The Knocking Stopped
You probably heard nothing
Author’s note: An older story (as in, a decade old) I heavily reworked to fit into Nightingale Press’s inaugural flash fiction contest as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of storydoc creation. This is NOT my finest work, but rather should serve as reference as to what is the input for the accompanying storydoc posted on the Nightingale account, here.
“They weren’t knocking until now,” Tim whispered.
The furious pounding on the door swallowed most of his words, but I caught enough. Not that it mattered: I was already irritated.
“When did it start?”
“About an hour ago. It just kept getting worse.”
“Do you know why?” Tim shifted, staring at the floor, mumbling.
“What?” I snapped, louder than I meant to, loud enough to make him flinch.
But I didn’t care. He’d dragged me out of bed at dawn whining about losing the job I’d worked my ass off to get him. The next guard would be here in under two hours, and my brother decided now was the right time to act stupid.
“I threw my sandwich inside,” he muttered.
I blinked. “You what?”
“I didn’t want to eat the sandwich Jo made me. It had too much mayo, you know. Anyway, I… uh… I threw it through the door.”
I stared at him. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” he said quickly. “I didn’t even think anything was really in there.”
“Then why do you think this job exists?” I spat. “You think they pay you to guard an empty door?”
“I thought they were probably gone. It’s been, what, a hundred years?”
“Great. That ‘probably’ is going to get us killed.”
His face paled. “You think they’ll kill us?”
“Probably. You just used their… whatever it is—world, space—as a trash can.”
“I just didn’t want Jo to see it thrown out,” he whined.
“Then just eat it, man. Jo tried to do something nice for you and now you’re gonna get killed ‘cause you’re a pickier eater than a toddler.”
Another heavy thud shook the door. Tim swallowed.
“Maybe we can apologize. Write a letter. Explain it was a mistake.”
I snorted. “You think they read apology letters? I doubt they know how.”
“Then what do we do?” I exhaled slowly, staring at the ancient wood. “We go in. We get the sandwich back.”
The knocking faded after a while, tapering into silence.
“The knocking stopped,” Tim announced shakily.
“Yeah,” I replied, stepping closer to the ancient wooden door. “Let’s go.”
I was pretty disappointed by the scenery unveiling in front of me. A cobbled street, with tiny houses on each side, either made of brick or river stone. A few bushes, a few flower pots in front of each one, sometimes ivy creeping up the walls. All wilted. I looked up. There was no sky, only some sort of black ceiling with thousands of holes. Through each hole hung two or three light bulbs, all of them flickering.
Turning around, I saw no sign of the sandwich, no sign of the creatures. Splendid.
“Do-do you think they’re gone?” Tim whispered.
“I don’t know.”
His eyes had little specks of green in them—he was scared. Just like moms’, his eyes turned green when he was feeling terrified or excited. And right now there was no reason to be excited. “Let’s just go,” I said. “They’ve stopped knocking. That’s good enough.”
He nodded quickly. We turned around under the flickering light. I felt my back exposed to the whole city of things. I ushered Tim through the door and he turned around to say one more thing but instead stared at me with emerald eyes and a gaping mouth.
“Wha–” I managed to exhale before I was dragged back and the door was shut right before my eyes.
A cold claw had clasped the back of my shirt and rushed breaths grazed my bare neck.
“Hold still,” a woman’s voice whispered. I listened to her. For now, I had no choice.
The claws retracted slowly, gently. Something inside me was telling me that the creature didn’t want to hurt me, but I had to be cautious nonetheless. First of all, I could be wrong. Second of all, who knew what they considered hurting and what not?
I turned around slowly.
It looked like a young woman, maybe in her twenties, with dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. Its face had pleasant features, almost pretty, but a bit wrong, in a way. It curled its pink, plump lips upwards. A smile?
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” it said. “I didn’t want you waking everybody up.” “If I leave,” I said carefully, “I won’t make noise.”
She shook her head, swaying her ponytail.
“No can do. Not until I’m sure you won’t come back with others.”
I said nothing. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to know about Tim and if he had any sense, he’d already be getting help.
The creature made a quick gesture with its head motioning me to get inside a house. “Let’s talk over a cup of tea, alright? We’ll put all the cards on the table.”
I followed it cautiously, watching my every step. Before I went in, I threw a last glance at the wilted flowers on the windowsill. I touched a petal—a frail, chalky petal that disintegrated the second it made contact with my finger.
