The Psychic Knock Game Series: I Played the Psychic Knock Game

My friends were idiots. I was an idiot. I don’t know if the warnings are real, but I know everyone else is gone. We thought it was a story. We just wanted to play along, have some creepy fun, but now it feels so real. Like it won’t go away until it has us all.

At least that’s what Devin said.

To be clear, none of us wanted this. It was supposed to be a fun, cheesy way to spend the night while Devin’s parents were out of town. Brendan found the story (here’s a link), but it was Devin’s idea to actually play the game. None of us were surprised by that, though; Devin’s always been into rituals and creepy things. Of course, we didn’t think it would actually work. But, I guess … no one ever does? That’s how stupid kids like us get suckered into playing, even though every warning tells us not to.

It was me, Devin Hart, Brendan Smith, Hannah Lawrence, Kennedy Lake, and McKenna Hall. We chose Isaiah Whitman as the target, because Kennedy had a crush on him and Hannah and I couldn’t resist an opportunity to tease her about it. That, and McKenna lived down the street from him, so it was a convenient pick.

The rules of the game call for a picture of the target’s door. Easy. McKenna got one with her phone on the way to school. Brendan “borrowed” a pen from Isaiah in chemistry (the game calls for a personal item and Brendan said it was the best he could do on short notice). I printed a Google map route from Devin’s house to Isaiah’s, and Devin provided the “refreshments” and “ambiance”.

So it was the six of us with Devin acting as the Caller. We did the ritual exactly as instructed. Everyone wore black, sat in a circle, and held hands while surrounded by candles. (The game doesn’t call for them, but Devin insisted.) We visualized walking from Devin’s house to Isaiah’s, we raised our right hands and focused on sending the knock through Devin. Devin even lifted his arm like he wasn’t in control of it and knocked in the air three times. And then …. nothing.

At least, at the time, nothing. Devin sulked about how we didn’t have enough people to make it work, and I pointed out that we had no real way of knowing whether it worked or not, because none of us were in Isaiah’s house when it happened. There was a little bickering back and forth about poor planning and what constituted an “invasion of privacy” before we blew out the candles and pulled up Netflix. Kennedy and McKenna ditched early, and the rest of us spent the night watching old horror movies until the sun came up.

And that was it. Isaiah never said a thing about phantom knocking, and we forgot all about it.

Until about a week later when McKenna stormed up to me while I was reading outside during a free period.

She shoved my book out of the way and her phone in my face, demanding to know what “this” was all about. “This” was a Snapchat message from “callme_469” that read “You called me, but no one answered. I will return. One of you must let me in.” It was a creepy message, sure, but we all got the same Snap the night we tried to summon a demon, or whatever. I told her as much, and she complained that since she left early, she shouldn’t have gotten one.

The eye roll was strong in me, but I explained that Kennedy had cut out early, too, and she got a text just the same as we did. I didn’t know how they got our info, but I assumed Devin had something to do with it. He’s the one who made the dumb account in the first place after reading the story, and he probably gave the guy our info to up the creep factor and make it all “authentic”.

She didn’t like that answer, but it’s not like I could have done anything about it. She dropped the subject after that, but I could tell it was still bothering her when Hannah found us later that day, asking if we’d heard from Brendan or Kennedy.

I laughed about Brendan. I thought it was a little silly, her asking us if we’d heard from her boyfriend, but she said they’d had a fight two nights before, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

None of us had.

McKenna and I both tried calling him to see if maybe he was just avoiding Hannah’s calls, but they went straight to voicemail.

I told Hannah he probably knew we were calling on her behalf and he didn’t want to talk.

McKenna offered that his phone might just have died.

Hannah didn’t really accept it. She nodded at the time, because I think she wanted to believe it was that simple — I think we all did — but deep down I know she didn’t buy it.

And, honestly, I don’t think I bought it, either.

Brendan didn’t live with his family. They lived upstate — had moved there for his dad’s work — but Brendan wanted to finish high school with us. So, he lived with his older brother, Sam, in town.

Except Sam wasn’t in town. He was in Maine for a week-long conference and wouldn’t be back for another three days.

Which left Brendan all alone.

And given what Hannah told us about Kennedy, I didn’t blame her for being concerned.

Kennedy was gone. So was her family.

According to Hannah, it was like a one-family Roanoke; food was on the table, lights were left on, no sign of a struggle, all their stuff left behind, and, most upsetting to us, the front door was left wide open. Police were stumped, but we thought we knew exactly what happened.

And Hannah was terrified it had happened to Brendan, as well.

Who could blame her?

Struck by a sharp pang of realization, I asked if either of them had heard from Devin, but neither she nor McKenna had. They hadn’t even seen him since that night.

That bothered me. It bothered them, too, I guess, but Devin was my friend; I’d known him the longest. That mattered to me.

I decided to call him when I got home. Kennedy was gone, and Brendan might have been, as well. I wanted to know that Devin, at least, was still okay. I wanted to hear his laugh as I explained how our collective imaginations made a bad situation seem even worse. I wanted to hear his voice and remember this was all a game. I wanted to know that we were all idiots for buying into it.

I wanted that. But that’s not what happened.

I called and Devin answered before the first ring ended. His breathing was sharp and labored, rattling through the phone as if he had held it too close to his mouth.

“Devin?”

“Ash?” His response came out with a grating whisper tinged with what sounded like hope. I wanted hearing him to restore my own hope, but all I could feel in that moment was a growing knot of dread in the pit of my stomach.

“Dev, are you okay?”

“No, Ash. No I am fucking not. We shouldn’t have played that game,” he sobbed. “We shouldn’t have messed with it. Isaiah didn’t answer, and now we’re all in trouble. I — oh god,” his voice became even softer, and I heard him shifting briefly before holding his breath in silence.

In the distance, coming from somewhere deeper in the house, I heard banging.

Thud, thud, thud!

My heart thundered in my ears as fear crawled up the back of my neck. Quiet crept through the phone, but it didn’t last long.

Clang, clang, clang!

It sounded like something was striking pots and pans, and my mind flashed to the “fairy door” he’d painted on an old piece of tin hanging above his bed.

Thump, thump, thump!

Something muted and heavy, like the old steamer trunk at the foot of his bed.

Ba-aa-ang, ba-aa-ang, ba-aa-ang!

The shuddering reverberation of his closet doors.

It sounded like someone was moving through the house, knocking on random things in repeating sets of three, unsure of his location, but seeking entrance nonetheless. Then there was a long pause as we waited for more knocking, and then I heard Devin breathing again.

“It won’t stop,” he whispered, almost to himself. “It won’t stop. It won’t stop. It won’t stop.” He repeated it like a mantra. “It won’t stop. It won’t stop. It won’t stop.”

I was at a total loss, completely helpless to comfort him. What would I even say? How long had he been going through this? Since that night, perhaps?

“Devin, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, fighting back guilty tears. Why had none of us checked on him before?

Suddenly, he went quiet. So quiet I pulled the phone away to make sure we were still connected.

“Dev?”

He didn’t respond.

“Devin?!”

He took a stuttering breath and let it out as one big sigh.

“Behold,” he said, growing very still on the other end. “I have set before you an open door, one that no one is able to shut.”

Three more knocks followed his words, and then there was nothing.

The silence was oppressive. I almost didn’t dare to breathe as I strained to hear anything that might be happening on his end.

Time became meaningless. Maybe only two minutes passed — or it could have been thirty, I have no clue. The only thing that mattered in that moment was the fact that the line was still open and he was still there, somewhere, on the other end.

Come on, Devin, I thought with gritted teeth. Come on!

“Fine,” he said at last, startling me. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. I’m just so tired of fighting.”

“Devin, are you — what are you doing?”

“Ending it,” he said with a heavy sigh. “It’s never going to stop, and I can’t keep hiding. There are so many doors now, Ash. I can’t even count them. And he knocks … all the time. I just ….”

“Don’t you open the door, Devin!” I yelled into the phone, gripping it tightly in both hands, as if by sheer force of will I could hold him back.

