The Whistling Gate By Silke Phillips

The Whistling Gate is an atmospheric folk horror story inspired by Irish mythology and ancient legends. When an ordinary journey leads to an encounter with a place steeped in old beliefs, the familiar landscape begins to reveal unsettling secrets. Blending folklore, suspense, and supernatural horror, this haunting tale explores the enduring power of stories that refuse to be forgotten.

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The Whistling Gate

There is a gate in County Wicklow that whistles when the wind blows through. Any dog that walks past it will get inexplicably excited. And if you find it, do not ever open it.

It is somewhere in the countryside, next to a narrow, winding road. I cannot tell you where exactly, because it never seems to be in the same place twice.

It looks like just another metal gate that keeps cows in their meadow or gurriers out of a field. But when the wind blows through, it whistles, a haunting, howling tune. And if you walk your dog past it, the poor animal will yip and bark, and sniff and scratch, and pull on the lead, and neither of you will understand why, exactly.

You should never open a gate that is not yours, of course. That is just common decency and common sense. But for this gate, that goes doubly so. Do not open it. If you do, do not walk through. If you find it open, close it quickly. You do not know what will come through, blown in on the wind that whistles so loudly. You do not know, and trust me, you do not want to know.

When I was young, I knew a lad called Brian. He came by the whistling gate one night, he says, on his way back home from the pub. He was drunk, of course, stumbling and swaying. He swears he only held on to the gate to steady himself. Maybe that's true; maybe the beer made him think it was a good idea to open it. Whatever the case, the gate swung open in his hands.

He says he looked behind it, because of course he did – who closes their eyes or turns their head when opening a gate? He won't tell me or anyone what he saw. But I know he saw something – something that left him with a twitch in his eyes and a tremor in his hands. He was a healthy, happy young lad, too, newly married and without a care in the world, but after that night, he was never the same. His wife told her friends he woke up screaming every night.

His friend Tommy went looking for the gate the next night, after Brian told him about it. Whether it was to prove him right or prove him wrong, I don't know. He went to the field where it was supposed to be, but there was no whistling, even though the wind blew all night and shook the leaves off the trees. There was a gate, all right, but it was made of wood and looked like it hadn't been moved in a lifetime, certainly not the night before. It was half overgrown with brambles and ferns, Tommy said.

He half thought Brian had been telling tall tales, that he’d made it all up to scare his mates. Only, the twitch and the tremor, those were real. I don't think Brian could've faked that, and neither did Tommy.

He worried about that for a few days. Thought that something must have happened to Brian, and that he made up that story to explain what it did to him because the truth would be too embarrassing. Although he couldn't imagine what that might be.

Then he found the gate. He was taking his dogs for a walk – he had two beautiful labrador retrievers, the sweetest, most well-behaved dogs you’ve ever met. They listened and obeyed at a single word. Usually. But that day, while he was walking them along one of the narrow, winding country roads around the village, they suddenly got inexplicably excited. Barked and barked and wouldn't shut up, he said, and pulled on their leads like they were huskies with a sled. He could barely hold onto them.

And then, despite all the ri-ra they made, he heard the whistling.

He rounded a bend in the road, and there it was. It looked like just another metal gate at the entrance of a field. But as the wind blew through, it whistled a tune so eerie, Tommy said, that he got goosebumps in the middle of a sunny day.

He went up to it, and he swore he was bent on opening it and seeing whatever Brian saw, but his dogs were going wild at this point. Each was dragging him in a different direction, toward the gate, away from the gate, round and round in circles. He had no choice but to give up and take them back home, he said, and that was already hard enough.

He went back that same day, to that same place. Only the gate wasn't there anymore. He retraced his steps twice but couldn't find it. That was when he started believing Brian had been telling the truth about everything, he said. Because maybe Brian could have been mistaken about where exactly he saw the gate and what exactly he saw behind it, being drunk and it being late at night. But there was no way Tommy could be wrong, he said. It was broad daylight, and he was as sober as a judge. The gate had been there, he knew the place, and now it wasn't there anymore.

He shuddered a little when he told everyone about it that night at the pub. Like the whistling was still echoing in his ears all these hours later. His mates teased him, but they were uneasy, too. Tommy was known as a no-nonsense kind of bloke, one who didn't believe in old wives’ tales and superstitions. But now he seemed convinced that there is a cursed gate that changes places.

