It all started with a deafening crash against my front door.
It was 10 pm, and I was in bed, trying to get to sleep. The sound sent me flying out of bed and clambering into my wardrobe, clutching a steak knife I kept hidden in my coat pocket.
It wasn’t because of anxiety or paranoia.
It’s because I live in Garland Estates, one of the roughest areas in Bradford, the most dangerous city in Europe.
Only the worst kinds of stories are told here: old ladies stabbed for their groceries, children starving as their parents shoot up, death, desperation and decay lurking behind every door.
Where are the police, you might ask?
Good question.
They lack the manpower and the empathy to bother with estates like Garland. 28,866 crimes were committed in the city last year — the most common being violent offences.
You could call 999 with a knife sticking out of your chest, and you still wouldn’t make their priority list. You’d just become another statistic.
I hid in the wardrobe for another ten minutes before plucking enough courage to peer out of the window. My bedroom was right next to the front door, so I could always check on who was out there. But that night, it was pitch black, just a few squares of distant light coming from windows on the other side of the estate.
Most of the flats were deserted. All three buildings had been sold to developers over the summer. They plan to tear the whole place down and start again. I’ve got just a few weeks to find a new place. Not that I care.
Garland Estates is a place of last resort. In my case, it was a nasty ex-coke habit and a nasty ex-husband. I don’t know what I’ll do next. But one thing is for sure — I’d rather be homeless than spend another night in this place of rot.
The next evening, there was a knock at the door.
A hurried rat-ta-tat that cut through the silence of the house like a machine gun. I held my breath and switched off my phone, hiding in the darkness. Like my mum always said, you only get bad news after 9 pm.
The motion-controlled hallway light switched on, casting white light through the fabric of my curtains. I remained motionless, staring at the distorted shadows cast against my wall. There wasn’t the usual shadow of someone standing by the door. But there was a second knock. This one was even faster.
*Rat-ta-tat!*
I pulled the duvet over my head, crushing it against my face. Maybe if I tried hard enough, I’d disappear. The hallway light switched back off, and I thought maybe I had. Total darkness. I slowly leant upwards, straining my neck and listened out any noises from outside. It was silent, but only for a moment. A frustrated thud rang out from the door. It was short and sharp, sending me back under the covers. I don’t remember falling asleep. I kept the knife under my pillow just in case.
It started again the next night, but I was already prepared, in the dark, knife in my hand.
There was a knock at the door.
The hallway light switched on. But this time, there was a voice. It was a stern but polite. Southern and a bit posh. She called me by my full name. She was with the police. They needed to come in and talk. My father had been in a serious accident. If you were in my shoes, you’d probably answer the door. The problem was my dad had died when I was six. He’d overdosed around his mate’s house. I never visited the grave.
Another knock.
The voice was getting frustrated but tried to hide it beneath professional politeness. I was desperate to take a look to see who was out there, but the curtains would be too obvious. They’d see I was in there, and the knocking would never stop. The only way to get a good look at them without arousing suspicion would be to check through the peephole.
I crept out of bed and shuffled into the hallway, avoiding the stark light.
There was another knock at the door.
I froze on my hands and knees, stuck in the prayer position. The woman pleaded that I come to the door and talk to her. She knew I was in there.
Cautiously, I rose to my feet, my gaze fixed on the peephole. I leaned forward, aligning my eye with the small lens. My vision was warped by a hairline crack in the lens that broke the hallway into jagged fragments.
I imagined a stern face looking back at me, with sharp features and piercing, yet gentle, eyes. But there was no one. The hallway was completely deserted, except for a single leaf blowing in the breeze. I prayed that the police officer had just given up and left, that there was an answer to all this.
For the rest of the night, I sat bolt upright, gently running the jagged blades of the streak knife across my knuckles. The occasional thud against the door kept me awake until the morning.
I called the police, and they told me there were no records of sending an officer to my address. The voice explained that it was probably some kids pulling a stupid prank. I furiously disagreed, demanding they send someone out. The voice let out a long and hopeless sigh, and I threw the phone against the wall.
When the knocking came again, I screamed at it to leave me alone.
A lilting Irish voice came through the door. It was my neighbour from across the estate. A young guy with gormless eyes but a nice smile. We’d spoken a few times in the battered lift on the way to work, chatting about the weather and the sorry state of the place.
