Keep the Door Open

Tales Before Bed: Keep the Door Open

A police officer slows his cruiser to a crawl as he turns onto Willow Drive. The night air is heavy with mist, wrapping around the streetlamps in ghostly halos. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots, and the faint rustle of windswept leaves carries across the asphalt. It is well past midnight—too late for any living soul to be roaming these parts without good reason. Yet there, ahead, the wrought–iron gates of Greenwood Cemetery yawn wide open, their hinges creaking in the stillness. The cemetery gates are supposed to lock automatically at sundown. Something is very wrong.

He cuts the engine, steps out, and feels the chill seeping through his uniform. His boots crunch on the gravel sidewalk as he approaches, flashlight gripped in one hand, radio clipped to his lapel. The beam of his torch swings across old headstones, toppled urns, and the skeletal limbs of ancient trees. Damp earth gives off a faint, musty odor—half moss, half decay. He frowns, recalling the patrol schedule: by the time the gates unlock at dawn, no one should be inside.

A low, rhythmic clatter freezes him in his tracks. “Tchack…sssh…tchack…sssh…” The sound appears to be coming from the southeast corner, near the marble mausoleums. The officer pauses to peer through the locked door of an iron–grilled crypt. He pressed his flashlight against the laser–cut design in the gate and shone it through, sweeping the beam across dusty marble benches and shadowed recesses. No one.

But the noises continue, muffled by distance. He follows the echoes across the sodden ground, stepping over clusters of pale lichens on cracked tombstones. The clatter grows louder, more insistent. The officer’s heart begins to pulse beneath his chest. Each beat announces his own smallness in this vast field of stones. He reaches the grave of one Jeremiah Towe, its headstone newly etched and slick with rain. There, under the cold glare of his flashlight, a man in threadbare clothes digs into the earth.

The stranger’s back is to him. Even from twenty feet away, he can see the muscles in the man’s arms working in a steady, patient rhythm. The shovel blade rises and falls with surgical precision. Soil tumbles into a neat pile beside the shallow hole. The only sound is that relentless “tchack…sssh.” The officer clears his throat.

“Hey,” he called, voice firm but controlled. “Stop right there.”

The digger doesn’t lift his head. The officer’s pulse quickens. He takes two cautious steps forward, hand brushing the grip of his taser.

“Put the shovel down,” he orders.

No response—only the steady scrape of metal on earth.

“Sir,” he tries again, louder this time. “I said, put the shovel down.”

At last, the man pauses, shovel half–buried in damp soil. He remains silent as if carved from the same gray stone that lines the cemetery. The officer advances another three feet, the beam of his flashlight dancing over the stranger’s back—over his dirt–matted shirt, the camo ballcap pulled low, and the ragged jeans speckled and smeared with mud.

“Listen,” Hanning says, voice taut.

He taps his taser’s holster with his index finger.

“This is criminal trespass,” he tries to sound authoritative. “You need to stop what you’re doing and identify yourself.”

The man stands motionless for a moment, then slowly straightens. His face emerges from the shadow, pale and drawn, with dark circles beneath his eyes that hold no spark of recognition. The officer’s flashlight reveals flecks of soil even in the man’s eyebrows and eyelashes—as though he’d risen from the very earth he was disturbing. He looks familiar to the man in uniform, but he can’t quite place him.

“Why are you digging up this grave?” The officer asks, trying to keep his tone steady.

He inches closer, aware that a shovel in the hands of an unknown figure can be more dangerous than any firearm at a near distance. The stranger lifts the shovel’s tip.

“I’m digging,” he says at last, voice ragged, as if unused for years.

The rasp echoes strangely against the mausoleums. The officer swallows.

“I know you’re digging,” the officer states. “I want to know why.” He reaches for his radio and calls, “Dispatch, this is Hanning—”

Static. No reply.

He turns back. The man’s expression was blank.

“Why are you digging in this grave?” Hanning asks the man once more.

The man mumbles something that he can’t make out.

“Speak up,” Hanning says, frustration flickering in his voice. “Why are you digging here?”

“I’m trying to get back in,” the stranger mumbles again, only it’s clearer this time.

He shifts the shovel’s handle between both hands. Hanning’s pulse jumps—he must have misheard.

“Back in?” Officer Hanning questions. “Into the ground?”

