The man she buried came knocking at her door.

At first, Clara thought it was the wind again. The storm had been pressing against her small farmhouse all day, rattling windows, pushing branches like skeletal fingers across the roof. The knock came again—slow, deliberate. Not the storm.

Three knocks.

Clara stood frozen in her kitchen, one hand wrapped tightly around a chipped porcelain mug, the other trembling slightly. She hadn’t heard that knock in three years. It wasn’t just the rhythm of it, though that was familiar too. It was the weight behind it—the deliberate cadence of a man who never asked, only announced.

She set the mug down and moved to the door, each step sinking into the soft creak of old wood beneath her bare feet. She didn’t ask who it was. She didn’t have to. Every part of her already knew.

Clara opened the door.

Rain fell behind him in silver sheets, a curtain between her warm-lit world and the cold, impossible one he had stepped out of. The man standing there wore the same boots she had buried him in, now caked in wet earth. His coat, once leather and proud, hung from him like a second skin, damp and rotting at the edges. And his eyes—

They were the same.

“Clara,” he said, voice hoarse but unmistakable. “You weren’t expecting company?”

Her mouth moved before her brain did. “You’re dead.”

He smiled faintly. “I noticed.”

She should’ve slammed the door. Screamed. Fainted. Anything but what she did, which was step aside and let him in.

He left muddy footprints across the floor as he entered, his eyes scanning the familiar kitchen like a man inspecting a photograph from a former life. He looked older—more worn, like death had been a long walk in tight shoes. But it was him. Henry Wallace. The man she had married. The man she had buried.

“How?” she asked.

He didn’t answer at first. Instead, he sat down at the kitchen table, his usual chair—the one with the uneven leg she never got around to fixing. He ran his hand over the scarred wood surface like he was petting a sleeping dog.

“You made my favorite tea,” he said softly, gesturing to the cup she’d left behind.

She didn’t move. “I asked how.”

He looked up. “Do you believe in second chances?”

She stared. “No.”

He chuckled. “Well, that’s fair.”

Lightning cracked through the windows, slicing the room in two with its white glare. Clara’s heart pounded like a drum in her ears. It couldn’t be him. He had died on a rainy Tuesday, just like this. A heart attack in the barn. She found him slumped in the hay, hand still gripping the pitchfork like he’d been trying to fight off fate itself. The coroner took him. The funeral was small. She put him in the ground with her own hands. Him, and all his secrets.

“You were never good at explaining yourself,” she said finally, her voice low, wary.

He gave a slow nod. “No. I was better at hiding things.”

Silence thickened between them.

Clara sat down across from him, her hands still cold. She studied the man she once loved—the man she once feared.

“You think I’m here to hurt you?” he asked gently.

She didn’t blink. “You already did.”

His smile dropped. “Then why let me in?”

“Curiosity. Maybe guilt.”

His eyes darkened. “Guilt?”

“For what I buried with you.”

The wind howled against the walls again. A shutter banged loose.

Henry leaned back, folding his hands together. “You always suspected, didn’t you? About the cellar.”

She didn’t answer. But her jaw tightened.

“There were things in that house I should’ve told you. But I thought I was protecting you.”

“From what?” she snapped. “The gambling? The debts? Or the woman they found in the river six months before you died?”

His face flickered. “You think I had something to do with that?”

“I think you were hiding something big,” she said. “And after you died, it died with you. I was grateful.”

He was quiet for a long time. “I didn’t hurt her, Clara. But I knew who did. And I didn’t say anything. Because if I did, he’d have come for you, too.”

Clara’s stomach turned. “Who?”

“A man named Grayson. You never met him. He wasn’t from here. He came for money. I didn’t have it, so I gave him something else.”

He looked down at his hands, shaking now. “I told him about Marla. She was running from someone, hiding here. I didn’t know what he’d do. But I suspected.”

Clara’s voice was ice. “And you let him take her.”

Henry nodded once.

“I deserved what happened to me,” he added.

She stared, unblinking. “Why come back now?”

He met her eyes. “Because he’s coming again.”

The room fell into a breathless hush.

Clara shook her head. “No. No, this is some twisted dream.”

“I wish it were. But I didn’t come back on my own. Something... let me. Gave me time. A chance to fix what I broke.”

“Why would death give you anything?” she whispered.

“Because some things don’t die easy,” he said grimly. “And some debts follow you beyond the grave.”

The lights flickered.

“You buried me,” Henry said softly. “But you also buried a ledger I hid beneath the floorboards in the barn. Grayson thinks you know where it is. He’s been waiting. And now he’s coming to collect.”

Clara stood up. “No. No, this is insane.”

He looked at her. “Check the barn. You’ll see. Then run. Get far from here.”

Thunder cracked, and this time it was followed by something else.

A car door.

Far down the drive, tires crushed gravel.

Henry stood slowly. “Too late.”

Clara felt a sharp pull in her chest—an old pain she thought she’d buried with him. But it rose now, raw and jagged.

He turned to her, and there was no time left for hate or questions.

Only action.

“Take the north trail,” he said. “Through the orchard. Don’t stop.”

“What about you?”

He gave her a tired smile. “I’m already dead, Clara.”

He opened the door again, and the wind rushed in like a scream.

As Clara turned to run, she glanced back one last time.

He was standing there, his figure a silhouette in the doorway. Watching.

Waiting.

Facing the devil he’d once welcomed in.

And this time, he wasn’t going down alone.

Shannon Parker

@Sparker80

Stockton ca

Shannon Parker has not written a story.