The Knock in the Alley

It was nearly midnight when Arif turned into the narrow alley that led to his house. The rest of the village was silent, wrapped in the kind of stillness that only comes after a long day of rain. The air smelled of damp earth and wet stone, and every step he took caused the mud to squish beneath his sandals. He lifted the small lantern in his hand higher, shielding the flame with his palm. The weak glow trembled, throwing shaky shadows across the mud-plastered walls that lined both sides of the alley. Those shadows stretched and curled in unnatural ways, as if they were alive and watching him.

Arif knew this path well. He had walked it countless times, during daylight and at night, yet that evening something felt disturbingly wrong. The silence wasn’t peaceful; it was heavy and suffocating, as though the air itself had weight. Even the stray dogs that usually barked at night were quiet, and the crickets had stopped their song. The only sound was the steady rhythm of his own footsteps, and somehow that sound made him more nervous than comforted. He pulled his shawl tighter around his shoulders, muttering to himself that he was only tired and imagining things.

Then it came—a sound that made his skin prickle. A knock. Soft and faint, like a single finger tapping on wood.

Arif stopped dead in his tracks. He held his breath and looked around. Every door in the alley was closed, every window dark. He could see no one. Swallowing hard, he forced a weak smile and whispered, “Just the wind,” though he knew perfectly well the wind never knocked.

He tried to walk again, this time faster, but the sound followed. Another knock, this time behind him. Then from the side. Then from ahead. Always faint, always near, as though something invisible circled him in the darkness. His lips moved quickly in a prayer his grandmother had taught him when he was a child, a prayer meant to drive away spirits. But the knocking did not stop. If anything, it grew more deliberate, like it wanted him to hear.

At the far end of the alley stood an old house that everyone in the village knew but few dared to mention. The walls leaned as though they might collapse any day, and weeds crawled across the crumbling stones. No one had lived there for decades, and the stories about it were many. Some said it was cursed, others said it was haunted. The most common tale was of a woman who had lived there long ago. Her husband had gone to the fields one stormy night and never returned. Some believed he had been taken by the river, others that he had simply abandoned her. She, however, never stopped waiting. They said she died with her ear pressed to the wall, listening for his knock on the door. And they said her spirit still waited.

Arif’s lantern flickered as he drew near the house. The flame stretched, sputtered, and then went out completely, leaving him in suffocating darkness. The silence lasted only a moment before the knock returned, louder now, sharper, echoing from within the house. Knock. Knock. Knock. Each strike rang in his chest like a drumbeat. His legs felt heavy, rooted to the ground as though the earth itself had caught hold of him.

Through the broken window of the old house, he saw movement. A pale glow, almost like moonlight, took shape. A woman stood inside, draped in a white shawl that hung loosely around her thin frame. She was facing the wall, her hand raised, tapping against it again and again with slow, patient rhythm. The sound was impossibly clear in the night air. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Arif’s breath hitched. Every part of his body screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t look away. His heart hammered as though it wanted to break through his chest. Slowly, the figure turned her head. Her face was hidden in shadow, but her eyes glowed faintly red, like dying embers in a fire. The sight froze him completely. It was in that moment he understood—she had not been waiting for her husband. She had been waiting for someone else. And tonight, she had been waiting for him.

Arif’s mouth opened in a scream, but the sound was swallowed by the alley before it could escape. Darkness closed in, and the last thing he saw was the woman raising her hand toward him.

The next morning, villagers passing through the alley found his lantern lying in the dust. Strangely, the flame was still alive, flickering weakly as though it had never gone out.