"Willy..."

William Ashbury III, known by his friends, family, and certain ghosts as "Willy," sat alone in the corner booth of Pam's Diner. Outside, the town of Gossamer Loom was still with an early morning fog. The mist clung to the windows, blurring the world beyond into smudged shadows and faint, ghostly outlines.

Willy's fingers were wrapped tightly around a mug of coffee he hadn't touched. The dark liquid inside had long gone cold, but he couldn't bring himself to care. His focus was elsewhere, trapped in the unsettling silence of his thoughts.

"Willy..."

He could still hear the voice, raspy and distant, like wheezing winds through decaying autumn leaves. It was his grandfather's voice. It was the same voice that had plagued him as a child.

William Ashbury I...

His namesake. His father's namesake. Even before the man had died, his raspy voice had haunted him. His grandfather wasn't cruel with his words, but the sound was nonetheless a fright. And when the man had died, and the voice had started to make its way into Willy's nightmares... that was when it had really started to get to him. It had taunted him, terrorized him, driven him to wake in a cold sweat, heart hammering in his chest. It had whispered to him from the shadows, calling him, always calling him back to the mausoleum.

Willy squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the memory, but it was no use. The image of the Ashbury Mausoleum rose in his mind, unbidden, the air around it thick with rot.

There... his grandfather's corpse lay waiting for him, pulling him closer like it had him tethered to a string.

The dream always began the same way. Willy was standing in the graveyard, the fog so thick he could hardly even see more than a few feet out.

In the distance, just beyond the rows of crooked headstones, he could see the dark silhouette of the mausoleum, a hulking shape against the pale sky. His heart would start to pound as the mausoleum drew nearer, though his feet never seemed to move.

In the nightmare, he was pulled toward the mausoleum then, as if some invisible force had him by the throat.

He could hear the whisper, the rasp of his grandfather's voice, growing louder with every step he took.

"Willy..."

It wasn't a call or a beckon. It wasn't a command. It was the murmur of an old relative, brimming with desperate longing and aching with loneliness.

When he reached the door to the mausoleum, his hand would rise of its own accord, pushing the heavy iron door open. The sound of the hinges screeching in the silence made his skin crawl. Inside, the stone walls were always covered in a damp fluid, the smell of death and decay so thick it made him heave and choke. But it wasn't just the smell. It was the presence, the way the shadows seemed to move, to breathe, as though the mausoleum itself were alive.

And in the center, his grandfather waited, lying in the stone sarcophagus with the stone lid having already been removed. His grandfather's body was twisted and rotting but somehow... it was still alive. Its eyes were always open, staring up at the ceiling, but they would shift when Willy entered, locking onto him with a look that sent ice through his veins.

The voice echoed in his head, filling the space until it was all he could hear.

"Willy... you've come..."

Willy's legs would carry him forward as though they were not his own, even though he was screaming inside, begging his feet to stop moving. He would stand at the edge of the sarcophagus, staring down at his grandfather's decaying face. And then, just as always, the old man's hand would shoot out, grabbing him by the wrist, his fingers cold and wet like the grave itself. The mausoleum would rotate around him, the shadows closing in. And his grandfather...

...he would pull Willy into the stone tomb, force him inside, and seal him in the dark.

Willy could never scream. He couldn't move. He was dead in his body but alive in his mind.

He was trapped in waking death forever.

That's when he always woke up. Gasping for air. Drenched in sweat.

But it had been years since he'd had the nightmare. He had outgrown the nightmare when he was still young.

That is, until he dreamt of Leslie Johnson.

A few weeks ago, on a night like any other, he had woken from a horrible dream. Old Sam... and Caroline's niece, Leslie. Helen's girl.

She was running through the forest, surrounded by mangled trees, her hair wild, her eyes wide with terror. Old Sam was chasing her, his twisted face grinning like he had a secret, something only he knew about that gave him an edge no matter how fast she ran. It was the look of a gleeful dog chasing a rabbit in the woods. His crooked, leathery hands outstretched, always just a few steps behind her. His ghoulish white hair thrashing as it trailed in the air.

And ever since the night he dreamt of Leslie... he hadn't had one good night's sleep.

The recurring night terror of his grandfather's death trap had started up again... every single night... driving Willy to insomnia to escape the sight of the corpse's eyes shooting toward him as his body betrayed him and stepped through the doors of the mausoleum once more.

