I Work as a Locksmith. These are my SCARIEST Stories.

My name is Benjamin and I've worked as a locksmith for 14 years now. Most people only call me when they lock their keys in a car or pull a door shut without checking their pocket. Those jobs make up most of my week. I've also opened offices, replaced locks after people moved into new houses, repaired old safes, [music] and cut new keys for almost every kind of door you can imagine. I like locks because they are simple. [music] Even an expensive lock is only a group of small parts arranged in a certain way. If one part breaks, I can replace it. If a key is lost, I can usually make another. The work requires patience, but it makes sense. A lock does not become angry, doesn't lie, does not decide that it wants to remain closed. People, they are much harder to understand. I learned that early. Some customers leave out important details. Others want a door opened even though they have no right to enter it. Before I touch anything, I check identification and I ask why I was called. If the answer feels wrong, I leave. And that rule has kept me out of trouble more times than I can count. It did not protect me from the jobs in this story. The jobs were not connected. They happened in different years to people who had never met. I simply spent enough nights opening locked things to learn that some of them contain more than anyone expects. These are the six calls I still think about. The first call came from a man named Malcolm shortly after 11 at night. He sounded embarrassed and he took a long time to explain the problem. He said he was locked inside an upstairs bedroom in his own house. The bedroom door had a padlock on the hallway side which meant he could not reach it. He was alone. The front door was unlocked and he wanted me to come inside. I asked the obvious question. If he was alone, who'd locked him in? Malcolm did not answer immediately. Then he explained that the room was normally used to store a collection of dolls that had belonged to his mother. After she died, he packed the dolls into the spare bedroom. At first, the door had an ordinary lock. Several months later, Malcolm began hearing voices talking inside the room at night. He added a padlock to keep the door closed. That evening, he heard laughter downstairs. When he went into the hall, he discovered the spare bedroom door standing wide open. The padlock was lying beside it, and the room was empty. Every doll had somehow been moved to another part of the house. Malcolm stepped inside to check the closet. The door closed behind him, and by the time he reached it, the outside padlock was secured again. I don't know if you guys are like me, but I am really good at putting off doctor's appointments. I've definitely had times when I knew I should make an appointment, but I kept telling myself, I'll do it tomorrow. Then tomorrow turns into next week, and suddenly I've put it off way longer than I meant to. And honestly, part of that is just the hassle of booking one. 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Taking care of your health just got easier. So, click the link and check that appointment off your to-do list. He'd been trapped for almost 2 hours before calling me. I told him that I would need proof that he lived there. He said he could slide his license and a piece of mail beneath a door. When I reached him, and that was enough for me to make the drive over and inspect the situation. The house stood at the end of a quiet street. I knocked, announced myself, and called Malcolm before entering through the unlocked front door. "I'm upstairs in the last room on the left. Please watch where you step," he said on the call. I understood the warning. As soon as I turned on my flashlight, dolls covered the living room floor. There were at least 50 of them. Some sat against the furniture while others lay on their backs. I saw porcelain girls, cloth animals, wooden puppets, and plastic babies. They appeared to have been carefully placed throughout the room. A narrow path remained open between the front door and the stairs. I followed it slowly, keeping my tool bag close to my side. The dolls did not move. Their eyes did not turn toward me. Their hands remained in their laps or beside their bodies. I watched them closely enough to be certain of that. Halfway across the room, a child laughed near the fireplace. I aimed my light in that direction. Four dolls were sitting on the brick ledge. One was made of wood. Two were porcelain, and the smallest had a cloth face with black buttons for eyes. All four remained still. Another laugh came from the dining room, followed by several quiet voices. More dolls sat around the table as if waiting for a meal. I went upstairs [music] without touching them. The hall was nearly empty except for three dolls sitting together beneath a window. Malcolm's license and an electric bill were waiting outside the last door. The information matched the address. A heavy brass padlock held the closed exactly as he described. "Yeah, it's my license. Open the door and then we both need to leave," he said. The padlock was fully closed with no string or wire attached. Someone in the hallway had placed it through the hasp and pressed it shut. The lock itself was not difficult. I inserted a tension tool and began lifting the pins. As I worked, more laughter arose from downstairs. It came from several places at once with one voice beginning before another ended. Some sounded like children. Others were low and rough. The voices became quiet enough for me to hear a few words. >> The keyman came. He's opening the room. He shouldn't open that room. I stopped and looked behind me. The three dolls beneath the window were still seated in