Wes Coffey

But it didn't sound like Papa.

It sounded off.

It sounded practiced.

Like somebody who had learned the name but had never met the man.

The voice was deep and it was rough and it did not come out of a throat that sounded human.

I moved then.

I moved without thinking.

I grabbed the bag of rock salt off the table and I dumped it out in a line across the front doorway on the inside.

I ran to the back door and I did the same.

The windows.

I went to each one and I poured a line of salt on the sill.

My hands were shaking so bad I was spilling it everywhere.

I used the whole bag, every grain.

By the time I was done, there was salt across every entrance in that cabin.

I sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor with Papa's old 30-30 across my lap, and I waited.

the knocking came at the back door next three knocks then at the kitchen window three knocks on the glass then at the loft window upstairs three knocks which the loft window is twelve feet off the ground

There's no porch roof up there, nothing to stand on.

It went around the whole cabin, knocking at every door and every window.

Three knocks each time.

It took maybe 15 minutes to make the full circuit.