Knock Knock

by Adam Dark

  My sister said I was lazy, but I refuse to believe it. It's not that I won't do my chores, clean my room, bring the dirty clothes down, or fold my bed. It's just I'd rather not. What's the point of cleaning if it's just going to get messed up again the next day or that night?

  My belief is that you clean only when you need to. That is, when you have no more clean underwear to go to school or no bowls for cereal. Those were my two greatest fears and the only reason why I gave in and helped with the dishes and laundry.

  My left arm went numb.

  "Earth to Ben, are you with us?" Nico asked.

  I rubbed my arm where he had punched me.

  "Where do you go when you do that anyway?" Nico asked.

  "Just thinking about stuff," I said.

  "It's weird. You don't want to turn into Henry, do you?" Nico asked.

  We both glanced over at Henry who was sitting on the same stump when I had first arrived reading the thesaurus. From the looks of it, he was halfway through. If I had his memory I'd never have to study again. I'd rule the world and have my own mansion with dense forests, mountains, and tree houses everywhere. I'd spend all day in the water—unless I was sleeping.

  "I didn't think so," Nico said.

  He swam to the shoreline and climbed up the wooded steps we had nailed into the side of the tree. There came a scream shortly after followed by a loud splash. Max's head exploded out of the water like a geyser. His arms flailed in the air.

  "Help!" he yelled.

  I swam over and helped him to his feet.

  "It's shallow," I said.

  He was slightly shorter than me and his head barely broke the surface. He bobbed back to shore and crawled out like a sopping wet cheetah. He collapsed on the dirt and held his knees to his chest the rest of the afternoon.

  It took some self-convincing, but I soon made my way up the tree ladder and launched myself off of the platform. The first time was always the most exhilarating and the most nerve-racking. We jumped and swung off our tree fort until the sun began to hide its head behind the horizon.

  It got darker faster in the woods. And if we weren't careful, we could get stuck in the dark. We were all walking through the woods back to the road when Nico came up beside me.

  "So, I was thinking. We should go check out the house," Nico said.

  I was shaking my head before he finished his statement.

  "Just hear me out," Nico said.

  "I'm not going to get killed just because you want to break some stupid record," I said.

  "It's not about the record."

  He paused, then a grin spread across his face.

  "Right," I said.

  "Ok, so it's about the record. You know I can beat it," Nico said.

  "No one's saying you can't," I said.

  "Good! So you'll come with me tonight?" Nico asked.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  "You can't be serious," I said.

  "Dead serious," he said.

  I didn't miss the emphasis on the first word.

  "Not going to happen. My mother is expecting me home before it gets dark. You know what she'll do to me if I'm late again," I said.

  Nico grabbed me by the arms and spun me around.

  "It'll be quick. It's basically on the way back. We'll go up, I'll break the record, and we'll have you back home before your mom's famous tater tot casserole comes out of the oven," Nico said.

  He was asking me to do two things. One, go with him to the haunted mansion on 101 Wry Road. A place I had no intention of ever going no matter how cool some might say it was. And two, invite him over for dinner. He couldn't resist my mom's tater tot casserole. I didn't blame him. It was one of her best. And if I was being completely honest, the reason for my denial of joining him to the black house was more for food than fear.

  All of the swinging, climbing, and swimming had sapped the energy from me. My stomach groaned at the thought. I was famished and couldn't wait to get home so I could shove that deliciousness down my throat and then go to sleep.

  I hummed just thinking about it.

  Nico jerked me back to the present.

  "So you'll come?" he said more than asked.

  I began to refuse.

  "The others are coming too. Even Max," he added.

  I looked over to the other boys as they walked behind.

  "Max? You're joking. He'd never agree to something like that," I said.

  Nico smiled.

  "I can be pretty convincing," Nico said.

  I rolled my eyes when he used that charming smile that always allowed him to get the extra scoop of ice cream at Herald's Creamery & Shaved Ice. Nico claimed it was because he was nice to the man who owned the place, but I argued it was because he had a crush on Nico.

  Nico denied this but I knew he liked the thought. He wouldn't like it so much if that man ever decided to do something about his unhealthy affection toward Nico, but that's a story for another day.

  "I'm not going," I said.

  "You've got to! We're all going," Nico said.

  "Not me. I'm going home to eat and go to sleep," I said.

  I picked my bike off the ground where I had dropped it when I had first arrived and swung my leg over. I was about to pedal off when Nico blocked my departure.

  "Look! Come with us tonight and I'll never tell anyone about your accident in gym class," Nico said.

  "You swore you'd keep that a secret," I said.

  "And I will if you come with us tonight."

  "You're the devil," I said.

  He clapped his hands together and jumped like a cheerleader. Sometimes I wondered if he shouldn't be the one tumbling and flipping through the air. He seemed to have a natural knack for it.

  He clasped me on the back and picked up his own bike.

  "It'll be fun! We'll only be there for a moment, then we'll go back to your place," he said.

  I sighed.

  I fell in line behind the others as we raced toward the house on the hill.

  4

  It took longer to get to the entrance to the long driveway than I thought. The sun was already almost completely submerged beneath the horizon. If I wasn't home within the next ten minutes, my mom was going to kill me.