“Good luck, Ash,” he said, sounding both exhausted and so very, painfully sad. “Maybe I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Devin!”

I heard him shuffling around, and the familiar creak of his bedroom door‘s hinges.

After that, the line went dead.

I tried calling back, but all I got was voicemail.

The news reports called him a runaway. Said he’d been acting disturbed and irrational for days leading up to it. Some suggested drugs. Most thought psychotic break. No one had any leads, but I knew.

He had opened the door.

It came for me just two days later, at 3:45pm.

I was at school, getting ready to go home. As I twisted my combination into the lock, the game weighed heavily in my mind. I tried to shake the feeling that we were all on a bullet train to hell with no way off but to go through the door. I thought about living in a cabin somewhere the internet couldn’t reach. Or maybe getting a big open floor plan apartment where I could be a shut-in for the rest of my life. I reached for the latch to open the locker door, worried that, even if I did manage to do either of those things, I would only be delaying the inevitable.

From inside my locker came three sharp raps.

The door shuddered under the force, visibly shaking with each hard knock as my hand hovered less than a centimeter away.

My chest ached with the slow, deep breath I took, watching the locker door like it was alive. A scream welled up inside me, but never made it out. It was like my brain and my body weren’t communicating anymore, and I just stood there, frozen and screaming inside.

The thing in my locker knocked again, pounding on the door hard enough that I thought it was going to break. Something inside me finally sprung to life and forced my feet to move. I backed up, right hand still held high in the air while my heart pounded so hard I could barely see.

I frowned at my locker in confusion. Adrenaline thundered through my body, leaving me shaken and raw, my every nerve on fire and my attention honed to a needle-fine point, but my brain was still sluggish, unable to reconcile what had just happened..

From my pocket came the familiar “blip” of a new Snapchat message. I pulled my phone out automatically, caught in a haze of oafish bemusement, able to act only by rote, and tapped the new message without conscious thought.

“He who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens.”

I knew the sender before I even looked at the name.

callme_469.

The same sick bastard that messaged us the night we played the game.

As I watched the screen, the little ellipsis cloud popped up in the bottom left corner, giving me a jolt of panic.

Someone was actively typing.

My heart seized painfully in my chest. Cold shot through my body, and I felt the instinctive need to throw the phone and hide.

But another message appeared.

My vision wavered and dimmed. I fought the urge to throw up as I struggled to read the words from a screen now bouncing in my unsteady hands.

“You must let me in!”

I exited the app.

No. No more. I’m done with this, I thought, feeling strangely numb, and yet still teetering on the edge of full-blown terror.

My head throbbed painfully as I deleted Snapchat from my phone. I don’t know why I thought it would help, but it was the only thing that made sense at the time; delete the app and the “thing” couldn’t reach me. The app was the connection, right?

I shoved my phone back in my pocket,  trying hard to push the knocking game, and McKenna, and poor Kennedy and Devin, and whatever was going on with Hannah and Brendan as far from my mind as I could. I left my books in my bag, afraid to open my locker again. Not until I was sure it was safe. Even if it turned out to be nothing, later, I wasn’t taking any risks.

I had a brief moment of panic when I reached the school’s front doors and realized I’d have to open them to leave. I stared at them like a crazy person, listening for knocks that never came as three students and a teacher came in and out without incident. I was still uneasy, but, since no one was going to let me sleep in the school, I knew I’d have to leave sooner or later.

I slipped out when a group of three girls came in, hoping the fact that it wasn’t me opening the door would grant me some kind of protection.

I hurried to the parking lot, fishing my keys out of my purse as I went. When I got to my car, I hesitated.

I had to open the door to get in. I looked over the roof of my car and saw several others still in the lot. Doors on every one. Doors on the bus if I wanted to take that, instead. Doors on an Uber, so I couldn’t use that. I could walk the seven miles to my house, but I’d still have to open the door to get in.

Doors everywhere.

A mass of irrational hysteria churned in my stomach, and I stood there, trembling, gasping for breath I couldn’t quite catch and trying not to lose my mind. It was a slow process, and I have no idea how long it took, but logic eventually managed to wrestle its way back into my head to remind me what reality was.

Reality was a series of unlikely coincidences. Reality was reading too much creepypasta and being susceptible to suggestion. Reality was a friend and her family being missing, which was tragic, but it wasn’t unique. These things happened periodically; whole families just up and disappeared without a single trace, leaving everything behind. Whole sections of the internet were dedicated to just that kind of disappearance. Reality was another friend snapping under the strain of his own imagination, just as I was close to doing, and running away from home instead of seeking help.

My heart still raced, and I felt like I’d had too many shots of espresso, but my breathing started to even out the more I thought things through.

I mean …. what the ever-loving fuck? What did I think was going on? Knocking from inside my locker? I laughed. It was ridiculous. It was worse than ridiculous: it was impossible! I laughed, and couldn’t stop laughing, crying, until I’d collapsed beside the car with my back against the door and my head between my hands.

I had to call someone if I didn’t want to end up like Devin — alone, lost on the street, losing my mind and never opening doors. That’s where he had to be now. It made sense. More sense than the alternative.

My parents would know what to do, so I called them to come get me. They were inconvenienced by my insistence, but were worried at the same time. That was fine; so was I. But It didn’t help that I thought I heard knocking coming from inside my car door, right behind my head.

When my dad showed up I just stared at the passenger side door. He tried to reassure me, but he couldn’t hear the knocking. Eventually, he had to get out of the car and open the door for me, but I made him wait until the knocking ceased; I couldn’t take the risk. After all, Kennedy’s whole family was gone. And I was just crazy enough to think it was because of that game.

When we got home, I told them everything — the creepypasta story, the ritual, Kennedy’s family, Devin’s mental breakdown, and my unshakable, irrational paranoia that I would be next if I opened any door. They said they’d look into getting me a psychiatrist, concerned about my health. But that wasn’t good enough. They didn’t understand.

I know this isn’t real — it can’t be, and I refuse to believe it is — but I also know if I open any door I’m as good as gone. I know it in my bones. The others are already gone — they didn’t get help when they should have — and I refuse to join them.

What I needed was a hospital and a room with only one door that I didn’t have to open myself. And I got it in the end. It took nearly twenty pills, a trip to the ER, and an unpleasant stomach pumping, but they gave me the quiet room I wanted.

And there’s WiFi in the rec room, so I can keep up with the stories here while the doctors help me through this. I know I’ll be back to normal again, now that I’m getting help.

What doesn’t help is the email I got earlier today. From someone pretending to be callme_469.

It said “After this I looked, and there before me was a door.” It’s a dirty trick, and my doctors will probably restrict my online access when I tell them about it, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t been seeing extra doors where there shouldn’t be any. All of them waiting to be opened for whoever, or whatever, is insistently knocking on the other side.

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CREDIT: Death By Proxy

The Psychic Knock Game Series: My Experiences with the Psychic Knock Game

If you’re reading this, then I assume you know all about Snapchat’s “Psychic Knock Game.” If not, you can click HERE to get caught up.

If you’re like me, then you’ve probably been perusing the creepypasta site over the past few days and noticed the countless posts pertaining to The Psychic Knock Game. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty sick of them. I want my regularly scheduled stories back; anything that doesn’t involve that damned Snapchat ritual. I tried contacting the site through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but to no avail. Each and every time, I was left on read. Typical. Still, I wasn’t about to give up. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I thought it best to shame the story in an effort to get the posts taken down, or at the very least, make them stop. What better way to shame the ritual, I thought, than to disprove it all together; show the creepypasta fandom that it was a bunch of malarkey; something that wasn’t worth reading – or at least not worth numerous posts about it. I would play the game, film my experience, and post the video all over, calling out the story on its obvious bullshit. Simple. Or so I thought.