the same positions. The hallway remained empty. Malcolm asked whether I was close. I told him I needed another minute and continued working. The voices downstairs began laughing again. But nothing came up the stairs. Nothing struck the bedroom door or touched my tools. The house remained physically still while the sounds moved from room to room. The last pin settled. I turned the cylinder, removed the padlock, and opened the Malcolm pulled the door inward. He was a thin man in his 40s, dressed in sweatpants and an old shirt. The spare bedroom behind him was completely empty. Dustless rectangles on the shelves showed where boxes and dolls had been stored. Hey man, thanks for coming. Um, look, don't touch any of them. He ain't staying here tonight. He put on his shoes and followed me quickly downstairs. Every doll was exactly where I remembered it. I never saw a head turn or a hand move. Near the front door, Malcolm stopped so suddenly that I almost walked into him. He was staring at a porcelain doll seated on a small chair beside the coat rack. It wore a pale green dress and held one arm across its lap. Something brasscoled rested beneath its fingers. It looked like a key. Malcolm did not go near it. I couldn't remember whether the doll had been holding it when I entered, but Malcolm was certain. That key was hanging on a hook beside the spare room. They took it, he said. I placed the opened padlock on a table and left with him. He did not lock the front door. He climbed into his car and drove to his sister's house while I packed my tools beside the van. Before I left, I looked through the living room window one final time. The dolls remained still. The porcelain doll in the green dress still appeared to have the key resting beneath its fingers. And then the house filled with laughter. Another strange call came from a collector named Felix, who hired me to open an antique safe in his warehouse. He collected almost everything. clocks, medical tools, paintings, old toys, religious items, and pieces of furniture that had been removed from abandoned buildings. His warehouse was clean and carefully organized, but I disliked it from the moment I entered. Too many glass eyes and painted faces seemed to watch from the shelves. The safe stood near the back wall. It was made from black iron and reached almost to my shoulders. A brass dial sat above a thick handle. Felix had purchased it from the estate of another collector, but nobody had found the combination. He showed me the bill of sale and asked me to avoid drilling through the door. I wanted to know what he expected to find inside. Felix said the safe was supposed to contain a rare medical object. He would not explain further. That was strange, but not illegal, and collectors are often secretive about valuable purchases. I sat in front of the safe and began testing the dial. Old combination locks can reveal small changes through sound and pressure. The work is slow. I turned the dial, recorded the points where I felt resistance, and repeated the process until a pattern began to form. After 10 minutes, something tapped from inside. It was a soft, clear sound. Three taps came close together, followed by a pause. Then the same three taps came again. I removed my hand from the dial and listened. The warehouse is quiet. Felix stood several feet behind me with his hands folded. He did not look surprised. How long has it been making that sound? I asked. Since the first night it arrived. It only taps after sunset, he replied. That was information he should have provided before I started. I told him so. Felix apologized but claimed that he did not want me to arrive with an opinion already formed. He suggested that an old clock might be inside. I looked at the safe, the sealed door, and the calm expression on his face. I considered leaving then. The sensible part of my mind told me that the tapping could have a normal cause. An object might be settling as the warehouse cooled. A loose piece of metal could be moving inside the door. The safe had crossed several states in a truck, and I had no idea what condition it was in. I continued. The tapping changed as I worked. When I turned the dial slowly, one tap followed each small movement. When I stopped, the sound stopped, too. It felt as though something inside could hear the mechanism and was waiting for me to finish. Felix moved closer. He watched the dial with more interest than he'd shown when I arrived. I asked him to step back and let me concentrate. He obeyed, but his eyes remained fixed on the door. It took almost an hour to identify the combination. When the final wheel aligned, the handle moved beneath my hand. The heavy door opened with a dry middle sound, releasing air that smelled of dust and old leather. The safe contained one silver tray. A dried human hand rested on it. The hand had been cut off several inches below the wrist. Its skin was dark and tight, and every nail was still in place. A thin chain circled the wrist and ran through a steel ring bolted to the back of the safe. A small padlock secured the chain. The index finger lifted and tapped the tray three times. I stepped away from the door. Felix leaned forward with an expression I can only describe as relief. The other fingers slowly opened and closed. The hand did not crawl toward us or pull hard against the chain. It simply tested the links and then tapped the tray again. Open the smaller lock, will you? I'll pay three times your normal rate," he said. I replied, "No." Felix reminded me that he owned the safe and everything inside it. He was probably correct, at least in a legal sense. That did not mean I had to help him. He asked what had changed. I'd been willing to open the larger door without knowing