  If I was still alive after this, that was. Nico was already pedaling his way up the driveway.

  "Nico!" I shouted after him as quietly as I could.

  The old orphanage was the only home in this section of town. It sat perched on a hill overlooking the rest of the homes in Riverdale. The paved road that made its way all the way up here was the only morsel of industrialized civilization in the area.

  It was so dark already that I couldn't even see the roof of the house from here. The uncut grass climbed scraggily toward the sky like giant fingers. They resembled corn stalks and the mazes we'd go through during Halloween. Except this grass you could actually get stuck in and you'd have real danger coming after you.

  Nico pedaled back down the dirt driveway and skidded to a halt by my feet. Dust whipped up my ankles.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  The others were all huddled around the entrance. Their faces were as white as the moon peeking its head in the dark sky.

  "It's late. I need to get home. Let's do this another day," I said.

  "We're already here. Let's just bike up, check it out, and then we'll leave," Nico said.

  "My mom is going to be worried where I am if I don't show up in the next ten minutes," I said. "And if I come waltzing in late, she'll send me to bed without dinner, followed by a verbal lashing."

  "You've had worse," Nico said.

  That was true but beside the point. My parents stopped spanking me when I was eight. I think they figured it was no longer effective or needed. Samantha on the other hand, she never got spanked. My parents would just ground her to her room and not let her talk to her friends. Some would think they had tied her to a gurney and were torturing her.

  Me on the other hand, threaten me with no food or sle
ep, and I would do just about anything you asked of me. So far Nico wasn't pleading a good argument for his case. Maybe I would be a good lawyer.

  "I'll come back tomorrow with you, I promise. We'll have all the time you want then to investigate the premises," I said.

  "We're already here. You said it yourself, you're already late for supper," Nico said.

  "In ten minutes I will be," I said.

  Nico's charm wasn't working, and he was becoming noticeably frustrated.

  "Fine! I'll go by myself," he said.

  He wheeled his bike around and pedaled up the steep drive. The rest of the boys looked to me for what they should do. Max was shaking and looked like he was on the verge of crying just by being at the end of the driveway.

  He never would have come had he not been forced. I could only imagine what Nico had over him for him to have to agreed to come. But then again, Max lived near Nico. Maybe he was just afraid to go home by himself and by coming along here with the rest of us insured he wasn't.

  It's a funny thing how people will follow even when they're terrified and going against their gut instinct. Right about now, everything in me was telling me to turn around, leave this behind me, and go home. But I didn't. In fact, I did the most irresponsible thing I could have done, I went after Nico.

  The others fell in line after me. Max was the last one to join and quickly caught up to me. He didn't want to be the last one in line. “That's where the monsters got you,” he would say. He had watched way too many horror movies when he was younger. There were no monsters here, just an old house in a secluded area that no one had visited in many years and was supposedly haunted by the ghost of the man who had killed his wife and child. No biggie.

  Disregard the rumors of the place and it was just another abandoned house, overgrown by nature. It was no different than the old farm homes or broken-down gas stations that were being plowed over to make way for another shopping center. Those weren't scary because there wasn't some mysterious folklore about them. That's all this was. It was all in our heads.

  Then why was I so scared? I thought to myself.

  That's the question that ran through my mind over and over again as we biked up the half-mile driveway. The reedy grass was as tall as small houses and swayed in the breeze. I tried to keep my eyes on Nico up ahead, but his silhouette merged with the tall grass around us and became another shadow.

  I pedaled faster when there came a loud snap to my right. I didn't wait to find out what was rummaging around in the grass. Max all but beat me to the yard. The rest of the boys skidded to a halt behind me. Nico's bike was lying on the ground, its back tire still spinning.

  I scanned the clearing. While the grass seemed to be breathing as it loomed all around us, the clearing was void of any life, almost as if someone had plowed it and dumped a bunch of dirt in its place. I found Nico's dark frame seconds later.

  He was standing by the edge of the porch about to go up the steps.

  "Nico!" I shouted.

  I regretted it the moment the words came out of my mouth. My voice echoed up to the house and all around us. The reeds swayed as if they were alive. A whine like the sound of a whistle danced along their bobbing heads. I heard someone jump behind me.

  "Sorry," Peter said.

  He had dropped his bike and caused Ian and Max to screech. Their screams meshed with my own words. If there was anyone in the house, they knew we were here now. There was no hiding our presence. If someone or something was going to kill us and eat us for dinner, now was the time.

  Nico turned around and walked up the steps. I drew nearer but remained a safe distance from the porch. Safe being enough space for me to hop on my bike and bolt down the hill as quickly as I could at the first sign of danger.

  Nico was on the porch now. The rotted floorboards creaked as he walked back and forth. He went up to one of the windows and peered inside. He turned to face us.

  "It's empty," he said.

  "Keep your voice down. Someone might hear you," Ian said.

  Max nodded enthusiastically. He had wanted to say it, but fear kept his lips sealed except for the chattering of his teeth.

  "No one's here!" Nico shouted intentionally.

