The Knocker

Two best friends, May and Rylie, leave their troubles behind on a spring break weekend in New Orleans. Check into the Nightingale Motel and join their quest to make it through the night.

The freedom of one’s conscience and the ability to have fun without regard for the consequence sounds like a wonderland on Earth, and that’s exactly what was planned for the weekend.

            After a grueling week of exams, May and Rylie, best friends since pre-school, flew out to New Orleans for three days, and two nights of mindless fun. Their only plan was to depart entirely from their safe and predictable routines of home. The goal was to create a repertoire of stories to share with their future children that would prove beyond a doubt that their mothers were exciting and fabulous in their youth.

            May had vague ideas about a minor run in with the cops, and May had visions of ending up on television. And, these best friends crossed both ideas and visions off their list, just not in the way that they had hoped. In some situations, specifics are matters of life or death.

 

SCENE BREAK

            The girls’ taxied to their destination around two in the morning. It was pitch black, without a star in the sky, and there was a heavy scent of jasmine in the air. They entered the shack-like room of the Nightingale's check-in office to find a ghoulish man behind the counter. “checking in?” he asked, looking at the two teens as if they were the first people he had seen in months. The girls nodded reluctantly and snatched the iron key for room #3 from the clerk, eager to get to bed.

            To describe the motel as rundown would be an understatement. Rats skittered across the rotten floorboards, producing violent squeaks worse than nails on a chalkboard. No wonder they had only paid twenty bucks for a room. Oh well. The girls were exhausted from their flight and decided to go directly to bed. Despite the dumpy room, all they could think about was what tomorrow would bring. As the girls shut their eyes, they imagined the adventures that awaited them when they awoke.

SCENE BREAK

            Just as the girls began to drift off into slumber, May heard a knock on the door followed by a deep and raspy voice hissing “Two pretty little things like you shouldn’t be here on their own. I think I should show you out,” Rylie was unfazed by the situation because her brain cells being in desperate need of sleep. May, being the only one fully awake, immediately began to panic.

            She jabbed Rylie in the ribs to draw her attention towards the night-dweller. Rylie rolled over and let out a whimper that was just a little too loud, “May, shut up, it’s nothing!”

            The knocking man seemed to have heard this, and as if on command the noise began again, this time with more persistence. The knocking turned into a more consistent punch, and the hiss evolved into a hungry growl. He was their worst, yet unknown, nightmare. Rylie finally realized the seriousness of the situation and began to panic.

            Perhaps, May thought, if she shook herself hard enough, everything would be alright. She got up and eased her way to the windows on her tip-toes. She reached for the window covers and ripped back the curtains to get a better look at the mysterious knocker. Probably not the smartest thing to do in her case, but it worked all the same.

            May’s face devolved into a sickly white. The knocker’s face was straight out of a Steven King novel. His eyes were as black as coal, his skin a pale white with purple veins visible just below the surface and a jagged scar going from his left eye to his lip. In his right hand, their visitor held a gooey red object in the shape of a pomegranate. Horrifying isn’t a strong enough word to describe the essence of this stranger.

            May’s pupils dilated, and she lost all control of her limbs. She was paralyzed from fear and collapsed onto the cheap carpet, twitching. Rylie was deeply disturbed and confused about what had just happened to her best friend. “What the heck, May!” Rylie whisper-yelled to her immobile pal. There was no hope, May’s body had gone cold as the stranger propelled the pomegranate shaped object at the window. It streaked down with a trail of a mysterious, sticky red paste. From May’s final actions, it appeared to Rylie that May had died of fright.

            Rylie was alone.

            Rylie mimicked May’s movements towards the window and leaned down against the corpse of her best mate. Her inhaling became less frequent, and her exhaling got deeper. She shook May’s lifeless body and prayed for a heartbeat or any sign of life. It was no use, May was gone, and Rylie was stuck here with this monstrous creature with only a wooden door and a wall separating them. These boundaries didn’t stop him when it came to May. God bless her soul. Rylie said a final goodbye to her friend and begged to whatever higher power there is that she would not end up like her. Just then, she heard the shower turn on, and a slight tune was heard through the walls, “if you try to leave meee, I will make sure you stay.”