I faced a big obstacle in initiating gameplay. The first step called for gathering a large group of connected individuals, but I lacked the resources to do so. Most of my good friends had moved away, either out of town or out of state. There was no way they’d make the trip just to help me make a point on the internet. Family was out of the question as well; they’re all a bunch of normies, for lack of a better term – they would neither understand the concept of the game nor the reason for me attempting to disprove it. I would be judged and ridiculed for even partaking in something so ‘silly’ and ‘trite.’ In light of all of this, I hatched a plan.

I connected with callme_469 on Snapchat and sent a message, asking if there were any solo instructions for the psychic knock game. My hope was that whoever owned the account (more than likely the writer of the first post) would be intrigued by my query and create a list of steps for would-be players who had no friends. Another twist in the game’s fabric, so to speak. Screenshotting the response and filming the subsequent video would be enough to convince folks that the game was a load of crap – just as good as following the original post’s instructions to a tee. That was the plan, anyway.

A few hours passed with no reply. I was beginning to think that I was embarking on a hopeless endeavor, but a familiar sound lifted my spirits.

Bing

 It was a snap from callme_469. Upon opening the notification, I was greeted to an image of a handwritten note; more specifically, a set of steps titled Psychic Knock Solo Play. Success! The only thing left to do was play and shame. I was one step closer to “fixing” one of my favorite sites and bringing it back to its former, psychic-knockless glory. Victory was just around the corner.

I screenshotted the snap and read aloud to myself:

1. Wear black
2. Choose a door to knock on
3. Sit, cross-legged on the floor
4. Place a picture of the door in question, as well as a map to its location, directly in front of you
5. There must be complete silence
6. With eyes shut, concentrate on the map and visualize moving to the door
7. While visualizing, raise your right hand and knock in the air, three times

The steps were very similar to those in the original post, save for the group aspect. In addition, there was an eerie post script at the bottom of the note:

Solo play is not recommended. A great deal of energy is required to knock. Without a group, you put yourself at risk. Tread carefully.

Ahh. A little zest of danger to discourage me from playing. Nice try, OP, but I don’t scare easy. At this point, I still had every intention of following through with my plan and ending this guy’s continuum of ritualistic nonsense. Nothing, not even a well-placed warning, would keep me from seeing this thing through.

I chose the perfect day. My stoner roommate was out of the house, and my noisy neighbors were at the beach. I would be able to perform the ritual, in silence, just as the instructions called for. The last thing I needed was some douche bag in the comment section of the video saying I heard something in the background. That’s why it didn’t work. After uploading my experience, I wanted there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the game was utter bullshit. No backlash, no analysis, and absolutely no debunking my performance.  I needed a clean run, through and through.

I threw on a black shirt, sat down in my living room, placed a photo of my own door on the floor in front of me, as well as a MapQuest from my house, around my neighborhood, back to my house again. I decided it best to use my own door as the target, as this was the only way I could corroborate my findings in one, seamless video. After visualizing a nice stroll around the cul-de-sac, I pictured the entrance to my home and raised my hand to knock. The game was afoot.

I was able to knock the required amount of times, however, in between knocks, things became a bit troublesome. I’ll describe the experience below:

KNOCK #1

Though only imagining the events, I felt my skin make contact with the door, and in turn, heard the loud thud of a knock. Despite the game’s rules, I opened my eyes and looked ahead, astonished. I used my free hand to angle the camera directly at the door as I continued.

KNOCK #2

I shut my eyes once more, visualized the same scene, and motioned my hand accordingly. Again, the wood of the door met my knuckles and a loud knock reverberated throughout the house. I opened my eyes again, but was now greeted with a blurry sight. A wave of drowsiness came over me, as if I’d popped a couple Benadryl. With it, I saw spots in the air; little blotches of light burned into my retina.

KNOCK #3

With what little strength I had, I made the final knock. The sound that followed was jarring. It wasn’t louder than the previous ones, no… just different. It had a strange, almost metallic reverb, and lingered for far too long. It lasted for a solid minute before dissipating, a continuous dissonance that flowed through every crevice of the room, causing my skin to crawl. In this moment, the room spun, and my stomach turned. Just as severe dizziness took hold, I saw the door open, though I couldn’t discern the action’s source. Before I knew it, it was lights out.

When I awoke, the door was still open; not to my neighborhood, but to a forest of sorts. Perplexed, I walked out, noticing a peculiar dirt path lined with overarching trees, leading from my doorstep into the depths of the woods. Ominous, yes, but I didn’t feel as though I was in any immediate danger. The atmosphere of this place was anything if not tranquil. A bizarre yet peaceful escape from real life. In truth, I had forgotten all about the psychic knock game, as well as the events that led me to that moment. I was in a strange stupor; a euphoria brought on by drugs unknown. In this state, the only thing I felt was a growing compulsion to move forward. I placated this sensation and braved the wilderness ahead, officially beginning my journey into the forest.

I walked for what seemed like hours, though time felt irrelevant in whatever realm I was in. I eventually came to a small clearing at the forest’s edge, where it became apparent that I wasn’t alone. In that clearing was a man, facing away from me – before him, a set of doors, standing upright of their own accord. Though my absent-minded state may have been to blame, I still felt no danger. Only calm. The man turned around and gestured for me to come closer. I obliged, walking through a space between two of the doors. I was able to get a better look of the man, who was dressed in old-fashioned attire; a white button up, black pants, suspenders, dress shoes, and a skully-cap. Hanging from his side was the chain to a pocket watch. Where his facial features should have been was a pit of darkness; a swirling vortex of black energy. This was alarming, but euphoria kept me from feeling unnerved.

The man spread his arms, reaching towards the doors and then spoke with a gravelly, artificial voice.

“What would you like to know?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked at him, mystified by his presence. He spoke again.

“Pick a door. Learn. Come back. Repeat.”

He stood there, motionless, waiting for me to humor him. I was still confused, but did as he said, walking over to the closest door and then looking back at him.

“Enter and you shall see.”

I looked back at the door in front of me, grabbed the knob, and took a deep breath. Still calm as could be, I swung it open, walked past the doorframe, and entered a new world.

From this point on, things got weird. Super weird. I entered and exited each and every door there, traversing strange locations as I did. One door led me into a retro, boxcar diner, flying through space. One led me into an old antiques shop, filled with items that harbored unique powers. Another brought me to a town completely frozen in time. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. Calling it surreal would be a severe understatement. For one reason or another, I was being allowed glimpses into places, worlds, and universes I was never meant to see. A mortal walking amongst the heavens. In the short period of time I was granted this power, I felt… eternal.

Upon exiting the last door, the unusual man offered me one last bit of wisdom.

“We oversee. We correct. We control.”

There was a brief pause before he finished his sentiment.

“Now you know.”

The swirling energy on his face vanished, revealing a blank slate of skin, void of expression. The doors were next, disappearing one by one as the forest around them transformed into pitch blackness. Before long, I could see nothing. Nothing but darkness. The euphoria subsided, sweat dripped from my brow, and my breaths became rapid and arrythmic. I didn’t know what was happening at the time, but I now realize I was waking up.

I jolted to life, opening my eyes as wide as possible, surveying my surroundings. I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to life support; an IV, a breathing tube; the whole nine yards. In the room was a nurse, my family, and even my stoner roommate, all seemingly ecstatic that I had woken. A doctor walked in and undid the breathing apparatus, allowing me to speak. That’s when I learned everything.

Apparently, my roommate had come home to find me unconscious in the living room, face down on the hardwood floor. When he couldn’t wake me, he called 911 and then my parents. I was rushed to the hospital where it was determined I had suffered a head injury and succumb to a concussion-induced coma. It was also determined that I was severely dehydrated and vitamin deficient. The head injury came from falling over after passing out, but the cause for my nutrition levels was unknown. Luckily, after getting the appropriate fluids, I was able to fight my impromptu slumber and wake myself up. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.

And that’s everything that happened. You might think I don’t eat properly, don’t drink as much water as I should, and wound up in a strange dream after passing out from exhaustion. Those who think the game is fake will continue to think this, those who think it’s real will subscribe to the idea that I didn’t follow through due to my accident, and the site will keep pumping out psychic knock stories until the cows come home. Right? Well, not exactly.

