TAPPING

It's been happening for the past couple of months. The tapping, I mean. Every night, just as I'm about to drift off to sleep, there's the tapping. At the front door of my house, there's a small glass window. You know, the kinds that don't serve any purpose because you can't actually see through them? It's one of those. Every night, there's three or four taps at that window.

The first night it happened, I played it off as nothing. The second night, I checked. Nothing was behind the window. The third night, I opened the door and no one was there...only two bare footprints which disappeared the next day. The fourth night, I called the police and they found nothing but the pair of footprints right outside my door.

The first week turned into the second and I started getting scared. I bought a gun. I bought locks. I bought a guard dog. I started on a fence in my front yard. The tapping continued, despite my security.

Eventually, I stopped responding. Nothing was there but a pair of footprints, right? All it does is tap right? Nothing more, right? I got used to it. It became a routine thing. Go to my room, lay on the bed, "tap tap tap," go to sleep. Things began to get worrying after that. I would wake up and the locks lining the side of the front door would all be opened. My pistol mysteriously disappeared without a trace. The dog ran away. The fence was just gone.

It was mocking me, telling me that I'm never safe, no matter what I do. I got tired of it. So many sleepless nights were experienced during this whole ordeal. I wanted to at least trick this thing into thinking I wasn't scared of it. When the tapping came one night, I simply got up, opened the door, and wiped away the footprints as a mocking gesture.

You could say I was challenging it. I felt good about it. I felt like I'd finally defeated the thing. I felt safe from it. It was over, right? Right? The next night came and the tapping came with it. I was seething with anger. I was more irritated by its persistence than I was afraid of the possible threat. Then my blood turned cold when I heard it.

The sound of the front door opening.