Late Check-Out: Lights OutAt midnight the last light went out, and the front door opened onto the road north.

Late check-out

The manor's front door, painted red, standing open at midnight with a little warm light in the hall behind it, every window dark, and the road running away under a full moon. Nobody in sight.

You got out through the front door at midnight, and behind you every light in Sallowmere was out.

At midnight the last light went out, and the front door opened onto the road north.

The front door opens on its own, the whole width of it, onto the gravel and the dark road north out of London, the road Mr Pepys rode up in the plague year.

Your friends come out past you with their bags and their phones lit up, talking all at once, and none of them looks back at the house. You do. Every window is dark.

Your phone buzzes one last time:

Thank you for coming back. Check-out complete. P.

The forty days ended on St Martin's feast, in the plague year, and nobody came back to tell her.

Somebody did, on Halloween, three hundred and sixty-one years later.

Late check-out.

The booking app says the stay is complete, and asks you to rate your host. There is nobody to rate. The listing is gone in the morning.

Title earned: The one who came back.

Late check-out

Got out? Say so.