You see, I had my camera the whole time. I filmed every moment from the start of the ritual, up to my meeting with the strange man. It wasn’t a dream. You can watch the video by clicking here. Some parts aren’t salvageable due to a bizarre electrical interference, but I pieced together enough to prove my story. See for yourself and make your own judgement. Oh yeah, and don’t play this fucking game, if you know what’s good for you. I very well could have died.

You’ve been warned.

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CREDIT: Christopher Maxim

The Psychic Knock Game Series: The Psychic Knock Game

That idiot Josh started this. He found this Snapchat user named callme_469 (click here for a pic of their snapcode). Rumor had it that the account belonged to a hot girl, so Josh thought he could flirt with her, I guess. Despite the suggestive name, Josh was misguided; after connecting, the user sent him nothing but snaps detailing the instructions to some sort of ‘psychic’ game.

“You get a group of you together, and if you all focus hard enough, you can knock on someone’s door with your collective psychic energy.” Josh explained to Martin, Tony, and I in school on Monday.

We noticed that there was a bit more to it than that when he actually showed us the snaps, each one a picture of handwritten instructions.

• You need a large group of people who are connected in some way; friends, teammates, or classmates works well.

• You must all agree on whose door to knock on. If there is any disagreement in the group, the game will not work.

• Everyone must wear black.

• The group must sit in a circle and join hands.

• The leader (caller) in the group must place a picture of the door, a map showing the route from the group to the door’s location, and something belonging to the person to receive the psychic knock in the center of the circle.

• There must be complete silence

• The group must concentrate on the map and visualize moving to the door one at a time, starting with the person sat to the left of the caller. When you reach the door, squeeze the hand of your neighbor to the left. Only when the caller gets to the house can you begin to focus on the knock.

• The group, except for the caller, must raise their right hand, concentrate on the door, and visualize the caller’s hand raised and knocking.

• The caller must also visualise the knock. The psychic energy of the group will be channelled into the caller’s right hand and it will raise of its own accord and knock.

We didn’t know how many people we needed, so it started as a few close friends – but word soon got out. Josh invited Kayla because he wanted to make out with her. Kayla wanted to bring Abbey, the biggest loudmouth in the school, so by Thursday morning we had fourteen people coming.

We picked our chemistry teacher Mr Griffiths. He lived quite close to me so it was easy enough to take a picture of his door and steal a little garden gnome he had at the front of his house.

Everything was set, and then disaster struck.

My mom got asked to cover a shift at work; we really needed the money, so she’s couldn’t say no. Because of this, I had to stay home and look after my little sister Joanie.

So, while Josh, Tony, and Martin were having fun hanging out with the hottest girls in our class and trying to psychically bother our teacher, I was stuck at home with a nine year old brat.

Once I’d packed her off to bed, I jumped on my laptop and Skyped Josh. It was 10pm.

“Hey man, this is awesome – Kayla and all the girls came” he said, “It sucks that you can’t be here.”

“I know, man, when are you going to start?”

“Stroke of midnight, dude. Look, stay on the line, but we are going to have to put you on mute when the time comes. The instructions say complete silence.”

I hung out with them for a couple of hours via Skype and watched them get ready in Josh’s basement den. They were all dressed in black, and Josh lit a bunch of candles around the room that cast an eerie, flickering light. When he turned off the lights, the soft, low candle light made the images on the screen pixelated and indistinct.

“Sorry dude, we’re putting you on silent,” Josh said and hit mute. At this point, I could hear them, but they couldn’t hear me.

They formed into a circle, cross-legged on the floor. Josh was reveling in his role as ‘caller’, dishing out instructions and trying to act cool. There was whispering and nodding, then when they pulled out the map and object to put in the middle of the circle, they broke out in giggles, and a few of them shot glances to the screen to look at me. I couldn’t make out the images clearly, but it didn’t look like Mr Griffith’s gnome. It looked more like a sweater… my sweater.

That was when it hit me. They were going to knock on my door.

“You sons of bitches” I shouted uselessly into the muted Skype call. There was nothing I could do. They were in the circle now, completely focused. I watched, powerless to intervene.

I couldn’t see the hand squeezes as the members of the circle passed the ‘psychic baton’ to each other, but I could somehow sense it. I felt the energy building from one person to the next. The candlelight grew dimmer, drawing all attention into the circle, blocking out the rest of the room; the rest of the world. The light flickered wildly as each hand was squeezed tight, and then, the energy passed. Despite the silence in the room, a distant rumbling, grating noise grew over our connection. It hurt my ears.

I wanted to scream at them to stop, but found myself entranced by the events unfolding on my screen.

The energy passed to Josh and the group broke hands. They raised them in unison. Josh’s hands remained rested on his knees, his face impassive, eyes narrowed.

They knocked three times, slowly and deliberately. Impossibly, a deep reverberation built over the Skype connection so that, by the end of the third knock, the booming noise echoed into the pits of infinity.

It’s hard to describe everything that happened in those next few moments.

Josh’s hand shot up. For a fraction of a second, he stared at it, a terrified look on his face. In an instant, the look was gone, as his eyes rolled back in his head, only the whites now staring vacantly out. The flickering candle light transformed the shadow of his raised hand from a teenage boy’s into that of a gnarled and twisted fiend. I don’t know if I actually saw it, or imagined it after the fact, but for less than a heartbeat I thought I saw the terrible creature who owned that hand, etched in shadow on the wall and my screen.

A sound came over the speakers, full of dread, malice, and glee. It was at once a scream, a roar, and most terrifying of all, the word “Yes”.

The circle must have heard it as well, for they clutched their hands to their ears, faces writhing in agony. Blood trickled from some of their noses. My speakers blew, plunging my room into silence.

Josh was oblivious in his glaze-eyed trance. He made a slow, deliberate knocking motion three times.

Thump.

My attention shot to my front door at the thudding sound of the knock. My heart began to race.

Thump.

The knocking on my door was in perfect unison with Josh’s knocking on screen. A couple of the group in Josh’s den scrambled to their feet, freaked out at what was going on. I felt sick; this had gone way too far.

Thump.

I stood up and backed away from the door to my stairs. No fucking way I was opening that door with the shit I had just seen.

I ran upstairs to check on Joanie, make sure she was okay. Thankfully, she was fast asleep. I went into my own room and grabbed my baseball bat. From my bedroom window, I have a good view of the front door. Sweaty and hyperventilating, I nervously drew back the curtains to look.

Nothing.

I grew bolder and took a good look, studying our porch and looking out down the street. Still nothing, but I could feel a presence. That’s when I caught a glimpse; a shadowy movement in the trees across the road. It was only for an instant, but I saw that same ominous outline that I had seen in Josh’s den.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, mentally taxed from the ordeal. I woke up with my baseball bat next to me.

—–

In the cold light of morning, with a couple hours of sleep under my belt, things felt different… cool almost. What had actually happened for me to be so scared? Josh was probably faked the eye rolling and the look of fear when his hand moved. The group were in on switching it to me rather than Griffiths, so they most likely had someone come around to do the knocking, as a joke. I bet they recorded me on Skype so they could see my reaction.

I went to school more pissed off than scared, ready to confront my dick-head friends. My mood changed pretty quickly.

The whole group from the night before were gathered. They all looked terrible, Josh worse than the rest, pale as a ghost and on edge. “I’m so sorry Cody, I had no idea, man. I’m fucking scared, dude.” He said as soon as he saw me.

He showed me his phone. There was a Snap from callme_469. It was a picture of my front door; all thirteen of them had received the same Snap even though only Josh was connected to the user.

The message said “You called me, but no one answered. I will return. One of you must let me in.”

