Knock Knock

by Adam Dark

  I tasted iron as my teeth dug into my tongue. I knew if I let go of Ian’s arms I would lose him for good. The ceiling was up to his chin now. He floated through like quicksand. Every passing second drew him deeper into the house’s grip. If I didn’t let go, I’d be sucked in with him.

  The cold sting in my extremities worsened. My fingers turned purple and the black pitch etched its way down my arms. I had seen this happen to people with frostbite. I lost all feeling in my hands three seconds later.

  The coldness was working its way into my core. I cried out and released my grip on Ian. He zipped through the ceiling with a pop as my body fell to the floor.

  The side of the bed caught my fall and I tumbled sideways. I knocked Peter over in the process. Pain ripped through my left arm. I tried to lift it, but it refused to obey. It hung disproportionately from its socket.

  My fall must have knocked Peter out of his psychosis. He was crouched over me.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  His voice was calm. This scared me more than the clawing voices and house reaching for my feet. I don’t know what I said but I must have muttered something in agreement because Peter flung my good arm over his shoulder and hauled me to my feet.

  I supported my weight against the bedpost as he flipped the mattress onto the box spring and jammed the chair against the wall. He clamored up and reached for the windowsill.

  It was the first time I had seen it. The voices were louder in my ears. I could feel myself slipping into their arms. They urged me to follow them, to give in, to submit and I’d be saved. I wanted to. I was done fighting. All I wanted was to rest. To close my eyes and sleep.

  I loved sleeping.

  My body jerked forward with a sharp tug. My head whipped through the air and snapped me back into the present. This only made the demons madder. That’s what they were. They had to be.

  The house was possessed. There was no other explanation for the insanity. My mind drifted in the air along with my body as Peter lifted me onto his shoulders and shoved me through the window. I remember thinking, where did Peter get this strength? And then my body was through and the voices stopped abruptly.

  The heat of the night swept over my cold body like a million daggers. Every inch of my body ached, throbbed, and screamed in agony. My neck arched backward as my spine clawed at my underbelly.

  Peter’s frame squeezed through the small window and flopped down next to me. How had we fit through there was my final thought as my body plummeted. Fortunately, the overgrown bushes had cushioned my fall.

  Before Peter rolled me over the side of the roof, my eyes caught the golden eyes of the black cat I had seen in the woods the day before. Its sentient gaze followed me all the way down.

  Peter’s body crunched next to mine a second later. Then his hands were on me and he was lifting me again. He grabbed my good arm and flung it over his shoulder and dragged me through the backyard. The house looked normal from the outside as if nothing had happened.

  “The house…” I muttered.

  “We’re getting the hell out of here!” Peter said.

  My head flopped over my shoulders as Peter all but dragged me away and down the long driveway. Those golden eyes followed me all the way until they were too far off to see.

  18

  One week later.

  The pastor stood and walked to the front of the funeral procession. The entire Oakwood Valley community was in attendance. The church choir sang a hymn as the pastor gathered his notes and said a prayer.

  I sat in a wheelchair with my left arm in a sling. Peter sat opposite me with a bandage wrapped around his head. Our eyes met as the pastor opened the Bible and began his sermon.

  Four coffins lay before us, the cold, hard ground awaiting their descent. The wooden boxes were empty. The viewing had been closed casket and the funeral merely a formal progression and celebration of the lives that were lost.

  The police had never found the bodies. They searched for six months without any leads. After a year, the parents of the children were faced with the stark reality that their babies were never coming home.

  The lead investigator said that the Oakwood Valley Police Department would keep the cases open, but we all knew they’d never find them. It had been too long. The police suspected kidnapping. They never believed a word either Peter or I said.

  They searched the house on 101 Wry Road and found nothing. No bodies. No shattered chandelier. The house was intact, minus the natural wear and tear of time. It wasn’t long before the police turned their suspicions to us. We were questioned for one week and held in a detention cell for another three before the courts released us under supervision.

  This entailed three months at a psychiatric hospital where they pumped us full of enough chemicals to make even me think we had made up the story. As time went on, I wondered if maybe it had all been a terrible dream. Maybe my friends had been kidnapped as the police claimed. Maybe they had run away without telling me or Peter.

  But I knew the truth. They had been killed. Those memories flooded me now as the pastor finished his sermon and the families took turns saying their last words to their dead children before the caskets were lowered into the ground. As the first family began, the mother breaking into tears and the husband doing his best to hold it together, my mind drifted to that night.

  It could just have easily been me lying in one of those caskets had Peter not gotten me out. I owed him my life. I never questioned him again and defended him to the end. No one ever picked on him at school without me having a say in it.

  That night…when the world was flipped on its back, we had gotten away…somehow.