Willy's grip tightened around the mug as he tried to shake the images from his mind, but they clung to him, as heavy as the fog outside.

He had come back to Gossamer Loom to confront his nightmares. He had come back to prove to himself that they weren't real, to prove to himself that the mausoleum was just a mausoleum, and that his grandfather was dead and buried. But now that he was here, the lines between dream and reality were blurring, and he could hear that voice everywhere...

"Willy..."

The cherry red door of Pam's creaked open, and Willy looked up. His heart was suddenly warm as Coop walked in. His broad shoulders filled the doorway for a moment before he stepped inside, followed by Ivy. They spotted him instantly and made their way over, slipping into the booth without a word. Though their faces were weary, they both smiled. They had missed him, too.

Weren't they a sight for sore eyes...

For a moment, the three of them sat in silence, the weight of the reunion pressing down on them. It was bittersweet—the first time they'd gathered like this since the "good old days," and an irreplaceable party was absent:

Caroline.

Coop was the first to break the silence. "You look like hell, Willy."

Willy forced a smile, but it felt weak. "Yeah, well, you're not looking too great yourself."

Ivy gave a small chuckle, though it sounded hollow. "Looks like none of us are doing too hot, boys."

It was true. Time had worn them all down. Coop had the same strong frame he'd always had, but his eyes were tired, and his face was harder than Willy remembered. Ivy, too, looked worn, the years having etched creases of heartache into her brow that hadn't been there before. They were all older, yes, but it wasn't just time that had worn them down—it was the heavy burden of Gossamer Loom's ghosts.

They sat in the quiet hum of Pam's for a moment longer before Willy spoke, his voice low and hesitant. "I didn't come back here to stay."

Coop and Ivy exchanged a glance but remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"I came because the nightmares... the ones I used to have when we were kids, about my grandpa and the graveyard... they're back."

Coop shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Ivy, but neither of them said anything.

Willy went on. "But this time... God this is gonna sound so weird to you guys... I keep seeing Leslie Johnson in my dreams too. You know, Helen and Richard's daughter? She's in the fog, and Old Sam... he's following her. Watching her. I try to get to her, but I can't. I always wake up before I can do anything."

He looked up at them, hoping for some kind of reassurance, some sign that it was all in his head, but what he saw in their faces wasn't reassurance—it was understanding.

Ivy leaned in slightly, her voice soft but steady. "We've had dreams the about Leslie. About Old Sam. We've had them, too. And, you... do know the Johnsons moved back to Gossamer Loom?"

So they had come to town...

He hadn't been told about the Johnsons' move, but it was like some part of him had known, deep down, that they were here already.

They were all caught up in the same nightmare...

Coop nodded, his jaw clenched. "We didn't want to say anything in case it was just us being crazy. But it's the same dream. The Leslie part, I mean. With Old Sam. And that's not all. We saw Old Sam in the woods the other night. He was watching us."

Willy glanced over at Ivy in disbelief. She nodded with a joyless smile. 

 Coop went on. "He took me completely by surprise. My axe was down. He could have struck if he wanted to. But I don't think he did want to. Not just then, anyway. I think he was there to study us. I think he's waiting for the right moment to... well... I don't know what. But anyway, we sort of knew you'd tell us you were getting the dreams, too. We both just had this feeling."

Willy's hands trembled slightly as he stared down at the table. "A feeling? I thought... I thought I could come back here and prove to myself that's all any of this was. A feeling. That the mausoleum is just a mausoleum and my grandfather's dead. But now I'm back, and I'm not so sure... I don't know if it's just in my head anymore. I don't want to leave Gossamer Loom without going to the graveyard but..."

The thought of visiting the crypt sent a shiver down Willy's spine.

The thought of not going was worse...

"I don't know if I can do it," Willy admitted, his voice shaky. "I came back to face the mausoleum but... now I don't know if I can go."

Ivy squeezed his hand. "We'll go together. You won't be alone."

Before Willy could respond, the bell over the door chimed again. Josiah Loomridge strolled in. Willy hadn't seen him since he was a little boy! He'd gotten so tall! He had the same carefree grin plastered on his face that he used to have when he was in preschool.

Leslie Johnson followed behind him, her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, her eyes darting nervously around the diner.

My God... she was even wearing the same jacket... the same jacket from the dream...

What does Willy's grandfather have to do with all this? Keep reading to find out...