For best reading, turn on some instrumental scary music from Youtube, turn down the lights, and listen carefully for the call of the Weeping Thief.

Updated 2015-10-31: If you want to hear this tale told instead of reading it, head on over to Blurry Photos and feast your ears upon Ghost Stories 4, where it is featured as one of their submitted stories!

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Weeping Thief

by Rick Cook Jr

The Weeping Thief is outside my inn door and I don’t know what to do.

How she knows me as a wanted man, a robber of banks, is unimportant. She is here. The Weeping Thief has come.

I know the stories. I could call out, but she’d silence me before help arrived. I could barricade the door but she’d find another way in. I could arm myself with flintlock or saber, but she’s impervious and relentless.

The song that children sing drifts out from under the door, a woman’s voice and yet somehow thin, translucent:

The Weeping Thief is come
to sweep away your dreams,
when night forever falls
no one will hear your screams. Continue reading →