Lot 081 : Knock, Knock (CHAPTER 3 // THE FINALE )

Today's episode is sponsored by I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Get it now on Digital.

When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences.

A year later, their past comes back to haunt them, and they're forced to confront a horrifying truth.

Someone knows what they did last summer and is hell-bent on revenge.

As one by one, the friends are stalked by a killer.

They discover this happened before, so they turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport massacre of 1997 for help.

Starring Madeline Klein, Chase Sue Wonders, Jonah Hauer King, with Freddie Prince Jr., and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

I know what you did last summer is a perfect summer slasher, says Jordan Cruciolo of NPR.

Your summer is not over yet.

Don't miss a killer movie night at home.

We don't offer a weapon or a clue or a warning.

Just this.

Now brown and black with age.

And other things.

The stink of it could drop one to their knees.

Flesh gone sour.

Beer gone warm.

And something else that never had a name.

Seems the bandana doesn't like being talked about.

Take a breath.

Hold it if you must.

We've reached the end of the hall, and there are no more doors to open.

Only what waits on the other side.

This

is Knock Knock, Chapter 3.

Before we begin, I want to point out some of the customers whose names have been etched in brass on this beautiful plaque I had made above the front desk.

These are some of the members of the inner circle of the Antiquarium.

We go by the Obsidian Covenant.

Recent initiates include Joanna,

Ash Vassall,

Becca Mackenzie,

Leah Branch,

Loso Not Nice,

Jen Hoff, Pizza Time, Scout Perigo Jr.,

and Video Monster.

We are ever appreciative of your devotion to the Order.

Go to theObsidiancovenant.com to receive the sacrament.

Now,

where were we?

Oh, yes,

welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings

and odd goings-on.

Actually, I'm really glad you're here.

Sorry, it's such a fucking mess.

I just can't get up to clean with my back hurting.

Tim keeps messaging me.

That's really awkward because he's dead, and I'm not sure how to tell him that.

Or even if I should tell him that.

Because at this stage, I still don't know what killed him.

Just that it's knocking on the door, hoping for me to let it in.

There are no other exits to this room.

I'm trapped in here.

with his pungent corpse covered in symbols that he carved into his own flesh.

Symbols on every part of him, except his right arm that holds the knife.

Maggots wriggle in and out of his eyes.

It's nauseating.

And there's also nowhere to sit but his chair that he is currently congealing into.

So I'm huddled here against the door, trying not to touch any of the dried blood all over the fucking walls.

The knock, knock, knocking pounding on the wood behind me and giving me such a fucking migraine.

Meanwhile, my girl Emma keeps texting, asking where I am.

At the gym, babe.

I lie and hope that's not the last text I ever sent.

In short, I am having a really, really bad day.

But hey, judging by that knocking, it's also gonna be really, really short.

I mean, do I tell him he's decomposing and that's why he stinks?

Breathing in here is like sipping a smoothie of rotting meat, soaking in sewage and marinating and all these maggots.

I wet a bandana and one of the beers I took from the fridge, tie it around my mouth and nose.

But now it's just the eye-watering stink of death with an accent of hops.

Strongly considering holding my breath and suffocating.

Sorry, I have to kill you, by the way.

Well,

let you die.

Aw, nice of him to come right out with it like that.

So, dude, was that the plan all along?

Kill me.

I mean, I kind of thought you just opened the door, you know, like everyone else.

Like Dwayne.

I didn't know he was a kid.

Uh-huh.

It's not fair you to judge me.

I didn't know, okay?

And I'm genuinely sorry what's going to happen to you.

There's just nothing I can do to stop it.

Well then, apparently Tim does realize a lot more than he was letting on.

He just doesn't really like to talk about it.

I'm guessing what happened here is that he fucked up whatever ritual he was attempting, wrote everything out except on that right arm.

So now the entity that he only partially summoned is trying to use other victims as hosts, killing them in the process.

Or else, it's sucking their life out to strengthen itself in order to finish crossing over.

Or maybe it's just fucking hungry.

Who knows?

Regardless, if it succeeds in manifesting on this side of the door, well, that's bad news bears for everyone.

