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DELILAH

Knock, knock.

I can see it clearly. Yet, I still re-read it.

One repeated word has my heart racing, attempting to beat out of my chest.

The messages show that this is real.

The figure is real too.

He’s standing there now. Watching me watch him.

But I don’t run. Not yet.

I stay fixed at the window, staring at that ghostly image. He escapes the harsh rain by staying within the tree line surrounding the deserted cabin I’ve found myself in. The clouds are too thick, too heavy to allow any sunlight through them. But I watch, my muscles shaking from the cold as water drips from my hair against the thick cardstock clutched in my numb fingers.

Two words.

It’s always been two words in the months since I’ve been experiencing the strangeness. There’s no other way to describe it. One moment my life made sense, then it didn’t and all I have are two words: knock, knock. Those same two words are on a card embossed with a shiny floral pattern on the other side.

The rain falls in sheets, distorting the figure watching me. I don’t realize how close I’ve gotten to the window until my nose hits it, and the glass instantly fogs as my lungs allow air into my body.

Moving a step back, I hold my sanity—the card—tighter as I slowly turn my head, taking in my surroundings. The wooden walls of the cabin make everything smell like pine, but none of it is familiar. A loud clap of thunder is followed by harsh angry light illuminating the wall to my right. I freeze. There on the mantel is a photo that doesn’t belong. It stares back at me, projecting a false image of something that never happened.

“It’s not real,” I mutter to myself. To convince my mind to stop making shit up when I’ve never been in this place before. I know I haven’t, and I repeat the facts to myself as though the voice in my head is a tangible being who will argue back.

“I got a call to go to the hospital. Ruby and Scarlet were in an accident and then I broke down.”

But my feet move at odds to the part of my brain that knows who I am. The card is still clutched in my fingers. My sopping hair drips with each slow step I take until I’m standing in front of the unlit stone fire.

My nape prickles with awareness as the rain echoes around the inside of the cabin, blowing a draft through the aged building. Deathly cold washes over me as I stare at the photo from Asher’s birthday.

The last day we were together.

The background shows my grandparents’ vineyard, but we never visited them. A tremor takes over my hand as I lift the photo frame and make sure that I’m looking at the correct brother.

“Asher always wore his chain,” I repeat as I search for it in the image, “and Kane’s grin can’t be copied.”

But Asher died, my mind whispers back, and it’s all your fault.

A violent clap erupts from the sky and the frame slips between my fingers, the wood splintering on impact against the floor. Creaking fills the cabin before multiple loud ripping noises echo from outside, followed by a thud that shakes the building.

I turn, looking in the direction of where it came from, and the tree that the man stood beside is cut in half. There is no lone figure hiding in the rain. For some reason, worry takes over me. He’s tormenting me with the notes, but I’m worried that he’ll stop.

Retracing my steps that are puddled against the floor, I go back to the window. I make it two steps when there’s another noise.

Knock.

Knock.

All the blood in my body sinks to my feet at the two thuds against the cabin wall. Not the door. The knocking is at my right, beside the mantel.

Sweat beads down my spine and I stare at the wooden cladding as though I can see through it. No other noise comes from that direction. It moves further away. Two more knocks directly behind me.

My survival instincts seem to work in reverse, and I run out of the cabin to go back to my broken down car. The rain weighs me down, each droplet attacking my skin as it turns the ground into a mudslide. My feet sink into it and the wet earth tries to pull me back with every step.

My heartbeat drowns out any other sound as I avoid the trees and run around the edge of them. The steep drop to the violent waters below isn’t any safer, but I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere with someone following me, so I’ll take my chances with it.

My foot slips in a patch of mud that has turned swampy, and my chin takes the brunt of the force as my hands fail to stop the fall. It slows me down as I’m forced to look behind me, but there’s no figure. I’m alone. I allow myself to breathe, like that will stop my mind working against me.

Moss, leaves, and rainwater fill my nose. They don’t leave as I stand. The rain works in my favor, washing away the mud from my skin. I don’t run this time. I walk because I’m seeing shit and there’s no one watching me. I look down, remembering the card, but there’s nothing in my hand. It isn’t on the floor and an ache forms behind my eyes as I try to remember if it was real.

It has to be.

I felt it.

I felt the paper turn soft as water dripped from my hair.

But it isn’t in my hand or lying in the mud. There’s nothing other than my footprints and the puddle from where I fell and disturbed the ground.

The rain batters my body, making me sway closer to the harsh cliff edge as I take out my phone. “I took a photo of it.” My fingers are too numb to get it to unlock and the signal must have come back sometime between the cabin and my fall because there are messages piled up on the screen.

The drops hit the glass, distorting the letters as I try to read it and work out who could be messaging me. I purposefully don’t allow anyone in my life. Swiping them away with my palm, I lean over the device to block out the rain and every inch of life drains out of me seeing the unknown number.

UNKNOWN:

He’s coming for you.

Knock.

Knock.

Ask who’s there, beautiful Delilah.

A twig snaps within the copse of trees, causing me to jump, and my phone flies out of my hand, hitting the floor with a splash.

But I run.

Again.

This time I know it’s an evil spirit. He’s back and he won’t stop.

The elements are nothing against the fear inside of me. Each pound of my feet against the ground is followed by another pair echoing behind me.

They get faster as my muscles burn. The pelting rain reduces the visibility, but I keep running. My lungs ache with harsh breaths until the ground crumbles under my feet, and I scream as the cliff edge gets closer. It takes my legs out from under me, and I scramble to remain on my feet as I crawl forward, my fingers scraping the sheets of rain as they stretch out in front of me.

A heavy weight hits my back, slamming me into the ground, and I kick. He’s not breathing hard or exhausted as he turns me on my back and presses his forearm over my throat.

My air is constricted further as I blindly fight, trying to get him off me. I can’t see his features with the elements working against me, but he bears his weight down and warmth ghosts my cheek. It stops beside my ear as he whispers, “Go to sleep, beautiful. I’ll wake you up when it’s over.”

The pressure against my windpipe intensifies, my fingers burning from the rush of blood into my cold hands, but I know that sentence. Despite nature’s assault, I manage to croak, “It’s you.”