Short Horror Stories Book 2

Knock At The Door

My father died when I was four, so it was just me and my mother living at home.

One night in early 1982 when I was 6, there was a knock on the door at 2:00am. My mother got up to answer it, I heard it too so I got up as well.

My  mother called out, "Who is it?" and a male voice replied "I'm looking for Mrs.Stepasant-Open the door". We had an unusual name, but it was nothing like Stepasant. So my mother was immediately cautious and scared.

Any way, the man kept knocking and getting more angry that my mother would not let him in. He resorted to kicking on the door and threatening to break the window. We didn't have a phone so we couldn't call the guards, so my mother went to plan B. She turned on some music to full blast, hoping her neighbours would hear and come over to complain about it. Our houses were attached to each so they could here any loud noises.

It worked. Our neighbour came over to complain about the noise after the nutter had run off. When  my mom explained what had happened, he went back home to call the guards.

That morning the guards had a locksmith come round to fit extra security to our home as well as a panic button.

Along time after this crazy event, when I was in my teens, my mother told me that when the guard took her statement his face turned ghostly white and he said we need to boost up our security ASAP. Long story short, they were looking for someone who preyed on vulnerable people like us. What he did was never revealed to my mother, but I think it was easy to infer.

As an aside, during the incident my mother had a cleaver in one hand and a can of aerosol oven cleaner in the other. Had he got in, he would have been either blinded or lost some of his fingers. My mother was not the sort of person to go down without a fight.