Let Us In

The local recounts his tangle with entities you may have heard of: Black Eyed Children.

This is one of those rare cases where a phenomenon which occurs here actually has an equivalent outside of town. Rather recently, we were paid a visit by entities similar to what you might know as “Black-Eyed Kids”.

It began about three weeks ago, when the local police station was flooded with calls about people waking up and finding someone dead. The cases were basically all the same; the victim was found early in the morning dead by the front door, which was always unlocked. Other than the body, there was never a sign of a struggle, and the victim did not seem to have retained any injuries. Autopsies showed that the victims all had the same cause of death: stress cardiomyopathy. They had literally died of fright.

As the incidents continued, I grew more and more wary. Every morning brought more gut-wrenching news. Every night, the slightest noise made me jump three feet. So, you can imagine how frightened I was when I woke up to knocking on my front door. I sat bolt upright, eyes wide. After a moment, the knocking came again. I glanced over at my alarm clock. “Three AM…ugh….” I mumbled to myself. Who would be at my door at three in the morning? I got up and groggily shuffled to my front door. Looking through the peephole, I saw two figures standing on the porch. As if on cue, a streetlight flickered to life, illuminating my visitors. I could tell that they were children, maybe somewhere between the ages of nine and twelve. They were practically identical: same clothes, same features, same everything. Both were wearing jeans and gray jackets, the hoods pulled low over their eyes. They both stood perfectly still, arms at their sides, staring straight ahead, expressionless. I suddenly found that I was very much awake. “Who is it?” I asked through the door.

“We are homeless,” replied the one on the left. “We need a place to stay for the night,” the right one added. When they spoke, no part of their bodies moved except their mouths. Their lips were barely moving, yet I could hear their voices through the door as though they were standing right next to me. I was contemplating their statements when I suddenly recalled something. The attacks. My stomach lurched. I quickly backed away from the door.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I don’t have any room.”

“Please, sir,” their voices said in unison from behind the door. I began to yell at them. I screamed for them to go away. After a moment without reply, I crept up to the door and looked through the peephole again. The children had disappeared into the night.

Needless to say, sleep eluded me for the remainder of that night. Thoughts swam through my head: the emotionless stares of the children, their pleads for help, how close I had most likely come to ending up like all those other people. I staggered out of bed the next morning, tired and scared beyond belief, and went outside to check the mail. As I opened the front door, I noticed something on the doorstep. Picking it up, I saw that it was a note. Scrawled on a small, ripped piece of paper were the words “LET US IN”. I dropped the note and rushed back inside, slamming and locking the door. After a minute of composing myself, I went to look out of a window, just to make sure I had no uninvited guests. I opened the curtains and immediately recoiled. There, on the other side of the glass, was a small, black handprint. Shaken, I threw the curtains closed. Would there be no end to this?

I had feared the worst for that night, and I had not worried in vain. At about one in the morning, I lay in my bed, despite there being no chance of getting to sleep. Suddenly, I heard a rhythmic tapping sound. Although a bit startled, I thought nothing of it. Then, the tapping became louder, growing into a soft knocking. I sat up and looked around, hoping to maybe pinpoint the source of the sound. As the knocking steadily grew louder, I realized with a jolt that it was coming from my bedroom window. Slowly, I turned my head to face the window. The knocking continued to grow louder and louder, until it sounded as though someone were pounding on the window with their fist. The pounding started to get louder and faster, the window physically shaking from the force. Then, without warning, it stopped. Only silence was left in its wake. Had the creatures gone? My ears ringing, I got up and threw open the curtains. What I saw made me scream in horror.

Standing on the other side of the glass, illuminated by streetlights, were the two children from the night before. However, this time, their hoods were lowered. Their skin was impossibly pale, as though they had never set foot in a patch of light in their lives. Their hair looked like any normal small boy’s hair, except it was greasy and matted. But what shook me to my core was their eyes. Staring back at me were two pairs of black-on-black eyes, as though the pupils had expanded to take up the rest of the eye. Despite looking empty, those eyes bore straight through me. I could only stare in shock as one of the children opened his mouth to speak. As they spoke, the words alternated between them, as though they were joined in the mind.

“Let.”

“Us.”

“In.”

I was too petrified to move. When I did not respond, the children, in unison, slammed their hands onto the glass. As I watched, tiny, thread-like cracks began to branch out from where their hands rested. Suddenly, the window shattered, glass shards flying in every direction, and everything faded to black.

I woke up somewhere unfamiliar, my eyes bombarded by light. As my sight adjusted, I began to see that I was lying on a bed in a sparsely furnished white room decorated with small paintings and a vase of flowers. It wasn’t until I saw the nurse standing over me that I realized I was in a hospital room.  The nurse noticed my eyes fluttering.

“Oh, thank God, you’re awake! You were barely alive when we found you.” I tried to speak but couldn’t find my voice.

“W-wha….” The nurse answered my question without me having to ask it.

“Someone heard glass breaking and found you lying on the floor of your room with the window shattered. You were brought here, and the doctor patched you up, so you’ll be just fine within a couple days.”

“P-patched me up?” I asked.

“You had these...cuts all over you. You almost died of blood loss.” I had a pretty good idea of what had caused my injuries. To this day, I count my blessings that someone found me in time.

Just as the nurse said, within two days I was good as ever and was able to return home. Despite my fears, the creatures did not return to haunt me again, and the attacks stopped soon after. Something I still wonder is why the creatures did not dispose of me in the same way of their other victims. Perhaps rage caused it. To add on to the window that was shattered, I also had to replace the window with the handprint left on it, as the black marking would not wash off no matter what. I still have the scars from the gashes I received, which were very long and very deep, and covered a large portion of my torso. What’s very odd is that the scars are bright red, as though they are still bleeding. Here’s something to take from all this: be wary of those who knock on your door late at night.

Author's Note

This is the seventh chapter/section of my book, Strange Happenings. The length of these seems to be steadying out, so that's good. Anyway, for context, read the rest of the book and feel free to post feedback. I'll continue to post chapters as I finish them.