what was behind it. I explained that now there was an alive human hand. Felix smiled as though I'd confirmed something important. He knelt in front of the tray and studied the hand from only a few inches away. Its fingers turned toward him. The thumb and index finger closed around one link of the chain. I packed my tools. Felix did not try to stop me. He had several small picks of his own in a case nearby, and he opened them while I walked toward the front of the warehouse. Behind me, metal scraped against metal. The hand began tapping faster. The sound followed me past the cabinets, clocks, and rows of painted faces. By the time I reached the exit, the taps were so close together that they sounded like applause. I do not know whether Felix opened the small padlock. He never called me again and I never returned to that warehouse. I sometimes wonder whether the chain was meant to prevent the hand from escaping or to prevent Felix from taking it somewhere else. The cemetery call came on a quiet evening near the end of summer. A young man named Owen had driven to a small family cemetery deep in the woods. He went there to clear weeds from his grandmother's headstone before the anniversary of her death. The iron gate was open when he arrived and its padlock was lying open beside the stone wall. Owen worked until the light began to fade. When he returned to the entrance, the gate was closed. A chain had been wrapped through the bars and the padlock was fastened on the outside. The wall was too high to climb safely, and the trees were too thick for him to find another way out. His truck and all his tools were outside the gate. He called me while he still had a weak phone signal. The cemetery belonged to his family, and the name on the license matched several names carved into the stones. I told him to remain near the gate and sent him an estimate of how long the drive would take. The final road was little more than two dirt tracks through the woods. Branches brushed both sides of my van, and I passed no houses. After leaving the highway, the cemetery appeared around a bend, surrounded by an old stone wall. Owen's truck was parked nearby. He stood behind the iron gate with a phone raised above his head. The chain was exactly as he described. It'd been wrapped twice around the bars and secured from the outside. There was no way Owen could have reached it from where he stood. He showed me his license through the gate, and I began working. Well, the padlock was old and badly rusted. I placed a light on the ground, cleaned the keyway, and tested the internal parts. While adjusting my light, I noticed a woman standing among the headstones. She was near the far wall, perhaps 60 ft from the gate. Her dress reached the ground and her pale hands were folded in front of her. At first, I assumed another family member had entered before Owen. And then my light moved across her body and I could see the dark line of the wall through the lower part of her dress. I looked toward Owen. He was facing me and hadn't noticed her. Farther to the left, an old man stood beside a tree. He wore a dark coat despite the warm evening. A third figure was visible near the rear corner of the cemetery. All three were pale and partly transparent. None of them moved while I watched. I returned my attention to the lock. My hands were steady because the work was familiar. But every few seconds I looked beyond Owen. The woman had moved several feet closer. I hadn't seen her take a step. More figures appeared in the distance. Some stood beside bedstones. Others were partly hidden by trees. Their clothing came from different times. They did not speak, point, or reach toward us. They only watched. Owen started to look over his shoulder. I stopped him without raising my voice. Stay near the gate and keep facing me, I began. There are people behind you, but they're still far away. He understood from my face that I did not mean ordinary people. He moved closer to the bars. I worked lubricant into the keyway and lifted each pin carefully. Forcing the lock could have broken my tool and delayed us, so I treated it like any other difficult job. The ghost continued drawing nearer, but it never felt like a chase. I would concentrate on the lock, look up, and find them standing a little closer. The woman reached the middle row of graves. More figures filled the spaces between the stones, but they left a wide empty area around Owen. The final pin resisted. I changed picks, reduced the pressure on the cylinder, and tried again. Behind Owen, the first woman was now about 20 ft away. Her head was slightly lowered, and I could see the shape of a headstone through one shoulder. "Are they getting closer?" he asked. I said, "Nothing." Owen placed both hands around one iron bar and waited. The last pin lifted. The cylinder turned and the padlock opened in my hand. I removed the chain without dropping it. Owen pulled the gate inward just far enough to pass through, then stepped beside me. Only after he was outside did he turn around. The cemetery was filled with silent figures. They stood along the paths and between the graves, all facing the gate. The woman in the long dress was nearest, but she was still several yards away. She didn't hurry forward when she saw the open entrance. I closed the gate. The iron latch settled into place, and I wrapped the chain through the bars as I'd found it. When I snapped the padlock shut, the figure seemed to become less clear. Well, Owen and I quickly collected my light and tools. The ghost did not come closer again. They simply watched from the other side while we returned to our vehicles. As I drove away, I looked once in my mirror. The gate was closed. The chain remained in place, and the