That evening ended on a somewhat sombre note. Nobody would admit it, but Tommy's story had rattled them. There were jokes, but the laughter was subdued, and once their pints were empty, everyone found a reason to go home. I don't know for sure, but I’d wager a lot of folks listened for whistling on their way home.

The next day, though, everyone was cheerful again. None of them had seen the mysterious gate, after all, or even heard it, and it seemed like a story again, a tale to tell next to a crackling fire, to scare little boys away from straying too far. They joked again, and laughed more loudly this time.

“You seen the whistling gate again, Tommy?”, they asked. “Did you maybe dream of it? After your ma whistled you a lullaby?”

They all laughed, even Tommy, although he clenched his teeth a little. Only Brian didn’t join. He stared into his pint as if there was an answer to life’s questions in the foam.

Someone elbowed him. “Come on, Brian. Are you still spooked from that one night? That’s been weeks ago now.”

Brian looked up and grinned – or at least, his right side grinned. The left corner of his mouth stayed down, and his left eye twitched. “S’all well and good to joke about it when you’re in a cozy pub”, he said. “Just be careful when you walk home. Don’t go opening any gates. Not even by accident. That’s all I’m saying.”

He took another drink. The glass shook slightly in his hand.

The others exchanged a look. One twisted a finger above his temple, “Poor Brian’s had something shaken loose up there”, and everyone broke into laughter. Everyone except Tommy, that is. He reached across the table and clapped a hand on Brian’s shoulder. Brian reached up and grasped his friend’s hand.

“Don’t go opening any gates, Tommy”, he repeated.

“Don’t you worry, Brian”, Tommy reassured him, but he didn’t look him in the eyes. Because, I think, at that point he had already made up his mind to find the gate again, and to open it and see what lies behind it. He didn't say anything, but I know the laughter hurt him. Especially because he was not prone to getting spooked or falling for superstitions.

He went looking the next day. Barely waited until he got out of work, and then, instead of going home, he went wandering the countryside, listening for that whistling.

He didn’t tell anyone about it, but some neighbours saw him walking among the fields like he was looking for something. And they saw him more and more often. Every day, it seemed, and so people started to talk.

The following weekend he met his mates at the pub again. They had heard of his strange behaviour, of course, and they teased him, but he shrugged it off. He must have been sure he would show them once he found the gate again, or maybe it already took up so much space in his mind that the jokes just bounced off. Once again, Brian didn't join, just nursed his pint and looked worried, but Tommy didn't mind that either.

On Sunday he went to mass, and it seemed to bring him some peace. But on Monday he was at it again. All evening and half the night he could be seen wandering, searching and listening. His friends started worrying, and I think two or three of them tried to talk him out of it. But he wouldn't hear it.

When they next met in the pub, there were fewer jokes and more worried glances. They promised they believed him, they swore up and down that he was still the same old no-nonsense Tommy in their eyes. He shrugged it off like he had the jeers. And come Monday evening again, he was back to searching.

This time, he took his dogs with him. They had noticed it before he did the last time, he reasoned. And they did not disappoint.

It still took him all week. But on Friday, when his mates met at the pub again, he wasn't there. They joked half-heartedly that maybe the gate sickness had laid him up, or maybe his wife had had enough of all the searching and locked him up for his own good. But deep down they worried. Especially Brian. His hands shook more than usual when he lifted his glass. He kept staring at the door, as if willing Tommy to come in and be his old self again.

When the door finally slammed open, though, Brian was just taking a sip of his beer, so he wasn't the first to see Tommy come in. He needed both hands to steady his glass at this point, and even so he almost spilled his drink when the door banged against the wall.

Tommy still had his dogs with him. They looked as spooked as he did, wild-eyed, half cowering and half bristling, hackles raised, their paws and his boots covered in mud. All three were out of breath, as if they’d run from wherever they were all the way to the pub. Everyone stared at them, but Tommy only had eyes for Brian. He staggered to the table, his dogs slinking after him and hiding under the bench.

“I found it”, he declared, his eyes searching for and finding Brian's. “I found the damn gate. Again.”

“You opened it”, Brian said.

Tommy just nodded, his eyes big as saucers. The dogs whimpered.

