A Knock at the Front Door

Startled, I woke to a faint knock at the front door and stared into the darkness in confusion. It was one of those starless winter nights when the gloom, thick and almost tangible, wraps itself around a mind still shackled by sleep, refusing to let it think logically. No one in their right mind would leave the warmth of a blanket for the chill of an apartment that had cooled overnight just to find out who had shown up at the doorstep at three in the morning. But for some reason, I did.

My fingers slowly moved along the wall in search of the light switch, failing to find it, though in this small space everything should have long since been memorized. So I approached the front door in the dark and at first listened. For about a minute there was complete silence. Not a single sound came from the stairwell. I was already thinking the knock had been part of a dream when suddenly two loud, insistent blows rang out, making me flinch in surprise. That was outright impudence. Fear gave way to anger, and I sharply turned the key and yanked the door open. The landing was empty. From neither above nor below came the echo of retreating footsteps from whatever joker had chosen such a strange way to amuse himself.

At the time, I didn’t attach much importance to it, since I lived on the second floor, and someone could easily have slipped out of the building while I was unlocking the door—though they would have had to be very quick. Shivering as the cold rushed into the apartment, I quickly locked the door and finally turned on the light in the hallway.

The simplified layout of my one-room apartment made it especially prone to strong drafts, so the kitchen—separated from the room by only a thin wall—was usually tightly closed with a sturdy old Soviet latch. Apparently, I had forgotten to do that the night before, because the door was slightly ajar. The adrenaline had already subsided, my mind was drifting back to sleep, so my hands automatically slid the bolt into place, and my obedient legs carried my drowsy body back to bed. The night, slashed by falling snow, continued to draw the light out of everything that existed, and I instantly fell into a dreamless sleep.

An hour passed—or perhaps only five minutes—since I had lain down when something disturbed my hearing again. The darkness was impenetrable. I sat up and listened. A second, another—and then the familiar knocking appeared, but no longer at the front door. It was coming from the wall between the kitchen and the room. It was almost tangible in the stillness of the night. An icy wave ran from head to toe through my body.

The knocking intensified, quickened, and slowly but steadily moved along the wall toward the hallway. I clearly understood that I had locked the front door and that I slept very lightly; no one could have entered the apartment without waking me. And yet the persistent knocking was real. Knock-knock, knock-knock, closer and closer to the kitchen exit. Knock-knock, knock-knock—my heart echoed in time, ready to burst from my chest. My mind tried to piece together some logical course of action for such a situation, but the sheer illogic of what was happening twisted every thought inside out.

I remembered everything I had heard about ghosts, house spirits, and other nocturnal visitors and could think of nothing better than the old method my great-grandmother had once told me about when letting people stay overnight in her village house. She would always repeat, “Grandson, if you hear rustling in the entryway at night or the loud clatter of dishes, then shout at the noise with the foulest words you and the boys use when you’re yelling in the fields. Shout loudly—I won’t box your ears for it.” No foul words came to mind, so I simply took a deep breath and, frightened by the hoarseness of my own voice, screamed, “Go to hell!”

The knocking fell silent for a moment, then from behind the wall came a shrill, falsetto laugh, and the tapping—now much stronger and faster—rushed toward the hallway door. In horror I leapt from the bed and, on numb legs, dashed out of the room in two bounds. The latch was still securely fastened. While I frantically pulled on my clothes without caring for neatness, the knocking reached the door.

We both fell silent. I distinctly heard deep breathing from the other side. The mute scene lasted a couple of minutes, and then the door was struck by a tremendous blow. Chunks of old plaster fell from the ceiling, the hinges groaned under the strain, but the thick latch held. Another blow followed, then another—this time at the window. The panes hummed, the window frame swung open. Completely losing my sanity, I jumped out of the apartment and ran into the darkness of the empty streets, hearing instead of the echo of my heavy footsteps only the soul-chilling “Knock-knock, knock-knock,” dissolving into the howl of the cold wind.

I wandered the neighborhood the rest of the night, warming myself in building entrances and shying away from every shadow. I couldn’t stay in one place for long. My subconscious, as if mocking me, caught every small sound and transformed it into echoes of knocking, driving me away again and again. Soon a late December dawn began to break, followed by sleepy dog walkers with their inappropriately lively pets. People started gathering at parking lots and bus stops; the city came alive. All this ordinary, gray bustle restored my sense of reality, and the night’s fears receded. Only the aftertaste of my own foolish cowardice remained, along with a strong desire to sleep. Even so, I had no wish to go back. The irrational terror of the previous night still lingered, but common sense insisted that my home was my, damn it, fortress. I needed to prove that—first and foremost to myself.

