Knock Knock

Knock Knock.

It was a very odd sound. Not the type of knock that you usually come to expect from social normalities. It was a hollow knock. When you hear a knock you go to the front door to see who it is. But alas when I turned the cold brass handle to the cool breeze outside there was no one there. So who could have made that unprecedented sound, the sound that I had heard so many times before and had always been greeted with a response. I am alone.

It is a very big house, it could have come from anywhere. I turn around and close the door, my thoughts stir as they bubble up to the surface, one by one. The kids went to school with their father, it was only morning. The husband is surely on his way to work, maybe he had left something behind, yes surely that was it he had come back to get whatever it was. Yes. Yes. That must be it. But No. His car is not in the driveway. And why would he knock? He is not a guest in this house. We have not long been in this place, but his mind is not at all a piece that he would knock on his own front door.

Knock Knock.

There it is again. But it is not the front that this ghostly sound originates. Silence fills the air as I try to listen for the source. I make my way towards the kitchen. A kitchen is a kitchen. Many things knock and crash and bang in here. But not this morning. Not right now. I am alone. Nothing. It is probably just the house making noises, it is a very old house after all. In fact, I don’t really know how old it is. We have bought this house from the elderly couple who owned it and they had had it in their family for generations. They were a very odd couple. Not beautiful of the body as time had surely seen to that. But beautiful people, beautiful of the mind and soul.

They had been quite concerned for us though.

Best not to worry. I will turn on the television to ease my mind. I sit as the hour goes by and my mind wanders into the mind-numbing beat of the programmes that kill my brain cells. Much time has passed and no knock. Must have been nothing. It is a very old house after all.

Knock Knock.

I stop. I fumble for the remote control as the light crackle of noise cuts to zero. No. No. Come on. This is ridiculous. This has to be some sort of prank. Maybe it's rats in the walls. Rats?! God why does my mind think these things. I hate rats! Now we have them living in the walls. How many of them are in here? One could only imagine. I get up nervously and start to feel that phantom itch you get when you see a centipede eat a snake, I feel like bugs are under my skin and start to get nervous. I notice my first bead of sweat pour from my skin and I wipe it on my sleeve. It isn’t hot, but I sweat. I smile with the irony that I now face. I am sweating and the air is cool. I am hunting my primal fear in an old house that is making phantom noises.

I walk through the halls silently, listening for any signs of the noise. I move past the children's bedroom. I glance at the bed and catch a glimpse of a pair of eyes from under the bedframe. I stop so suddenly that I feel whiplash may be the next on my list of physical consequences to this madness. I tilt my head down to the spot I had noticed those grey cold eyes. But there is nothing. I stand there for what seems like an eternity waiting to be ambushed. By what? A pair of eyes that I may have just imagined. A trick of the light. I am sweating, maybe I’m having a breakdown. Maybe I should call the husband just in case.

The sun from the window catches my eye as reality comes flooding back in. I look around as I breathe in deep. I had forgotten to breathe. One foot in front of the other. That's all I have to do. Of course, it's so simple!! One foot, then the other. See? Easy. I walk past the eldest’s room. Empty. I reach the stairs, I have never much liked upstairs. It smells like 100-year-old laundry up there and I cant seem to get the smell out. It is a very old house after all. I turn to walk back down the hall and walk past the basement door that no one has touched since our arrival. It has been locked. The elderly couple did not have the key and said that they could not open the door at all in their 30 years of living there.

Knock Knock!

My heart is now in my big toe and my throat has clenched so tight I fear it may not unclench. That knock surely did come from behind that door. I had not imagined, I had not dreamed. It was a real knock, as real as the stream of cold sweat running down my brow. I reach forward and place my hand on the handle, I turn. The latch clicks and I feel the pop of the door as it unseals itself. This door has always been locked, hasn’t it? Yes. Of course, it has. No one had the key. I feel frozen in time. Do I open this door? Do I want to know or see? Will I see more eyes? That knock feels to be inquisitive now in my mind. I thought it to be of old age and rust, rodents, a neighbour coming to visit. But what if? What if it was a knock of urgency? A knock of release.

Knock Knock!

In the sudden rush of the moment, I pull the door open. Bring on all the atrocities of the moment! Nothing. Nothing but the dank, musty, odorous breeze that brushes past me from the swing of the door. Nothing is there. It is very dark at the bottom of the stairs. The hair starts to stand on my neck. As my palm begin to sweat along with my brow. I didn’t know I could sweat so much.

I notice the light switch. I flick it upwards but the light doesn’t come on. Must be a dead bulb. No surprises, this place hasn’t been opened in years. I stand limp in the doorway staring down into the blackness waiting for a sound. I don’t like the dark more than rats. I hate the dark and rats! And all of a sudden I see them!! As soon as they arrived they had gone again. A flash of grey. I had not forgotten those eyes. I now know what lay in my path. A knock or urgency from something with grey, steely eyes, trapped in the basement.

Knock Knock

A knock from down further into the basement rings up the mouldy wooden steps, runs up my big toe where my heart still resides, and up into my neck. No! I am not brave, I am not eager to meet the creature in the dark with the rats. I will run! I will run from the house until my family returns. I turn. I meet the gaze of steel, grey, moonlike eyes. Staring blankly into mine. I am unable to scream for if I scream, I will give myself away. That I am still alive. I swallow hard but the tension is too much. A soft whimper releases from my trembling lips as the figure lets out a screech.

I stagger backwards. But I have not closed the door behind me. My foot reaches emptiness as my body starts to fall. I reach out in front of me, for the figure, for the door, for anything that will stop me from ending up where I do not want to be. I look up as my body continues to fall and stare into the figure's eyes as her lips widen into a smile. She closes the door. Blackness.

SNAP!! My neck collides with the corner of the stair. As everything becomes easier to tolerate my body bounces to the concrete. I hit the bottom of the basement, unmoving, dark, broken. My eyes are awake but my mind is asleep. I am alone. Dead. I cannot speak. How do I tell someone? Am I to be trapped here forever. It is a very old house after all. How do I tell someone?

Knock Knock...