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
“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
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