A Knock at the Door

Thump, thump, thump …..

Maggie knew that sound and her blood ran cold. He was here again. She hesitated before starting toward the door. Knowing she would find nothing but a pile of rib bones on her porch, she chose again to acknowledge his knock. The door was old and rusty and creaked accordingly as she slowly opened it.

And there they were, a small pile of bones, not ribs this time, but fingers maybe? She wasn’t sure but she looked out into the dark, seeing nothing past the light thrown from her intensely bright porch lights.

“Please stop doing this”, she yelled into the night. She knew it would do no good to yell, but felt she at least needed to try.

She left the bones where they were, and slowly closed the door again knowing that pile of fingers would disappear and in the next day or two be replaced with a new pile of bones.

Maggie, tall and slender, was a very pretty girl who chose to live alone after her husband was killed in a terrible car wreck. Dennis has been gone for almost a year now. The “bones guy” as she referred to him, had been coming to visit her for about 5 months now. Never really frightening, just creepy. Never having been seen by Maggie but she knew he was there. Always leaving her a gift every couple of days.

What was the purpose of this ritual? Was there something the bone guy was trying to tell her? Was it actually a bone girl and not a bone guy? That thought hadn’t even occurred to her until just now.

“I think I always just assumed something creepy would be from a guy and not a girl,” she thought out loud.

Maggie climbed into her warm queen size bed. Now the bed just seemed lonely because it was way too big for just one person. Her blue and gray checkered quilt was all tangled around her legs just as she liked it. It felt like a warm hug. Her eyelids became heavy and she drifted off to sleep, hoping not to dream about the bone guy again. He came to her in her dreams, or were they nightmares, but she never really saw his face. His presence was just a heavy, over-powering, deathly feeling on her body and mind. It drained her.

Thoughts of him were ingrained in her every waking moment. That long walk from her sofa to the big old creaky door had become a routine in her house now. One she did not look forward to.

Wednesday night rolled around and there was so much quiet and stillness in the woods around her house, she thought “he won’t be coming tonight.”

She was wrong. Her grandfather’s old wall clock chimed the midnight hour and as it finished its last plunking sound, there was a knock at the door.

She quickly thought about calling the police again but instantly dispelled that thought. She was sure they thought she was nuts. She had called after the first two deliveries and they tried to convince her it was probably a friend pranking her. She didn’t have friends like that, and if she did, they would have been gone from her life very quickly.

Maggie made that slow walk toward the door thinking this would be like every other delivery night. She was so wrong!

The door swung open to reveal a tall, dark caped man standing on her doorstep. He didn’t utter a sound. He reached his hand out to Maggie who willingly took it. She was not afraid. Calmness flowed through her and the pair disappeared into the night.