I tap onto my phone.

So, what happens to me now?

I mean, you already know.

Same thing has happened to everyone else.

Why?

He doesn't answer.

His eyeballs are leaking out of his head, after all.

His eardrums and all those bits and pieces little more than smelly goo.

It's only through the digital interface that he's been able to interact with me at all.

I type into Discord.

Why?

Why what?

Why are you doing this?

Since I'm gonna die anyway, I'd like to know why.

What am I dying for?

This is it.

I wait for his villain speech.

Because if I can get him to tell me why, tell me the rules, then maybe, just maybe, there's some sliver of a chance I can escape this.

And I haven't fucked myself by accepting his friend request and inviting that thing to knock on my door.

There's a long pause where three dots pass across my screen.

Tim is writing.

He's writing something long.

That or he's writing and editing.

Changing his mind.

I wait.

Oh, here.

No.

I wait.

Nope.

And then.

Are you fucking kidding me?

The dots disappear.

Motherfucker.

Nothing.

Is this bastard ghosting me?

Tim, fuck.

I don't owe you anything.

Um, you literally invited me to my death, but won't tell me why.

That is fucked up.

What does it matter since you're gonna die anyway?

You got your 50, so I owe you nothing.

Dude, 50 bucks barely covers a fucking lift.

I came here for you to help you.

Liar!

You don't give a shit about me.

You're only here for those other people.

You've been looking down on me from the second you said hello.

Bro, what the fuck?

I never looked down on you.

I don't know who you think I am, but I can promise you, I'm in no position to judge anyone.

Look,

as much as you so clearly hate yourself, I promise you,

I hate myself more.

Who the fuck said I hate myself?

And suddenly the tension is so thick you could choke on it.

The air has gotten colder, and the corpse in the chair has an aura of menace.

The overhead lights flicker.

Apparently, it's not just Discord that Tim's ghost has some influence over.

And as the lights wink off, plunging the room into pitch black, save for the foreboding glow of the monitor, I know I have exactly one chance to get this right.

Weirdly enough, I'm sort of excited.

Just like every time I've conned someone and been nearly caught, every time the mark was this close to slipping off the line.

Only right now, it's not money at stake.

It's my actual life.

I just have to hope I've got a keen enough read on him to play this right.

I tap onto my screen.

Whatever judgment you feel, bro, that's coming from you.

It's like I'm saying, who am I to judge anyone?

Honestly, you're probably doing the world a favor taking me out.

For a second, it feels like there's no air in the room at all.

Like my heart's stopped.

The silence lengthens, and despair blooms in my chest.

And then...

So why do you hate yourself?

Okay.

Okay, Jack.

Let's do this.

Gotta keep Timmy engaged, get him chummy again, get him to lower his guard by convincing him the biggest loser in this room is me.

And then, once he no longer sees me as a threat, Hope he's got the answers I need to defeat his buddy knocking outside that door.

But one step at a time now, right?

I tell him why I hate myself.

I love myself.

Maybe not right now.

Right now, a few knock knocks away from death, gagging on the leftover beer I just guzzled with my chum, the psychotic incel who's planning to kill me.

Now's not me at my best.

But on a regular day, fuck yeah.

Living the dream.

This morning, I woke up next to the best girl in the world, inhaled the syrupy scent of the best pancakes cooked by the best grandma, rolled out of bed and tripped over the best cat.

Not that that I'm a cat guy, but if I gotta have a cat, this little guy's the best.

Then, after breakfast, Emma put a mug of steaming coffee in my hand and kissed my cheek and told me, we'll announce our engagement as soon as I get my GED, so could I please study?

She's the kind of girl who never met a test she couldn't ace.

High school valedictorian, 4.0 GPA, currently going for a master's in public policy.

Me?

I dropped out.

Just don't do well with indoctrination.

Standardized tests are all pick the right answer, A, B, or C.

And never mind, there's a whole alphabet out there.

Now, you got to tick the right box, color inside the lines, your thinking done for you, so be a good cog in the machine.

But baby, put me in a box.