---

CREDIT: Adam Davies

The Psychic Knock Game Series: Don't Play the Game

N̴o̸n̷e̷ ̶o̵f̴ ̷u̴s̷ ̵r̸e̶a̵l̷i̵z̶e̸d̴ ̵w̴h̷a̴t̵ ̶w̷e̸ ̵w̴e̶r̴e̷ ̶g̷e̸t̸t̷i̷n̴g̷ ̷i̵n̸t̵o̶.̶ ̵D̸a̸v̵i̴d̴ ̷i̸s̸ ̸t̵h̵e̶ ̸o̵n̴e̶ ̸w̵h̵o̷ ̴c̶l̵i̵c̸k̴e̶d̶ ̷o̷n̵ ̸t̶h̵e̵ ̶p̴o̶s̷t̴ ̵a̴n̶d̶ ̸d̵e̷c̴i̴d̸e̸d̷ ̴w̵e̸ ̸s̶h̴o̷u̴l̷d̸ ̷p̶l̷a̷y̷.̵

….

It was Thursday night and David’s dad was working. Naturally, at the prospect of finding ourselves on a Friday night unsupervised, my friends and I were drawn to David’s house, like moths into fire.

We are all 17 years old. Before we played, we were beset with that unshakable, idealist faith of youth. Nothing could touch us; we would live forever. The psychic knock game broke this belief, among other ideals.

Nobody believed it was real. The four of us had performed a dozen of these rituals before, to little results. Our little “Scooby Doo Club” consisted of me, my boyfriend David, Donna, and Mike. Smoking a bowl and poking around the internet for ‘sinister’ games to play was just what we did for kicks. The only thing any of them ever actually did was make our skin crawl at the implication of what if? – effectively making us jump at unexpected sounds and non-aggressive shadows. Everyone’s played Bloody Mary, but nobody expects to actually see her in the mirror. In our world of warning labels, the only thrill left that you can find is the thrill of ignoring them.

We were crowded in the living room, scrolling through YouTube on David’s smart TV. Donna had queued up a video that was supposed to be unsettling. It wasn’t. The caption on the video read:

“Japanese Girl Suicide Picture Urban Legend”

Allegedly, this girl had painted a picture of herself as a suicide note. Donna told us: “It was really popular in Korea and got spread around a lot.” Apparently if you stared into the painting’s eyes for long enough, the girl would smirk and her hair would move.

At least, that’s what Donna said. Her ritual choices were usually stupid. I didn’t see shit.

“Donna, this is fucking stupid and the music is annoying.” I told her.

She paused the video and glowered at me. “I thought you guys would like this. She’s pretty hot.”

David laughed and said: “We don’t care what she looks like. This is dumb. I’m with Gage on this one. I don’t really want to watch this girl’s face not change at all for five whole minutes.” Thankful that he’d agreed with me, we exchanged a quiet high-five.

Donna huffed, “Of course you’d side with your stupid boyfriend. At least Mike agrees that she’s hot,” and then with a touch of the dramatic melancholy that was Donna’s trademark, she said to herself: “Her eyes are so sad.”

Mike giggled and threw a pillow at her. Getting a bit too stoned and giggling was Mike’s signature.

“Here’s one,” David grinned. He sent the browser command to the TV and opened creepypasta.com.

Donna groaned: “I don’t wanna read.”

David read the article for her. It was titled:

The Psychic Knock Game

…..

There was more to the rules than the post stated. Here are a few that I’ve come up with:



1st: Do. Not. Play. This. Game.

2nd: The person on the other side of the door must answer it.

3rd: If they don’t, it will knock on your door instead.

…..

None of us even expected the silly Snapchat user in the post to be real… but they are. Go ahead and add them if you don’t believe me. You shouldn’t. But you probably will. We all did

callme_469

Mike giggled, “Who should we do it to?”

David had a gleam of excitement in his eye. “My stepdad.”

“What if your mom answers?”

Donna sighed, “It’s not real, Gage.”

David was still grinning, “Mom is in Michigan visiting her sister. That’s why we’ve been here all week.”

The front door opened and we all jumped.

David’s sister Morgan doubled over in laughter, “Boo!” She held her side as she tried to catch her breath, “Shouldn’t smoke so much, shit makes you paranoid.” She crossed into the darkened kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, bathing her face in the icy light and grabbing a case of their dad’s beer. Then, taking her keys from the counter, she headed back to the door. She stopped at the frame before she left and turned back, eyeing David, “Better get rid of the smell before Dad gets back. He doesn’t want you guys smoking in here.”

“Oh, but you can take his beer to a party and that’s cool.”

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes and with a cheerful, “later nerds,” was gone. We heard the snick of the lock behind her and moments later, her headlights shone through the kitchen window as the car backed out of the driveway.

I was already wearing a black t-shirt, but David found clothes for the rest. A black sweater that hung loosely on Donna’s wiry-frame covered her past her shorts. A pair of pants for me. Mike was bigger, so David had improvised with one of his dad’s work uniforms; black cotton pants and a plain black chef’s coat. We looked ridiculous.

David had stolen his stepdad’s cigarettes. We’d been smoking them all night; there were a few left and he insisted that it was a good enough personal item.

I read through the rules again. “It’s not gonna work. We need a picture of the door.”

David handed me his phone with a grin. On the screen was a live video feed of the door in question. I looked back at him confused.

“He put in one of those camera doorbells a couple weeks ago. Dumb idiot put it behind the pillar so you can’t see anything except the door.” He giggled. “When you walk up to the house you can’t even see it. He’s been opening the door to yell at everyone who knocks now for not using the bell.”

Mike laughed so hard at this that his eyes filled with tears, “So perfect. He’ll be so mad.”

Donna pulled up a GPS app and mapped the route to David’s parants’ house.

And so the ritual began.



None of us thought it would work. As we passed the energy from one hand to the next, it grew around us. The air felt oppressive–hot. As beads of sweat soaked my forehead, my breathing grew short and staccatoed. I felt myself growing faint but calmed at the notion that I was just freaking myself out. Then I looked over to David and realized he wasn’t in control of himself any longer.

The house rumbled with the energy and we heard a hissing voice from everywhere around us growl: YESSSSSS.

The candle snuffed itself out. David’s eyes were round planets with stars swirling within, wide as if held open by invisible fingers. When the candle burst back to life, it burned with the intensity of a soldering flame, hot and blinding-white. I didn’t want to, but I felt compelled as the others raised their arms to do the same. David’s eyes changed to glistening, empty pools of milk.

He knocked three times into the air in front of him.

The candle snuffed itself out again, leaving the room in cavernous darkness, save for the lights of the phones displaying the map and the live feed of the door.

The door that his stepdad did not open.

We could see him through the glass at the top; heard as he swore on the other side of the closed door through the live video feed: “Son of a bitch. You fucking kids. Knock on this fucking door again. I’ll fucking–” his voice trailed off as he moved away.

Donna was excited. “Holy shit. Does that mean it worked? He heard it?” Nobody else spoke.

Thud
Mike offered a blood curdling scream that rang until Donna covered his mouth with her hand. She directed all of us, with her eyes, to be quiet.

We stared at each other, not making a sound.

Mike was typing something.

Thud
His eyes shone with panic, like an animal trapped. He handed Donna his phone:

Do you think that’s it? the thing? Will it give up like in the doorbell vid??

“There was nothing in the doorbell video. Just my stepdad yelling,” David whispered.

“Shhh,” Donna hissed.

The door opened slowly and nobody moved as a dark shadow entered.

“Sorry, couldn’t get my key to work. Forgot my dumb phone.” Morgan looked at us for a moment as if we had three heads each. Grabbing her phone out of her room, she then looked directly at Mike, “I know that was you. You scream like a girl.”

We doubled over in laughter. Slowly, over the course of the next half hour, a sense of ease settled back into the room.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a dude scream like that,” Donna jibed him.

He threw another pillow at her, “Whatever dude. That was fucking scary as shit,” and he began giggling again.



The rest of the night passed without incident and, for the most part, we forgot about it.

…..