pale figures were still standing quietly behind it. Irene had directed funerals for more than 20 years. She was calm when she called me, but her reason for calling was unlike anything I'd heard before. A coffin in a private room had been sealed and locked for 2 weeks. That evening, while checking the building before closing, she heard something scratching inside it. The body belonged to a man from a large private family. They had supplied their own antique coffin and insisted that it remain locked whenever a family member was not present. The burial had been delayed while relatives traveled from overseas and the family completed paperwork for a private cemetery. Irene had personally prepared the body 14 days earlier. She'd seen the man, checked his identification, and watched a relative lock the coffin afterward. The family kept the only key. Irene had called their contact number several times with no answer. She did not want to ignore a sound coming from a sealed coffin, but she also didn't want to damage an expensive family object if the noise had an innocent cause. She asked me to examine the lock and determine whether I could open it without harm. The funeral home was closed when I arrived. Irene met me at a side entrance and showed me her ID, the family records, and the family's written instructions. There was no question that she had the authority over the room and a professional reason to investigate. The coffin stood alone beneath dim ceiling lights. It was made from wood so dark that it appeared black. Narrow strips of dull silvercoled metal reinforced the lid. A thick mechanical lock was built into one side. I walked around it before opening my tools. Nothing scratched or moved. Irene explained that the first sound had lasted only a few seconds. 10 minutes later, she heard it again, moving from the head of the coffin toward the center. She called me immediately after that. I asked whether an animal could have entered the room. She showed me the sealed windows and the intact coffin. Even if a mouse had reached the room, it couldn't have entered a locked box that had not been opened in two weeks. There was one possibility neither of us wanted to discuss. A living person might somehow be inside. Irene rejected it because she'd prepared the body herself. But I still placed my ear near the lid and listened. Something scratched the underside of the wood. The sound began near my left ear and traveled several inches. It was slow and light, like one fingernail being drawn across the lid. I stepped back. Irene had heard it, too. Her face lost what little color it had. "That man was dead," she began. "I worked on him myself. He's been inside for 14 days." I believed that she believed it. I also believed there was something inside the coffin. Making a deliberate sound. Leaving a living person trapped was not an option. So, I prepared to open the lock. I told Irene to stand back and call emergency services if we found anyone alive. The lock had three rows of pins and a stiff central mechanism. It was not damaged and no key had broken inside it. I applied light pressure and began testing each row. The scratching stopped. A deep breath came from beneath the lid. It lasted long enough that no settling board or hidden animal could explain it. Air moved through a narrow seam around the coffin, carrying a faint, sweet smell from inside. Irene took another step toward the wall. And then a man laughed. [laughter] "You may open it now. The sun has been down for more than an hour," the voice said. I removed my tools from the lock. The man inside breathed again. His fingers scratched slowly along the lid. "What should we do?" Irene asked. I reminded her that the man had mentioned the sunset before either of us had said anything about the time. [music] Irene looked toward the covered windows. The family had given strict orders that the coffin remain locked whenever they were absent. They'd also kept the only key and stopped answering their phone after dark. Those facts felt more important than the voice. Please continue, the man began. I have been waiting long enough. The words were polite, but the scratching grew louder. It moved from one end of the coffin to the other, paused near the log, and began again. The silver colored strips across the lid, gave a faint rattle. Whatever was inside did not sound weak. After 2 weeks without food, water, or air, I closed my toolcase. Irene took the family's papers in the room key from a nearby table. We left the coffin exactly as it was. She locked the private room from the hallway and said she would contact the family [music] again at sunrise if they wanted their coffin opened. They could bring their own key and explain what they had placed inside her building. As we walked away, one final sentence came from the closed door. almost. Oh, well, I can wait another night. Irene arranged for the family to collect the coffin the following morning. They arrived shortly after sunrise, refused to answer her questions, and removed it without holding the planned viewing. The burial was moved to their private property. Irene never heard from them again. I never saw what was inside that coffin. I only knew that the body had been dead for 2 weeks. The speaker cared that the sun had gone down and his family had taken great care to keep the lid locked. That was more than enough information for me. Harvey called me one winter afternoon and asked for the strongest outdoor lock I carried. He lived on a farm beyond the edge of town. The pat on his barn had bent during the previous month, and he wanted the hasp, chain, and lock replaced before sunset. The unusual part was that his brother Lucas planned to remain inside the barn. I refused to accept the job