I'm always going to claw my way outside of it.

Anyway, point is, Tim Sanders is never going to relate to the self-made huckster known as Jack Wilde.

I need to sell him someone on his level.

You know they put me in special eye growing up.

Normally I don't dig up my skeletons.

But right now, for Tim, it's time to yank those old bones from deep in the closet.

From under dirty kids' clothes in that elementary school lunchbox that smells like stale bologna.

Gross, it's rank, right?

Dig into that skull for all those crusty memories and tell him about a dead kid with a dead name.

Jacqueline.

But don't actually tell him her name or pronouns, because nothing would torpedo this bromance faster.

Tell him about this kid who couldn't stop fidgeting long enough for filling the bubble tests, whose teachers and parents all said the same thing.

If you don't try harder, they're going to stick you in class with the dumb kids.

And that's where Jaclyn wound up.

With the dumb kids.

Saw the score that everyone's measured by, and guess what your measure is, kid?

Failure.

Now, the thing about a good lie is

it's got a taste like the truth.

My parents wouldn't recognize me now with my weeks worth of stubble and rugged physique and six-pack.

What's that?

You don't believe I have a six-pack?

Fuck you, I lift.

Having a six-pack is my reward for all those workouts.

It's in the fucking fridge.

The point is, there's not much Jacqueline left in Jack.

But pulling out all these moldy memories gives my tale the tang of truth.

A big heaping spoonful of it, in fact.

And right at the end, I slip in a lie.

I can't even blame you for tricking me, really.

I'm still doing the same dumb shit.

Bro, did you ever get tested for ADHD?

Is it any surprise I fell for your trick so easy?

Listen, I know I'm gonna die.

I got no one to mourn me, so who fucking cares anyway, since you got me as kind of a captive audience?

What do you say?

What's your story, Tim?

Tim does not respond at first.

I wonder if I hammed it up too much.

I prod

for real man.

You can't fuck up worse than me.

Why are you so down on yourself?

Got anything to do with this knocking?

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess it does.

Six months ago, Tim Sanders was seated in that very same leather gaming chair, gulping down a bottle of the same watery-ass piss beer I recently pulled from his fridge.

Back then, he was freshly showered and smelled faintly of old spice, and put on his headset, eager to voice chat with the girl who was his obsession.

Vivian, aka Viv.

A ghost girl, according to what she told Tim on Discord.

She said she died in a car accident, but wasn't able to rest.

The world as she experienced it was lonely and strange.

She couldn't touch people, couldn't interact with people.

The only interaction she could manage was through electronics.

You know how ghosts can cause lights to flicker and stuff?

Well, motherboards are the same way, just smaller switches of ones and zeros.

That's how I can talk to you.

She said she couldn't send real-life photos because she was dead, but she sent AI images that captured what she used to look like.

Check her out.

God damn, she got nice eyes.

She has nice tits, which are 100% fake, just like Viv.

Even her voice, which he describes as ghostly and electronic sounding, is obviously AI.

I've sold some whoppers before, but even I'm boggled at the way this Viv scammer somehow found the one lonely guy on the internet desperate enough to be suckered into chatting with a ghost girl.

A ghost girl who repeatedly requested Amazon gift cards and Venmo.

As Tim dreamily describes their chats, there's a squirmy feeling in my gut that I don't think is just the piss beer.

I'm not used to seeing the sucker's perspective, seeing the fish swallow the hook while the metal tears his belly open from the inside.

He's dead because someone duped him, and eight other people are dead because of him.

And it all comes back to the moment Vivian ended their cyber affair.

The screenshot he sends me of her last message is filled with emojis.

Thank you for everything.

I have found my peace and I'm moving into the ever after.

I wanted to be happy for her, but Viv leaving really messed me up.

She was the love of my life, you know.

I'm grateful that Timmy here can't see my expressions because the love of his life,

I drag my hand down my face and side-eye his corpse.

I'm sorry I went through that.

The thing is,

this is why I need you to understand.

I know you're mad about

About what's going to happen to you.

But this is the only way I can see her again.

The thing outside the door?

Wait, hold on a second.

