Three Knocks- The Thing That Wore My Face

The first time I heard my mother calling me from downstairs, I was eleven years old.

The strange thing was, my mother had been dead for three weeks.

It was a cold November night. Rain battered against my bedroom window, and the wind whistled through the cracks in the old house. My father was working the night shift, so I was alone.

At exactly 11:47 p.m., I heard it.

“Sandra?”

I froze.

It was my mother's voice. Soft, gentle and familiar.

“Sandra, sweetheart. Come downstairs.”

My heart began to pound. I knew it couldn't be her. I'd watched them lower her coffin into the ground. I'd seen my father crying beside her grave.

Yet there she was, calling my name.

“Sandra, I've missed you.”

I pulled the blanket over my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

Then I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Slow.

Heavy.

One step at a time.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

They stopped outside my bedroom.

For several seconds, there was silence.

Then came three gentle knocks.

“Sandra, open the door.”

I didn't move.

“Please, darling. It's cold out here.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. Every part of me wanted to open that door, to see my mother again, to feel her arms around me.

But something wasn't right.

My mother had always called me San, never Sandra.

The knocking grew louder.

“Open the door, Sandra.”

I buried my face in my pillow.

Suddenly, the voice changed.

It became deep and rough, like someone speaking with a throat full of gravel.

“I KNOW YOU'RE AWAKE.”

The door handle began to turn.

Luckily, I'd locked it.

The handle rattled violently. Something scratched against the wood, making long, horrible scraping sounds.

Then everything stopped.

I stayed beneath my blanket until morning.

When my father returned, I told him everything. He listened without interrupting, his face growing paler with every word.

Finally, he walked upstairs to inspect my bedroom door.

I followed him.

There were five deep scratches in the wood.

But they weren't on the outside.

They were on the inside.

My father stared at them for a long time.

Then he whispered something I'll never forget.

“Sandra, last night I got a phone call from you.”

I shook my head. “I didn't call you.”

“I know,” he replied.

His hands were trembling.

“The person on the phone sounded exactly like you. She was crying and begging me to come home.”

He swallowed.

“Then she said something strange.”

“What?”

My father looked towards my bedroom.

“She said you wouldn't let her out.”

That night, my father nailed my bedroom door shut.

We moved out the following morning.

For fifteen years, I tried to forget what happened.

Eventually, I convinced myself it had all been a nightmare.

Until last night.

I was lying in bed beside my husband when I heard a familiar voice coming from the hallway.

“Sandra?”

My blood turned cold.

“Sandra, sweetheart. Come downstairs.”

My husband stirred beside me.

“Who's that?” he whispered.

I couldn't answer.

The footsteps began.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

They stopped outside our bedroom.

Three gentle knocks followed.

Then my husband's phone lit up on the bedside table.

An incoming call.

From me.

He looked at the screen, confused.

“Why are you calling me?”

Before I could stop him, he answered.

For a moment, he listened.

Then his expression changed.

He slowly turned towards me.

“Sandra,” he whispered, “there's a woman on the phone.”

I grabbed his arm.

“Hang up.”

He didn't move.

“She's crying,” he continued. “She says she's trapped.”

The bedroom door creaked.

I watched the handle begin to turn.

My husband pressed the phone closer to his ear.

Then he looked at me with pure terror.

“She says…”

His voice broke.

“She says the thing lying next to me isn't my wife.”

I felt my mouth stretch into a smile.

And from the other side of the door, I heard myself scream.

“DON'T LOOK AT HER!”

The Thing That Wore My Face

My husband stared at me.

His face had turned completely white.

“Sandra?” he whispered.

I tried to answer.

I wanted to tell him that I was his wife. That I loved him. That whatever was outside our bedroom was lying.

But when I opened my mouth, something else spoke.

“Don't listen to her, Aaron.”

The words came from my lips, but I hadn't chosen them.

My husband scrambled backwards, pressing himself against the headboard.

“Who are you?”

I shook my head desperately.

Run, I thought. Please, Aaron. Run.

But my mouth stretched into another smile.

“I'm your wife, silly.”

Then I laughed.

It was a horrible sound, high-pitched and unnatural, as though someone were trying to imitate human laughter without understanding what happiness was.

Outside the bedroom, the other Sandra began pounding on the door.

“AARON! GET AWAY FROM HER!”

My husband leapt out of bed.

The moment his feet touched the floor, my body moved.

Not because I wanted it to.

My arms shot forward, grabbing his wrist with such force that I heard something crack.

He screamed.

I screamed too, but only inside my head.

“Don't leave me,” my mouth whispered.

Aaron struggled to pull away.

Then he noticed something.

My reflection.

The large mirror opposite our bed showed Aaron fighting against a woman who looked exactly like me.

Except the woman in the mirror wasn't holding his wrist.

