The Autumn People #U2141

In "The Screaming Woman," a young girl named Margaret hears a haunting voice calling from beneath a vacant lot, pleading to be freed. When she shares the eerie experience with her parents, their quiet unease reveals a buried past tied to a forgotten engagement and a song long silenced. As the melody returns, echoing from the earth itself, the truth begins to surface—layer by layer, beneath the weight of memory and silence.

In "Touch and Go," William Acton’s desperate attempt to erase every trace of his crime at Arthur Huxley’s mansion spirals into an obsessive ritual of cleaning, blurring the line between guilt and madness. As dawn breaks, the police discover him still scrubbing, consumed by a compulsion that has transformed him into something broken and unrecognizable.

In "The Small Assassin," a new mother's growing dread turns chillingly real as she becomes convinced her infant is plotting against her—her fears, it seems, are all too justified. When her husband is found dead and the doctor who delivered the child uncovers the truth, he makes a grim decision, one that blurs the line between protection and something far darker.

In "The Handler," a mortician whose reverence for the dead turns to obsession begins to exact brutal revenge on those he believes have dishonored his clients—until a corpse on the brink of death hears his atrocities and pleads for the dead to rise. As graves begin to open and the buried reclaim their power, the man who once controlled death finds himself buried in pieces, one by one.

In "The Lake," a man returns to the beach of his childhood with his wife, Margaret, drawn back by memories of a lost friend, Tally. Years after Tally vanished while swimming, he’s confronted with the haunting truth of her fate—and the unfinished sandcastle that still stands in the tide. As he rebuilds the castle with quiet resolve, the past rises not with anger, but with a bittersweet peace.

In "The Coffin," a man’s invention meant to cut funeral costs takes a horrifying turn when his lazy brother dares to test the machine—only to find himself trapped inside as the coffin begins to operate on its own, complete with music, a eulogy, and buried in the ground by its own mechanical arms.

In "Let's Play Poison," a haunted teacher returns to his classroom seven years after a tragic incident involving a student’s death, now convinced that children are inherently cruel. As he struggles with his growing dread, he becomes obsessed with a group of kids playing a game on the sidewalk that mimics gravestones, until the line between fear and reality blurs. When a skull begins appearing outside his window, his paranoia spirals — culminating in a desperate chase that ends in a hidden ditch, where the children’s game quietly continues.