That's Viv?

Bingo.

Your ghost girlfriend is knocking on the door to kill me.

It's my fault, really.

I fucked up the ritual.

And even as Tim is explaining, Telling me how it all went down, how Viv came back wanting to be together, how he fucked it all up with a simple mistake when he didn't carve both arms.

A plan is forming in my mind.

A simple, terrible plan.

Because I'm pretty sure I've got a way to end the threat of that relentless knock, knock, knocking on the door behind me.

But I'm gonna have to be a shitty person to make it work.

Nothing I'm not used to.

Karma's a bitch, you know.

A bitch named Vivian, but also named Tim.

Denjack.

We're all getting what's coming to us.

And it's all going down right now.

Because I'm going to end this charade by giving Tim exactly what he wants.

My knife carves into the mottled flesh of his rotting right arm.

It doesn't bleed.

Just opens up these dark lines I trace out in the skin.

I copied the symbols from the walls at Tim's instruction.

The cuts swim in my vision, and the hairs on my arm stand upright like I'm about to get struck by lightning.

I've replenished my beer-soaked bandana with the second bottle, but my eyes still water from the smell, and my stomach bucks.

I unfortunately did not have the foresight to bring gloves, and when some of his skin slops off onto my fingers, I have to stop and shake it off.

Man, this is gross.

Tim, for his part, is over the moon.

He kind of can't believe I'm granting his last wish.

I kind of can't believe either.

And fantasize myself like anywhere else.

Maybe in a world in which I did as my girlfriend asked and studied.

Might as well fantasize myself six foot tall while I'm at it with washboard apps.

Not that I don't have those.

I definitely do in the right lighting, iffy squint.

Holy shit, man.

I cannot thank you enough.

Like, to be honest, I don't even know how many people she'd have taken if you hadn't shown up.

You know, just want to help you get reunited and no one else dies.

Win-win.

But it's not win-win.

And since we're drawing near to the end of this charade, just a few more arcane symbols left to trace.

It's time I come clean.

To you listening at least.

Before we summon Viv.

Wait, do you smell that?

No, not the bandana.

That's old.

This

is new.

Fresh rot.

Something wet and breathing in a place where nothing should.

It's seeping through the walls again.

Only happens when the relics don't want their secrets revealed.

I need to see if anything's come in through the basement grates.

Last time, the

um

we don't talk about last time.

Stay right here, and whatever you do,

don't lift the cloth.

Today's episode is sponsored by I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Get it now on digital.

When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences.

A year later, their past comes back to haunt them, and they're forced to confront a horrifying truth.

Someone knows what they did last summer and is hell-bent on revenge.

As one by one, the friends are stalked by a killer.

They discover this happened before, so they turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport massacre of 1997 for help.

Starring Madeline Klein, Chase Sue Wonders, Jonah Howard King, with Freddie Prince Jr., and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

I know what you did last summer is a perfect summer slasher, says Jordan Cruciolo of NPR.

Your summer is not over yet.

Don't miss a killer movie night at home.

Why, hello there.

You've reached the antiquarium.

If you wish to leave a message, please do so with the town and have a great day.

Um, yes, I'm hoping someone can help me.

I recently purchased a set of crystal singing bowls to use in my yoga class, and

now my patrons they're all bleeding from their eyes, their ears, their mouths.

Please, if someone could call me, I would really appreciate it if you could help me.

I don't know how to explain this to the police.

Thank you.

End of messages.

So sorry about that.

The smell is much stronger now, isn't it?

We're close.

At the door.

And this time,

something answers.

Let's finish it, shall we?

Right, so

for the record, up until this exact moment, I wasn't in any real danger.

I mean, was it scary?

Fuck yeah.

And did I scream?

Also, yes, but that's because I'm a coward.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Heroism against the paranormal tends to result in a premature doom.

Another reason I don't like to involve Emma.

The truth is, I intentionally got myself stuck with Tim,

letting him sucker me so I could sucker him.

And the situation is kind of like a loaded gun.

Sure, it could kill me.

But consider the rules.

Vivian can't harm me unless I open the door and invite her in.

