Scary Stories, Rituals, and Urban Legends

Whatever you do... Do Not let her in

I walked through death on my way to Cam's house.
Above me, skeletal trees lined the road, reaching their crooked branches towards the dark, wet sky. Their green leaves had already turned red, then yellow, before falling about the street in piles. It was almost winter. Whatever the wind hadn't blown away rotted on the sidewalk, squishing under my sneakers.
I pulled my jacket over my head. We had some nasty weather recently, but this was by far the worst. The kind of night that caused accidents, flooded rivers and threw trees onto telephone wires. There was no doubt in my mind— bad things happened on nights like these.
Thankfully, Cam only lived seven houses down from mine. I knocked on his front door.
A few seconds later, I heard his muffled voice on the other side. "Who is it?"
"Uh, it's Matt," I said. "Open the door! It's freezing out here."
The lock clicked and the door swung wide, revealing Cam's apologetic face. "Sorry," he said, "I guess our neighbor saw somebody prowling around the neighborhood. My mom's freaked. She's making me ask 'who is it' every time somebody comes to the door. So annoying."
"How do you guys have a mail slot but not a spy hole?"
"I dunno, it's retarded. C'mon, I'm almost done setting up."
Inside, a Monopoly board lay open on the dining room table, stacks of multicolor banknotes stuffed under the edges. I could smell melted cheese coming from the steaming pizza box on the counter. Rain pitter-pattered on the kitchen skylight. Cam's mom hurried around the house, late for her work function. Between fixing earrings and stumbling into her shoes, she thanked me for coming over and told us not to do anything stupid. "And make sure the doors and windows are locked," she said before leaving. "You know Delores saw a strange person standing in her front yard last week."
"Yeah well, Mrs. Delores believes in mermaids, Mom!" Cam shouted towards the back door. He waited for the mechanic hum of the garage door shutting. "I think my mom's been watching too much Criminal Minds," he said. "She even tried calling my sister's friend to come babysit."
"... Katie?" I asked, hopefully.
"Really?" Cam rolled his eyes. "One: she's way older than you, and two: she didn't answer anyways." We sat down at the table. "I mean, we're thirteen. Not like we need protecting, right?"
I shrugged. "I'm ok with it. Especially if it's Katie."
Cam shook his head. "Gross dude. Delores is actually crazy though," he added. "I bring in her garbage can every week. Once she told me that her grandma is a bloodsucking alien." He chuckled and dumped out a bunch of silver tokens on the table. "Let me guess. You're gonna be the thimble."
"Got me," I said, grabbing the piece and placing it on the board.
As Cam sifted through the pile of tokens, I looked around at the walls around the kitchen. Several huge Alaskan crabs were pinned up on plaques, arms outstretched like giant armored spiders. I always thought it was kind of bizarre, but Cam's dad was a career fisherman and liked his trophies. My attention returned to the table as Cam slammed down the silver scottie dog token onto the board. He crossed his eyes. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," he said in a mock Dorothy voice.

It was about an hour after we started playing and the game was heating up. Cam had just landed in jail, when somebody knocked on the front door. It wasn't a normal knock. More like a heavy pounding— slow, calculated. From where I was sitting at the dining room table, I could see the door. The knock came again.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Me and Cam looked at each other with wide eyes. We thought it was the cops.
But after a few seconds and still nobody called Police!, we got up hesitantly and tiptoed towards the door. Cam put his ear against the wood and listened. He must not have heard much of anything, because a moment later he asked, "Who is it?" Pause.
"It's me," came the eerie voice from the other side.
If our eyes were wide before, now they were dinner plates. Me and Cam just looked at each other, unsure of what to do. "Who?" Cam asked again, shakily.
"It's me. Your mom. Open the door."
The voice was strange and halting. Like the body it belonged to hadn't breathed enough air to speak, but still tore the words from their lungs. I couldn't even tell if it was actually a woman. For that matter, I couldn't even tell if it was... human. Whoever was on the other side of the door, it wasn't Cam's mom.
Cam backed away from the door. "You're not my mom."
"Yes. Yes I am. Open up." The door handle wriggled.
I put a hand to my chest— my heart was thumping a million miles a minute. By the sound of Cam's voice, so was his. He spoke loudly, trying to hide the tremble in his words. "Go away. You better leave now, we're calling the cops!"
We stood there, still as statues. Silence.
"Check the window," Cam hissed, after a few minutes.
I looked at him bug eyed. "You go check the window!"
"I can't hear anything. I think she's gone. Go check." Cam gave me a little shove. "Don't be a pussy," he added.
I slapped away his hand and gave him a scathing look, but still got down on my hands and knees, crawling towards the bay window. The wooden floor felt cold on my palms. As I neared the window, Cam flicked off the lights. Reaching up, I pulled aside a corner of the pale muslin curtain and peeked outside... at first, I didn't notice anything.
But then—
There, at the corner of the driveway. A figure. Barely illuminated by the yellow glow of the light above the garage. It stood so still that I almost mistook it for a shadow. I squinted, but the harder I looked, the more its shape seemed to waver in the rain. I couldn't see a face, but I could just make out a mess of long, black hair. All of the sudden, it turned around and walked away.
"See anyone?" Cam whispered. He had crept up to the window.
"Somebody at the end of your driveway. They walked down that way."
"Fricken' wierdos in this neighborhood, I swear."
"We should call the cops," I said. I was honestly shaken.
Cam protested immediately. "No way. It was probably nothing," he said, trying to brush it off. "The cops would come, ask a bunch of questions, call my mom. Can you imagine? She wouldn't let me leave the house for the rest of the year. Besides, it was just a joke— did you hear that voice? Think about it. Nobody talks like that."
"Yeah, exactly. You were scared too."
"What, do you think it was... a zombie? A phantom?" Cam stretched his arms and pretended to be a ghost. "OooOOooooO... let me in child, I must suck on your brain!" He laughed. "Don't be dumb. Let's finish the game. I just bought Boardwalk. I bet you just don't wanna play 'cause you know you're gonna lose."
Well, he was partly right. I really hated losing.
Soon enough, we were back into Monopoly and had nearly forgotten about the whole incident. Still, I kept peeking at the door, half expecting to hear the loud knocks at any minute... but they never came again. Towards the end of the game, I was pretty much convinced that the person I saw was just another neighborhood prankster.