You tear out of the house and call one of those companies that cleans up after dead people. You tell them to throw everything away.\n\nYou don't hear from them again.\n\nSomething in the news the next day: a murder scene found at a deceased woman's house. You change your locks. You change your number. You think about changing your name, and/or moving to the other side of the country, but you're afraid to leave the house.\n\nThere's a knock at the door. You press yourself into a wardrobe, between the folds of coats and scarves, and try to suppress the sound of your breathing.\n\nThere's a knock at the door.\n\nThere's a knock at the door.\n\n''END''\n[[BACK TO START|Start]]\n

The last things you see are set of teeth, bone-wide and gaping in the darkness, and the tell-tale glimmer of bright glass eyes.\n\n''END''\n[[BACK TO START|Start]]\n

You tear out of the house and call one of those companies that cleans up after dead people. You tell them to throw everything away.\n\nLater, thinking about the piles of diamonds your dear old grandma //might// have had stashed in her mattress, you wonder if you might have overreacted a bit.\n\n''END''\n[[BACK TO START|Start]]

You make your way over piles of half-sorted junk, wondering as you do so why your visitor didn't just use the doorbell. Your grandmother may have been a creepy old lady who used fancy china and didn't know what internet was, but she wasn't //quite// old/rich/creepy enough to not have one.\n\nThere's no one out there.\n\n[[Damn prankster kids.|3]]\n[[Okay, that's spooky.|4]]

You have a vague sense of guilty unease as you root through your grandmother's belongings. You're aware on some level that you should be grieving right now, but you can't quite bring yourself to: your relationship with the old woman was always distant, and quite honestly the biggest change her death has brought is this pile of <s>loot</s> belongings you have to sift through.\n\nMost of it gave you the creeps when you were a kid, and a lot of it still does. Take this cupboard, for instance. It's locked – it's always been locked – and you have no idea where the key is. You used to think there was something alive in there. Now, with your perceptions of the <s>old biddy</s> beloved relative colored by your childhood fears, you're more worried that there might be something dead in there.\n\nYour musings are interrupted by a sharp knocking sound, like a hand striking wood.\n\n[[Check the door.|1]]\n[[Listen for the source of the sound.|2]]

Damn kids, knocking and then running away, just to make a grieving inheritor's day a little bit worse. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.\n\nYou go back to sorting <s>swag</s> mementos.\n\nAfter a few minutes, the knock comes again.\n\n[[Ignore it.|5]]\n[[Check the door, AGAIN.|1]]\n[[Listen for the source of the sound.|2]]

One thing's clear: it's not coming from the front door.\n\nAfter several heartbeats of intense silence, the sound comes again; to your horror, you realize that it emanates from //inside the cupboard.//\n\n[[Run.|6]]\n[[Try to open it.|7]]

The knock comes again and again, at intervals of about fifteen minutes. Each time, you ignore it. You're not going to let those damn kids get a rise out of you.\n\nBy the end of the day, the inheritance is sorted and all the creepiest items of furniture (cupboard included) have been put away for donation. What you've actually //gained// from this day consists of a bowl of stale candy and a set of throw pillows that smell vaguely of violets.\n\nConsidering the level of attachment you didn't have to the departed, you're still counting that as a win.\n\n''END''\n[[BACK TO START|Start]]

A bit nervously, you step back into the house and return to your inspection of the deceased's tea service. It, too, has always given you the creeps. The elegant twisting design of the handles has put you in mind of reaching tentacles since you were a child.\n\nWhen the knock comes again, you about jump out of your skin.\n\n[[Listen for the source of the sound.|2]]\n[[Run.|6]]

The cupboard is locked. The cupboard has //always// been locked.\n\nYou could try to find the key – you have your grandmother's entire estate at your disposal – but looking at the huge piles of junk, you suspect that such a search wouldn't be worth the time. There must be an easier way.\n\n[[Force the lock.|8]]\n[[Just ignore the knocking.|9]]

Knock on Wood

The knock comes again and again, at intervals of about fifteen minutes. Each time, you ignore it. You're not going to let that damn cupboard get a rise out of you.\n\nBy the end of the day, the inheritance is sorted and all the creepiest items of furniture (cupboard included) have been put away for donation. What you've actually //gained// from this day consists of a bowl of stale candy and a set of throw pillows that smell vaguely of violets.\n\nConsidering the level of attachment you didn't have to the departed, you're still counting that as a win.\n\n''END''\n[[BACK TO START|Start]]

[[G. Deyke|https://gdeyke.wordpress.com/]]

You use a possibly-priceless-but-definitely-creepy fancy glass paperweight to knock the ornate silver lock off of the probably mahogany cupboard. You're successful, but in your success you drop it and it shatters. Possibly priceless antiques destroyed today: 2.\n\nYou don't have time to worry about that, though, because at this moment the door to the cupboard of your nightmares is creaking open, slowly revealing the darkness within, and you find yourself suddenly fully cognizant of the fact that you are //completely terrified// to see what it might hold.\n\n[[See what it might hold.|10]]\n[[Run.|11]]