And just like I wouldn't pull the trigger on myself, duh, I'm never going to open the door.

As for being trapped in this room because of the knocking?

Realistically, I could call the cops.

Emma, anybody.

They're not the invitees.

They could open the door for me and let me out.

Easy peasy.

So yeah, I may have over-dramatized the danger in the retelling.

Sorry, but even if I wasn't actually risking much prior to this moment,

I'm about to do something wildly, ridiculously reckless.

The proverbial gun is about to go off, with me right in its sights.

Because I'm about to summon Vivian.

She's not who he thinks she is.

After she left him, he began using Ouija boards, seances, and rituals to call into the beyond and beg his beloved to return.

He'd been researching the occult since the beginning of their cyber affair, seeking ways of bringing her into the living world.

That's actually why she left.

He kept pressing her to try rituals to summon her spirit into a vessel, either a doll or a living human, she might possess.

When the arcane rituals he suggested became more extreme and involved him mutilating himself, Vivian sent her last text, telling him that she found her peace and was continuing her journey to the beyond.

The catfisher cut the line, but the hook was still embedded, Deep.

And one day, after countless attempts to reach Viv and the beyond, one day, he heard knocking.

How did you know it was Viv?

Come on, man.

Who the fuck else would answer from the other side, huh?

Nothing good, Tim.

Nothing good ever answers from the other side.

is what I wanted to scream at him.

Enter Viv 2.0,

a horrifying entity that drives people to death with terror.

Not that I could ever convince Tim this entity is different from original Viv or that original Viv was a catfisher.

To him, they are simply his beloved.

Telling him to let Viv go because the relationship was never genuine, it'd be like telling me to let go of Emma.

I mean, sure, you can argue that Emma's real and Viv isn't, but she's real to Tim.

Real enough that he carved his flesh and painted his blood on the fucking walls and already sacrificed eight eight people to her.

She promised we'd be together.

Soul bonded, deeper than any marriage of the flesh.

All I had to do was complete the ritual, but I got weak from blood loss and fucked up.

In reams of text, Tim spills his obsession to me, describing how she appeared in his trances as sort of a shining angel stuck just beyond the door.

unable to come through.

Unlike the original Catfisher who used Discord to message him, Viv 2.0 could only communicate by sending images and sensations into his mind.

She gave him visions of what to do.

It took him weeks to understand her arcane communications.

Eventually, he learned the symbols.

When he finally attempted the ritual that would summon Viv 2.0 into this world, he succumbed to blood loss before he could finish, leaving the summoning incomplete.

Since then, he's been reaching out through Discord on her behalf.

Every new victim who opens the door to Viv 2.0 gives her just a little more power, a little more access to the world, bringing her closer to manifesting.

Tim is in many ways a classic ghost.

Sure, he's more lucid than most, and his ability to communicate through messaging is rare.

likely boosted by his connection to Viv 2.0 and his overall familiarity with the other side prior to his death.

Even so, like most ghosts, he's bound geographically to the place he died, able to interact with the physical world only in limited ways.

And, as often happens with spirits, he keeps forgetting he's dead.

That's why he keeps citing his hurt back as the reason he can't get up from his chair.

As a result, it hasn't occurred to him that a corpse may not be an ideal vessel for Vivian, that she was expecting a living human to possess.

And that fulfilling the ritual now, after he's been rotting for over a week, might not be to her liking.

I certainly haven't enlightened him.

Because as much as a part of me pities him, I think of Lucia and Dwayne and the others who answered the knocking.

The people who didn't get a choice when they died screaming.

And now, the beer tastes sour in my mouth as I make the final cuts.

I swallow the last dregs of the bottle, bringing back the buzz to kill my conscience.

Ready?

Jack,

I love you, man.

Be a real one.

As I trace the last line, all the hairs on my body stick straight up.

My flesh crawls as if a million ants wriggle and squirm just beneath the skin.

There's a phrase I have to repeat three times.

Tim types it out phonetically and has me practice.

It includes a particular string of syllables that makes the strangest shape in my mouth.

And I'm pretty sure that's the word for Viv.