Slowly, stretching each second of the journey into something disproportionately long, I made my way back. A walk of only a couple of blocks took nearly an hour. As I approached my dwelling, my anxiety intensified, so for reassurance and confidence I invited a friend who lived nearby under the pretext of helping me prepare for a supposed renovation.

Encouraged by his quick agreement, I entered the building and moments later stood before my front door, listening for sounds. Inside, it was quiet.

Not without trepidation, I turned the key and stepped inside, quickly switching on the light. Everything looked exactly as it had at the moment of my flight. From the corridor I could see the unmade bed in the room; clothes lay scattered on the floor where I had dropped them while dressing in haste. The kitchen remained locked. Taking a deep breath, I slowly slid back the latch, trying to make no sound at all, then gathered my will and flung the door open.

Inside, everything was in its place. More boldly now, I stepped in, looking around, checked the door from the inside, the window frame, and the floor. There was not a trace of anyone’s presence during the night. Then my attention was drawn to the wall dividing the kitchen and the room. Stepping away from the window, I lightly knocked on it, trying to reproduce the sound I had heard. As I knocked, I slowly moved toward the door. Knock-knock, knock-knock. “Go to hell!”—a loud cry suddenly rang out from the room. I froze. It was my own voice, only with some completely unnatural shrillness.

For a few moments I stood unable to move from fear, then rushed for the exit, slamming my shoulder against the kitchen door. Old plaster crumbled, but the door did not yield. The latch was fastened—from the other side.

I stood there, staring blankly ahead, breathing heavily as I tried to comprehend what was happening. My mobile phone rang, left on the shelf in the hallway. For a few seconds the melody loudly announced an incoming call, then cut off. My voice from the other side of the door calmly canceled the meeting with my friend, who, as far as I managed to understand, had been calling to say he would be slightly delayed but would arrive any minute.

That was the last straw. In horror, backing away from the door, I climbed onto the windowsill and opened the kitchen window. I had to get out of here by any means. Over the past month a sizable snowdrift had formed below, and the second floor wasn’t that high off the ground, so without a second thought I jumped forward—but my unbuttoned jacket pocket caught on the window handle. The frame with the glass snapped shut with a loud clap, the sudden jerk slightly altered the trajectory of my fall, and I landed painfully, far from the center of the snowdrift I had aimed for. Cursing and clutching my bruised side, I struggled to my feet and suddenly realized that this mishap had probably saved my life. In the center of the snowdrift, lightly dusted with yesterday’s snow, protruded a sharp fragment of a rusty iron pipe which, had it not been for chance, would have easily pierced me through.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, but at that moment my panic-stricken mind immediately linked the events in the apartment and that piece of pipe into a single fatal chain. Some malicious design was trying to lead me across a narrow bridge between thousands of probabilities straight to my death. That was what I thought then. It was precisely this awareness of some alien interference that gave me strength, giving rise to something like noble anger. I did not run away in panic—I thought. Returning to my building and sitting by my own door, I reflected. For a long time, laying out everything that had happened on the illusory shelves of reason.

Day turned to evening; not a sound came from the apartment. The cold and drowsiness pressed on me more and more, and not a single sensible thought came to mind. An hour passed since I had last gotten to my feet and paced the landing. Sleep weighed heavily on me, and only the bone-piercing chill seeping through the building’s ill-fitting windows kept me somewhat alert. At last I realized I had no strength left. I was broken, hungry, terribly cold, and on the verge of falling asleep right on the floor. All this completely displaced fear, pushing it to the background.

The keys to the apartment were inside, so I could think of nothing more idiotic than simply knocking on my own door, leaning against the wall beside it in exhaustion. Less than a minute passed when the door slowly creaked open. Barely aware of my actions, I grabbed the handle, yanked it toward me, dashed inside, and slammed the door shut, locking it from within. My legs buckled from terror. I sat in the pitch-black hallway, breathing heavily and awaiting my fate. Suddenly, from the stairwell side, came two heavy blows and a disappointed, shrill sigh. Then a ringing silence hung in the air. Gradually, scarcely believing what had happened, I realized that it was over—that I had somehow, by sheer chance, won this strange, infernal game—and then I heard a faint knock at the neighbors’ door across the hall.

Knock-knock.