The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

A Knock on the Door
by Melissa R. Mendelson

 You hardly hear the stories, and if you do, you don’t believe them. Fake truths. People just want attention, or maybe, those people weren’t even real. All those pictures and driver’s license and a birth certificate are fakes. It’s all fake until that knock on the door.

It was eleven p.m. News time, if you watch the news, but the news is a sellout these days. They just want your attention while they entertain you with the latest fib and terror. Don’t worry about what waits outside your door. You just might not live past tomorrow, but there are no monsters. There are just humans.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Who’s there,” but there is no answer. And you can’t look out the window because the damn window doesn’t face the porch but out onto a dark street with shadows running for cover. “Who’s at my door?”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The stories say that they come in the dark close to the midnight hour. This way, they could sweep you away, and no one would know a thing. My neighbor? I don’t know. Haven’t seen them in days. Maybe, they went on a trip or moved in with their family, and give it time. Someone else will be living here.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I could go to sleep, throw the pillow over my head, and pretend not to hear the knocking, but they say that once they knock, they don’t go away. They just stand there and wait and wait. They keep waiting, and you know that they are there. And they won’t go away.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I grabbed a kitchen knife. I could claim self-defense, and maybe, the police would back me up. But you can’t rely on them, and you can’t trust the media. And the media refused to say anything about them. They didn’t exist, but if they didn’t exist, then why are they outside my door?

I turned off the lights.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I moved up the stairs.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I went to the bathroom, and when I stepped out into the hallway, I realized that the knocking had stopped. Maybe, they finally left. Maybe, they chose my neighbor instead, and I was fine with that. But I was marked, and I knew that. And I knew that they would be back.

I stepped foot into the bedroom, and it was ice cold. The lights failed to work, and the bed cringed in the dark. Something moved in front of me, but as I stepped back, the bedroom door slammed shut.

A face appeared in the darkness. The skin was white and pale, covered in some kind of debris that drifted down to the floor, reminding me of cigarette ash, and a hand just as white and pale rose upward to brush some debris off its cheek. The eyes were hollow as if no life dared to ever shine in that void, and the lips…. The lips were drenched with blood, and they were still hungry, hungry for me.

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Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is a horror, science-fiction and dystopian author and poet.  She has two publications with Wild Ink Publishing.  One is a prose poetry collection, This Will Remain With Us, and the other is a short story collection, Stories Written On Covid Walls.  She also self-published a sci-fi novella, Waken and a small short story collection, Name’s Keeper.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com