Practicing it sends a sensation like an ice pick in my brain.

Once I've got it, I step just outside the center of the spiral bloody symbols around that room and tug down that beer-soaked bandana to utter a chant that translates roughly to, Forever together.

Forever together.

Forever together.

As the phrase leaves my lips for the third time, the room feels strange.

It takes me an unsettling moment to realize why.

The knocking has stopped.

After ceaseless hours of knock, knock, knock, knock, knocking rattling around in my skull without respite, you'd think silence would be a relief, a blessing.

Instead, I am chilled to the marrow.

I look at my phone.

The low battery warning flashes.

Ignoring that, I type.

Tim?

Did it work?

Are you still there?

Is Vib with you?

Nothing.

The body in the chair hasn't moved.

Flies crawl in and out of his sockets.

Suddenly, I feel very alone.

Just me and a rotting corpse.

I back away from him, glancing at his glowing monitor.

Our Discord chat is up, but no further activity.

No three dots.

No response.

And after a few minutes of standing stock still and petrified, I finally lean over the dead guy and peck at a few keys, checking his message history for any other victims, then turning off the computer.

In the dark screen, I catch a glimpse of my face.

Anxious black eyes, stubble, splatters of grime.

I look shifty.

Like a thief plotting his getaway.

I lean down and disconnect the router and modem.

Unplug all the power cords and cut through them with a knife.

Remove the Ethernet cable and tuck it into my hoodie.

There is no way, natural or supernatural, for this computer to connect to the internet anymore.

I head for the door and grasp the knob.

When I feel no goosebumps along my arms, no chill of supernatural energy, I pull the door slowly open.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

I turn and step out the door and shut it behind me.

Relief washing over me.

I fucking knew it.

I should absolutely not open the door again and peek back inside.

Absolutely not.

I should just leave, go on my merry way, and whatever happens, happens.

But as we all know, I'm an idiot.

I open the door.

Silently, cautiously.

A jackal peeked into the den of a bear.

I poke my head into the room.

It's dark, so I open the door wider to let the light in.

The chair at his desk.

It's empty.

Oh, we are so fucked, it's empty.

And the electronics are still dead, so where is he, Jack?

Where the fuck did the dead man now possessed by the knocker go?

He must still be in this cramped room, but he's not in the chair.

And

I look up.

There are certain moments in life that tell you exactly what sort of metal a man is made of, whether he's chiseled stone or rough leather.

Whether he has a spine of iron or steel.

Moments of crisis where a man's true nature comes out.

I shriek at the top of my lungs.

The tippy-top.

I'm talking notes that choir boys couldn't hit.

Somewhere I think glass breaks.

Tim, the corpse, is crawling on the ceiling above me.

Flies buzzing in his sockets and mouth open and teeth bared.

His rotting body awakening fluids.

He fucking drops on me.

His corpse, by the way, is massively heavy.

He's over six foot and thickly built.

And when his full weight crashes down, it's like being hit by a bus.

There's this horrible shrill ringing in my ears.

I don't know if it's from his shrieks or mine.

Maybe both.

And for a moment, everything in my vision goes white.

And it's like my soul is being drawn up out of my body.

I see myself.

Pinned under that rotting dead guy, his mouth wide and screaming in my screaming face.

Then there's this reddish glow emanating off the ink on my arm.

It's my tattoo.

The portrait of the lady on my arm is like a brand marking me as hers.

Her mark won't stop the entity from killing me, but the crimson glow briefly distracts it from whatever it's doing.

And with everything I got,

I heave.

Thank God for adrenaline.

Thank God I've been hitting the gym so hard and thanks especially for the air that I gulp in the second I heave him off me.

One deep precious breath before I'm running, feet pounding down the hallway.

I collide with a petite black-haired girl.

Duck!

Emma shrieks as we rebound off each other, my momentum taking me into the wall while she sprawls on the floor.

Emma, what are you?

Duck!

Her shrill cry pierces my ear, and that's when I see the shotgun glinting in her hands as she swings the barrel up.

There's a thunderous crack, an explosion of gore from the monstrosity lumbering behind me.