            A vanilla scent permeated through the wooden panels, May’s special shower gel. Thoughts of ghosts and spiritual reincarnation flew through Rylie’s mind like millions of paper airplanes. What was happening? A bloodcurdling scream escaped from her lips; was she hallucinating? The tune that was being hummed was their song, the May and Rylie song. They made it up when they were twelve years old, and nobody knew it but them.

            She grabbed the lamp, put it in a swinging position, and sped to the bathroom. As she turned the knob ever so slightly, her heart rate increased dramatically. She heard the shower off. Someone had finished. Her breath was faltering, but the voice inside of her head was telling her to go and be brave"it was May’s voice. She opened the door. The bathroom was empty, and there was empty, and there was no trace of anyone ever being in there. Rylie’s mind was tangled. Was this a figment of her imagination? Then she remembered the more serious matter at hand; her best friend was dead. Rylie collected herself. She had to survive the night to expose what happened to May. Also, living is cool, and she was far too young to die. Most importantly, there was no way in hell that she would let this sadistic freak get away with what he had done.

            She put on her big girl shoes and stormed over to the door and tore it open, swinging violently with the lamp at whatever appeared in her line of vision. After about twenty seconds of random bashing, she realized that her target, the knocker, was nowhere to be seen, though she’d been hitting something; the door of the room across the hall had visible dents and splinters from the impact of the lamp. She turned around and saw the man inside of her room, wiggling four of his fingers in a deranged but welcoming fashion, a smile displayed on his face.

            On the inside, she was screaming, but on the outside, she was all business. She walked in. As she crossed the door frame, the door slammed shut with a bang. The lights began to flicker, and the man cackled. At that moment, Rylie was thrown against the wall by an unseen force and held there. Every muscle in her body ached, but there was no moving them. She struggled to fight and had no luck. Rylie was paralyzed. It became harder and harder to breathe as her chest was pressed against by the unseen. The room began to spin, and she passed out.

SCENE BREAK

            An hour later she was awoken by a slap to her face. “Morning sunshine,” a familiar voice cackled into her ear. “Y-y-your dead?!” Rylie exclaimed questioning the events that she had witnessed, “You died, I saw you with my own eyes!”

            Confusion traveled through her body. The May that stood before her was not the best-friend who would do anything for Rylie. Her face was the same, but the light she had in her eyes before was nowhere to be found. This May was a whole different person; May was the Knocker’s now. An electrifying coldness shot through her veins as Rylie realized that her heart had stopped beating. May smiled and stepped away from her best friend to reveal her body, lying limp on the floor. May pulled out another gooey object and smirked. “Welcome to the rest of your life, bestie,” and Rylie fell.

            The Knocker watched Rylie’s body heave its final breaths. “Where did the party go?” he hissed. Not a muscle in Rylie’s body moved. Her cells failed. She was dead.

SCENE BREAK

“Three months after the shocking deaths of Rylie Elizabeth Diamond and Mayalina Richards, the coroner has finally released his findings,” the television revealed to the world. The death of the best friends became an international phenomenon. Both the girls’ autopsies revealed that they had no heart. Their bodies displayed no visible evidence of surgery or extreme decomposition. The reporter continued, “Coroners and local police have worked hard to bring closure to the ladies’ families, and we have finally come to a conclusion. The girls--,” and the reporter fell. In the background, the Knocker can be seen holding a similar pomegranate object in his hand and stroking it.

            Along with that reporter, at the same moment, every single person that worked on the case died. All the same symptoms, everyone without a heart and at each of their doors, a pomegranate shaped blob. The man winked, and every television on Earth went dead. Nobody knew what happened to the girls; the Knocker made sure of this. But, you know the story. You know what happened to Rylie and May, and soon, the knocker will be coming for you.

            Good luck, and watch your back.

            

Author's Note

Tell me what you think! I want to add a description paragraph about what happened to the Nightingale Motel after the discovery of the bodies, and how the desk clerk found them. Let me know if you would like to know more of the story!