Nobody Knocks Once

Do not answer one knock. That was the rule. Mara walked through the town square on her way home from shopping. A few kids played a game on the side of the road in front of her. She stopped to tell them to go home because of the storm, and she watched them play a game she had never seen before. One child knocked three times. They all said, “Who’s there?” 

“Why, it is I, Charles!” one boy said. They giggled. A second child knocked twice on the wooden box. They laughed again. The final child raised one finger and knocked once. Nearly all went silent. 

One child said, “You’re not supposed to answer that one,” to a boy who answered. A girl said for them to shut up. 

Mara smiled. She asked them, as they jumped in fright at the sudden interruption, “What happens if you do answer?” 

The children glanced at one another, and the girl answered, “It knows you’re home.” 

Mara shrugged and went along her way home, though she felt unease creep in her bones. She didn’t know what the child meant by that and headed on her way.

She walked along the boardwalk of the small seaside village now in the fog-ridden autumn season. Mara hoped she’d get home before the storm churning overhead broke. She strolled by the closed bait shops, empty lobster pots, and chairs stacked neatly at a seasonal café. Others put up their storm shutters along the street. After ten years in New York, Mara had come here for the quiet. Seeking peace is how she landed here in the small fishing village lined with cottages side by side facing the Atlantic Ocean.

When Mara returned home, her elderly neighbor was securing her shutters against the rising wind. The shutters clacked. “Good evening, Mrs. Vale. Nasty storm ahead of us by the looks of it.”

Mrs. Vale turned to face her. Their homes were side by side, sharing a wall and a divided porch. “Yes, it sure is, Mara. My word, you always remind me of my daughter.” 

“You said that when I moved in. Right before you handed me that enormous apple cake.” Mrs. Vale smiled. “I have a question that maybe you could answer for me. I talked to some children, and they were playing a game about knocking. What’s that about?”

Mrs. Vale stopped what she was doing for a second. “Three knocks, you may answer. Two knocks, you ask who's calling. One knock, you say nothing.”

Mara laughed, but Mrs. Vale did not. “Where did that superstition come from?”

Mrs. Vale shrugged. “Before my grandmother’s time. I lived here my whole life. That’s just the rule we always follow. Just don’t answer one.”

“What happens if you do?” Mara asked.

Mrs. Vale resumed securing the shutters. “Nothing, if you’ve any sense.” 

Mara put away her groceries, lit a fire, and settled onto the couch as the shutters began to clatter. The storm arrived at nightfall. Usually, Mara loved sleeping to the sound of rain on the roof.

The power flickered as the rain hammered the roof and shutters. Her phone showed one bar. The tablet had no connection. She got up, went to her bookshelf to find a book to read, and the power flickered again.

Something crashed outside. Through the shutters, she saw a fallen branch beside the neighbor’s mailbox. Something struck the roof. “It’s probably nothing,” she said to herself.

She checked the clock. It was nearing midnight, and she could hear another strong gust hammering her shutters.

Silence.

Then one knock at the door.

Just one knock.

Mara froze. Then she approached the door and reached for the lock, but hesitated. Finally, she said, “Who’s there?”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Mrs. Vale pounded on their shared wall, and her voice came through the vent above: “DO NOT ANSWER IT!”

Mara recoiled from the door.

Mrs. Vale shouted, “DON’T SAY ANYTHING ELSE.”

Silence outside. Mara started back toward the couch.

“Who’s there?” came from the porch outside.

Mara stopped. It was her voice, but it was distorted, unnatural, and warped.

“Who’s there?” it asked again, closer this time.

Mara's hand closed around the back of a chair. 

“Who’s there?” it asked again, less flat and more like her. She dragged the chair in front of the door and wedged it against the door handle.

“Don't answer anything it says,” Mrs. Vale said.

Mara turned the deadbolt and fastened the chain.

“What is it?” Mara asked.

“Doesn't matter. Stay inside,” Mrs. Vale said.

Mara checked the back door.

“And don't answer it again,” Mrs. Vale said.

“Why once?” Mara asked.

A pause from Mrs. Vale. “Because nobody else knocks once.”

Mara grabbed her phone. No service. The power went out, and all the light in the house came from the lit fireplace.

“Stay away from the windows,” Mrs. Vale said.

