The Box That Knocks

It was one of those nights. The kind where time drags on and the world outside feels far away, as if everyone else were somewhere else, doing something else, and you were left behind in your own house, stuck in the limbo of boredom and solitude.

I was sitting at my kitchen table finishing up a work email when three knocks came from the door, steady and sharp.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound reverberated through the walls, echoing in the quiet. I glanced at the clock: just after 8pm. Who could that be? I wondered.

A delivery driver? I’d ordered a mini fridge, but I wasn’t expecting it for another two days.

A friend showing up unexpectedly? You don’t have any friends, dumbass.

A solicitor? Do they even work this late?

Instead of answering the door, I pulled out my phone and opened the Ring doorbell app. I'd check who it was and on the unlikely chance it was someone I wanted to speak to, I would do so through the speaker on the Ring box. Can't be too careful when you're a woman living alone, especially after dark.

I tapped on the live feed and was presented with my front porch.

There was no one there.

Apart from a few bugs repeatedly flying into the porch light, the stoop was devoid of life.

I moved the camera around, scanning the sidewalk, the driveway, the street, the bushes - no sign of anyone. The world outside was eerily still and quiet.

They left. Maybe it was a delivery?

The concrete of the porch filled the screen as I moved the camera down until I could see the welcome mat, or rather, the “WEL” mat as the other letters were obscured by a newly placed cardboard box. A package had been delivered, one that was shaped like a mini-fridge. I felt a jolt of excitement.

It got here early!

No longer wary of doing so, I ran to the door and threw it open with childlike glee. The cool night air smelled smokey and sweet as it wafted past, blowing a strand of hair over my eyes as I walked out onto the porch. I brushed it away and picked up the box, grunting with the effort it took to lift it. It was heavier than it looked, only about the size of, well, a mini fridge, but it had to weigh at least 60 pounds.

I really need to work out more; my noodle arms are shaking from two seconds of exertion.

With embarrassing difficulty, I hauled it inside and set it down, then quickly shut the door and locked it before bugs or God knows what else could get it. Not wanting to pick up the heavy box again, I slid it across the floor of the living room and into the kitchen. As I did, I noticed there was only one short strip of tape keeping the top of the box closed. It ran along the vertical gap where the two top flaps met and stopped a few inches short of the edges on both sides, barely keeping the flaps closed.

I frowned at it disapprovingly, although I should’ve expected it given that my cheap ass bought it off Temu for fifty bucks.

I slid it next to a chair by the kitchen table, deciding to open it in the morning. It was getting late and since I wasn't expecting it so soon, I didn't have any drinks to put in it anyway. I yawned, staring at my laptop through drooping eyelids. The email could wait until the morning too - that’s what Sharon got for trying to contact me during my off hours anyway.

I put on my pajamas, brushed my teeth, turned out the light, and settled under the covers. Despite how tired I’d felt earlier, it seemed it was only my body that wanted rest; my mind was wide awake, buzzing with activity. I lay there, blinking in the darkness, trying to quiet my racing thoughts when I thought I heard a sound from the kitchen.

Fff-thhhp

It sounded like paper shuffling, so faint it might’ve been imagined. I listened carefully, becoming more convinced that I was simply hearing things the longer I was met with silence.

With a sigh, I rolled over, pulling the covers up to my ears. My thoughts drifted to the box. I realized that I’d never gotten any notifications that it had been delivered, or that it would be delivered early. I couldn’t remember which mail carrier I’d used, so I decided to look and see who delivered it.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, opened the Ring app, and hit play on the second most recent recording of movement. At first, there was nothing, only the porch light flickering intermittently. Then, the dark, grainy footage showed a woman walking up to the door with a box in the darkness. She looked -

I paused the video and sat up, quickly turning on the light as I stared, incredulous, at her face. I squinted, trying to discern if it was a trick of the light or if she really did look exactly like me.

Well, not exactly. Our hair and facial features were identical, but her face was gaunt, pale, her eyes rimmed with dark circles and set deep into her nearly translucent skull. She had the exact same tiger tattoo on her right arm, but that was the only thing about her body that matched mine. I was slightly overweight, whereas she was deathly thin, little more than skin clinging to bone. She wore the clothes I’d been wearing that day but they hung loose on her emaciated frame as though she had shrunk inside them. Her shoulders hunched unnaturally, arms too long, fingers curling around the box like claws.

I felt my skin crawl, an icicle of fear running down my back. A lump of dread formed in my throat and I tried to swallow it down, but my mouth had gone dry.

