The Seventh Knock

Elena never believed in haunted houses, curses, or omens—until the knocking began.

She had inherited the house on Alder Street after her grandmother’s death, a crumbling Victorian tucked between modern apartment complexes. The neighbors called it “the quiet house,” but not fondly. They never made eye contact when they passed it. One even crossed the street to avoid walking in front of it.

The first knock came on her third night there.

A single tap at the front door, sharp and deliberate, just after midnight.

She opened the door and found nothing but a cold breeze.

By the fourth night, she’d started keeping a bat by the door. The knocks came again—two this time. Rhythmic. Calm. Always at 12:07 a.m. Never frantic. Never rushed.

By the sixth night, Elena had stopped opening the door.

She moved through the house in silence, afraid to speak aloud, afraid it might hear her voice. The knock came six times that night. Each one louder, closer, deeper—as if it were no longer at the door but moving through the walls.

On the seventh day, she went into town. Her eyes were hollow from sleep deprivation. At the café, the barista asked, “You in that house now? The one with the door?”

Elena hesitated. “What do you mean?”

The girl didn’t answer directly. Instead, she whispered, “Don’t let it get to seven.”

That night, Elena waited with every light on, the bat in hand, candles burning in the windows, as if flame could ward off whatever was creeping closer.

At 12:07 a.m., the first knock came.

Knock.

Then another. Knock. Knock. Her hands trembled. The air turned heavy, as if it had thickened with each sound.

Four. Five. Six...

She clutched her bat tighter. The final knock never came.

The silence was worse than the sound.

She paced the hallway for hours. Nothing. No creak. No whisper. No breath of wind. She finally fell asleep on the couch near dawn, one eye open, bat across her chest.

When she woke up, something had changed.

The house was colder. Not temperature-wise—colder, like something fundamental had shifted. The walls felt closer. The doors no longer opened with ease. The corners of every room held shadows that moved ever so slightly when she wasn’t looking.

In the bathroom mirror, she noticed something on her neck. A faint, hand-shaped bruise. She hadn’t been touched.

Had she?

Elena tried to leave the house that afternoon, but the front door wouldn’t open.

The knob turned, but the door held fast, like it had grown roots in the frame.

She tried the back door. Locked. Windows? Painted shut. Her phone had no signal. The house had trapped her.

Or worse—it was waiting.

That night, at 12:07 a.m., the seventh knock finally came.

But not on the front door.

It came from inside the house.

Elena froze. The knock echoed from the basement door, the one she had never opened, the one her grandmother always kept nailed shut.

Knock.

She backed away slowly. The bat was still by the couch.

Knock.

Seven total now.

The air went still. Her candle flickered out.

Then the door creaked open—slow, groaning, like old bones waking from slumber.

A whisper escaped the basement. Not a voice, not words—just breath, full of hunger and age.

Elena ran, slamming the door shut, jamming a chair against it.

She didn’t sleep. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe until morning light finally spilled through the curtains.

When the police arrived the next day—called by a concerned neighbor who hadn’t seen her in days—they found the house abandoned. The front door stood wide open. The basement door, too.

There were no signs of struggle. No blood. No body. Just a single message carved into the wood of the basement stairwell:

“Do not answer the seventh knock.”

They never found Elena.

But some nights, if you're near Alder Street—especially around 12:07 a.m.—you might hear it. A knock, slow and steady, at your door.

And if you do...

Don’t answer.

No matter how many times it knocks.