He barely sways, and she fires again.

And then I grab her arm and scream, Run!

Run!

And we run.

The shots seem to have stunned him.

We make it out the front door.

My battered old car is in the driveway.

Emma had the foresight to take my vehicle instead of her newer electric blue hybrid.

I race for the trunk where I keep all my gear and grab a gas can.

And Emma, bless her.

She gapes at me, her dark eyes wide and her long hair tangling around her face.

But when I babble that we need to burn the place and that zombie thing in it, she nods and grabs a bottle of vodka from the back and stuffs a rag in.

As we head back to the house, she gasps.

I thought you were supposed to be studying.

Long story.

I know.

I saw the chats on your laptop.

At the gym, my ass.

I smile at her.

She's tiny and furious.

With her black eyes narrowed and that shotgun tight in her grip.

This girl.

Man,

I fucking love this girl.

She never looks hotter than when she's saving my ass.

I open the door.

Emma levels a shotgun, covering me while I sprinkle gas around the stacks of boxes, soiled carpets, stained and sagging couch and furniture.

No sign yet of any kind.

Oh, the scream is so fucking loud, Emma and I both jump and scramble.

I can't hear my heart sledgehammering my ribs or the question Emma shouts at me.

I can't hear anything except that howl.

It's the most terrible sound in the world.

And when I force myself to ignore all my instincts and follow that sound down the hall, Emma tugs my arm, but I ignore her.

I somehow already know what I'll find.

I push open the door at the end of the hall, and there he is.

He's slumped in the corner, in the center of all those spiraling symbols, his jaw unhinged in a wide and terrible scream.

He doesn't see me.

Doesn't seem to have any sense of my presence.

I scatter the contents of the gas can around, and when I near him and fling a little on him, his head turns.

The sightless sockets stare into mine, but he doesn't stop screaming.

He doesn't come after me.

He just screams and screams.

I like the Molotov.

Later, Emma will ask me what was that monstrosity.

And I'll tell her what I know about Viv 2.0, aka the knocker.

That it is an inhuman entity that, when it manifests, drives people out of their minds with fear.

That I knew being together with this entity could only have an immediate and detrimental effect on Tim.

That I didn't know whether his soul would be consumed like a minnow swallowed by a bigger fish.

Or whether he'd experienced the same mind-fucking horror as Dwayne and Lucia only.

Ongoing.

All I knew was that Tim would keep killing unless I put an end to his fantasy.

And that rather than deal with an incorporeal menace reaching people through the internet, the best way to neutralize him was to trap his beloved Viv within his rotting vessel, and then destroy them both.

I hurl the Molotov and he lights up.

Em and I back out of there as fast as we can.

My last glimpses of his huddled corpse, arms outstretched in agony, head thrown back as the bright flames lick around him, flesh bubbling and charring.

Long after he's toast.

long after I imagine he must be just charred bones while the fire roars to the sky and the house burns.

Still,

I hear those screams ringing through my consciousness.

And I wonder if it's him or just my guilty conscience.

You could have died.

I mean, if I if I'd found you

screaming and dead like Dwayne,

it almost happened.

It's evening now, and Dema and I are both back home and cleaned up.

I had to shower twice to rinse off that fucking stench.

Boo the cat is settled in my lap on the sofa.

He seems to know the threat is gone now.

He'll be going to a foster home soon.

For now, I'm keeping him confined here in my office in the basement.

And Emma.

Well, Emma is chewing me out.

Rightfully so.

It doesn't matter that I remind her that I wasn't going to open that door.

I even had a backup plan.

The knocking had a limited geographic range, so if I couldn't maneuver the information out of Tim, an easy way to save myself would be to take a trip out of state until I could come up with a better plan.

It was only at the very end that I was at risk.

She's still pissed, though.

She paces in front of me and bursts.

Why are we having this same damn conversation when you promised me last time?

You promised me that you would.

I know, babe.

Don't just, I know, babe, when you could have.

I didn't tell you because I was scared of you getting involved.

I know it was selfish.

Selfish and stupid.

It's just.

You're brilliant, okay?

