Knock Knock

by Adam Dark

  What was happening? I paced the study trying to figure out what to do. We needed to get out of here, but there was some invisible force keeping us from leaving. I had almost managed it but nearly died in the process. And now Nico was on the verge of bleeding internally from swallowing glass particles that were placed in the wine.

  I thought back to the pancakes and eggs. Had anyone else eaten them? Had anyone else drunk the wine? I racked my memory. It had only been Nico. Everyone else should be fine. Someone yelled.

  When I came around the corner, Peter dashed through the living room and ran upstairs.

  “Peter!” I shouted after him.

  He disappeared. My attention was forced away.

  “Get off of him!”

  It came from the kitchen. Dread seeped a little deeper. My heart tried to crawl out of my throat when my eyes found the scene in the kitchen.

  Ian was clasping his stomach while Max was hovering over Henry, trying to pry him off of Nico. But that’s not what curled my stomach in knots and made me want to fall to my knees and die.

  It was what Henry had in his hands. The butcher knife was stained red and protruded from Nico’s chest. Nico wasn’t moving.

  “Nico!” I cried—but couldn’t move.

  Henry threw Max off of him and continued to hack away at Nico’s lifeless corpse. I rushed forward and lunged into Henry. The knife went skidding across the tile. Henry and I rolled and he managed to pin me down.

  His eyes were wild and drool dripped from his lips.

  “I’ll kill you!” Henry roared.

  He clamped his hands around my throat and squeezed. It was like a vice grip. Henry was too strong. I couldn’t break free. I could feel my body going numb as the oxygen failed to reach my head.

  “Henry, stop…” I gurgled.

  Henry squeezed tighter. His strength was supernatural. His pupils were fully dilated and expanded the entirety of his eyes. His teeth even turned into sharp razors as he pushed down.

  “You should have left when you had the chance boy…” Henry spoke. It wasn’t his voice but some demonic one.

  “Now you will all die because of you…”

  I gripped Henry’s arms, but my strength was failing. My vision blurred. I had maybe ten seconds before I passed out.

  “Henry…stop…please…” I gasped. It was the last of my oxygen. My throat contracted and everything went dark, then the pressure released.

  The demon possessing Henry screeched as if injured. I rolled onto my side coughing. Henry writhed along the kitchen floor like a deformed beast. His back was contorted on itself and he crawled around on all fours with his head cocked backward.

  The butcher knife stuck out of his back, just above the shoulder blade. He was trying to rip it out with his teeth. Ian walked up from behind and slammed a heavy frying pan against the back of Henry’s head. His body collapsed but continued to squirm like a snake whose head has been chopped off but the body still moves.

  Ian yanked the knife from Henry’s back and reached over and slid the blade along his neck. Henry’s body stopped five seconds later. I held my neck, coughing.

  Ian’s body was shaking. His face was soaked with tears. He tossed the knife to the side, his hands trembling.

  “What have I done?” he croaked.

  He fell to his knees and sobbed. I crawled over and checked Henry’s vitals. The blacks of his eyes were normal and his face no longer had the sharp fangs or disfigurement.

  I placed my hand over his eyes and closed his eyelids. I did the same to Nico.

  “What the hell is happening to us?” Ian said.

  “It’s this house,” I said.

  I summoned my strength and got to my feet.

  “We need to get out of here before it kills us all,” I said.

  “I can’t go,” Ian said. “I can never forgive myself for what I’ve done.”

  I grabbed him by the arm and lifted him to his feet. Max was whimpering in the corner still. He had returned to his normal self.

  “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die,” he kept repeating.

  “Max, we need to go before this thing comes after us,” I said.

  Max’s eyes were mush. He had clawed them out. Ian’s body tensed in my arms.

  “We’re all going to die!” Ian cried.

  “No, we’re not! Help me get Max. We’re getting out of here,” I said.

  Max flailed his hands when we tried to pick him up.

  “Don’t touch me!” Max shouted.

  Pieces of skin stuck out of his finger nails. His cheeks were streaked with blood.

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” I said.

  “Leave me alone,” Max said.

  “Help me get him,” I said to Ian.

  We both flipped Max on his back and dragged him by his arms, kicking and screaming. We made it halfway through the living room when the house shook.

  “That felt like an earthquake,” Ian said.

  “That’s no earthquake. Come on. We need to hurry,” I said.

  The walls moaned with thousands of voices. They bombarded us as we dashed through the house.

  “Don’t listen to them,” I said to Max. “They’re not real.”

  But the voices grew louder and more aggressive the closer we got to the front door.

  “Stop…you’re going the wrong way…stay with us…we’ll protect you…” the voices said.

  Some whispered, some yelled, and others just screamed, moaned, or screeched nonstop. Max was still sobbing but his body had gone limp. He was in shock. I reached for the doorknob and pulled.

  It wouldn’t budge. I tried again.

  “We’re going to die,” Ian moaned again.

  I ignored him and ran to the closest window. It wouldn’t move. The lock was jammed. I searched the area for something to smash it open. The entryway was void of any furniture. My eyes darted every which way to find an answer.

  I ran off to the living room.

