Sarah found the cabin through a handwritten flyer tacked to a gas station wall. Four hundred dollars a month. Remote. No questions asked. Directions appeared in her mailbox the next day with no stamp and no return address.

She didn't ask questions either. When you're running from a man like Daryl, you take what the universe offers.

The cabin sits in a mountain hollow so deep the sun only reaches it four hours a day. Across the creek, a ruined church sags into the earth. The rent checks keep coming back uncashed. The landlord, A. Johnson, doesn't seem to exist.

The hauntings start immediately. Cabinets opening. Glasses sliding off counters. A kitchen chair that drags itself across the floor to face the church, like it's keeping watch.

Jessica, twelve years old and more perceptive than any child should need to be, figures it out before Sarah does. The ghost isn't trying to scare them.

It's standing guard.

Because Daryl is coming. Whatever rode his anger for years, whatever fed on his cruelty and grew fat on Sarah's fear, has hollowed him out completely. What pulls into the driveway at two in the morning isn't her husband anymore. Its eyes are black. Its body moves wrong. And it is so, so hungry.

The woman who was hanged behind that ruined church three centuries ago knows about hunger. She knows about men who consume. And she has been waiting a very long time for someone worth protecting.