I was hanging out with David the following night. It was just the two of us. Morgan was staying with a friend and his dad was off at work again.

Bing

Our phones chimed in unison. A new Snapchat message. I fiddled with my phone and tapped the notification. Large white letters filled the black screen:

You called me, but no-one answered. I will return. One of you must let me in.

It was from callme_469

“So stupid,” David said, putting his phone down on the coffee table. I felt uneasy.

THUD
I felt my stomach fall away.

David looked startled but got up saying, “It’s probably my dad. The lock sticks,” he was almost to the door.

“Wait!” I shouted.

David froze as I walked to the kitchen window and gestured to the empty driveway, “If that’s him–”

“–how did he get home?” He finished for me.

We weren’t being loud enough to be heard, but a voice responded. David’s dad. “Son, it is your Father, home here now.  Lock sticking. Open door for Father?” The words sounded new. Whatever was on the other side of the door spoke with the right voice, but the sentence structure was jumbled, as though it was saying words it hadn’t used before. They were harsh. Emphasized wrongly.

Bing

This time the message read:

My father’s house has many rooms.

We grew silent and stared at each other.

Bing

Many rooms have many doors

The knocking began again, this time all around us.

THUD THUD THUD
THUD THUD KNOCK BANG THUD POUND

THUD POUNDBANG THUD THUD KNOCK
BANG POUNDIt came from the kitchen cabinets, from the closets, the cupboards, doorways, it rattled the mirrors of the medicine cabinets, and it shook from inside of the refrigerator. It struck everything that had a door, and when that didn’t work, it began knocking on walls, the ceiling, and floors.



David began hyperventilating. I was in shock.

Then, as quickly as it began, it ended. Headlights bathed the front of the house through the kitchen window. Before long we could hear someone at the lock muttering: “Goddamit”

Knock, knock, knock.
“Hey!” His shouts were muffled behind the door. “I can’t get my key to–nevermind.”

We both heard the sound as the key found its home in the lock tumblers and snicked the bolt aside.

I may have imagined the monstrous, formless shadow that loomed behind him; imagined the smile full of teeth shining in the dark like boxcutter blades…

…but I can’t be sure if I saw anything, because as soon as the door inched open wide enough, I bolted, past David’s father and his confused expression, and out into the night.

I didn’t stop running until I was at the door to my own house, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it; unsure of whether it was safe. Initially I’d grazed the handle and couldn’t be sure if I’d heard a knock or if it was the beating sound of blood in my ears.

Bing

I recognized the line from my years in Sunday School–paraphrased and perverted to serve its sinister purpose:

I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat.

I’ve been calling David for hours now. He isn’t picking up.

---

Credits

Nanny

Everyone has that one terrifying nightmare from their childhood they still remember, but what happens when they find out that it was real?

When my brother James and I were growing up, our family lived in an old Victorian Style home located in Massachusetts. It was a beautiful tribute to the profound craftsmanship of the early twenties; picture a life size rustic dollhouse with an absolutely stunning part glazed, timber framed porch. It was also very secluded, with our nearest neighbor being maybe a mile away.

We would spend most of our days outside, in the treehouse our father built, as we made up stories of pirates and treasures. I was always Blackbeard while James would be Calico, we were the unstoppable duo of the high seas. There was a special hole in the middle of the tree where we would hide our stolen treasures. James had noticed it the very first day after the fort was built.

As exciting as our tree house was though, I would have to say the best part about our home was our nanny. She was so thoughtful and fun, the best nanny any child could ask for, really. During the rainy days, she would often sit with us in our room, telling us stories as she rocked in the chair. I’ll admit, some were a little different than I had remembered.

For instance, when she would tell us the story about the little deer named Bambi, it wasn’t the mother who had been killed. Instead, it was Bambi himself. She would always remind us that we needed to listen to our parents, so monsters like the hunters couldn’t hurt us. She really did care.

At night, we would hear a soft humming sound that echoed throughout our whole room. It would lull us to sleep, enveloping our minds with such a calmness that we barely had any dreams, only that soft sweet hum from nanny.

Some nights though, James and I would startle awake, both having had the same nightmare. Frequently it involved not being able to breathe, as if someone had placed a bag over our heads, or shut off our air supply some how. We would always wake up right before we died, hands on our throats, as we coughed away the night terror.

The mornings after these episodes, we would wake up to find nanny had left us a note. We couldn’t quite make out all the scribbles, but O was sure I caught the word “sorry.” We always knew she wanted us to be happy and forget about the terrible shadows that haunted our minds.

We would often tell our parents about nanny, and how she was so kind, leaving us notes in the night. They would usually comment on how feverish our imaginations were, also adding in how we needed to stop getting into the craft bin without asking. Honestly, I think they were just jealous that we were both so fond of nanny, she had quickly become our favorite person over the years.

I remember the first time I brought a girl home. Her name was Gema and she had the cutest dimples. I was about fifteen years old at the time, just learning all the ins and outs of young love. I thought we were going to grow up and get married, and I wanted nothing more than nanny’s approval.

When her mother pulled up the driveway to drop her off I couldn’t contain my excitement. “Nanny, she’s here!” I remember yelling, before I bounded out the door to greet Gema. As we made our way up the front steps, I half expected nanny to be waiting for us just on the other side of the door, and when she wasn’t, I grew worried.

I told Gema to wait in the kitchen for me while I went searching for her, but to my utmost disappointment, Nanny was nowhere to be found. The night dragged on after that, all I could think of was my dear friend. Why did she not want to meet Gema? Did she know something I didn’t? Unfortunately, it left such a bad taste in my mouth, I never asked, and Gema was the last girl I ever brought home.

James and I eventually grew up and moved out of our family abode, leaving poor nanny behind. We could feel her sadness as we packed our bags, on what would be our last night home. We both took the time to each write nanny a goodbye letter that we placed on each of our nightstands, we knew she would appreciate that later.

We had got an apartment together in the city, and boy, was it different. We both received full rides to Boston University, each taking on a different major. I had decided I wanted to be a teacher, while James was interested in Engineering, he was more interested in getting his hands dirty I guess. The school work was time-consuming, but we never forgot about Nanny.

Years later, I was going to write my college thesis on my childhood, and how I was basically raised by a nanny. While looking up our family home, I stumbled across an article online, written about the original family that lived there in 1915. A mother and father, two little ones, and their nanny. Wait, our nanny.

My head began to spin as I inspected the article more thoroughly. Was this really the same woman? How is that possible? I was confused, but I guess a little excited to learn all I could about the woman, or I guess spirit, who had helped raise both my brother and myself. I nostalgically thought to myself, Maybe she missed the kiddos from the previous family and that’s why she took such good care of us!

I could not have been more wrong.

The word “murderer,” caught my eye and I quickly scanned further down the article, mortified at what I was reading. A lump began to form in the back of my throat, as my heart sank deep into my chest.

The article reported how the nanny had lost both of her children due to the negligence of a drunk driver in 1913. Never having been able to properly cope with their deaths, she actively searched for the monster that had stolen her babies lives. That is when she became employed by the Dobson’s.

On her journey for revenge, she had taken her time, caring for the monster’s children as if they were her own. Until that dreadful night when she murdered the two sleeping babes. She had smothered them with a pillow, most likely singing to them ever so sweetly, as she always did.

After they had died, the article stated that the nanny had written what appeared to be a suicide letter and left it next to their bodies. She then killed herself.

At the very bottom, was a photo of the backyard in which my brother and I used to play. In the middle, was the tree our fort had been built upon. As I looked closer I noticed our treasure hole, only, it looked different. It was covered in a deep crimson red that made my own blood run cold.

Next to the tree was the lifeless body of our Nanny, gun still in hand.

