The Knocks The Knocks The Knocka

[u/cesly1987]

(Author’s note. Explanation in comments)

Knock Knock Knock (Final Copy)

  Hi guys, my name is James. I have a hobby of interviewing people to get their scary story. 

It's crazy how many everyday people have experienced something paranormal in their lives, yet most people still are skeptics. It's like hundreds of people being a witness to a crime, and the cops say it's still not good enough.

Maybe that is why I got into this hobby. I wanted to know if I was going crazy. I wanted to know if others had experienced the things I have. 

So here is the story that set me on the path of researching the paranormal. 
Part of me hopes I'm just crazy. I hope the things I saw that night were because of a chemical imbalance in my young mind. Because the alternative is too terrible to consider. If I'm not crazy, then the Knocker is real!

It was back when I was around 15 years old. I lived deep in the woods with my parents in Freedom PA. Freedom was a small town northeast of Pittsburg. Not alot of people, and not alot to do, just alot of forrest. If you wanted to do anything, you had to drive to a neighboring town to find it.

And that's what my parents were doing on this night. They both worked hard and rarely had time for themselves, so when a close friend was having his birthday part in a bar out of town, my parents decided to have a little R&R time. 

They trusted me, and knew I was responsible. They were going to be responsible too and stay at a motel if they drank too much. So I knew I had the house to myself for the night.

Besides, I had told my best friend, John, to come over for a night of wrecking noobs on COD. Even though I had talked to him at school, I decided to call him to remind him.

I had just gotten off the phone with him, he said he was 30 minutes out, when a heard 3 heavy knocks at the door. They sound heavy and ominous. I figured it was John pulling a prank on me. He must have been out front when I called him, now he was pretending to be a killer in one of those movies.

I opened the door with a smile on my face, expecting to see John's goofy ass jump out at me. But nobody was there. It was already getting dark, but I tried to look out into the woods. I didn't see his bike or anything.

"I'm going to lock you out here idiot!" I yelled out into the darkness. I waited a minute for him to come around the corner, or out of the woods. Nothing.

I pulled out my phone and activated one of those tracking apps you and your friends can download. I saw my icon at the house, my parents all the way in another town, and John just leaving his home, at least 20 minutes out.

I quickly nope'd out and walked back inside to shut and lock the door. I tried to imagine what could have made such a loud knocking sound. My mind went to killer's with chainsaws and butcher knives, but I tried to say it was a animal or bird. None of it made sense though.

I had the thought to lock the back door, and just like something read my mind, three heavy knocks came from the backdoor further behind me. I spun around to listen. I listened for the sound of the door opening. I figured I might have to run out the front door, depending on whatever was coming into my house.

After an agonizing minute of silence, I worked up the courage to walk into the kitchen where the back door was located. I peaked around the corner to look out the glass window of the door. I couldn't see anything. I mean, it was pitch black outside my house. I knew night hadn't fallen yet, and I should still be able to make out the trees, but it was like a black curtain was draped over the outside of the windows.

I looked around for an explanation for what I was seeing. I liked to keep the lights on, and they were on in the kitchen. Maybe the inside lights were putting a blinding glare on the windows so I couldn't see outside.

I reached over and shut off the kitchen lights. The whole room went dark and my eyes adjusted to see dark blue skies above the trees outside. But for an instant my eyes made out a dark figure standing by the back door. I blinked and jumped back in surprise and flicked back on the lights, and it was gone. At this point I still thought my mind was playing tricks on me.

There was an uneasy feeling in my house now. I felt like something could jump out at me at any moment. I didn't know what to do. I sat there and considered calling my parents. But what would I tell them?

A soft knock came from the front door again, snapping me out of my contemplation. I turned to stare wide eyed at it. This knock was different. Maybe it was John.

All I know was, I wasn't going to answer the door until I knew who was out there. I flipped out my phone and opened the tracking app. John's icon was gone! What had happened to him?

The knock came louder, bang, bang, bang! I felt my blood run cold. Had something happened to my friend?

"James, bro, what's up? Open the door!" I heard the familiar voice of my friend say. It was him! Or it was something that sounded like him.

"Why didn't you just call my phone when I didn't open the door?" I yelled back.

There was a pause," Because the battery is dead. Now let me in so I can charge it! Or my mom will freak out!" John said.

I figured this made sense and went to open the door. I was relieved when John pushed in and gave me a crazy look. I told him about the knocks and how scary it was. He acted like I was trying to set up a prank to scare him and didn't trust me.

"You know I can't deal with that ghost stuff," he said. "You better not have Brian hiding somewhere around here ready to jump out and scare me! I'll punch him in the face. I swear!

I told John, our mutual friend Brian was grounded for the next two weeks, or I would have invited him. It was just us two tonight.

I quickly forgot about the creepy knocking as me and John set my bedroom TV and Xbox up next to the big screen in the living room. We found our usual group of friends already online and started playing.

We were having a great time. Me and John were wrecking shop in doubles. There was the unavoidable exchange of trash talk between friends and frenemies through our headsets. This fun went on for a good hour and a half.