His voice was high-pitched, anxious. He apologised for calling on me so late, but someone had been knocking at his door for the past few nights, and he wanted to know if it’d also happened to me. I crept into the hallway and (against my better judgment) told him that I had. He thanked God. Told me that he’d tried calling the police, but they’d fobbed him off. I felt a rush of relief, maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going crazy — or at least, I wouldn’t be alone in my insanity. He asked if he could come inside so we could make a plan together.
But when I looked through the peephole, all I saw was black. My stomach dropped. I asked if he was covering the lens. He told me that there was some kind of black substance wiped across my door like tarmac. Every door in the estate was covered in it.
He began to sound panicked again, knocking on the door.
He called out my name, begging to be let in, convinced that something was out there with him, moving in the shadows. His voice cracked with desperation, but something didn’t add up. As hard as I tried, I didn’t remember ever telling him my name.
I left him begging at the door and crept back into my bedroom. I crawled to the curtains and gently pulled them aside, desperate to see my lanky, loveable neighbour standing outside. But under the flicking fluorescent light of the hallway, there was nothing. The light switched off with a click, plunging me into darkness.
Three loud slams rattled my front door.
One. Two. Three.
Then silence.
When the sun rose the next day, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave the house. I couldn’t trust the outside. Between the hours of sleepless nights and the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my reality was crumbling before my eyes. I shuffled around my dingy flat in a dissociated state, deciding whether it really was daytime or if I was going insane.
I accidentally poured boiling water over my hand while trying to me a cup of tea. It took a few seconds for me to notice, and by then, it was too late. Bloated blisters erupted across the top of my hand, yellow and full of puss. As I stared down at the mess, a numbness settled over me, not just in my boiled skin but deep within.
The smashed remains of my phone ruled out any chance of calling the police. Even if I could call them, would I dare answer? How could I know it was really them?
Whatever was knocking at my door had to die.
I couldn’t live like this for much longer. I’d already considered the alternative. It would be easy to climb out the back window and enjoy a few seconds of wind rushing through my hair, followed by eternal darkness.
It was decided: this was going to be the final night I heard the knocking, one way or the other.
I sat in the hallway, wrapped in my thick duvet, knife in my hand, ready to lash out at whatever appeared behind the door.
There was a knock.
I placed my hand on the door handle, ready to swing it open and attack. But something stopped me. The hallway light remained extinguished. A voice came from the other side of the door, its words were timid, barely above a whisper. A little boy.
He told me that his dad was drunk and had locked him out of his flat. He was scared. Tired. My heart thundered in my chest as I screamed at him to go away. Pleaded that he leave and never return. He asked if I could call his mum. It was way past his bedtime, and he had school in the morning. It was so dark out there.
I told him to jump up and down to activate the hallway light. He was probably too small to be detected, but I couldn’t trust something I didn’t see.
He didn’t want to, said that he was too tired. I slammed my fist against the door and screamed my demands. He began to cry and told me he was doing it.
Pressing the ear to do the door, I strained to listen for the sound of little feet hitting the concrete of the ground outside. There was nothing except for the boy’s sobs. I hissed and told the boy to shut up. His sobs became quieter murmurs, but I still couldn’t hear any movement outside.
It remained dark.
I had never seen any children in Garland Estates. No one in their right mind would raise a child in this awful place. Whatever was outside my door, it was not a little boy. It was my tormentor. It needed to die. As the boy begged to be let inside, I crept back up and began to pull down the handle.
It only took a second for me to yank the door open and leap out, slashing at the darkness with my knife.
I screamed, ready to feel the knife rip into something — anything!
Even if it was the boy.
At least it would prove that there was something at my door.My blade flew through the air as I toppled out into the hallway. I slammed into the floor, crushing my blistered hand under my chest. The knife slipped, and its jagged metal ran through the soft flesh beneath my collarbone.
The side of my head impacted the concrete, and I crumpled into a heap in the middle of the hallway. My entire body erupted in pain.
I screamed as the light switched on, and the mess I had made was bathed in white light.The hallway was baron. The only sound was the whistling of the wind and my screams turning hoarse by the second. Even if someone did hear me, they were probably too terrified to come up to see.
I rolled backwards, pushing myself back into the doorway. I kicked the door shut. The entire time, I stared down at the knife sticking out my chest.
I’ve locked myself in my bedroom. My duvet is stained with blood and puss. I haven’t stopped crying.
It’s not because of the pain.
It’s not because there wasn’t anything there…because there was something. I just couldn’t see it. When I opened the door, I’d let it in.
Now it’s knocking on my bedroom door. Begging to come closer.