The Barefoot in the Bunker

Six friends duck into a forgotten WWII bunker to escape a summer storm. The rain is relentless, but something else is patient. Bare feet begin to approach in the dark—no voice, no light, just waiting—and in the morning, the prints show faint claw marks. As the narrator tries to reason it away, a mimicking presence follows him home, borrowing the voices of people he loves and needling at old wounds he thought were healed. The others say it was a trespasser. The narrator remembers the sound of his mother’s voice in the doorway… and a second voice that sounded like his.