Randall sat straight up in a cold sweat, checking his bare chest for burns that were not there. Finding only his own healthy skin, Randall’s breathing slowed and his heart began to stop its poundings. Pale moonlight streamed in from the small paned window on his left and his eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness.

  He was in his room in the Lincolntown saloon. It was dark, probably past midnight, but the clink of glasses, the murmur of bar patrons still emanated from the gaming floor outside, and bright light spilled in through the crack under the door of Randall’s room. Everything was as normal as could be. The vision had only been a dream but a dream so vivid that the stench of rotting flesh still clung in Randall’s nostrils.

  Randall wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and fell backward onto the bed and closed his eyes.

  He was nearly asleep again when a knock sounded at his door.

  “This room is occupied,” he said without bothering to open his eyes.

  There was a period of silence but then the knock sounded again. Randall sighed.

  “Occupied!” he said, and rolled over on his side and looked at the door. He could see two breaks in the light at the crack where someone was standing.

  “Find your own room, amigo,” said Randall. He watched the crack but the shadows stayed where they were. The knock sounded again.

  This time, before Randall could respond, a voice from outside beat him to it.

  “Randall?” said the voice and the sound of it made Randall’s blood run cold. The voice sounded just like Billy’s.

  Randall froze in his bed. He could say nothing, his voice had abandoned him. His heart started up its pounding again.

  The knock sounded again and again that voice, so very much like Billy’s, hissed through the door.

  “Randall?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Randall’s voice was hoarse but he managed to croak a response.

  “What do you want?”

  “You promised, Randall,” said the voice, “You promised.”

  “Promised what?” Randall demanded, not believing, not wanting to believe, the suspicions his mind was turning over in the dark, “Who are you?”

  There was no response. After a brief period of silence the knocking sounded again, louder, more insistent. Randall jumped to his feet, torn between fury and fear.

  “I said this room is occupied!”

  The knocking did not stop, kept on in heavy rhythmic beating, growing only louder and more frantic. Randall curled up in the bed, dressed his hands against his ears but he could not block out the throbbing sound. It rattled through his brain until he could have screamed.

  Randall couldn’t take it any more. With nothing but his long underwear pulled up to the waist, Randall jumped out of the bed and crossed the room in a bound.

  Apparition of man or devil, Randall didn’t care. He could take anything but the endless knocking. He grasped the knob to his room door and looked down at the crack. He could still see the shadows of boots. With a deep breath, he flung the door open, every nerve tensed to spring.

  The hallway was empty. Nothing but flickering light spilled into his room, nothing but the low and joyful murmur of voices from the gambling hall greeted his ears. He looked up and down the hallway, looking for anything out of place. He saw nothing but an aging soiled dove pulling up her sagging dress. She noticed him standing in the doorway naked to the waste and smiled at him with an exaggerated wink. He awkwardly gave her a wave and bid a hasty retreat back into the dark room, shutting the door.

  Alone in his room, Randall let himself collapse against the door, feeling suddenly weary, his heart again beating in his throat. He let out several deep breaths and tried to calm down.

  A new sound brought that effort to an abrupt end.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  This was different. Gentle but persistent, a faint tinkling sound almost like…

  Nails, he thought, suddenly placing the sound in his memory, Fingernails tapping on a window.

  Cautiously, Randall turned around to face the window across the room.

  There, bathed in the moonlight, a pale hand rapped against the window pane with a ragged knuckle, glistening from a dozen oozing wounds, hard enough to leave a smudge of blood and pus against the glass. In its fingertips, the held a square of folded paper clasped tight.

  Randall knew the hand and letter right away. He’d already begun his plummet to the floor when he caught the first scent of that putrid odor permeating his room. As quickly as it had appeared, the hand slid along the glass before dropping down below the level of the window and vanishing from sight.

  Randall collapsed on his side in front of the door, heaving and convulsing, trying to process what he had seen while a voice echoed in his mind that he could not shut out even with the deafening sound of his own screams ringing in his ears.

  You promised, Randall, it said, You promised.