Hanning’s brow furrows. He glances at the open grave, at the bare coffin lid peeking from the soil. A cold dread settles into his stomach.

“Why would you be trying to get into the ground?” Hanning asks, confused. “Are you telling me you were in there?”

“Isn’t that where I belong… Corporal Hanning?”

Corporal Hanning’s blood runs cold. He hasn’t heard anyone call him that since he retired from the military—since his unit died in an explosion where he was the only survivor.

“Hold on—what did you call me?”

“Corporal Hanning,” the man says, voice trembling on the last syllable.

Then he snaps his head up, and the beam of light falls across his full features—features that Marcus Hanning recognizes with a jolt of terror. The face in front of him is the late Private Jeremiah Towe.

"Private First Class Towe!" Corporal Hanning yells at one of his underlings.

Private First Class Towe is one of the enlisted soldiers under Corporal Hanning's authority. Hanning is responsible for training Towe, along with a handful of other recruits. PFC Towe is the last to finish the obstacle course today - well, every day.

"Yes, Corporal Hanning," he says, clearly out of breath and covered in sweat, dirt, and mud.

The uniform is a mess, as it should be, while he stands at attention before his training officer.

"Why are you here?" CPL Hanning projects his voice to be heard by everyone, even though Towe is right in front of him.

"To be a soldier, sir!" Towe shouts back with as much confidence as he can, knowing that he's in trouble for falling behind again.

"What happens to a soldier when they fall behind in the field?" Hanning asks loudly.

Towe hesitates - not sure what Hanning wants him to say.

Hanning continues for him, "If you can't run the field, you get put in it instead." As Hanning walks away, he adds, "How did you get this far up in the ranks?"

He leaves without expecting an answer, and Towe stays silent.

Officer Hanning blinks against the cold night air, the echo of the flashback still ringing in his ears. He tells himself it was just mistaken identity, just the haunting overlap of two memories, and forces his focus back to the graveyard. There, by the headstone of Private Towe, the shovel is still buried chest-deep, the handle vibrating with each heartbeat in Hanning’s chest.

“Sir,” Hanning calls, voice tight with authority and lingering disbelief. “Stop. Just—stop.”

He steps forward, every crunch of leaves under his boot sounding unnaturally loud. But where the man should be standing, there is nothing. The earth beneath the moonlight has shifted, and the hole is much larger and deeper than before.

Hanning’s pulse hammers. He drops the flashlight beam into the pit. The soil falls away to reveal smooth, varnished wood—an open casket, its bronze handles dulled by the dampness. He leans over the lip, his stomach twisting as the embalming fluid fumes curl upward, sickly sweet. Then he sees him: Private Towe garbed now in an immaculate full‐dress uniform. His nametag gleams in the torchlight, the rank insignia pristine against the dark wool.

Hanning feels the breath knocking from his lungs. He presses a hand to the edge of the coffin—its lacquered surface is icy to the touch. The coldness seeps into his fingers, a promise of finality. He half-turns to call for backup, but the silence presses in so heavily he can’t find the words.

Then, the dead man’s eyelids flicker. The pale irises focus on Hanning, vacant yet terrifyingly alive.

A rasped whisper crawls out from cracked lips, “I’ll keep the door open for you, Corporal.”

The words hover in the air like a curse, and Hanning’s flashlight trembles in his hand. In that instant, he knows the cemetery gates won’t be the only barriers swinging wide tonight.

Officer Hanning jolts awake, heart hammering against his ribs like a frantic drum. He sits bolt upright, gasping for air, the sheets twisted around his sweating skin. The room is pitch-black except for a sliver of streetlight slicing through the curtains. His pillow is damp where his head was pressed into it, and his T-shirt sticks to his back, heavy with sweat. For a moment, he fights the residue of that graveyard vision—moist earth, moonlight on granite, and the corpse’s chilling promise.

He inhales sharply and rubs trembling fingers across his face, trying to scrub away the nightmare. Only then does he register the weight of the world pressing in from every side. His hands fall from his forehead and splay against something hard and polished. Wood. Not the smooth, flat sheet covering his mattress but the cold, varnished edge of a coffin. Panic surges up his spine and floods his limbs with ice-cold dread.

“What—” he begins, voice raw, but a pair of skeletal hands shoot out from beneath his shoulders, slipping over his arms with inhuman strength. He struggles, thrashing against the unseen grip, but the coffin’s interior is too cramped. His shoulders press against the bottom of the box as the hands clamp him down. He forces himself to inhale, but the air is stale, tinged with dusty earth and the sour tang of formaldehyde.

