''Don't Answer the Second Knock''

When you grow up in a house like mine, you learn the rules early. My grandmother wrote them down in a little leather journal with brittle pages and faded ink. But the most important one wasn’t written down—it was spoken, whispered, drilled into our heads.

“Never answer the second knock.”

Not the first knock. That was fine. That was normal. Pizza delivery, mailman, neighbor kid selling fundraiser chocolate—safe.

But the second knock? That meant something else entirely.

I was twelve when I first heard it. My parents were out. I was home with my older brother, Jason. We were watching a horror movie, the kind that ends with one person standing and everyone else dead or worse. We were halfway through when someone knocked at the front door. A solid, polite knock. We both froze.

Jason looked at me and said, “You hear that?”

“Yeah.”

We crept to the door, as kids do when they’re trying to be brave. He peered through the peephole.

“No one there,” he muttered.

I stepped up. Nothing. Just our porch light flickering against the empty driveway.

We both stood there, not speaking. Waiting.

Knock. Knock.

The second knock came—louder this time. Heavier. Slower. Like someone knocking not with their knuckles, but with something…thicker.

Jason jumped back like he’d been burned.

“That’s the second knock,” he whispered.

And then, like a switch had flipped, he grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the door.

“Upstairs. Now.”

We locked ourselves in the bathroom, not saying anything. I asked him, over and over, what it meant, but he wouldn’t answer.

He just sat there, pale as bone, arms wrapped around his knees like a kid half his age.

Later, after my parents came home, Jason told them what happened. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t accuse us of lying.

Dad just nodded slowly. “Good. You didn’t answer.”

Years passed. I moved away, tried to forget the old rules. But some things stay with you.

Last fall, I came back to the house. My parents had retired to Florida, and I was only in town to handle some paperwork, clean the place up, maybe sell it.

It was strange being back. The wallpaper was peeling. The stairs creaked louder than I remembered. But the rules? They still lived in the air like dust.

I stayed one night. Just one.

It was raining, the kind of rain that sounds like fingers tapping the windows. I was in the living room, sipping tea, scrolling through my phone when I heard it.

Knock.

My heart did a slow, cold somersault.

I stood up. Moved to the door. Looked through the peephole.

No one.

Just the storm.

And then—

Knock. Knock.

Lower. Slower. Like someone was drawing their hand through something thick and wet, then letting it fall against the wood.

I backed away. Every hair on my arms standing at attention.

That’s when I remembered something my grandmother said. Not in the journal—but in her voice, years ago, when I was barely old enough to understand:

“It knocks twice because it wants you to open it. The first knock is permission. The second is invitation.”

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in the hallway, staring at the door, waiting for a third knock that never came.

It’s been six months. I don’t live in that house anymore. I never went back.

But last week, in my apartment three states away, it happened again.

Knock.

I knew that knock. It was friendly. Casual. Familiar.

I stood still. Didn’t breathe.

And then:

Knock. Knock.

I looked through the peephole.

There was someone there this time.

Not a monster. Not a ghost. Just a man in a delivery uniform, holding a clipboard.

Except…

His mouth was too wide. His smile didn’t touch his eyes. And his eyes—God—they didn’t blink.

I didn’t open the door.

He waited. Five minutes. Ten.

Then he turned and walked away. But his feet didn’t make any sound.

I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what happens if you answer the second knock.

But I do know this:

Wherever I go, it follows.

It will find me again.

And someday, I might not be strong enough to resist.

So if you’re home alone, and you hear it—

One knock. Then another.

Please.

Don’t answer the second knock.