  “Don’t leave me!” Ian shouted after me.

  I slid to a halt by the fireplace and snatched the spike prong out of the rack and ran back. I jammed it in the groove of the windowsill and heaved. The metal spike bent the wood but the window didn’t budge. I slammed it against the glass. Nothing.

  The glass might as well have been stone. I tossed the useless metal spike along the ground. It clanged as it skidded away. I glanced over at Ian. Max was motionless. His chest still moved, so he was still alive. Ian was on the verge of a panic attack. He would be useless as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

  The front door wouldn’t budge. The windows were impenetrable with some magical force. Where did that leave us? Think Ben!

  The house shook more violently. Books fell from the shelves in the study, furniture toppled, and the pictures on the wall splintered on the stairwell.

  “Ben!” Ian yelled.

  I ignored him and looked around the house for a way to get out. The chimney was a no go. We’d just get stuck in it and there was no way we could haul Max up. The first floor was a no go. That left the second and third floors.

  I glanced up the stairs. Our bedroom had a window that overlooked the back yard and the porch overhang. Would it be open? We had to try.

  I headed back to Ian but was knocked off my feet. The giant chandelier rocked and ripped out of the ceiling.

  “Ian, get away from the chandelier!” I shouted.

  My voice was lost amidst the ghastly screeches and the sounds of implosion as the house splintered in on itself. I got up again and rushed for Ian. The chandelier was tearing from the ceiling and would fall in second.

  I dove as it fell.

  17

  Ian and I slammed into the stairwell. I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him up a split second later. Max never had a chance. The metal and glass shattered over his body. He was lost beneath the rubble.

  I had no time to mourn my friend’s death or see if he had somehow survived the collapse. The ceiling was crumbling.
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  I hauled Ian up the stairs away from the chandelier. I made it to the second floor right as the rest of the chandelier tore from the ceiling and smashed into the stairwell. It ripped the stairs from their support beams and tumbled down in a pile of rubble. There was no way of getting down now.

  I released Ian and searched the second floor for a way out. There were no windows in the entryway. There were only two doors and the stairs leading to the third floor, the one leading to the black door and the one to the bedroom where we had stayed that night.

  Instinct told me to go to the bedroom on the right, but the voices encouraged me to go left. I don’t know why I did what I did, but I went left.

  I twisted the doorknob to the black door. To my surprise, it gave way.

  “Ian, come on!” I yelled down the hall.

  Ian came shuffling around the corner. I slammed the door the moment he was inside, latched the bolt, and tossed the key into the room.

  It clamored against the hard floor and disappeared. The room smelled like rusty nails and sweaty clothes that had been left mildewing in the laundry hamper. Ian slid to the floor and pulled his legs up to his chest.

  His eyes were rolled partway into his head. His lips quivered, but his vision was distant.

  “We need to find a way out of here,” I said.

  “There’s no way out,” Ian said.

  “There has to be. We can’t give up now,” I said.

  The walls continued to reverberate but the noise from outside of the room seemed to dull. It was like a thin whisper of a crashing wave or thunderstorm in the distance.

  I walked across the room. There wasn’t much in it. Just a bed, a desk, and some chairs and containers. The giant armoire was the largest piece of furniture in the entire room. I checked everything. Under the bed, in the chests, every drawer of the desk. Nothing that could help us against…I had no idea what we were fighting. What did you do when the house was trying to kill you? That left the detached closet as my final option.

  I tried the doors. Jammed.

  “Come give me a hand with this,” I called over my shoulder.

  I managed to get the door ajar, but it remained locked.

  “Ian!” I shouted.

  My friend glanced up, ashen and pale.

  “I need your help,” I said.

  He stared blankly at me. I rushed over and knelt in front of him. I reached out to place my hands on his arms, but he flinched and withdrew deeper within himself.

  “Ian, we need to get out of here,” I said.

  “How can you be so calm right now? Our friends were just killed…by the house,” he said.

  “We don’t have time to be scared. We need to get out of here before what happened to them happens to us,” I said.

  “They’re dead…I can’t believe they’re dead,” Ian said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t had time to replay the images in my head like he undoubtedly was. I didn’t want to. My arms and pants were covered in blood. I saw Ian focusing on something I could not see.

  “Why would Henry do that?” Ian asked.

  The image of our friend stabbing Nico in a frenzy flashed through my mind. My stomach gurgled at the thought. I pressed it down.

  “It wasn’t Henry. There’s something wrong with his house. It makes you do things you wouldn’t do. It’s trying to make us kill each other,” I said.

  “Why? How?” Ian asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why it’s haunted. But we need to get out of here before it comes for us,” I said.

  I stood and stretched out my hand. Ian reached for it.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Ian asked. “What if it finds us in here?”

  “It’s not going to find us,” I said, knowing full well that we couldn’t hide forever. It knew we were here. Why it hadn’t crushed the walls in on us confused me. It had killed the rest of our friends quickly. Maybe it wasn’t going to make us suffer.

  A chill swept up my back as I passed the bed. My ears prickled with the sound of voices. I turned suddenly.

  “What is it?” Ian asked.

  His eyes darted to the door and he positioned himself behind me.