You've got this amazing future ahead of you.

You're in this grad program and you're dedicated and talented and just so fucking smart.

You're gonna change the world.

I can see it.

What kind of piece of shit would I be to take your light out of the world?

To let my mistakes be the reason your life is snuffed out before you even get a chance to shine.

That somewhat diffuses her anger.

Emma can't help but glow at compliments.

It's the teacher's pet in her.

She considers me.

Oh, that's poetic of you.

But it's the truth.

I mean every word.

If there's any hope for this world, it's with people like Emma trying to make it better.

She sinks next to me on the cushions.

So why can't you see that you're a light in the world too?

Uh,

cause, like, that's super corny, and I don't like popcorn.

Okay, well, that's a lie.

I've seen you go through a whole bucket without sharing.

Also, you're all about, oh, I'm Jack Wild.

I can't be tamed.

I do what I want.

And I love and admire that about you.

But why is it so easy for you to risk your life and so hard to risk mine?

Jack, why do you act like the world would be a better place without you in it?

Huh.

My mind blanks like I've been sucker punched.

And while my brain's spinning like an empty hamster wheel, the only thought that surfaces is Tim's final shriek.

He was a delusional asshole who let people die so he could be with his beloved.

But he was also just a dude who was lonely and broken in a dysfunctional world that breaks people.

What happened to him only happened because he wasn't smart enough to see through the lies that were told to him by someone slyer than he was.

Someone like me?

Later, I'm in the bathroom and I catch a glimpse of my ink.

Coyote on the right arm, lady and a snake on the left.

People always think that's Eve.

Nope, originally it was just a snake to symbolize Satan, the original trickster.

Okay, what?

Look, I was going through some stuff at the time.

But after I made my bargain with the demon that always appears to me as a gorgeous lady in red, after I won her game and she swore to catch me, she marked me with her image.

I generally try not to look at that tattoo because I don't like to be reminded.

I force myself to look now.

Because I'm sick of running from my misdeeds.

She's already waiting to catch my eye, her inked lips curved in a wicked smile.

That arm aches.

Karma's a bitch.

And no matter what I do, how fast I run, or who I save, or who I slaughter, or how I try to pay my debt to the world,

she's gonna find me.

A C I L F V U K A O L C L P S D O L Y L U H T L Z K P Z C V S

C L H U K A P T L I B Y U Z

Thank you for your patronage.

Hope you enjoyed your new relic as much as I've enjoyed passing along its sordid history.

It does come with our usual warning, however.

Absolutely no refunds, no exchanges, and we won't be held liable for anything that may or may not occur while the object is in your possession.

If you've got an artifact with mysterious properties, perhaps it's accompanied by a history of bizarre and disturbing circumstances, maybe you'd be interested in dropping it and its story by the shop to share with other customers.

Please reach out to antiquariumshop at gmail.com.

A member of our team will be in touch.

Till next time, we'll be waiting for you whenever you close your eyes

in the space between sleep and dream.

During regular business hours, of course, or by appointment, only for you,

our

best customer.

You have a good night now.

The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings.

Lot 081, Knock Knock, Chapter 3, The Finale.

Written by Quincy Lee, featuring Trevor Shand as Jack.

Addison Peacock as Emma.

Jeffrey Allen Sneed as Tim.

DeQuintero as Viv.

Featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer.

Engineering production and sound design by Trevor Shand.

Theme music by the Newton Brothers.

Additional music by COAG and Vivek Abishek.

The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings is created and curated by Trevor and Lauren Shand.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Antiquarium Pod.

Call the Antiquarium at 646-481-7197.

The Toxic Avenger is out now.

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Hello and welcome to the world of Scare You to Sleep.

I'm your host, Shelby Novak, a show for those of us who need something a little stronger than counting sheep, who find horror to be a strangely strangely relaxing escape.

Here you'll find a myriad of fright-filled tales, from fictional to true stories, to high strangeness to guided nightmares, where I take you on a journey through your own personal nightmare.

So come get lost in the terror with me.

Listen to Scare You to Sleep, wherever you listen to podcasts, sweet screams.