The inside looked almost like a normal house, except for the pungent smell of petrol that filled the air, or the eerie dripping sound coming from behind the table. In the awkward silence that followed, as I tried to find escape routes, my host made tea by filling a clay pot with water and grass and shoving it in the oven.
“Drink,” it told me when it was done. “That’s the polite thing to do.”
I pretended to.
The creature smiled and took a sip out of its own cup of God-awful concoction.
“We want to live here peacefully,” it said. “In our houses, with our traditions, with our families. I suppose your place looks very much like ours. We aren’t interested in conquering your realm if that is what you’re afraid of. But we do want to be able to get out if there was ever a need for it. It’s degrading, keeping us locked up in here like we are some sort of plague.”
The creature downed its “tea”.
“And it’s humiliating, throwing your trash in our realm. We want nothing more than to be treated like human beings, as we are. We are good people and we deserve respect.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
“No, you’re not. You’re not the first to come here and you’re not the first to act so entitled. We have feelings, you know? But you don’t even consider us humans, do you?”
I didn’t reply.
“Tell me if you know why we were sealed behind the door.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Thought so,” it replied calmly. “Nobody is talking about us over there. You thought it was another door leading to nowhere. And you know why? Because we are peaceful. We never tried knocking that cursed door down and escaping. Sometimes I wish we were the horrible creatures you treat us as, but we are not.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
There were a few minutes of silence before it began speaking once again.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll cut the chase.” It shifted in its seat. “We want to be left alone. Don’t try to attack us or destroy our homes. Leave the door unlocked.”
“If you want to be left alone, isn’t it better to just brick up the door?”
The host shifted in her seat again. It was starting to make me feel itchy, watching it fuss so much.
“We need an exit. In case the Rattlers come back.”
“What are the Rattlers?”
Now I was starting to shift in my seat. Through the window, I could see more creatures closing in on us. I didn’t have much time.
“Oh, that’s why we’re here. We protect you from what’s on the other side of our town. The Rattlers. They are these nasty snake-like people who can get really, really tiny and slither under doors and through cracks, and then, when they are inside, they get two times the size of a normal man and gnaw on their victims’ necks until they cut off their throats. Really nasty. We call them Rattlers because they make a little rattling sound when they’re close by.”
“Why are you protecting us?”
It smiled wistfully. “Because otherwise, you would be in danger, silly. This is our job. To keep them away from you.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for you?”
“It is,” it confessed. “Many of us died over the years.”
I nodded. This disgusting thing, who kept me prisoner in its home and who drank rotten tea, tried to convince me they were helping us. These pale imitations of humans with a pale imitation of a purpose in life. “I’ll talk to my people,” I promised.
The creature pointed to the exit with its head. “We should probably leave.”
I eagerly got up and followed it outside. The place wasn’t deserted anymore. A young male was wearing a skirt around his torso, like a shirt, while an older one cradled a shoe. They stopped in the middle of the cobbled street and looked straight at me.
“Did we do a good job?” a female creature asked sweetly when I got closer. Her pearly white teeth glinted from between melted-off lips.
“He didn’t know about the Rattlers.” my host replied.
“What?” The female with melted lips threw me a pitiful glance. I turned my eyes away. “After everything we’ve done?” it whispered.
I almost felt pity for them. They played this human role so well, I had times when I forgot these things were not like us.
The host escorted me through the ever-growing group of creatures, all the back back to the door. It placed a claw on the doorknob.
“Will you leave the door unlocked now, so we can escape the Rattlers if they ever attack again?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
The second the door swung open, Tim ran up to me, burying his face in my chest.
He was alone. Of course he hadn’t thought to go for backup. But it didn’t matter anymore.
“Oh, thank God you’re back,” he whimpered. “I thought I lost you.”
“I’m fine, Tim.”
“Keep the door unlocked,” the creature reminded me.
“We will,” I assured it, then gently closed the door.
“What now?” asked Tim. I dragged his desk across the room and wedged it firmly against the door.
“Nothing. We’re golden.”
I slept like a log that night, exhausted by the weight of the day.
The good thing is I won’t ever have to get through that again, I told myself in the shower, as I was scrubbing the disgusting feeling of them off of me. They’re finally gone.
I turned off the water and wrapped myself in a towel.
From now on, I’ll live in peace. Thank God.
“Probably,” the wind rattled at my window
This was really fun and imaginative!