“Did you close it?”, Brian asked. Tommy stared at him, wide-eyed.

Brian’s hands shook so violently he had to grasp the table to steady himself. “Did you close it, Tommy?”

Tommy’s gaze flickered away. He opened his mouth, sputtered a bit, closed it again.
Then he dropped the dogs’ leads and ran back out of the pub.

“What the devil was that about?” one of the other lads asked. Brian shook his head. He didn’t say a word, just emptied his pint with one long draught and waved the glass at the barman, signalling for a refill.

Conversation all but died. A few of the lads whispered to each other, but they soon reverted to exchanging glances, and an uneasy silence fell over the table.

Their glasses were empty and they were getting ready to leave when Tommy returned. He was even more dishevelled, his eyes darting from side to side frantically, his body tense as a coiled spring.

“It’s gone”, he gasped. “I can’t find it anymore.”

Brian hugged him. “Maybe nothing will come through”, he mumbled, but everyone could hear he did not believe that himself.

Tommy nodded solemnly and returned the hug. “Maybe you’re right.” Still, he kept looking around like someone being hunted. Then, abruptly, he released Brian and pushed away from the hug. “You’re right”, he declared in a shaky voice. “Nothing will come through. I just got spooked. It’s been a long day. I need some sleep, is all.” He turned around and staggered off.

“Wait, what about your dogs?”, one of his mates called, but Tommy was already outside. The blokes exchanged a look. Brian sighed. “I’ll take them for now. No need to let the poor beasts be harmed. And the missus loves dogs.” He picked up their leads, and after some coaxing managed to get them out from under the bench. “Don’t you worry now”, he told them in a soothing voice. “I’ll stay as far away from that damned gate as you could wish.”

They took their leave, and everyone went their separate ways. None of them slept well that night, but I think maybe Brian wasn’t the only one who had nightmares.

When Tommy didn’t show up in the pub on Saturday evening, there were no jokes, only worried glances. Last night had left them all unsettled, and although none of them would have admitted it, they had all hoped that he’d be back the next night, well-rested and in a better mood, cured of his obsession with the gate and ready to laugh at it with them.

His empty seat stared at them. His absence, and the fear they had felt from him the night before, suffocated any attempt at small talk. They all silently sipped their drinks, glancing at the door every now and then, hoping for good old Tommy to come back.

When their glasses were empty, they got up. They didn’t need to say anything to agree where they would go.

Tommy’s house was dark and silent. His dogs were still at Brian’s home, so there wasn’t even the usual barking to greet the group.

“He just went to bed early”, someone suggested, but nobody believed it.

They passed the fence and turned onto his driveway. The door gaped at them like a toothless scream. It wasn’t just broken, it looked like it had been punched with a giant fist, the door frame bent and the wall around it cracked.

Each further step was slower, more hesitant. But on they went, up to the wreckage of the door and into the hallway. Its walls, too, were cracked, spiderweb fissures spreading from gouges on both sides. Every door was ripped from its hinges. The stairs to the upper floor were broken, the banister splintered.

They picked their way around the jagged edges of the floorboards and made their way upstairs, to the main bedroom. Its door was a heap of splinters. One of them reached around for the light switch, but it, too, had been ripped out. All he could feel in the dark was crumbling plaster and chipped brick. It smelled like dust, and blood, and something else, something indescribable.

Someone found the staircase light and turned it on.

The window on the opposite side was broken, its frame and panes smashed into the yard below. Ripped curtains fluttered above a broken sill. The bed was empty. The bedspread was turned back neatly, the duvet rumpled and the pillows slightly askance, as if Tommy and his wife had just gotten into bed and arranged everything just so.

But where their bodies should be there was nothing but a half-dried pool of blood, already soaked deep into the mattress, and the hoof prints of something that should not walk the earth.

There is a gate in County Wicklow that whistles when the wind blows through. Any dog that walks past it will get inexplicably excited. And if you find it, do not ever open it.

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Silke Phillips is a freelance writer, editor, and translator from Germany who has found a new home in Ireland. In her fiction, she likes to explore the uncanny. In her real life, she enjoys art and crafting, cooking and eating, reading and writing, and her big fluffy dog and husband.
Socials: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/silke-phillips-1a3945208/)
Website (https://www.text-und-lektorat-phillips.de/en).