The Hollow Tap

The old farmhouse had been silent for two weeks, ever since the argument with my wife, Mara. We’d stopped speaking, moving around each other like ghosts in the wide, peeling hallways. Then, the other night, the quiet broke.

It was a Thursday, and Mara had gone to her sister’s to borrow a chainsaw for the dead oak by the driveway. I was upstairs, trying to coax our daughter, Lily, to sleep. She was six, with eyes too big for her face, and she’d been clingy all evening. Just as I was reading her a story about a friendly badger, a sound came from our bedroom down the hall. It was a rhythmic thumping, like someone knocking on the door from the inside, slow and deliberate.

Lily’s face went white. ‘What’s that, Daddy?’ she whispered, clutching my arm. I tried to smile, but a cold knot formed in my stomach. I called Mara’s phone, but she said she wasn’t home yet, still at her sister’s. I told her I’d check it out. I set Lily on the recliner in the living room, wrapped in a quilt, and told her to stay put.

I walked down the hall, my footsteps creaking on the old floorboards. The thumping continued, muffled but insistent. I pressed my ear to the door. Nothing but the sound. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly.

The room was empty. The window was open a crack, letting in a breeze that smelled of rain. The thumping stopped the moment I stepped inside. I checked the closet, under the bed, even the attic hatch in the ceiling. Nothing. I told myself it was the wind, maybe a branch hitting the side of the house. But the sound was too rhythmic, too like a fist pounding on wood.

I went back to Lily and sat with her, but she was shaking. I let her sleep in our bed that night, and I lay beside her, staring at the dark ceiling. I didn’t tell her about the figure I saw just before dawn when I got up to get a glass of water. In the hallway, near the old grandfather clock, stood a tall, shadowy shape. It was just a silhouette, but it seemed to be watching me. I blinked, and it was gone. I told myself it was a trick of the light from the moon through the window.

The next night, the thumping returned, but this time it was louder, and it came from the walls. It moved from the master bedroom to the hallway, then to the living room. Lily woke up screaming. I called Mara, but she said she was still at her sister’s, and she sounded annoyed. I told her to come home, but she said she’d be back in the morning. I didn’t tell her about the sounds or the figure.

Mara came back the next day, and I tried to explain. She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re just stressed. We’ll talk later.’ But that was the same night I heard the scratching. It was coming from inside the walls, like something with claws was trying to dig its way out. And then, I heard my grandfather’s voice.

My grandfather had passed away two years ago. But there, in the dead of night, I heard him clearly, as if he were standing right next to me. He said, ‘Get out. It’s not safe.’ Then silence. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding. Mara was asleep beside me, but Lily was awake. She was sitting up, staring at the closet door. ‘Grandpa is in there,’ she said.

I didn’t sleep that night. I kept watching the closet, the walls, the windows. At 3 AM, the thumping started again, but this time it was all around us, like the whole house was a drum. And then, the most terrifying thing: the sound of my own voice, whispering from the empty hallway, saying, ‘Let me in.’

I grabbed Lily and ran. I didn’t wake Mara. I just ran, barefoot, out into the cold night, carrying her to the pickup truck. I drove to my sister-in-law’s place, where Mara was still staying. I pounded on the door. When Mara opened it, she looked pale, and behind her, I saw the old grandfather clock from our house, standing in her living room. She looked at me with hollow eyes and said, ‘It followed me.’

I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but I know that the house we bought at auction last year was once the home of a man who went mad and walled up his own family. They say he used to knock on the walls to hear them answer. Now, the tapping is everywhere. And last night, when I finally fell asleep in my sister-in-law’s spare room, I woke to find Lily standing over me, her face blank, tapping her finger on the headboard, and whispering, ‘Daddy, let them out.’