PART 1-THE INTERVIEW AT BLACKTHORN HOUSE

The email arrived at 2:13 AM.

No subject line.

No company logo.

Just one sentence.

“We reviewed your application. Come alone.”

At the bottom was an address:

Blackthorn House — Route 9, Willow Creek.

Maya almost deleted it.

She didn’t remember applying for anything called Blackthorn House. But rent was overdue, her phone was about to be shut off, and three different employers had ghosted her that month alone.

So the next evening, with rain hammering the windshield and fog crawling over the road like smoke from a fire, she drove there.

The mansion appeared without warning.

Huge. Rotten. Dark.

It stood at the top of a hill surrounded by dead trees that bent toward the building like they were trying to escape it.

No lights.

No cars.

No sound except the rain.

Maya checked her phone.

No signal.

“Perfect,” she whispered.

The front door creaked open before she even knocked.

An old woman stood there wearing a black dress buttoned to the throat. Her eyes looked wrong somehow — too pale, too still.

“You’re late,” the woman said.

Maya glanced at her watch.

“I’m actually ten minutes early.”

The woman smiled.

“That clock won’t help you here.”

The door slammed shut behind her the second she stepped inside.

The noise echoed through the mansion like a gunshot.

The entrance hall smelled of dust… and something metallic underneath.

Blood.

Maya tried not to think about it.

“You applied for the caretaker position,” the woman said while leading her down a narrow hallway lit only by candles.

“I… honestly don’t remember applying.”

“Most people don’t.”

The hallway seemed longer than possible. Portraits covered the walls. Every face in them looked terrified.

Not sad.

Terrified.

As they passed one painting, Maya froze.

The woman in the portrait looked exactly like her.

Same eyes. Same scar above the eyebrow.

Same black coat.

Except the painting was old. Very old.

At the bottom of the frame:

ELIZA BLACKTHORN — 1987

Maya stepped backward.

“That’s impossible.”

The old woman stopped walking.

“For you, maybe.”

A floorboard creaked upstairs.

Heavy footsteps.

Slow.

Dragging.

Maya looked up.

Someone was moving on the second floor.

“You said I came alone.”

“You did.”

The footsteps stopped directly overhead.

Then came a sound that made Maya’s stomach drop.

A whisper.

Right above her.

“Don’t take the job.”

Maya spun around.

No one there.

The old woman continued walking as if she hadn’t heard it.

She led Maya into a dining room where a single tape recorder sat on the table.

Old-fashioned. Dusty.

Already running.

CLICK.

A man’s voice filled the room.

Shaky. Terrified.

“My name is Daniel Reeves… and if someone finds this tape… do NOT trust the woman in black…”

Maya stared at the recorder.

The old woman slowly smiled.

“Previous applicant,” she explained.

The tape continued.

“There’s no job interview. They bring people here because the house needs—”

The recording suddenly distorted into violent static.

Then screaming.

Real screaming.

Maya stepped away from the table.

“I think I should leave.”

The old woman blocked the doorway instantly.

Fast.

Too fast.

“You haven’t completed the interview.”

The lights went out.

Complete darkness swallowed the room.

Then came breathing.

Not one person.

Many.

All around her.

Maya’s voice trembled.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

Then—

CLICK.

The tape recorder started again by itself.

But now the voice wasn’t Daniel Reeves anymore.

It was Maya.

Crying.

Begging.

“Please… don’t let them put me back in the walls…”