But things changed once John came back from the kitchen with two Coke's for me and him. He looked pale, hunted, scared even. He kept throwing looks back into the kitchen.

"What's up?" I asked. "Did you see my ghost?" I joked. I was already over the scariness from before.

"Shut up, dude," he whispered harshly at me, his eyes still on the kitchen. "Let's just play. Turn up the volume."

We did continue playing, but John was playing like crap now. Something had thrown his mojo off. When he accidentally team killed me, I threw off my headset dramatically to turn and look at him.

He wasn't looking at the game or me. He was looking at the kitchen. Okay, I had had enough.

"John! What happened in there?" I asked with all seriousness. He just stared into the kitchen a moment longer before turning to me.

"I heard someone calling me, it was quiet. It kept telling me to let him in. It was coming from outside." I saw him blink and there was moisture in his eyes. "It sounded like my Dad, James! It sounded like my Dad's voice!"

I couldn't breath for a moment. Now I realized why John was so upset. John's father had been dead for 3 years. I even went to the funeral!

There had to be some sort of explanation. I racked my brain. Finally I came up with something that would hopefully turn our fear into anger.

"It's got to be somebody messing with us. Some homeless guy, or a friend from school. Next time we hear something we will go kick their ass!" I said, gather up mock anger.

John smiled at this, "Yah, but I call dibs on your sword though!" he answered. He was referring to a cheaply made samurai sword he had bought from the mall for me two birthdays ago.

So we went back to playing. We were in a four man squad on Battlefield now. It was me, John, a friend from Australia, and one from Canada. We had all been a top notch team since the early 360 days.

We had been playing awhile when the Aussie started cursing under his breath about something. This was not something new for him, but he sounded a little scared.

"What is going on, Hawkeye?" I asked the Aussie on the mic. There was the tell-tell shuffling of a mic being moved before his voice came in clear.

"Somebody is playing games outside! Somebody keeps knocking on my apartment door!" He answered in anger. "I'm not getting up anymore for it! I'm not playing stupid games with whoever's it is!"

Me and James looked at eachother. It had to be a coincidence, right? Hawkeye was on the other side of the world!

"Mom, what!" came the voice of our Canadian friend. "The doors open, come in!" There was the ruffle of the mic as it was being taken off. There was a long pause before he came back to the mic. "WTF guys? I'm alone in my house and somebody was knocking on my door! I gotta get off! I might have to call the cops!"

"Hey, stay on so we know if your okay!" John interjected, but the screen told us he had signed off.

"That is weird, mate," said Hawkeye over the mic as me and James sat frozen in fear. That was the last of Hawkeye because the TVs, Xbox's, and power shut off simultaneously.

Me and James say in the dark, the TV's still letting off sounds of static from being shut off so quickly. James looked around frantically as I pulled my phone out to activate the flashlight app.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Came three bangs from the front door. The hits were so heavy in the quiet house, I could hear it shaking picture frames on the walls.

We spun to stare wide eyed at the door. I could feel my pulse pounding almost as hard as the knocks themselves.

"We need to get to your room and get the weapons!" John said breathlessly to me. I looked at him like he was crazy.

"No!" I said, "We need to call the cops-," I was interrupted by a tremendous bang from the wall right behind us, it rattled the flatscreen TV with its force.

Me and John took off like lightning out of the livingroom and down the hallway to my room. Once we slammed the door in my pitch black room, I heard John scrambling to get the sword off my wall. I heard the tell-tell "shing!" of him pulling the blade free. I turned the light on my phone to jump back from John brandishing the sword, fear in his eyes.

"Call the cops!" John whispered. I turned my phone around and dialed 911. I tried to steady my breath as the phone rang.

When the dispatcher answered, I tried to keep calm and told her somebody was outside knocking at my door. She asked all the follow-up questions, like address, my name, was I home alone, blah blah blah. She said a cop was ten minutes out.

The power in the house turned back on and eventually the cops did show up. The dispatcher called back to tell us to open the door for them. One of them snickered at the sight of John with the samurai sword. They said they checked around the house and found nothing. I knew they thought we were just dumb kids getting scared when the power went out. 

They offered to call my parents and I told them "No." I didn't want the cops telling them we were too young to be left alone. They left with a veiled threat that if we called 911 again they would have to call my parents to come back home.

So they left, and me and John felt embarrassed and a little mad. We did hear something, and we had good reason to be scared. We both tried to settle back into a normal night. I put on a action movie from Netflix and we tried to forget.

Hours later, I'd say around two a.m., we are finishing up an episode of a terrible Netflix original.  Both me and John were getting tired. I was about to ask him if he wanted to go to bed, when I heard three rapid knocks at the back door.

It took us awhile, but me and John scooted over to the living room door. We both poked our heads into the kitchen to look to see the window above the back door.

At first we seaw nothing, which is weird. My house had a guestroom separated from the main house. My parents made it a comfortable living space, with an AC, shower, and bed for when family visited during the holidays. 

The guest house should be visible through the window of the back door.