  Peter had dragged me all the way to the nearest house. He never stopped until we were down the long drive, never looking back. He left me half unconscious on the lawn as he ran up the steps and pounded on the first door he could find. On the tenth strike, the lights inside had come on. The man of the house had his shotgun by his waist when he had opened the door.

  He almost shot Peter. That might have been a blessing in disguise. I wished he had shot me then. It would have saved me the torment of memories and no one believing us.

  I don’t remember what Peter said in that moment. It was all a blur, but the man had looked to my seemingly lifeless body in his yard before disappearing inside. His wife and two children peeked through the blinds of the dining room window in their nightgowns and pajamas.

  The next thing I remembered before passing out again was strong hands lifting me. I woke three days later in the hospital. The police were the first to question me before they allowed my parents to visit.

  The doctors prompted the police to keep it quick as I was weak from the severe concussion I had endured and the fractured shoulder. I had felt fine. The drugs made me a little loopy, but good. They kept my mind blurry and the demons at bay.

  I don’t remember what I told them. It all sounded like mumbo jumbo coming out. I had to take breaks often to keep the pounding in my head from making the room spin. Fortunately, the nice nurse made the police leave after a few minutes so I could rest.

  They returned every day until I was cleared from ICU and released from the hospital. That was when they brought me and Peter in for “official” questioning.

  My parents had hired a lawyer who coached me along the way. He told me not to say anything, that it could be used against me. I didn’t understand why all of the grownups were telling me to keep quiet. I felt like screaming. No one was listening.

  Our friends had been killed! Eventually, the police investigated the house on the hill near the back of the neighborhood. When they came back with nothing but a homeless man who had been squatting there for several weeks, they lost all faith in our stories.

  It wasn’t long before they didn’t believe anything else we said. Even our parents stopped believing us.

  “Just tell us the truth,” my parents had said to me one day when the investigator left the room. “Why don’t you tell us wh
at happened to your friends? If you tell us, we can help you. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  Had the situation not been grim, I might have laughed. I actually think I chuckled at that. That might have been what got me thrown into the psych ward. But it wasn’t so bad. At least I had Peter, and like I said, the drugs helped.

  But now…there were no sedative chemicals coursing through my veins. My body had full control over its senses. The world was alive again. The last parents walked to the podium to give their last goodbyes. It was Nico’s parents.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen the two of them together. Ever since his father abandoned both of them, it had only ever been Nico and his mother. And even she was rarely around. Her three jobs sucked up most of her time. In the end, it had been Nico who had brought the two together again, even if for this one moment. He deserved as much.

  Repressed tears pooled behind my tear ducts threatening to break through my false strength.

  As his mother began to speak, I lost all control. My chest heaved with every violent sob. Snot and tears flooded my cheeks with every syllable. My mother placed her hand on my back, but it didn’t help.

  Peter sat in silence, unmoved, unfazed. He had shed his tears long ago. I don’t know if he ever stopped taking the medicine. I think it helped him to cope. For me, I wanted to feel every bit of it. Nico and our friends deserved that much from us.

  We had been the only ones to get away and the only ones who knew the truth. Nico’s mother didn’t go on long. Her speech was short and sweet. As sweet as one could be in a situation like ours.

  Her husband guided her to their seats. It was the only time I had seen the two of them together without fighting. At least something good came of Nico’s death. It brought the family together. Hopefully it would last.

  The pastor gave the closing remarks and prayer, then we each took turns dropping a handful of dirt into the holes. The cemetery crew would lower the caskets into the ground later that night. Peter shook my hand before we departed. Friends and family hugged and kissed and gave their condolences. There was a neighborhood celebration afterward that went on until late in the evening.

  The Fire Department shot off fireworks as a tribute to the fallen boys even though 4th of July was long in the past. I think they did it to symbolize the night our friends went missing. It was nice. I watched the flickering colors and sipped on the fruit punch someone had given me.

  The plate of food sat untouched by my side. I didn’t have much of an appetite these days. The festivities drew to a close and everyone went back to their homes. Other children, parents included, came and cleaned up the cul-de-sac the next day.

  As they gathered up the debris and trash and carted it off, I felt like the last remnants of Nico, Henry, Max, and Ian’s memories went the way of the rubbish. The town moved on, but I never did. I knew Ian was still inside, terrified and alone.

  I could only imagine what horrors he faced every day. I needed to go back. If not for him, then for the others. People needed to know the truth. And if they wouldn’t believe our stories, then I’d bring the bodies back, even if it meant dying in the process.

  At least then the voices would stop. At least then I’d find some peace. It wouldn’t be until three years later when I got up the courage to return.

  19

  Meanwhile back at 101 Wry Road…

  Tripp Constantine walked up the porch steps and paused. His chin dipped toward his chest and cocked to at a sideways angle. The black cat hopped off the banister and sauntered to her master.

  She rubbed her black body against his pant leg. The cat with the golden eyes purred as her master scooped her up and cradled her in his arms.

