Stephen liked to say he didn’t believe in monsters; he just made a living inventing them. But every night, long after his deadlines had passed and the house had settled into its old-bones creaking, he found himself listening for footsteps that weren’t his.
It started with the tapping. At first, he blamed the radiator. Then the wind. Then the neighbor’s kid. But the taps always came in threes, always from the same spot: the back of his office door. The one he always kept shut when he wrote, because he swore he could feel someone standing behind it.
One night, curiosity won. He opened the door fast, hoping to catch whatever it was off guard. Nothing. Just the hallway, dim and empty.
He laughed at himself, shut the door, and sat back down at his desk. His laptop screen glowed with the unfinished paragraph of his latest horror novel, a scene where the protagonist hears tapping from behind a door.
Three taps answered from behind him. Slow. Deliberate. Stephen froze. His fingers hovered over the keys. The taps came again, louder this time, and his laptop cursor began to move on its own, letters appearing one by one.
STOP WRITING ME.
His breath hitched. The room felt smaller, the air colder. He tried to slam the laptop shut, but the lid wouldn’t budge, as if invisible hands held it open. More words appeared.
I DON’T WANT TO BE IN YOUR STORIES. I WANT TO BE IN YOUR HOUSE.
The office door creaked open behind him. Stephen didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to. He could feel the breath on his neck, warm, damp, and very, very real. The tapping had stopped. The footsteps had begun. Stephen said out loud, “I’m getting too old for this stuff! I don’t care if I am Stephen King!”