until I spoke with Lucas. Locking one person inside a building, for another person is a good way to lose a license or end up in court. Harvey said he understood and asked me to come early enough to inspect everything while there was still daylight. The farm was quiet and well-maintained. The barn stood several hundred ft from the house with no livestock or equipment around it. Heavy wooden boards covered the lower windows. Steel bars protected the smaller openings near the roof. Two iron plates reinforced the main doors and an old chain passed through rings bolted to the frame. The existing padlock was bent along one side. Lucas was waiting outside with Harvey when I arrived. He was a large, tired looking man wearing workclo. He showed me his identification and explained that entering the barn was his choice. He needed to remain there from moonrise until morning. He said he'd been doing this for several years and the damaged lock was the result of the previous month. I asked why a normal person could not simply remain inside without locking the door. He looked over at me and said, "Because I won't be normal after dark. Finish the lock and wait until the moon rises. Then you'll understand." Lucas was calm, sober, and clearly giving permission. The brothers had reinforced most of the building themselves. My job was simply to install better exterior hardware before nightfall. I began by removing the damaged hasp. The wood behind it was solid, but the old bolts were too short and had started pulling loose. I fitted thicker steel plates to both doors, ran long bolts through the wood, and secured them from the outside with locking nuts. The new chain was hardened steel. The padlock had a covered shackle that left almost no room for a cutting tool or saw. Lucas carried blankets and water into the barn. Shortly before sunset, Lucas stood inside the doorway and examined my work. He pulled on the interior handles to make sure the doors were seated correctly. Then he asked Harvey to close them. I passed the chain through the new rings and left the padlock open until Lucas confirmed one final time that he wanted it closed. Like it now, he began. And whatever you hear later, do not open it before sunrise. I closed the padlock for a while. Nothing happened. Harvey and I stood beside my van as the light faded over the fields. Lucas spoke through the door once to say that he was fine. And then the full moon rose above a line of bare trees. Lucas stopped talking. His breathing deepened. Fabric tore. The change took several minutes. Harvey watched without speaking. Something large stood inside. Its footsteps were heavier than Lucas's. They crossed the floor slowly, stopped near the doors, and moved away again. The creature did not throw itself against the building. It paced as though learning the limits of a familiar room. I approached only close enough to inspect the new hardware. The chain remained loose and the metal plates had not shifted. A narrow space between two boards allowed a small amount of light to pass through. A shape moved behind it. For a moment, I saw part of a face covered in coarse hair. One dark eye looked through the opening. Below it, the shape of a jaw extended farther than any human jaw should. A clawed hand rested against the inside board, close enough that I could see the curved ends of its fingers. It was unmistakably a werewolf. The creature watched me, then turned away and continued pacing. I returned to the van. The lock had already been installed. There was nothing else to do. After several minutes, the werewolf leaned its weight against the main doors. The chain tightened, the new plates held, and the padlock remained straight. "It only needs to hold until sunrise," Harvey began. "By then, Lucas will be himself again." "Please, um, please don't tell anyone about this." As I drove toward the road, a long howl rose from inside the barn. It carried over the empty fields without being followed by a crash or the sound of breaking wood, and that was a good thing. Now, the largest amount of money I was ever offered came from a woman named Sylvia. She represented a small group that had purchased an old stone estate outside the county. During renovations, workers discovered a sealed staircase behind a basement wall. At the bottom was a metal door that Sylvia described as an underground vault. She offered me $100,000 to open it. Now, no ordinary locksmith receives that kind of money for one door. Sylvia repeated the amount and said, "Half would be paid before I began and half when the door opened." I asked what was inside. She claimed the former owner had hidden records and valuables before his death. The property now belonged to her group, and she could provide every document I needed. Two other owners, Trent and Gordon, would be present. The amount, of course, made me curious. I agreed only to inspect the door and reserve the right to leave. The Greystone estate stood at the end of a private road. Construction vehicles were parked outside, but the workers were gone. Sylvia met me and Trent and Gordon. Their documents were in order, and Sylvia transferred the first half of the payment before leading me downstairs. The basement wall had been opened around a narrow stone staircase. Temporary lights ran along one side. The air became colder as we descended. At the bottom, the stairs entered a square room built from blocks much older than the house above it. The metal door filled most of the far wall. There was no wheel, handle, or visible hinge. Seven keyways formed a circle around an iron plate. Heavy bars and chains had been removed and placed along the wall. The stone around the door was covered in drawings. The lowest row showed people beside a closed door. In