  “How did you get out?” he asked, as he stroked the groove between her eyes.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  He shook the brown bag gripped in his left hand. The black cat squirmed in his arms and climbed on his shoulders. She stretched her stomach over his neck as he stood and inserted the key into the doorknob.

  “Let’s see how our friends are faring,” he said, with a wrinkly grin on his face.

  The black cat meowed as they stepped inside the house and closed the door. The owner of the house stepped over the fallen chandelier and made his way to the kitchen.

  The black cat remained on the groove of his neck as he opened the refrigerator. The door thudded against the lifeless corpse on the ground. The butcher knife still clung to his abdomen like a tombstone.

  Tripp Constantine searched the shelves.

  “We need to go to the store,” he said to the cat on his shoulders.

  “Thirsty?” he asked.

  He grabbed the carton of expired milk and poured a small glass for the black cat. She hopped off his shoulders and onto the counter. He placed the glass of cultured milk before her. Her pink tongue danced along its chalky surface.

  Constantine stroked her back as she drank.

  “You were thirsty,” he said.

  He poured the cat a second helping of the expired milk before scooping her up in his arms and walking to the stairs. He stood among the rubble, staring up to the second floor.

  “Looks like our guests had a bit of a struggle,” he whispered to the cat in his arms. He stroked her head as he stepped over the fallen chandelier and broken glass. His boots crunched next to the hand sticking out from the glass.

  The black cat purred as he strolled through the living room and into the study. He lifted the single book from the shelf. The golden letters H-O-L-Y B-I-B-L-E were worn along the edges. The bookcase flung outward to reveal a hidden staircase.

  Constantine entered. He exited on the second floor and veered to the right. The Black Door was open.

  “Did you let them inside?” he asked the black cat.

  She meowed and hopped from his grasp. She skirted along the floor and into the room. Constantine stood at the doorway, examining the destruction. The desk hung upside down, the bedsheets were strewn across the room, the armoire’s doors were splintered open, and the bed was moved three feet to the left.

  The black cat jumped onto the bed and then to the chair sitting on top. She pawed at the wall toward the tiny window above it.

  “Did you let them escape?” he asked.

  The cat did not respond this time, but the house did. Tripp Constantine dropped the brown sack in his left hand. His body went limp and thudded on the floorboards. His head flung backward, and his arms went wide.

  As the demon entered his body, his skin moved like melted butter and became translucent, glowing with a light shimmer. Then, altered, Tripp Constantine stood upright and cracked his neck.

  His pupils were black pits as his head tilted suddenly to the side.

  “So not all of them escaped…” he whispered, this time his voice sounded like sand paper grinding against rusted metal.

  His body lunged into the room, clamored up the side of the wall and hung suspended from the ceiling. He jammed his head into the shifting ceiling, right next to Ian’s.

  “Why hello there…” Tripp Constantine said reaching for the trapped boy.

  Ian’s screams went unheard, lost inside the tormented house, forever sealed away from the world of the living. From the outside, all looked normal at 101 Wry Road. The abandoned orphanage remained vacant and lifeless to the passerby. It was only once one went inside that the true nature of the house revealed itself.

  * * *

  Three years later…

  Ian’s screams and suffering were prominent for many years before the next knock came to the door. Tripp Constantine sat up in his rocking chair and leaned toward the insistent rapping at the front door.

  He glanced at the black cat lying on the fireplace mantel and then to the boy sitting in the chair to his right.

  “Looks like we have another visitor…” Tripp Constantine said with a grin.

  Ian tried to warn the kids on the porch, but his voice only came in muffled groans. His tongue had been removed many yea
rs earlier and his hands were constrained to the chair by rope. He squirmed to break free as the demon of the house, draped in flesh, walked to the door and opened it.

  JOIN OUR TEAM

  In case you missed it and as promised, the free story you will receive for joining our team is Red Planet.

  Red Planet takes us to Mars where five astronauts are terraforming the planet for human development and survival. But when the latest supply depot from Earth burns up in the thin atmosphere, Higgins and his team are left stranded for another 500 Sols.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the dormant volcano, Olympus Mons, erupts and sends a massive storm headed straight for the BioDomes, Higgins and his team’s only source of oxygen and food. Will they survive long enough for the next supply shipment, or will the storm end our days on the red planet?

  Add your name to our team and we’ll send you this exciting new science fiction story for free! You can join here: http://www.matthewthrush.com/landing/

  LEAVE US A REVIEW

  If you enjoyed this first book in the series, we’d love for you to leave a brief review and let us know what you thought.

  The reviews really help authors reach more readers like you and continue to write amazing stories to share with you. They also help us make changes to the story and know how to write the sequels to fit with what you’re craving.

  Reviews don’t need to be long. Just let us know what you thought in a few short sentences and we’ll love you for life!

  We’ll love you anyway even if you don’t.