Knock! Knock! A True Ghost Story

By Monica Rios

Knock! Knock!

It started in the living room.

The sound.

I heard heavy breathing with a gentle shuffle of footsteps. I was terrified. How could I not be alone in my house?

That breathing. That shuffling.

Closer.

Closer.

I tried to see what I could. I saw nothing. By the speed it approached, it would reach the light switch at the same time I would. What could I do? Where could I go?

I wondered what it was capable of. Making noise? Yes. Of course. Making a sound like it is getting closer? Yes. It can do that.

Touch me? Nah. Ghost can't do that. Can they?

Can they?

Can they?

This is not a fake story. This is a true story.

Can they?

I know the answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889603658

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Knock! Knock! A True Ghost Story

Monica Rios

Copyright © 2023 Monica Rios

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

Everything written in this story is completely true to the best of my memory, except names. Names were changed. Some details were omitted to protect the innocent. Some details were omitted to protect privacy.

ISBN 979-8-88960-357-3 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88960-365-8 (digital)

Registration Number: TXu 2-322-684

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

For my sons

Who I live for

Who I breathe for

Who I would die for

And to Nick

Who asked me to write this

Chapter 1

Have you seen a ghost? Well, I suppose, depending on the reader: I have either found someone who just answered, Yes, I have, or I have found someone who said, No, but I want to see them.

Well, to the people whose answer started with a yes, I hope you don’t have stories like mine. To the people who wish to see them, I feel evil wanting to trade places with you.

To the nonbelievers out there, I only wish I had your luxury.

*****

The first time I died was when I was nine. The details are not important. What is important is what happened to me when I died. I became a door for the other side.

I know this because a dead woman told me, but let me start at the beginning.

*****

There once was a little girl in a white dress with blonde curly hair. She looked like she was about seven. I used to see her where I grew up. Sometimes she would sit across from me as I worked in my garden.

She never spoke. I saw her frequently.

As I aged, she did not. I saw her less and less.

I had forgotten about her. One day I was standing in the kitchen washing the dishes, staring out of my kitchen window.

I was about twelve at the time.

Something made me turn. Instinct? A noise? Perhaps I felt eyes on me? Whatever it was, it made me put my back to the kitchen sink and the task at hand.

There was a stranger. He stood there. He was the reason why I completed my turn.

He stood about three inches taller than me. He stood over me. He was about a foot from me. He had dark brown straight hair. He was young. Late teenage years perhaps. His eyes. They were bright blue. They were wide. The pupils were dilated. The combination of his eyes and the snarl on his face made him look almost deranged.

My first instinct was shock at not being able to recognize this guy, who got so close to me. As the realization was beginning to dawn on me that this was a stranger, I saw that he had a knife. No. I saw the handle of the knife. The rest of it was sliding into my stomach. As soon as I realized he had an eight-inch kitchen knife sinking into my gut in one forward thrust, I was dying, and it was too late.

My mind was trying to grasp who this man was, and my mind was trying to grasp why a knife was sticking out of my stomach, and I was unable to grasp these things at the age of twelve.

As I felt the extreme pain of the knife, which was not letting up, I knew that my life was almost over. As I started to die, I looked over his shoulder, and I saw the little girl.

It was that same little girl that watched me when I was little. She stood there and watched from the corner of the kitchen.

Then they were gone. They took the pain of the blade with them.

*****

Everyone just knew that our house was haunted. Everyone has their own stories to tell about the house I grew up in. I’m not interested in telling anyone else’s stories, but I would like to tell this one.

My mother used to complain about creaking noises coming from the attic at night. She used to complain that it sounded just like a rocking chair. She complained that the sound of this rocking chair kept her up all night. She complained to anyone that would listen.

At the time, she and my father slept in the room that became mine later in life. My dad told her she was crazy. He said he lived in that room for over twenty years, and he never heard it.

My dad was married to a woman before my mother. They lived in the same house. They slept in the same room. He once told me that his previous wife used to complain about the same noise. He told her she was crazy too.

For six years, that bedroom was mine. I never heard a single noise, like that, at night.

They checked the attic, sometime later in life, and found some of my things (a hairbrush, clothing, and a doll). There was nothing else. I never played up there.

Sometimes I hear a sound like that in my current attic (I am no longer living in the same house), but I think it’s the skeleton of the house. It’s old.

Chapter 2

I began to forget about those things as I moved on, moved out, and got a place of my own.

I quit thinking about them. Then I forgot. Forgetting is nice.

Later down the road, I got a job working the night shift in a facility, where I took care of the elderly. It was an easy job, and I enjoyed it.

One night I was lying on the couch in a main area. I had the TV turned down low. I dozed off and on. It was in the middle of the night, and nothing was going on.

Then I heard someone. It was a voice coming from down the hall. It was a woman’s voice. It sounded like she belonged in her early fifties. The voice was hushed and curious. She said, Do you think she can hear us?

I perked my head up in response. Who was this in my building? I thought.

In response to my action, I heard the sounds of women laughing and giggling. I caught three distinct laughs.

I heard another voice say, I don’t know. Do you think she heard that?

I got up. I went to check. I found nobody anywhere. I heard no TVs but mine. I went back to my couch.

I turned the volume down on the TV. I got comfortable. I started to drift off again.

I heard them whispering about if I could hear them again.

I realized they were probably just spirits. I believe I was just as curious about them as they were about me. I was also tired.

It really was late.

I lay there. I listened to them.

They were no longer down the hallway. Now I heard them giggle and whisper just behind me on the other side of the couch. Once I did get up and do a quick walk-around. I quickly lost interest as I realized I was just entertaining them.

I couldn’t see them. I could only hear them. I was so tired.

I listened to them walk by the couch I was lying on. They would stomp in one direction; then they would stomp in the other. Sometimes when I heard them walk past me, it sounded like they rattled a chip bag.

I didn’t care. Like I said, I was tired, but they had put just enough adrenaline in me to keep me awake. I lay there with my eyes on the TV as I pretended to ignore them.

I heard them whisper about me as they moved to different areas of the couch. Sometimes I heard their verbal reactions to the expressions my eyes gave off when they startled me.

I heard them whispering as they stomped all over the place and rattled bags while giggling on occasion. "Can she hear that?