She was standing perfectly still.

Watching.

And smiling.

Aaron stopped struggling.

The reflection slowly raised one finger to its lips.

Shhh.

Then it pointed towards the bedroom door.

Aaron looked back at me.

“What have you done to Sandra?”

My mouth opened.

For the first time, the thing inside me seemed confused.

Then it whispered “Which Sandra?”

The bedroom door burst open.

A woman stood in the hallway.

She had my face, my hair, and my nightdress.

But she looked exhausted. Her cheeks were sunken, her feet were bleeding, and her fingernails had been torn almost completely away.

“Aaron,” she sobbed. “Please.”

My husband stared between us.

Two identical women.

One holding his wrist.

One standing in the doorway.

“Don't make me choose,” he whispered.

The woman in the doorway began crying harder.

“Ask her something only I would know.”

Aaron swallowed.

“What did we do on our first anniversary?”

My mouth answered immediately.

“We went to the little Italian restaurant by the river. You spilled red wine on my dress, and we laughed about it all night.”

Aaron's eyes widened.

It was correct.

The woman in the doorway shook her head violently.

“No! That's not what happened!”

Aaron turned towards her.

She whispered, “We stayed home. You were sick. I made soup, and we watched terrible movies until you fell asleep.”

Aaron began to cry.

Because that was correct too.

Both memories had happened.

I remembered them both.

And suddenly, I understood something terrible.

The thing hadn't simply stolen my face.

It had stolen pieces of my life.

The woman in the doorway stepped forward.

“Aaron, listen carefully. When I was eleven, something came into my house. It pretended to be my mother.”

My heart hammered.

She knew.

She knew everything.

“It followed me,” she continued. “For fifteen years, it waited. Every time I looked in a mirror, every time I fell asleep, it learned a little more about me.”

Aaron looked at the mirror.

My reflection was no longer smiling.

It was angry.

The woman continued.

“Last night, it finally learned enough to become me.”

I felt something tightening around my thoughts.

Like invisible fingers squeezing my brain.

Don't listen, a voice whispered inside me.

She's lying.

The woman in the doorway looked directly at me.

And for one brief moment, I saw something in her eyes.

Not fear.

Not sadness.

Hunger.

My stomach dropped.

She smiled.

Just slightly.

Then she said “Aaron, there's only one way to know which of us is real.”

My husband trembled.

“How?”

“Look at our shadows.”

The bedside lamp flickered.

Aaron slowly looked down.

The woman in the doorway cast a long, ordinary shadow across the wooden floor.

Then he looked at mine.

There was nothing.

No shadow.

Not even beneath my feet.

Aaron stepped away from me.

“Oh, God.”

I tried to scream.

No! Please! Something's wrong!

But my mouth wouldn't open.

The woman in the doorway held out her arms.

“It's okay, darling. Come here.”

Aaron ran to her.

She wrapped her arms around him.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Then I saw it.

Behind Aaron's back, her fingers began to lengthen.

One by one.

Her nails sharpened into black points.

Her jaw opened wider than any human jaw should.

And from somewhere deep inside her throat came a sound I remembered from childhood.

A low, gravelly whisper.

“Thank you for letting me in.”

The lamp went out.

Aaron screamed.

I felt the grip on my body suddenly disappear.

I could move again.

I fell to the floor, gasping for air.

In the darkness, I heard bones cracking.

Something wet struck the wall.

Then Aaron's screaming stopped.

A moment later, the bedroom light flickered back on.

The doorway was empty.

Aaron was gone.

All that remained was his wedding ring, lying on the floor.

And a trail of bloody footprints leading towards the stairs.

I grabbed my phone and called the police.

They arrived twenty minutes later.

They searched the house.

They found no intruder.

No broken windows.

No sign of Aaron.

But when they examined the bedroom, one officer noticed something unusual.

There were scratches on the inside of the door.

Five deep marks.

Just like the ones from my childhood.

The officer frowned.

“Ma'am, did someone lock you in here?”

I shook my head.

He studied the scratches.

“Then why does it look like someone was trying to get out?”

I couldn't answer.

Because I had finally noticed something.

The scratches weren't made by fingernails.

They were too deep.

Too evenly spaced.

They looked like marks left by something with very long fingers.

Something that had been trapped.

Something that had been desperate to escape.

And then I remembered my mother's voice from all those years ago.

Sandra, sweetheart. Come downstairs.

I remembered the footsteps.

The knocking.

The thing begging me to open the door.

And I remembered how frightened I'd been.

But now I wondered...

What if the thing outside my childhood bedroom hadn't been trying to get in?

What if it had been trying to warn me?

I slowly turned towards the mirror.

My reflection was standing exactly where I was.

Same clothes.

Same terrified expression.

Except for one small detail.

It was crying.

I wasn't.