Mara looked toward the windows in the front of the house. She crept to the edge of the window, keeping to the shadows, and eased one shutter aside. Empty street; the street lamp swayed in the gusts, Mrs. Vale’s car in the driveway, her car. Nothing on the porch. Mara almost laughed.

“Who’s there?” came her voice from underneath the window. She jumped backward and nearly knocked over her kitchen table.

“It’s probably nothing,” came from outside.

Was it listening then, too? 

“Hello?” it said. “Mrs. Vale?”

Did it listen to her this entire time? She grabbed the fireplace poker.

“Mara.” This time, the voice was perfect.

Mara carried the poker toward the front door. “Mrs. Vale!” she said urgently. “How do you know all this?”

There was a long silence from the other side. “I was nine, and my older sister heard the knock. She answered. 

Mara shoved the chair tighter against the door.

“My mother kept my brother, my sister, and me away from the windows until sunrise. All night, we heard my sister outside begging to be let in,” Mrs. Vale said. She paused. “My sister was sitting right next to us.”

Mara stopped moving.

“Just before dawn, my mother opened the door and called it away from us. She then stepped outside,” said Mrs. Vale.

Eager for more information, Mara asked, “What happened?”

“Morning came,” Mrs. Vale said.

Mara waited.

“There were only three of us left.”

Mara set the poker beside the chair, went upstairs, and returned with a baseball bat. She pulled another chair and sat facing the door.

The knocking and voice stopped. It had been twenty minutes of silence. She still kept guard. Another ten minutes passed and still nothing. “Mrs. Vale, I think it’s gone,” Mara said.

“No,” Mrs. Vale said. “Because you answered.”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Mara stood and reached for the chair. Then she heard, “Hello?” from outside, in her voice.

Her hand stopped inches from the chair.

“Mara, open the door,” came from outside.

It was Mrs. Vale’s voice. Mara pressed her ear toward the vent.

“I’m here,” Mrs. Vale said.

“Mara, it’s me,” said the outside voice.

“Don’t listen to it,” said Mrs. Vale through the vent.

“She’s lying,” the voice said.

Sobbing came from her porch. “Please. I fell.”

Mara tried to hear through the vent. “Mrs. Vale?”

“Mara?” said someone from outside the door. It was Mrs. Vale’s voice, weakened. “Help me.”

Mara didn’t move. 

“Please,” said the voice of Mrs. Vale outside.

Mara's hand moved toward the deadbolt.

“What did you give me the day I moved in?” she asked the door. 

“Apple cake,” the voice outside the door answered in Mrs. Vale’s voice.

Mara's stomach dropped.

“Don’t,” came the voice from the vent. “It hears you anyway. Answering is how you tell it who to follow.”

Had it heard them that afternoon?

“Whatever it says in your voice, don't answer,” came Mrs. Vale’s voice through the vent.

Mara tightened her grip on the bat.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Mrs. Vale?” it said in Mara’s voice. “Please, let me in.”

Mara went cold. “Please, let me in. Please, please. There’s something in my house. Mrs. Vale, that’s not me in there.”

Silence. Mara stared at the door, then at the vent. Mrs. Vale’s side was silent.

The pounding moved next door. Mara pressed herself against the wall. “Three for a neighbor, two for a stranger, one for nobody,” Mrs. Vale repeated.

The pounding stopped

Outside, Mara’s voice called, “Mrs. Vale? Please help me.”

Mara whispered into the vent. “Don’t listen to it.”

Outside, her voice answered, “Don’t listen to it.”

Sobbing, it said, “Please, I’m scared.”

Mara pressed her mouth to the vent. “Mrs. Vale, I’m here.”

“Mrs. Vale, I’m here,” her voice said outside.

The thing stopped crying. A minute passed. Then another. A chair scraped across the floor next door.

“Mrs. Vale?” Mara said.

“My sister answered it once,” Mrs. Vale said through the vent.

“No,” Mara whispered.

Silence next door.

“I was nine when someone did it for me.”

Mara struck the wall with her palm. “You don’t have to!”

Outside, her voice answered, “You don’t have to!”

Footsteps crossed Mrs. Vale’s cottage toward the front door.

“Mrs. Vale, don’t!” Mara screamed into the vent.

“Mrs. Vale, don’t!” her voice screamed from the porch.