I watched my ghastly twin set the box down at her feet and waited for her to knock and walk away.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she opened the flaps and stepped inside it.

And then her body began to change.

Her limbs twitched once, twice, then I watched, horrified, as they began to twist and contort. Bones snapped and protruded at unnatural angles, joints bent backward in quick, jerky movements, skin shifted and tore. It was a mercy that there was no sound, I could only imagine the sickening cracks, pops, snaps, and clicks. The body shriveled and collapsed in on itself as though it were made of wet paper, compressing, becoming smaller, denser, until, impossibly, it fit into the box.

In the span of a few seconds, she had gone from standing in the box to conforming to its exact shape and size like a cat. I could no longer see her due to the angle of the camera, but I could imagine a cube of flesh and bone and hair, elbows pushed into knees, knees twisted over shoulders. The neck turned fully backward, facing up at the door.

Then, out of the box came a disfigured hand, rising up for the door with fingers bent every which way. Unable to form a fist, she - no, it - smacked its knuckles against the door three times, steady and sharp.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Then it retracted back into the box, but not before grabbing the cardboard flaps and pulling them shut.

I sat in bed, mouth dry, heart hammering against my chest like a trapped bird. The phone began to tremble in my hands as I stared at the screen in shock and horror, watching myself as I opened the door and brought that - that thing inside my house.

Terror gripped me with an icy hand as an awful realization dawned on me. With sickening clarity, I knew that I hadn’t imagined the shuffling noise. It was real, and it was the sound of cardboard flaps being opened, the whisper of tape peeling back.

As if on cue, I heard the sound of footsteps in the living room, growing louder, closer.

Shit, shit, SHIT!

A human shadow, long and unnaturally pointed, began to creep across the floor and up the wall at the end of the hallway to my room.

The sight of it dumped panicked adrenaline into my system and I sprang out of bed, ran to the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. I backed away, my mind racing as fast as my heart as I tried to figure out what to do.

I could hide, but it would eventually find me and then what would I do? Fight? This thing obviously wasn’t human, therefore I had no idea what it was capable of. It could crush me into a human rubix cube for all I knew. I grabbed my phone off the bed, intending to call the cops but my mind screamed at me, there’s no time!! Run, you idiot! Go out the window!

My eyes darted to the window, then back to the door as the shadow of feet appeared under it. The doorknob rattled. Heart pounding, I ran to the window, threw it open and began kicking at the screen with all of my might. As I kicked, I risked a glance at the door.

I wish I hadn’t.

It was still closed, but there was a pale arm sticking out from under the crack, ending in long, twisted fingers that reached up for the knob like skeletal tree branches. The arm looked like it was being steamrolled as it squeezed under the door, flattening down to barely an inch and then filling out again.

A scream rose in my throat, raw and desperate, and I hurled myself through the window. I ran until I was far enough away to consider myself out of immediate danger, but close enough to still see the house. I kept a close eye on it while I spoke with the police, surveying all the exits.

I never saw it leave.

Only when flashing red and blue lights turned onto my street did I close the distance I’d put between me and the thing that was still inside my house.

I refused to go inside as the police conducted a thorough sweep of the house. Instead, I waited outside on the porch, fearfully peering in.

I could see the box sitting innocuously on the kitchen floor, the flaps hanging wide open. The police paid it no mind, unaware of the monstrosity that had hidden and crawled of it twenty minutes earlier. When I called, I told them there was an intruder, but I made sure to omit any details that might make them think I was either crazy or pulling a prank on them. I didn't show them the Ring camera footage either. What was the point? No matter how much I insisted it was real, it could've easily been passed off as a scene from a horror movie.

It was possible that the thing had left and I’d missed it, but I doubted it. I knew it was still in there, hiding in the air vent, under the couch, hell, even the toilet tank, just waiting for me to get too close. There was no way in hell I was going back in that house, so I asked the cops to grab my keys and wallet. Once they’d left, I drove for a good half hour until I reached the city and checked into a hotel.

That’s where I am now, writing this on my phone.

The hotel is pretty busy and being around other people brings me a modicum of peace, so I’m going to stay here for a while. I don’t know if this thing can find me regardless of where I am - I don’t know anything about it: what it wants, what it is, why it looks like me. The more I think about these unknowns, the more frightened I become. I’m hoping and praying that someone out there can help me. Please, if you know anything about what the hell is happening to me, please let me know.

Please.