  “I thought I heard something,” I said.

  Ian began whimpering.

  “We’re going to die! I don’t want to die. I’m so sorry…”

  I pushed past him to the armoire. Why was it locked? The thought of a hidden gem locked inside that could save us from this nightmare spurred me on. I had no idea what that could be, but I had to hold onto something or I’d go crazy like Ian.

  “Help get this open,” I said.

  I yanked Ian by the arm and drug his face to mine. I slapped him.

  “Pull yourself together! Do you want to live?” I asked.

  He nodded his head haphazardly.

  “Do you want to live?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” he muttered this time.

  “Then help me get out of here,” I said.

  I pointed to the left door handle.

  “While I pull this, find something to shove inside the gap,” I said.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Anything!”

  There came a loud bang on the door. Dust flickered off the walls and drifted through the air. Ian and I exchanged glances.

  “We need to hurry!” I said.

  Ian flung himself up and rummaged through the desk drawers. He ripped them from their hinges and tossed them on the floor.

  The pounding on the door increased.

  “Hurry!”

  Ian all but flipped the desk upside down. The room looked as though someone had torn it apart. He ran to the bed and ripped the sheets and cushion off. The mattress went soaring through the air.

  “What the —”

  My fingers slipped on the armoire as I turned around.

  “What are you doing here?” Ian asked.

  It was Peter. He had been hiding under the bed. Peter had something in his hand.

  “Get that!” I said.

  Ian went to grab the screwdriver out of Peter’s clenched hands. He jerked backward at Ian’s approach.

  “Stay away from me!” Peter yelled.

  He brandished the screwdriver in the air. His eyes were frantic. His forehead covered in sweat, his shirt with blood. Nico’s blood.

  “Easy, Peter. It’s just us,” I said.

  He directed his weapon my way. I stopped and raised my hands in the air.

  “Calm down. We’re not going to hurt you. Just put the screwdriver down,” I said.

  Ian was slowly working his way to Peter. Peter’s eyes snapped in Ian’s direction.

  “Stop!” Peter said.

  “Peter, look at me,” I said.

  When Peter’s eyes shifted to me, Ian lunged at him. Ian managed to pin Peter to the ground while I yanked the screwdriver free.

  I backed away with a gasp.

  “It’s fine,” I said, stuffing the screwdriver in my pocket. “We’re not going to hurt you. It’s us.”

  Peter balled up into the fetal position and sobbed.

  “Don’t let it get me,” Peter said.

  Ian looked at me.

  “What’s he talking about?” Ian asked.

  “The voices…” I said.

  I shuffled back to the armoire and jammed the screwdriver into the slit between the doors. Ian left Peter. He was useless in his current state. The only hope he or any of us had was to get out of the room.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Ian whispered when he slid to my side.

  I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder.

  “The house must be possessed. Don’t you hear the voices?” I asked.

  From Ian’s blank and confused expression, the answer was no.

  “Good,” I said.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Ian asked.

  “We’ll worry about that later. Help me get this thing open,” I said.

  We both heaved as hard as we coul
d until pieces of wood splintered, and the armoire doors flung open. We went flying backward. The screwdriver came loose from my hands and soared through the room. Ian’s back slammed into the wall and knocked over a picture that was hanging on the wall.

  This seemed to awaken the house to our presence. The floorboards began to bend, and the walls shook even more violently. The voices increased in volume until my ears were thrumming as though someone were laying on a horn.

  Peter began moaning loudly and scratching his arms like a rabid animal, his head twitching from side-to-side. I tried to crawl. My body had become heavy, the room as though it were pressing down on me.

  The armoire doors were wide, its contents revealed. My spirits depleted the moment my eyes settled on the skeleton in the closet.

  “We’re going to die!” came the groan to my right.

  It was Peter. He had torn his arms open. Pieces of flesh hung from his finger nails. His pupils were fully dilated and his teeth chattered with the cadence of the voices.

  Ian rolled onto his stomach and let out a shout.

  “Ian!” I shouted.

  Half of his body was submerged in the wall.

  “Get me out of this!” Ian yelled.

  I reached for his arms but the wall drew him higher, out of my reach. I jumped for his hands. Only my fingers grazed his palms. He screamed again as the walls shifted like a wave. The vibration echoed through the enclosed room, the visible wave drifting from wall-to-wall, Ian’s body with it.

  “Help me!” Ian cried.

  I tried to snatch his hands out of the air as he passed by a second time. My fingers slipped through. Now he hung suspended from the ceiling. The tiny chandelier jingled as his shoulder got caught in its groove.

  “It’s pulling me!”

  “I’m coming, Ian,” I said.

  I scooped up the desk chair. I clamored up and grabbed ahold of Ian’s arms. This time my fingers secured themselves to his forearm and did not let go.

  The house roared the moment I touched his skin. A sharp pang of cold ripped from my fingers down my arm. I cried out but did not let go.

  Tears streamed across Ian’s face. His eyes were rolled back to reveal the white underbelly and his head bobbed back and forth. White foam oozed from his lips as his teeth chattered and his body thrashed as though he were being electrocuted.