My name is Tommy and I was an ordinary kid growing up in Topeka, Illinois. I was a new kid starting first grade and I knew no one so I felt alone. It was a boring Monday morning, I was sitting in class when suddenly I had the urge to go to the bathroom, it was only five minutes after class had started so I was afraid to ask the teacher right away. I ended up waiting till ten minutes after class that way I would look like I REALLY needed to go and not be told to hold it by Ms. Dinkleburg. I go up to Ms.Dinkleburg's desk and asked if I could use the restroom. She replied with the usual phrase,
"You should have gone before you came into class." to which I replied,
"Yes I know I am truly sorry Ms.Dinkleburg it won't happen again."
"Ok hurry up," she would say as I quickly ran to the restroom.
The restroom closest to my classroom was a 1 person restroom which meant I was able to lock the door. As I settled myself in, not more than 30 seconds pass when, "KNOCK" "KNOCK" KNOCK", three loud knocks came at the door, I got a little rustled as I get the courage to say
"Sorry its occupied" to which I hear an angry voice reply
"LET ME IN RIGHT NOW".
At this point I am beyond scared and want to leave, but I don’t want to encounter what is on the other side of the door, so I sat quietly hoping the man behind the door goes away. Another minute goes by as I sat hoping to hear the foot steps walk away I hear his voice again this time in a calm almost pleading manner,
"P-Please let me in..." with sobs between words.
I almost opened the door when suddenly another knock happens at the door, but this time it is followed by Ms.Dinkleburg's voice:
"What are you doing in there,"
"You've been in there for almost an hour,"
I come out with a blank face as Ms.Dinkleburg sends me to the principals office.
Its been almost five years since the incident with the mysterious knocking man. I still have thoughts about that day from time to time, but today I wasn’t going to have to worry about that because today is my 12th birthday. My dad and I are in the backyard setting up the grill before guests arrive. He tells me to go grab the charcoal. As I am walking over to grab the bag of charcoal I hear three distinct knocks. I tense up and start panicking, but something in me makes me go check where the knocking is coming from. As I am looking for the source, I hear a voice, this voice was different than the one I heard while in the restroom at school. This one was more of a taunting voice. The voice sounded very creepy as it said the words,
"I...See...You...,"
I quickly turned and looked at the gate to my backyard which was closed, but I could see under the gate was a pair of shoes. I knew it couldn’t be a guest because it was only 11:30 a.m. and the guests weren't to arrive until around 1:00 p.m. I stood frozen hoping, wishing for the man behind the gate to go away. The man began violently knocking, so violently that I thought the gate was going to break open. Then in that moment my dad walks up behind me and places his hand on my shoulder, my heart leaps into my throat and I almost faint from the fear that overwhelmed me. My dad cheerfully says,
"ha, ha I didn’t mean to scare you", and before I can say anything while reaching down for the charcoal he says, "what's the matter looks like you've seen a ghost or something" to which I whisper,
"I think I have." My dad then says with a chuckle,
"oh come on now you know I was just kidding there are no such things as ghosts", while still frozen I ask him, "D-Did you not hear the k-knocking on the gate dad?"
Years go by and I am now in my last year of college. I attend Virginia Tech and I am a Computer Science Major. I live with a friend of mine in a house that we're renting. At this point I have had many encounters with what I had begun calling the "Knocking People". At first I wasn’t used to being in such a big University town, but I got used it fast because of how nice everyone was. I managed to keep my "encounters" a secret from everyone, even my roommate, I was afraid of being ridiculed for believing in "ghosts" or "entities" that no one can see except for me. My encounters with the "Knocking People" began getting more frequent as I was in my last semester of college. One night when I was on my way home from work, I had to stop by the gas station. While I was going through the aisles in the minimart, out of the corner of my eye I saw a womanly figure on the other side of the doors. I couldn’t see her face or any features because the windows were completely covered in posters and advertisements. I hadn't realized, but I was standing in front of the cashier for almost five minutes just staring out the window. I knew it was going to get worse so I asked the cashier if they had a bathroom, to which his reply was a raised eyebrow and a finger pointing to the direction of the restroom. I quickly walked over to the restroom and locked myself in, turned on some music and tried to drown out the loud banging and shrieks that the woman at the door was making. This was definitely one of the worst experiences I have had with the "Knocking People" and it wasn’t going to get any better. Over the next month I was getting more and more visits, each one seemed to be worse than the other. One night when I was going to sleep after studying late at night when I was awoken at three in the morning to the whispers of two people. I was tired, but too scared to close my eyes. I was preparing for what I thought was going to happen, the usual banging on my door for a good fifteen minutes or so, but not this time. As I laid in bed waiting for the horrendous banging all I heard was some quiet scratching on my door, because I was so exhausted I ended up falling asleep and when I awoke in the morning to go see what had happened during the night. I was shocked at what I saw. Scratched into the door were the words
"One...Of...Us..."
I didn’t know what to think of this so I didn’t think anything of it, I learned that if I don’t think about it I am able to cope with these encounters better. The next few days were quiet I didn’t have any encounters or so I thought. My friend had ordered a few things for his classes that would be arriving over the next few days so it wasn’t strange for me to see the delivery guy leaving a package on the doorstep. It was a few days before my finals and I got sick, so I ended up staying at home, while sitting on the couch watching some Netflix I heard the UPS truck pull up so I decided to just go and take the package directly from the UPS guy. I got up and opened the door the UPS guy did his usual routine of getting out of the drivers seat going to the back of the truck and grabbing a package, as he left the truck I said "hello, nice day were having" to which he didn’t reply, he didn’t even seem to be paying any attention to me. As he came closer I tried to look at his face, but I could not see it due to his hat covering it, he quickly placed the package in front of me and left. It was very strange, but I shrugged it off as him being in a hurry, I bent down to pick up the package and while carrying it back inside I noticed that it was addressed to me. I hadn't ordered anything in the past couple of months so I didn’t know what it could be, but I decided to open it and when I did I instantly regretted it. Inside the package were assorted children's dolls, many missing limbs and almost all of them had scratched off faces, except for one, I was really creeped out at this point and I ended up just dropping the box on the ground and going to my room to try to sleep it off. I tried sleeping but I ended up having nightmares about the dolls, the one with the face especially, it looked exactly like me I was terrified. I ended up waking up several hours later, it was 3:00 in the morning I ran out to see if my friend was home, he wasn’t, I was alone and scared not knowing what to do. I went back to my room and fell asleep, while I was asleep I had a strange dream I was walking around a small town, it looked exactly like the town I grew up in. As I was walking I started to realize IT was the same town I grew up in, I began feeling weird because I knew it was a dream, but everything felt so real, I could feel the wind on my face and I could hear people having conversations. I ended up walking to the house I grew up in and saw my 7 year old self on my way to school. I decided I would try to talk to him er myself again this was really strange to me, as I was walking towards my younger self I began to have a pain in my chest the closer I got the worse it would get. I was determined to speak to my younger self so I decided I would try to talk to myself at school, when I got there it was around ten in the morning so I went into the office to try to ask if I could talk to Tommy Rice, but no one seemed to notice or pay the slightest attention to me even when I shouted at them. I didn’t know what to do so I went looking for myself and there I was on my way to the bathroom, I rushed over to try to stop myself before I got to the bathroom, but made it as the door shut, I knocked on the door three times, to which I heard a reply from my younger self,
"Sorry its occupied"
I replied in an urgent tone as the pain in my chest was increasing, "LET ME IN RIGHT NOW!"
There was no reply from my younger self for a while now and the pain in my chest was so bad at this point that I began to cry as I managed to say,
"P-Please let me in."