---

Credits

There Was Someone Standing in My Yard (Part 4)

Series by: donutboy456781

Two nights ago, after speaking with Detective Laird about the creature that broke into my home, I’m pretty sure I had a panic attack. I couldn’t catch my breath no matter how hard I tried. It felt like my throat had closed up. I shouldn’t have fallen back asleep after hearing that terrifying news, but I did. I had no choice. Maybe it was all the stress of the last few days, maybe it was the panic attack, or maybe it was something else entirely… but I did fall asleep, and that night I had the most vivid dream I’ve ever had. Usually my dreams are a jumbled mess of nonsense, but this one seemed to flow much more coherently than normal. It seemed to tell me something.

I found myself in my home’s entryway yet again. It was still very much in shambles like it had been when Sergeant James escorted Mary and I to safety for questioning: the door still lay on the floor, and the trail of the crimson blood-like substance still flowed like a makeshift road leading to the basement. In the dream, this red path led down the stairs and into the unfinished part of the basement, which is immediately on your right once you reach the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t go into that part of the basement though, most likely because I have always been terrified of that room. When we first saw the home, this room was still being used as storage for Mrs. Maddox and her late-husband’s excess belongings. I never really thought about why it actually made me so uneasy. My fear of that room was as strong as it was irrational as long as I’ve lived there.

In the main room of the basement, I saw Mary. She was facing away from me. I heard her whimpering and saw her shaking like she was the night we took shelter in our bedroom closet. I called to her, and she immediately stopped trembling. Her head snapped towards me, but she never looked fully at me. Something about her was different… I wish I could explain it better, because it was so alarming, but I can’t really put it into words at the moment. With her head still turned but not fully looking in my direction, she started whispering something… “We never leave. We never leave. We. Never. Leave. Leave. We. Never. Leave. Leave. Leave. Never.”

I turned my head to my left, towards that abominable room, to see that the door wasn’t there; it had unsurprisingly been broken down. The crimson trail led into that room, but I couldn’t see more than a few steps past the doorway. It seemed like all the light had been drained from the room. Usually, there was enough natural light from the small windows to make out the outline of the room and its contents. Regardless of the seemingly amplified darkness, I was able to see the outline of a person standing there. The only thing I could tell for certain was that it wasn’t the creature, because this figure was about my height. The figure stood in the doorway, bathed in darkness, and stretched their arm outwards towards me before being pulled backwards into the darkness. Before I could do anything in response, Mary crawled into the dark room on all fours. I tried to chase after her, but I was frozen.

I jolted awake at 8:13 AM. It took me a few moments to realize that I had just been dreaming, and that I was still in the hotel room in bed next to my still-sleeping wife. Like I said, I have never had a dream quite as vivid as that one. The details of my home were perfectly accurate. I knew from that moment that the dream meant something, but I’m still not really sure what exactly. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I would be returning to my home to investigate further, but the dream seemed like it was trying to tell me that if I did go to my home, there was probably something of note in the basement.

Mary and I got lunch, and discussed what our next move should be. She was set on moving away from this place and never looking back, something that I was reluctantly leaning towards as well. We both knew that this move would alter our lives forever and would also mean we’d have to scramble for a new way to provide for ourselves, but we didn’t really care at this point. We agreed that we would make a return trip to our home to get my car out of the driveway, and that would be the last time we ever set foot on the property again. We determined that we would go there once we were done eating lunch and meet up at her sister’s house afterwards.

At our house, there was the expected hustle and bustle for a crime scene, especially for one as… interesting as my home. I spoke with Detective Laird in the front yard. He told me that the house had been scoured at least six more times since we last spoke and that there was still no creature sighting to report.

The police, for all the good they’ve done and for all the patience they’ve shown, really do seem to be hiding something from us. It’s not that they seem malicious, but it seems more like they’re on damage control and want to just deny everything. When I asked Detective Laird if I would be getting my laptop back any time soon, he spewed out some rant about how the laptop seems to have a virus and how they had to take it back to the station to run diagnostics and figure out what went wrong with it. It all seemed canned, like someone above him on the law enforcement food chain told him what to tell me and hope I wouldn’t question it. I didn’t want trouble, so I told him he would never have to worry about me interfering again.

As I walked to my car I remembered the game cameras I’d placed in the woods. I wasn’t sure if the police ever found them, but my curiosity couldn’t be contained. I decided that I had a great chance to get these cameras later in the night. Worst-case scenario, the police find me and I make up some BS excuse about just wanting to get my friend his cameras I borrowed. Best-case scenario, I find something new that helps me understand this whole situation a little better. Regardless, I knew I had to do it to ease my troubled mind. I phoned Mary and told her that I was staying behind to help the police. I know… I’m an asshole for lying to her again. But honestly, if I told her what I was actually doing she’d either try to keep me from looking for the truth because she was scared, or she’d want to come with me and would put herself in great danger. I think this time, it’s entirely warranted.

I nervously drove around until nightfall. Finally, I made my way back to my house at about 9:30. It was dark and I was determined to find the truth. I really didn’t want to be back at this place, but I knew that if I didn’t at least look for any signs that might explain all this that I’d likely go insane. Finding these game cameras seemed like the safest way to find truth.

The first thing to cross my mind when I arrived at my house after dark was a simple observation: it’s a lot quieter now. And not just in the sense that it was nighttime, there were no more police officers there. Less than six hours ago, my home had been lively. There were at least eight officers still on perimeter duty, plus many other police officers inside on monster watch. There were forensic crews trying to find any sort of solid evidence they could use to understand what had happened within the walls of my home. The house had fallen eerily silent once again, and once again I hated it.

But I saw an opportunity. I dashed to the front porch, and inside the front door I found waiting for me the exact same sight from my dream. My entryway was still a chaotic scene of destruction, with the crimson path summoning me to investigate the basement. I recalled my dream and the feelings I felt down below the surface. I wanted to turn around, but instead I found myself at the top of the stairs. Looking down the stairs I saw the destroyed door lying right where it had in my dream. I saw the crimson trail turn right and go into the terrifying unfinished room of the basement. I thought about taking a step downwards, but the silence of the house was shattered before I could.

It started as a faint, but constant and indecipherable whisper: voices, emanating from the basement. As the voices grew in volume, they became more distinct but became no easier to decipher. There were at least four voices involved, but there could have easily been more voices speaking. They all spoke at once, sometimes over each other. I don’t know to whom they belonged, but I knew that these voices must have been the ones Mrs. Maddox heard that caused her son to move her out. This is my attempt at transcribing some of what I heard emanating from the basement:

Older Man: Does anything remain in this?

Younger Man: Here, there.

Older Man: So misplaced.

Woman 1: I want to \*muffled \*

Woman 2: For reasons unknown

Younger Man: I lived in the dark…

I truly cannot be sure that any of this text is correct, but this transcript is the best I can do. There was loud and indecipherable whispering that was an omnipresent undertone to what could barely be called a conversation. I also heard a woman crying at different times during the exchange. The whispering never stopped despite the other voices speaking, while the crying was sporadic but occurred when both women’s voices were speaking.

I stepped onto the top step of the basement, and the damned step creaked louder than a step ever has in the history of stairs. The voices immediately stopped. So did the whispering and crying. They all screeched to a halt. The unnatural silence returned. My heart did a drumroll.

I ran to my car, with my legs churning unrestricted of my brain. I didn’t care anymore. Fuck the truth and fuck those game cameras. I wanted to live my life. I wanted to grow old with Mary. I didn’t want to end up in that basement with whatever was down there. As I started the car, I noticed the creature standing was now standing in the doorway of my home. He was facing away from me, looking inside my home. As if it knew I was looking at it, it turned its head 180 degrees to look at me. It wore the same confused look on his face that it had when I had accidentally discovered it a few nights prior. It mouthed something at me and then sprinted deeper into my house with its eyes still locked upon me.

I write this final update from the comfort of my parents’ beach house, over 400 miles away from my haunted little home in the middle of nowhere. Mary and I look forward to starting our new life together far away from that place. Tomorrow begins our job search. However, I am unable to stop looking over my shoulder every time I hear the settling of this house or the crackling of the air conditioning coming alive to cool our home.