Mrs. Vale’s deadbolts unlocked, the chain disengaged, and her door opened. Wind rushed in as she felt the cold outside air through the vent.

Mara screamed, “Come back!”

Mara ran to the front window. Mrs. Vale stepped onto her half of the porch.

“I’m here,” Mrs. Vale said.

The voice said nothing. No knocking. Mara heard another set of footsteps cross the porch behind Mrs. Vale. The elderly woman then descended the steps. The footsteps followed. Then the storm swallowed both.

Mara grabbed the chair to pull it away, then stopped. She then backed away and sat in the corner with her baseball bat across her legs, sobbing. Minutes turned into hours, and nothing knocked.

Gray morning light slowly entered Mara’s cottage. The storm had passed, and for the first time in hours, she heard signs of life outside the door. Birds chirping. Then an engine and car doors slamming. Voices of men and women. Footsteps right outside her door. 

Knock. Knock. Knock.

She shot up out of her stupor. Mara didn’t move after that. She carefully listened. 

“Mara Hudson,” came a voice on the other side. Male. 

She didn’t move or answer him. 

“Mara Hudson, it’s the Police Department and Fire Department. Please open the door,” said the man.

Mara still didn’t move, but her other neighbor’s voice cut through.

“Mrs. Vale’s door was open this morning when I got up,” said the neighbor.

Morning light filled the room. Mara looked through the peephole before opening the door. She put the baseball bat down and opened it. A police officer stood there with other officers and firefighters around. 

Branches littered the road, garbage cans lay on their sides, and shingles, torn from roofs, were scattered throughout the area.

Mrs. Vale’s door stood open. Mara looked in her cottage.

No blood, no broken furniture, no evidence that anyone forced their way inside. Mrs. Vale’s chair remained pushed against the wall underneath the main vent. Beside it was a cold cup of tea. Her empty slippers were beneath the chair.

Other neighbors gathered outside. Nobody laughed when Mara tried to explain to the people and the police officers what happened. Nobody asked what kind of creature it was. 

An elderly man from farther down the street looked at Mrs. Vale’s doorway and then at Mara. “You answered, didn’t you?” 

Mara stared back at him and decided not to respond. His expression changed, and he removed his ball cap and gazed upon the road leading out of town. Mara followed his eyes, and there was nobody there.

Several weeks passed, and Mrs. Vale was an open missing-person case. The organized searches ended. Mara's didn't. She walked the shoreline. She checked the roads. She watched the faces of strangers. Eventually, the town stopped talking about what had happened, but it didn't forget.

Passing the café one afternoon, Mara saw the same children beneath the awning. One child knocked on the wooden siding.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Neighbor.”

Another child took a turn. Two knocks. 

“Stranger.”

The next child knocked once. 

The youngest child in the group said, “Who’s…”

“Don’t,” Mara interrupted. 

The children all turned to face her. The youngest laughed, “It’s just a game.”

Mara stared at the place where they knocked. “No, it isn’t.” Mara crouched on their level. “Three knocks?”

“Neighbor,” one said. 

“Two?” Mara questioned them.

“Stranger,” another answered.

Mara waited. The youngest child asked, “One?”

Mara thought of Mrs. Vale. “Nobody.”

“Why?” the youngest asked.

Mara stood. “Because nobody knocks once.” She left them and went home.

That night, she double-checked the doors and window locks. She checked the back door, locked. Then the front door, deadbolt in place and chain attached. She went to bed early, exhausted from a long day at work. She awoke suddenly sometime after midnight. The town was completely still. 

Knock.

Mara sat upright. One knock. Nothing more. She waited with bated breath. Ten seconds went by. Nothing. Twenty, then thirty. Then on the other side of the door, an older woman’s voice said, “Mara?”

It was Mrs. Vale’s voice. 

For one terrible moment, Mara wanted it to be her.

“Mara, darling, it’s me,” said the outside voice.

Mara got out of bed and walked slowly toward the door. No more voices until she was at the door. “I’m all right,” it said. 

Mara reached for the front door, and her hand rose toward the lock. “Please let me in,” said Mrs. Vale’s voice.

Mara lowered her hand and slumped her shoulders. She didn’t say anything. A long silence followed. Then the voice changed to Mara’s: “Who’s there?”

Mara remained silent.