STEP 1 – When the undead thing scratches at your window and asks if it can come in, say no.
STEP 2 – When the thing says something that stirs your soul and awakens your senses, and when it promises that it doesn’t want to hurt you, it just wants to be with you, and when it asks to come in so you can have a really good talk about it, say no again.
STEP 3 – When it comes back with the elderly woman from next door and threatens to break her neck if you don’t invite it in, think long and hard about this. You grew up in this small town and you’ve known this woman since you were a kid. You’re not exactly friends, but you help her take out the garbage sometimes and she makes you cookies during the holiday season and she seems nice enough. Once you’ve thought about it, close the curtains and turn on some music so you can’t hear the poor woman’s neck snap like a weathered old tree branch.
STEP 4 – When the girl from down the street who you’ve had a crush on your entire life comes to the door wearing a scarf around her neck and asks to come in and when you ask her why she’s wearing a scarf and she says it’s cold out and you say not really and she says it kinda is, can she come in and talk about it, and you say only if she takes off her scarf first and she says no and you go back and forth on it for a while and finally she relents and takes off her scarf and you see that she was bitten and she smiles and tells you it’s not so bad and you say bullshit and then the thing comes out and grabs her by the wrist and screams that she had one job and the girl you’ve had a crush on your entire life begs the thing for forgiveness and then it rips her heart out and shows it to you and says it’s your fault for making it do this and then it leaves the heart on your doorstep and you say don’t leave that there and the thing says come out and move it yourself and you say no, and when it stalks off to think of what to do next, quickly open the door and kick the heart off the porch and then slam the door.
STEP 5 – Take a second and reflect on how you wish you didn’t live alone, that you had a partner or a roommate to commiserate with about this recent turn of events, but you’re the one who thought it would be great to move back into the old place and live by yourself for once, maybe fix up the back porch or repaint the living room, even throw a party whenever you felt like it, but you never did that and now it’s too late. Try the landline again, but it’s still dead and your cell’s been missing for two days (that’s starting to make sense now). Wonder how long until the sun comes up, and know in your heart that it won’t be soon enough.
STEP 6 – When your mother comes to the door and knocks and says please let her in because it’s so cold out and she’s not looking so good because she’s been dead in the ground for five years but somehow that thing dug her up and made her walk and talk, tell her she can’t come in, even when she looks over your shoulder and croaks about how you’ve really let the place go to hell and what would your father think, God rest his soul, and it’s okay to realize this isn’t a real attempt, this is just the thing trying to break your will, so even though it’s good to stay sober in times like these, have a small glass of bourbon, the good stuff, because why not?
STEP 7 – When the thing reads off a list of all your friends who never moved away, everyone who still lives in this shitty little town, and it asks you to choose which one dies next or they’ll all die, resist the urge to say Robby, even though he’s always been kind of a dick since you went out a couple times with his cousin, and instead just close the curtains and open another bottle of bourbon and drink until your throat burns.
STEP 8 – When dawn is just a little ways off and the thing stands at your window and tells you that you’ve won, there’s no one left to kill, no more tricks to play, and it asks you how it feels to have something want you so bad that it’s willing to do anything, literally anything, to be with you, and when you realize that you don’t know how to answer that because you’ve always been alone and always expected to be alone and never even considered that could change, then, and only then, open the front door, and invite the thing in.
Image by Nathan Copley from Pixabay– A doorbells with a small plate beside it with the message Press for Attention.
literally stories 