There still exist dark corners of our world, untouched by the light we consider ourselves so safe inside of. If you look hard enough for them, you will find them. If you listen closely for them, you will hear them beckon you. Once you’ve discovered them, you will only see their darkness. We spend our lives trying to outrun them, but the truth is we never escape them. Last night, I woke up in that basement. Mary was there. She acknowledged my presence, but never looked at me. I could hear crying, but I didn’t know from where it came.

We never leave. We never leave.

There Was Someone Standing in My Yard (Part 3)

Series by: donutboy456781

Unsurprisingly, things since my last update have been insanely hectic. I truly haven’t been able to find the time to write this next post for you all until right now, so I am sorry for all the worry I caused anyone with the abrupt ending of my previous post.

My wife and I, luckily, are once again okay. We’re still very shaken up by every little terrifying thing that has happened in the last two days, but thankfully we will be fine. Our bond has only strengthened during all of this, so that is a massive positive in a boatload of negatives. Before I get into the finer details about last night, I want to address something a lot of you have been saying the past two days: it was a bad move for me to withhold the truth from Mary. I thought I was doing the right thing in the moment, but lying to her was a bad idea. I could have gotten her killed, and that makes me feel awful. I came clean with her earlier today, and she handled it about as well as I could have expected. My face is still red where she slapped me, but she accepted my apology. I’m not perfect, but I’m glad that my most recent blunder didn’t cause any irrevocable harm.

Anyways, here’s everything I know about what happened last night. When I heard the first bangs on the front door, I could tell almost immediately that the door had no chance of keeping out whoever or whatever was trying to get in. I posted the update, grabbed the shotgun, and took my terrified wife to the closet. It was the safest option really: there’s only one entrance in the surprisingly spacious closet, and we were able to block the door with our wooden shoe rack. I kept the shotgun in hand until we emerged from our makeshift panic room almost a half-hour later.

Our house is pretty compact and the closet we hid in is right above the entryway to the house, so we were still able to hear what was happening downstairs pretty clearly. We heard the door splinter, and then slam heavily to the floor in a heap. We then heard the heavy pounds of feet on our wood floor as whatever was downstairs did who knows what in the entryway. The most disturbing thing we heard, though, was its “voice.” Well, it’s complicated. It didn’t really speak. It just loudly growled and groaned guttural gasps as it… I don’t know, scurried around in our entryway. Mary cuddled close to me, whimpering, and barely managed to get a petrified whisper out to me.

“Is… he saying… words?”

I hadn’t been focused on whether it was saying anything before then, so I tried to discern any words that I could understand and, sure enough, I could sort of distinguish what sounded like gibberish between the seemingly pained moans coming from downstairs. It was something like… “Guuk. Bih peviriel va. Heee tesaret.” It repeated these same sounds for a few minutes, making rough and sporadic stops in between them and also occasionally stopping to make pained wheezing sounds. It sounded like a man who had his vocal chords irrevocably damaged was trying to chant something. It was a terrible sound, like a thousand nails on chalkboards. Then after moments of listening to this disturbingly melodic gibberish, our home fell silent again.

Mary and I looked at each other… I’m almost positive we both were thinking the same thing at that moment, that we wouldn’t leave the closet until we were 100% sure that whatever was downstairs was gone, no matter how quiet it got. And sure enough, after five minutes or so, we heard a loud shriek and the now familiar pounding of heavy footsteps on our wooden floor as it sprinted deeper into our house. My heart skipped about ten beats as we heard it pounding on a door inside the house. We would have heard him come up the steps if it was the door to our bedroom, so we both breathed a sigh of relief as we heard him forcing his way into our basement.

Everything else happened almost too quickly to process. We heard the door to the basement break with a similar crackle as the front door, followed by a few thuds in immediate succession, followed by the bangs of footsteps made as it charged down into our basement. We heard another relatively distant but still blood-curdling shriek come from the creature, and then silence again. It wasn’t much longer before we heard a shout coming from downstairs. “Police! Come out with your hands up!”

The police arrived on the scene in full force probably twenty minutes after receiving my call. I had told the operator I was fortifying myself in my bedroom and where the bedroom was, so I wasn’t too surprised to hear knocking on the door minutes after they had entered the house. I was a little nervous to leave the safety of the closet, as my imagination had me worried that whatever had broken into my house was disguising itself as a police officer to lower my guard. But when the voice on the other side of the door addressed me by name, I realized that it was Sergeant James speaking with me. If you don’t remember, he was one of the officers who came to my house when I first phoned the police about the trespasser. He escorted Mary and I out of the house while the rest of the police officers marched down into the basement. There were even more officers with their guns at the ready outside. I finally felt safe for the first time all night. Sergeant James took us to an ambulance parked at the end of our driveway, where paramedics awaited us to make sure we were ok. After we were cleared medically, we hopped in Sergeant James’s patrol car and he took us to the station for questioning.

I should backtrack a little bit. Even though Sergeant James clearly wanted us to get out of the house as quickly as possible, I was able to observe the chaos that lay on the floor just inside my front doorway. There were the expected but disturbing sights, such as the wrecked front door lying on the floor and the large scratch marks on the doorframe.

But there was one unexpected piece of evidence that disturbs me on a whole different level. The police have said nothing about it still, no matter how much I’ve asked. Starting on the front porch, splashed upon the splintered piece of door that lay upon the floor, and streaking all across the floor in a jagged line leading to the basement door was a dark crimson substance. Obviously, my first guess would be blood, but since this whole situation is extremely bizarre… I can’t really be sure. If anyone has any ideas on what this is, or why the creature would just be bleeding all the over the place, please let me know. I don’t know if the police are withholding information from me or simply do not know the truth themselves, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

Once we got to the police station, Mary and I were given time to relax as best as we could. We hugged each other and cried, and that’s pretty much all we’ve been able to do since leaving the house. It’s hard to relax during times like these. They began questioning us just a little before 7 AM. Most of the questioning was uneventful, or pertained to things I already mentioned in one of these three posts so I won’t bore you all with too many details. However, one of the detectives stated that whatever I had discovered in my yard two nights ago was most likely not human. He based this on an examination of the marks on my front door frame, basement door, and some of my walls. The examination revealed that they were simply too deep and too wide to be caused by normal human fingernails. They were caused by something more durable than fingernails… maybe a large knife… or maybe large claws. And the forensics suggests that the marks are so uniform in length and distance between each other… that they’re too precise to be caused by separate blows.

Unsurprisingly, they told us that we won’t be able to stay in our house for a significant amount of time, which I am perfectly fine with. Mary was able to get us a room in a cheap hotel for now, and we will most likely make the trip to Mary’s sister’s to stay with her until we figure out what to do.

I’m writing this now from our hotel room. My laptop was kept as evidence and I gave the police permission to check the surveillance cameras on it, so I’m using my phone to write this. I don’t know what happened in my small quiet neighborhood after I left my house early this morning. The police are being secretive about everything, but I don’t really care at this point. I’m just glad that this whole situation finally seems to be under control. I’m going to catch up on the two days worth of sleep that I mostly lost out on. Have a nice night everyone.

UPDATE: The ringing of my phone woke me up a half hour ago. I answered. On the other line was Detective Laird, one of the detectives involved with combing the crime scene. I didn’t know what to expect, since I’d already told the police everything I knew. He asked me how many exits there were to my house, to which I replied three. There’s the front door, the back door, and the storm door leading out of my basement. I said obviously the windows could be used as an exit as well, but he confirmed that none had been open or broken upon investigating the house.

There was a long pause, and then I heard Detective Laird swallow air nervously. Then he explained:

“Well, your house is currently surrounded by police officers, and it has been since the moment we got here. Not a single officer outside has seen the intruder leave your home… Inside the house, even more officers have checked every inch of the house and haven’t found any sign that the intruder is still here.”

I said nothing.

“We’ve checked the security feeds on your laptop as well. We watched and re-watched and re-watched again every second of the recordings… no sign of the intruder leaving. We don’t know where he went.”

I don’t know what to do anymore.