Knock! Knock!

Bobby and Susan replied, "Sure thing, Dad."

Their parents closed the door and headed to their dinner date.

Bobby said to Susan, "Mom sure does worry about our safety a lot, and besides, we're not dead yet," laughed Bobby. The moment those words left his lips, the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees, though neither of them noticed.

"Let's go watch a movie upstairs in the bonus room. I know the perfect movie to watch—it's called I Saw What You Did, and I Know Who You Are," said Susan, her voice carrying an unusual eagerness that should have been Bobby's first warning.

Susan and Bobby went upstairs to the bonus room, put the movie in the DVD player, turned out the lights, and sat on the couch together. The house settled into an oppressive silence, broken only by the ominous music of the opening credits. Outside, the wind began to pick up, branches scraping against the windows like skeletal fingers trying to claw their way inside.

Then all of a sudden, there was a knock on the front door.

Three slow, deliberate raps that seemed to echo through the entire house.

"Bobby, did you hear that?" asked Susan, her hand instinctively gripping his arm.

"Hear what?" replied Bobby, though his heart had already begun to quicken.

"I could have sworn I heard a knock at the door," said Susan.

Bobby rolled his eyes, dismissing Susan's concern. "Come on, Susan, it's probably just the wind or something. Let's just watch the movie."

But the knocking persisted, growing louder and more insistent with each repetition. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. The rhythm was wrong somehow—too measured, too patient, like whatever was outside had all the time in the world. Both Bobby and Susan exchanged uneasy glances, the movie now forgotten.

"Okay, that's really strange," Bobby admitted, his earlier bravado crumbling. He paused the movie and got up from the couch, his legs feeling suddenly weak. "I'll go check it out."

"Bobby, wait—Dad said not to answer the door for anyone," Susan called after him, but her voice was small, swallowed by the darkness of the hallway.

As Bobby descended the stairs, each step creaked beneath his weight, announcing his approach. The house felt different now—alien, hostile. Shadows pooled in corners where they shouldn't exist, and the familiar family photos lining the walls seemed to watch him with accusing eyes. A sense of profound unease settled over him like a funeral shroud.

He reached the front door and looked through the peephole. Nothing. Just darkness so complete it seemed to absorb the porch light entirely. "Who's there?" he called out, his voice cracking halfway through, betraying his mounting fear.

No response. Just the sound of the wind rustling through the trees—and beneath it, something else. A wet, rasping sound, like labored breathing.

"Maybe it's just some prankster," Bobby muttered to himself, though his trembling hands betrayed his words. Against every instinct screaming at him to turn away, he unlocked the door and cautiously opened it, peering outside.

The porch was empty—but not quite right. The darkness beyond seemed thicker somehow, more substantial, as if night itself had coalesced into something tangible and watchful. The porch boards were wet despite no rain, glistening in the weak light with something that looked too dark to be water.

Bobby stepped onto the porch, feeling a shiver crawl down his spine like a spider with ice-cold legs. The air was wrong out here—thick and fetid, carrying the stench of rot and decay. He scanned the surroundings, half-expecting someone to jump out and scare him. But the yard was empty, shrouded in an unnatural fog that hadn't been there moments before. The distant hum of crickets had stopped entirely, leaving only an oppressive, suffocating silence.