He kicks at the coffin walls, the wood splintering under his boots, calling out for help—but his screams are swallowed by the thick soil above him. Then the lid slams shut with a final, bone-shaking thud. Darkness envelops him completely. He pounds on the coffin’s lid, muffled thuds echoing in his ears, and his own screams bounce back, rotten and hollow. The earth vibrates with each desperate beat of his fists. Outside, the world is quiet—too quiet—as he realizes there will be no one coming for him tonight.

He bolts upright again, the same rasping gasp tearing from his chest. Sweat soaks his shirt, and the sheets are twisted in angry knots around his hips. The room is stifling—black as tar and heavy with the scent of dust and old wood. His heart hammers painfully, each beating a thunderclap against his sternum.

He claws at his chest as if to rip the pain free, but before he can draw a breath, cold fingers—skeletal and slimed with rot—snake around his waist. They grip him with brutal strength, dragging him back into the tangled sheets. Hanning’s scream rips through the darkness as he thrashes, fists hammering against the mattress and the unseen hands that hold him fast.

“Get—off—me!” he howls, voice raw and desperate. But the decayed hands only tighten, nails biting into fabric and flesh. The stench of decay floods his nostrils, a vile perfume that twists his gut. He tries to roll, to kick, to widen his fingers—anything—but the phantom grip is absolute. The bed creaks under their combined weight, hinges groaning as if echoing his panic.

The officer’s body convulses in the darkness; every muscle locked in a vicious spasm. His eyes roll up so only the whites remain. He arches his back off the mattress in sudden, jagged movements, then slams down so hard the springs groan beneath him. Raw, guttural sounds erupt from his throat and nose—half scream, half snarl—torn free by forces beyond his control. His teeth chatter and grind together, a ratchet-like rattle that echoes through the silent room.

Damp sheets are twisted around his arms and legs as he thrashes, his fingers clawing at the comforter for purchase. Beads of sweat roll down his temples. In the dim sliver of streetlight, droplets glimmer like phantom tears. The only other sound is the distant hum of the air conditioner, utterly drowned by the wild rhythms of his seizure.

For a long moment, he is lost to the paroxysm—his body a marionette tugged by some ghoulish puppeteer.

His muffled screams ricochet against the walls as hundreds of clammy, gray-skinned hands pour from every seam of the mattress, pressing him flat. Fingers like tangled roots curl around his wrists and ankles, crushing him into the pounding springs beneath. One hand clamps over his mouth, forcing his roar into a wet, panicked gurgle. He can taste the stale tang of sweat and old wood in his teeth as he kicks and writhes, but the grip only tightens, its coldness seeping through his T-shirt and into his bones.

In the sliver of moonlight, he sees the bed frame dissolve into the darkness and polished wood grain—the unmistakable curve of a coffin lid rising beside him. His heart hammers, each pulse echoing in his ears like a funeral drum. With a final, thunderous clunk, the coffin lid settles over his face, plunging him into suffocating darkness. Dirt trickles from the ceiling in fine, gray motes, dusting the lid and tumbling into the tiny gaps around its edges. The last grains of soil sift down to seal him in forever.

Hanning lies tangled in the rumpled sheets, chest still rising and falling in the shallow rhythm of exhaustion—until, suddenly, every muscle locks. His back arches just a fraction, then straightens like a wooden board; the frantic tremors and guttural screams stop as if someone has flipped a switch. In the frozen hush, only the slow drip of sweat from his brow dares break the silence.

His eyelids flutter once, then remain wide open, glassy, and unfocused. The soft glow of the streetlight through the curtains paints ghostly slashes across his face. For a heartbeat, he hangs between wake and dream, every nerve ending humming with the memory of cold hands and soil. Then, as if released from a terrible spell, his body goes limp. Limbs collapse back onto the mattress, and finally—a single, ragged breath escapes his throat.

From somewhere at the foot of the bed—a battered police radio perched on a corner table—comes a sputter of static. Through the crackle, a calm, authoritative voice emerges:

“This is Officer Hanning… signing off. Over and out.”

The last echoing word fades into a soft hiss of white noise. In the darkness, Hanning lies utterly still, and the room holds its breath with him.

Fade to black.