Then my reflection raised its hand and pressed its palm against the glass.

Its lips moved.

Three silent words.

“You're still asleep.”

Behind me, the bedroom door creaked open.

And a little girl's voice whispered “Mommy?”

I turned.

A child stood in the hallway.

She looked about eleven years old.

She wore a white nightdress, and her dark hair hung over her face.

I had never seen her before.

But she looked up at me and smiled.

“Mommy, I had a bad dream.”

My throat tightened.

“I don't have a daughter.”

The little girl's smile disappeared.

She tilted her head.

Then, in a voice much too deep for a child, she said “You didn't have a husband either.”

The lights went out again.

And this time, when they came back on, I was eleven years old.

Sitting in my childhood bedroom.

Listening to the rain.

Waiting for my father to come home.

The clock read 11:46 p.m.

One minute before the knocking would begin.

Only now, I could hear something breathing beneath my bed.

And it was breathing in time with me.

I held my breath.

The breathing stopped.

Then a cold hand reached out from beneath the mattress and gently wrapped around my ankle.

A voice whispered “This time, Sandra, don't open the door.”

From the hallway came three soft knocks.

And my father's voice said- “Sandra, sweetheart. It's Daddy.”

I stared at the door.

My father wasn't supposed to be home until morning.

Then the thing beneath my bed tightened its grip.

And whispered something that made my blood run cold.

“That's not your father.”

A pause.

“And I'm not the thing you should be afraid of.”

The door handle slowly began to turn.

But the worst part wasn't the voice outside.

It wasn't the hand beneath my bed.

It was the sound coming from inside my wardrobe.

Someone was quietly laughing.

And the laughter sounded exactly like mine.

The Last Knock

The laughter inside my wardrobe stopped.

For a moment, the only sound was the rain tapping against the window.

Then the wardrobe door creaked open.

An inch.

Two inches.

I stared into the darkness.

Something stared back.

I couldn't see its face, only two pale eyes floating between my hanging clothes.

The hand beneath my bed tightened around my ankle.

“Don't move,” it whispered.

Outside my bedroom, my father's voice came again.

“Sandra? Open the door, sweetheart.”

I began to cry.

“Daddy?”

The thing beneath my bed dug its nails into my skin.

“Don't answer it.”

“But that's my daddy.”

“No,” the voice whispered. “It learned his voice.”

The wardrobe door opened wider.

A small figure stepped out.

It was me.

Not the grown-up version of me. Not the exhausted woman who had watched her husband disappear.

It was eleven-year-old Sandra.

Same blue pyjamas.

Same brown hair.

Same little scar above her eyebrow.

But her eyes were wrong.

They were completely black.

She smiled.

“Hello, Sandra.”

I tried to scream, but no sound came out.

The other girl crouched beside my bed.

“Do you know why you've been having nightmares?”

I shook my head.

“Because you keep remembering.”

She reached out and gently brushed the hair from my face.

Her fingers were freezing.

“Remembering what?” I whispered.

Her smile widened.

“What happened to Mommy.”

The bedroom seemed to grow colder.

I remembered my mother's funeral.

The black coffin.

The flowers.

The smell of wet earth.

But suddenly, another memory forced its way into my head.

My mother standing in the kitchen.

Screaming.

Me sitting at the table, swinging my legs.

And someone knocking on the back door.

Three gentle knocks.

My mother had gone to answer them.

But before she touched the handle, I had spoken.

“Don't open it, Mommy.”

She turned towards me.

“Why not, darling?”

I remembered smiling.

Because I already knew what was outside.

I had invited it.

And it had promised me something.

A friend who would never leave.

The memory vanished.

I was back in my bedroom, staring at the little girl with black eyes.

“What did I do?” I whispered.

She leaned closer.

“You let me in.”

The hand beneath my bed released my ankle.

And a voice whispered “No. She let you out.”

The girl stopped smiling.

For the first time, she looked frightened.

“Don't listen to that thing,” she said.

Something began crawling out from beneath my bed.

First came a pale hand.

Then another.

Then a head covered in long, tangled hair.

I scrambled backwards until my shoulders hit the wall.

The creature dragged itself into the moonlight.

It was a woman.

Thin, filthy and trembling.

Her nightdress was torn, and her skin was covered in dark bruises.

When she lifted her face, my heart nearly stopped.

It was my mother.

Not a monster wearing her face.

Not a memory.

My mother.

Her eyes filled with tears when she saw me.

“Oh, Sandra.”

I wanted to throw myself into her arms.

But the other girl grabbed my wrist.

“She's lying!”

My mother shook her head.

“Please, sweetheart. You have to remember what happened.”

The girl with black eyes began to scream.

“DON'T TELL HER!”

My mother reached for me.

And suddenly, I remembered everything.

Part 2 https://editor.reedsy.com/s/ioLDhOE