the next, the door was open and a tall shape stood in the entrance. The remaining rows showed people running, screaming, and covering their faces. The final image showed the door closed again with heavy lines across it. Their meaning seemed simple. Something came through the door. People screamed and died and someone closed it again. Sylvia dismissed them as old religious art. Trent said the previous owners had probably carved them to frighten thieves. Gordon said nothing. He remained near the staircase and avoided looking directly at the door. I noticed the seven keyways controlled different parts of one mechanism. The design was old and unlike anything I'd opened. The scratches showed that someone else had tried. Trent said the construction crew removed the bars and chains, then saw the drawings and refused to return downstairs. Everything about the room told me to leave. Still, the ownership papers were real, and I had opened frightening looking doors that held only documents. I began without promising to finish. The first two keyways were simple. I aligned their internal levers and felt both sections release. Nothing moved behind the door. The third was more complex, requiring several false starts before a hidden piece settled into place. A soft click traveled through the metal. Sylvia moved closer and asked me how much longer I needed. I told her there was no way to know. I'd never seen the lock before, and opening one section could change the pressure inside another. She reminded me of the payment waiting when the door opened. I continued. For 2 hours, the room remained quiet. I heard only my tools and the owners shifting near the stairs. By the fifth keyway, I understood that each section held one bolt inside the wall. All seven would have to release in order. I was getting close. Gordon finally asked Sylvia whether they should stop. She told them to go upstairs if he was frightened. He stayed where he was. The sixth section was the hardest. When it released, a deep sound came from inside the wall and dust fell above the door. Only one keyway remained. "What do you really expect to find in there?" I asked. They didn't answer. Instead, Sylvia said, "Open it tonight and we'll double your payment." I lowered my tools and examined the drawings again. My work light struck them from the side, making every carved line easier to see. The tall shape in the doorway had no face. Thin marks spread from it toward the people in the next row. The people were not simply running. Some were tearing at their own eyes. Others had fallen while figures behind them continued to scream. The drawings were not decoration. They were a warning. I felt something inside me change. It wasn't a voice or a vision. It was the same basic feeling that tells you not to enter a room filled with smoke or step onto ice that has begun to crack. Everything in my mind became very clear. Then the money no longer mattered. The open sections of the lock no longer felt like progress. I knew only that finishing the final section would be terribly wrong. I removed my pick. Yeah. You know what? I'm done. You can have your money back. I won't open it. and I suggest you put the bars and chains back exactly where you found them. Before leaving, I reversed the six sections I had opened. Resetting them was much faster now that I understood the mechanism. I heard each bolt slide back into the wall, then tested every keyway. All seven were locked when I packed my tools. I'd not damaged or opened the vault. Nobody followed me. Behind me, Sylvia and Trent discussed cutting equipment while Gordon told them to leave the door alone. I drove away without looking back. And at the highway, I felt relieved. I had walked away from a small fortune, but maybe escaped something terrible. The following morning, the estate was on the news. Sometime in the early morning, an explosion destroyed most of the house. People miles away felt the ground shake. The blast killed all three owners. Firefighters found no survivors. The early reports blamed a gas leak. Later reports said the estate had no active gas service. Investigators considered stored fuel, old explosives, and construction chemicals, but none explained the size of the destruction. The official cause remains undetermined. One detail never appeared in the larger news report. A local deputy who reached the property before the fire spread told the newspaper that he heard screaming, but they found no one. Now, I know that I did not open the vault. All seven bolts were locked when I left. But Sylvia and Trent had cutting equipment, money, and several hours. Sometimes, I think the explosion destroyed whatever was behind the door. Other times, I remember the deputy's description of screams. I still work as a locksmith, although I no longer accept every unusual job. I open cars, repair house locks, and help business owners who have misplaced their keys. I like those ordinary calls more than I did before. There's comfort in opening a door when you know who's standing on each side of it. Now, the six jobs did not give me a grand theory about the supernatural. I do not know why dolls would lock their owner in a room, what kept a severed hand alive, or why ghosts gathered around Owen in that cemetery. I cannot explain the man inside the coffin, or the change I witnessed in Lucas. I certainly cannot explain what happened beneath the stone estate. I only learn to respect the reason a lock is there. Most locks protect something valuable from the people outside. A few protect the people outside from whatever has been placed behind them. The two kinds can look exactly the same, especially when someone is offering you a lot of money to ignore the difference. [music] >> [music] [music]