  He stomped on the porch and shouted as loud as he could.

  "You hear that! We're not afraid!" he yelled again.

  He rushed over to the front door and knocked three times. He stood there like a triumphant warrior who had just won a mighty battle. My eyes traced up the porch to the balcony and window above. Something moved in the window. My heart froze.

  "Someone's inside!" I shouted. "We need to get out of here!"

  "Don't be such a wimp. You and I both know no one's lived here for years," Nico said.

  "Wild animals might have made it their home," Henry said in a low voice.

  He couldn't help himself, but he also wasn't dumb enough to bring more attention to himself.

  "Henry's right! There might be animals in there. Let's go! You've had your fun," I said.

  "How much time has it been?" Nico asked. "I can't leave until I've broken the record."

  "Forget the record. We need to leave," I said.

  "Forty-three seconds and counting," Henry said.

  Nico pointed and smiled.

  "You see! I can always count on Henry to set it straight. I'll wait another two minutes and then we'll leave," Nico said.

  The wind picked up and the reeds began to sway violently. Invisible wind chimes clanged in the breeze and added to the eeriness of our surroundings. I glanced up at the window on the third floor again. The shadow was gone. The moon suddenly broke through a stray cloud and shined its light inside.

  It was just an old rocking chair.

  I cursed under my breath for being such a coward but was secretly glad I had been wrong. There was no one inside the house. There was nothing to be afraid of. The tension was subsiding, and I was beginning to believe my own lies when the front door opened.

  I opened my mouth to yell for Nico to run but no words came out when I saw the door open and a hand stretch out. His body suddenly jerked inside and the door slammed shut. It all happened in the blink of an eye. We all started screaming and ran down the driveway as fast as we could.

  If the track coach had seen us he would have recruited us all for the four-by-four-meter-relay. We had to have broken records with how fast we ran that half-mile back down to the road. We didn't stop to look back until we were clear of the driveway and the stone gate and wall.

  My chest was heaving. My lungs burned from the chilly night air. While it was hot during the day, it was strikingly colder at night. Such was life when you lived near a desert. Though it was fifty miles away, its arid habitat affected all the surrounding cities.

  The others weren't fairing any better. Max had fallen on the way down and came huffing through the gate a whole thirty seconds later. His face was blanketed in tears and he looked like someone had sucked the blood right from his body.

  Peter was kneeling on the ground clasping his chest. He had his inhaler out and was trying to calm his heart rate. Henry and Ian were out of breath like me but stood with their arms over their heads.

  "What just happened?" Ian said.

  "Something just grabbed Nico!" Max whimpered. "We need to get out of here before it comes for us too."

  "We're not going anywhere until we figure out what just happened," Ian said.

  "If something grabbed Nico, we need to leave and get help," Max said.

  "By the time we find a phone and the police get here, he'll be dead," Henry said.

  He had no doubt already run the odds of Nico still being alive and was weighing our chances of turning up like him. From the flash in his eyes, it wasn't looking good.

  "The longer we stand here and do nothing, the sooner we end up like him," Peter said.

  He was in the worst shape of all of us. If something were truly in the house, he'd be the first to go. There was no way he'd be able to run as fast or as long as we could
with his respiratory problems. He was barely getting his breath now as it was.

  "Max is right," I said.

  "We can't just leave him," Ian said.

  "We aren't. You and I are going back up. You two go back to town and send someone up," I said.

  Ian's face flushed.

  "I'm not going back up there. You're out of your mind!" Ian said.

  "Someone needs to go," Henry said. "You both are the oldest and most fit, so it only makes logical sense that you'd be the two to do it."

  "Shut up, Henry! Enough with your logical conclusions," Ian said. "Or we'll send you up to find the creature that ate Nico."

  "You think something ate him?" Max asked.

  He began to sob even more and rock back and forth.

  "No, you whimpering idiot! Nico is probably fine," Ian said.

  The flash of uncertainty on his face told otherwise. We stood there in silence unable to make a decision.

  "I'm going," I said. "The rest of you stay here. If I don't come back in ten minutes, go for help."

  Peter stopped me with an arm.

  His face was sweaty but his breathing had almost returned to normal.

  "It's not safe," Peter said. And he leaned in closer so that only I could hear the next words that came out of his mouth. "What if there is something up there? What if it already killed Nico? What if it's just holding him as bate to lure us in?"

  I swallowed the knot in my throat. Peter was right. There was no knowing if Nico were still alive nor if our still being here was the best option for our own self-preservation. My pounding heart told me the answer but my adrenaline and loyalty to a friend kept me from fleeing like a coward.

  That was one thing my father had taught me. You never run from a fight. Why he was giving up on he and my mother's marriage was a different story. The truth was, everyone's a hypocrite, but that didn't mean the principles weren't worth following.

  "Ten minutes," I said to Peter. "Then leave."

  I headed up the drive before I came to my senses. I didn't bother looking back for fear my resolve would crumble. Walking up the long, dirt road was worse alone and on foot the second time. Every crack and whine of the reeds sent my heart in a tailspin and my head on the swivel. I had to have had no less than a dozen panic attacks by the time I got to the clearing.