Don't Answer the Second Knock

My grandmother had three rules for the farmhouse, and she said them so often they stopped sounding like rules and started sounding like weather.

Wipe your boots. Don't leave the stove on. Don't answer the second knock.

The first two made sense. The third one she never explained, and when I was little I figured it was about salesmen, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or my Uncle Dale, who used to come by drunk and knock twice because he thought it was funny. My mom said Grandma just got strange out there by herself. Then Grandma died, and we moved into the farmhouse, because it was paid off and Dad had been laid off from the plant, and nobody said the rules out loud anymore.

I still did them, though. Boots. Stove. And I'd think it, every time somebody came to the door. Don't answer the second knock.

The night it happened was the first big storm of that winter. Mom and Dad had driven into Carver for my aunt's birthday, an hour away on a good day, and by nine the radio was saying the county road was closed and they should stay put. Mom called and told me to keep the heat up, make sure Caleb ate something that wasn't cereal, and lock the doors. Caleb was six. He was on the living room floor building a fort out of every single couch cushion we owned and narrating it like a war movie.

At nine forty there was a knock on the front door.

One knock. Three hard raps, then nothing.

I looked through the little window in the door and it was Mr. Pruitt from up the road, in his orange hunting jacket, snow all over his hat. I knew Mr. Pruitt. He used to bring Grandma eggs. I opened the door a few inches with my foot against it.

"Hey, Lacey." He looked frozen. "My shovel snapped. Handle came clean off. You got one I can borrow? I'll bring it back tomorrow."

I got him the one from the mudroom. He said thanks, said to tell my folks hi, and walked off toward the road, and I watched his flashlight bob away until the snow swallowed it. Then I locked the door and went back and told Caleb his fort had a structural problem on the east side.

About ten minutes later, there was another knock.

Same three raps. Same door.

I went to the window. Mr. Pruitt was standing there again. Same jacket, same hat, snow on his shoulders.

"Sorry, Lacey," he said through the glass. Muffled, but his voice. "Forgot to say. Your dad asked me to check on the pipes in the cellar if it got below zero. Can I come in a sec and take a look?"

I had my hand on the lock. I actually had my hand on it.

Then I thought about it. He'd already said thanks. He'd already said tell your folks hi. And Dad hadn't said anything to me about the pipes, and Dad tells me everything, mostly stuff I don't want to know, like how much the propane costs.

And the stupid thing in my head, in Grandma's voice. Don't answer the second knock.

"Dad didn't say anything," I said. "I'll call him."

Mr. Pruitt smiled. It was a normal smile. That was the bad part, honestly, it was so normal. "Sure, sweetheart. I'll wait."

I went to the kitchen and called Dad. It rang forever. When he picked up there was music and people laughing behind him, and I asked if he'd told Mr. Pruitt to check the cellar pipes.

"What? No. Why would I do that, the pipes are fine." Then, slower, "Lacey, is somebody there?"

I looked back down the hall. I could see the front door from the kitchen, the little window in it, black. Nobody's face in it anymore.

"I think he left," I said.

Dad told me to keep everything locked and he'd call Pruitt himself. He called back about five minutes later. Mr. Pruitt was home. He'd been home all night. His wife had answered, then put him on, and Dad said he sounded half asleep and a little annoyed. He said he hadn't been out in this, why would he be out in this, and his shovel was fine, it was right there by his back door.

I didn't sleep. I sat on the stairs with every light on in the house and the fire poker across my knees, like that was going to do anything.

In the morning the plow came through, and Mom and Dad got home a little after ten, and Dad walked straight out onto the porch to look. I went with him.

There were footprints in the snow. Two sets, going up the steps to the front door. One set went back down and off toward the road, the way I'd watched the flashlight go.

The other set came up the steps and stopped at the door.

That was it. It didn't go back down. It didn't go around the side. It just ended right there on the welcome mat, like whoever made them had stepped off the face of the earth. Or into the house.

Dad didn't say anything for a long time. Then he said, "Wind, probably," in a voice that meant he didn't believe it either, and went inside to make coffee.

Our shovel was leaning against the porch railing. Nobody brought it back. It was just there.

I keep thinking that's the end of it. Weird night, weird storm, weird old farmhouse. I keep telling myself that.

But that afternoon I was helping Caleb take apart his fort, and he got really quiet, the way he does when he's decided something is a secret, and I asked him what.

He said, "The man said you said it was okay."

I asked him what man.

"The one at the back door," Caleb said. "Last night. When you were on the phone. He knocked two times, so I let him in. He said you said."

I asked him where the man went.

Caleb pointed at the cellar door.

We've lived in the farmhouse for three years now. Dad checks the cellar every week. There's nothing down there. Just old canning jars, the water heater, and a smell like cold dirt.

But I wipe my boots. I never leave the stove on.

And I've taught Caleb the third rule. He says it every night before bed now, very seriously, like a prayer.

Sometimes, after the lights are off, I hear somebody in the house whisper it back.

Every family seems to have one rule like this that nobody can explain, the kind of thing that sits somewhere between superstition and an urban legend. If you want more stories that are better read with the lights on, the Horror section has plenty. And for more short fiction, poems and personal stories, head over to Vocal Media.