and we saw its face—or what should have been its face. It was a mask of stitched burlap, with two holes cut for eyes, but they were empty, black voids.

‘Hello, children,’ it said, its voice like gravel. ‘I’ve been waiting.’

We screamed and scrambled under the bed, but it was fast. It grabbed Lena’s ankle and pulled her out. Mira and I tried to pull her back, but it was too strong. It dragged her down the hall, and we heard her screams, then a wet crunch. Then silence.

Mira and I crawled out, shaking, and ran for the front door. We made it outside, but the figure was there, blocking our path, holding something that dripped. It advanced on us, and we backed into the barn. It followed, its footsteps echoing on the dirt floor.

We hid behind a pile of hay, but it found us. It reached out, and I saw its hand was covered in dirt, and its fingers were too long. It grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. I couldn’t breathe. Mira was screaming, and then I heard the gate creak again.

The figure turned its head, and in that instant, the sun began to rise, and the rooster crowed. The figure dropped me and let out a shriek, then dissolved into a mist that vanished with the dawn. We were alone, covered in dust and sweat, and Lena was gone.

The police searched for weeks, but they never found her. I grew up, moved away, but every summer, I hear that gate creak in the night. And sometimes, I see a tall figure standing in the corn, watching me. The gate’s creak never stopped haunting me.