Knock Knock
Author : Lauren L. Wheeler
I walk to the front door, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
“Hello?” I say, trying to look through the peephole, but it’s so dark, I can’t make out anything. And now everything’s silent.
It’s 3:14 in the morning, so everything should be silent. In fact, I’m not even sure why I’m out of bed right now, why I ventured to the door. Perhaps it’s just reflex, like when the phone rings in the middle of the night and I jump to answer it, sweeping the alarm clock, lamp, and books off the night table only to be annoyed with myself for not turning off the ringer in the first place.
I peer through the peephole one last time, can’t see anything, and stumble back to my bedroom. I pull the down comforter around me, set my head down on a pillow, and close my eyes. Just as I’m crossing the threshold into sleep, it comes again.
Knock knock.
My eyes fly open, and I leap from my bed, the hardwood floor beneath my feet cold. I’m at the front door in a flash. “Hello?” Again, there’s no reply. I still can’t see anything through the peephole. There’s just black and black and more black. And more silence.
Annoyed, I check the lock and then turn around and start back to my room. My head hurts now, and I’m cold. I yank back the covers and climb in, take a deep breath, and it occurs to me that what I just heard wasn’t actually a knock at the door, but those words….
Knock knock.
I freeze there under the covers, staring blindly into the dark of my bedroom, trying to sort out shapes, silhouettes of furniture, the open door. I strain my ears for any sound: there’s the refrigerator hum, the gas heater’s hiss, something going on with the plumbing deep in the walls. Nothing more. Everything is still, both inside and out. The darkness isn’t shifting. The world’s asleep.
After a few minutes of stillness, I hear it again. Knock knock. I feel my throat closing. My hands shake as I sit up in my bed, eyes bolted to the shadows beyond my bedroom door. It’s not quite 3:30 in the morning as I stand, my legs rubber beneath me.
At the door, I pause for a second.
“Who’s there?â€
A voice, deep and metallic and utterly inhuman, replies. The sounds aren’t English—perhaps not even words—but I somehow know that the voice has answered “Me.â€
And I know that I must ask the question, that I have no choice but to finish this.
I ask, “Me who?â€
And the door creaks open.
___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.
Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member
Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.
Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com