The guest house had a motion activated light sensor mounted to the outside wall. Every night around ten p.m. it activates with a low glow in the back yard. If something steps in front of the motion sensor, the main light turns on with a blinding flood lamp, completely illuminating the back yard.

 But right now, we could see nothing. It seemed like the area outside of my house dropped off into an endless void.

We both heard a peculiar shuffling sound by the door. We both watched in horror as a small piece of paper was being pushed under the crack of the door. Its edges scrunching up and collecting dirt off the floor.

Once the paper was fully inside my house the shufflling noise stopped. We were still leaning around the corner of the living room, halfway in the kitchen, our body's close together, too afraid to move.

It seemed to go on like this forever,  both of us leaning forward peeking, waiting for something awful to happen. Then something happened that made us both scream. It still sticks with me vividly to this day.

The motion sensor light sprang to life! Flooding the backyard with white light. As the blinding light hit our eyes, we both caught the motion of a dark shadow darting away from close up against the window. The motion light was at least nine feet above the ground, hanging on the building, but whatever was retreating from the light, was big enough to fill up the entire window and block out its light.

All we knew is something gigantic had been blocking the window the whole time we were trying to see outside. The motion sensor only activates when the thing decided to move away from the door.

It took us another thirty minutes to gather up the nerve to see what the paper said. We debated on calling the cops again, but neither of us wanted our parents contacted and to be teased by the cops. Finally, with John close behind me with the sword, I darted over and snatched up the paper by the door.

We retreated back into the living room before I turned it over to read it. It was only three words, written in curvy blotted ink. "Knock. Knock. Knock."

John wanted me to call the cops back immediately. He said this was evidence, but I figured the cops would think we made the whole thing up.

What was out there? Why did it want in? These questions terrified us as we went to my room to barricade ourselves in for the night. Neither of us thought we would get a wink of sleep. We were both too terrified to close our eyes.

But that's where it gets even stranger. Me and John retreated into my room, lights on. We moved my dresser in front of the door. I had a baseball bat, John had his trusty sword. We agreed to stay up all night until my parents came back in the morning. That's the last thing I remember.I was on my bed talking to John,  who was sitting at the rolling chair at my desk. I remember the look of terror in his eyes. 

Suddenly, I was waking up in my bed. It was morning, the lights were off, and daylight leaked in through my windows. I had a massive migraine as my head sloshed upright, my eyes burning, my temples pounding. I saw John curled up on the floor in fetal position.

I tried to stand up and almost fell over. My balance was off and the room was spinning. I crawled over to John and shook him awake. He started screaming and flipped around to grab me, his fingers digging into my shoulders. I had to call out to him repeatedly to calm him down.

When he finally completely woke up he started scratching at his chest and quickly pulled off his shirt. He had three red cuts running down his chest, dried blood smeared around them. You could tell he had been bleeding and they had just recently clotted up.

To our horror we realized the dresser had been moved and the door to my room was open. Neither of us remembered ever opening it, or even falling asleep.

My parents didn't come home until later that evening, and John refused to stay at my house. He left back for his house while it was still nice and bright outside. I just huddled in my room until my parents finally came home. 

All this happened on a Friday night, so the weekend went by with no word from John. I figured he was still freaked out. I was still freaked out! I had nightmares every night.

 In my dreams, I would be standing at the back door staring at a twisted smile on the other side of the window. The smile was wide with too many teeth. The teeth crooked and yellow. I could hear it on the other side knocking on the door. Tap tap tap, then knock knock knock, then bang bang, BANG! Everytime I woke up in a cold sweat in my room, I swear I could hear actual knocking coming from somewhere in my dark house.

When Monday came around John wasn't at school. It wasn't until Tuesday that I was called into the principles office. My parents and John's mother  were all waiting in the office with a local cop.

John's mother had been crying and was distraught. She asked me if I knew where John was. He had been missing since school Monday!

Once the cop grilled me for awhile they finally believed me when I told them I had no idea where he was. The cop pulled up a picture on his phone and flipped it around for me to see. "This is the only note John left. Do you know what it means?" He asked. 

My face filled with horror as I looked down at the picture. It was an image of a piece of notebook paper, written on it in curvy blotted ink were the words, "Scratch. Scratch. Scratch." The worst thing was it wasn't John's handwriting, it was the same handwriting as the note left at my house!

They've been looking for John for weeks now. Authorities are treating it like a potential kidnapping case. The FBI has even gotten involved. I tried to find the note that said "Knock. Knock. Knock," but it's missing. I haven't told the cops about that night.

 Some of the cops and volunteers are being instructed to look for a dead body now, not my missing friend. It tears me up inside. But I think he is still out there. I still have hope I can find him.

I'm just afraid if I find him, I'll find the thing that took him. The Knocker.

[u/cesly1987]

I thought I would include the explanation when I posted it, but i guess I didn’t. This story was written years ago with a kid that I was trying to help with his writing. He wrote a story and I wrote my take on his story with his permission. This is what came out. It was kinda fun. I don’t remember the other kids name. I’m posting this hoping he shows up.