Jaclyn Port

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The Good Ones Knock


“It’s past city limits.”

“So?”

The two boys looked beyond the short, sagging barbed wire fence into the prairie grass on the other side. The top of Daniel’s head only rose to Anton’s shoulder, but beyond that they were indistinguishable; the dust painted their shaggy hair and ill-fitting clothing into a monochrome.

“It’s outside the protection spell,” said Anton.

“Oh. Right.” Daniel stared into the gap in the blades of grass where their football disappeared. This was a much bigger problem than when they kicked it into McGreary’s corn field, as scary as he was. “Maybe we could just get another one. Or fix the one Dad got us.”

Anton snorted. “No amount of patches will hold that piece of fishing net together. And that ball cost me two decks of cards and that little horse statue. No, we need to find a way to get it.” He turned back in the direction of the house.

Daniel followed, jogging slightly to keep up with Anton’s longer stride. He didn’t know that Anton was the one who filched Anna’s horse statue. She tore up the house when it went missing.

The sun was high in the sky. Or, at least, it felt like it. It was invisible behind the yellow haze. The boys wound their way back to the house, skirting the edges of some fields and cutting right through others, depending on what they knew about short tempers, aggressive dogs, and threatening shotguns. If dilapidated barns didn’t block the view, the city itself gleamed in the distance.

While they walked, Daniel recited a familiar children’s nursery rhyme.

First they attempt a trick
With a pout or whine or lick
Maybe a gift of a stick
They don’t talk like people talk.

Then they’ll speak in howls
And look at you with scowls
And, um, breathe so foul
You’ll be as rigid as a rock.

You got to be ready before
They come sniffing at the door
So reinforce the floor
And double-check the locks.

Double-check the locks
And don’t invite them in.
Arm yourself with rocks
And don’t invite them in.

Don’t even make a sound.
Don’t you cry, don’t you talk
Don’t invite them in
Even if the good ones knock.

Daniel wasn’t so sure about the last line. He thought that if they were good, surely he could let them in. Maybe the good ones could be trained like dogs and protect the people against the bad ones. He worked really hard at memorizing the rhyme. Hopefully Anton noticed.

By the time they arrived at the house, streaks of sweat had left track marks in the dust on their faces. The tarp on the wall by the door flapped in the wind, covering the hole left by the most recent storm. Anna was quite good with her hands, back when she had two that worked, but she couldn’t do that sort of handiwork anymore, and her headaches left her with little patience to teach the boys. Dad would not be returning from the mines for a couple more weeks, so the tarp stayed until sturdier repairs could be done. Daniel pinned the edge of the tarp under a loose brick, then ran over to where Anton was waiting by the shed.

“We’re going to need to arm ourselves,” said Anton. He tugged at the lock. “You go in through the back.” Daniel wrinkled his nose. That was what they usually did when they borrowed things from the shed. Daniel would squeeze through the gap left by a loose plank. But he was growing, now too big for his only set of clothes and almost too big for wiggling through whichever tight space Anton pointed him through.

He started to go around, but Anton grabbed him and pulled him back, pinching his arm a bit. “Be real quiet though. Don’t need to wake up our sister.”

Daniel nodded and went around the back of the shed, pushed aside the loose plank and wiggled his head and shoulders through the gap. Anna was no more their sister than Anton was his brother, no more than Dad was Daniel’s dad, though he was Anton’s dad. But there weren’t really any better words. And Daniel couldn’t remember anyone else he would have called Dad or brother or sister anyways. Pulling his legs in behind him, a shoelace got stuck on a nail. Daniel kicked off the shoe and left it outside.

The inside of the shed was dark, but Daniel didn’t need a light to know what was there. “What should I get?” he whispered near a gap by the door.

“Swords. And shields.”

Daniel ran his hands over the tools. A pitchfork would do nicely as a sword. He found it behind some other implements and delicately tried to extract it. The whole set came crashing down.

“What? What the hell? What’s going on?” Anna’s voice rang through the yard.

Daniel, freed from the necessity of staying quiet, stumbled his way across the shed and peered through the gap near the door. Anna careened out of the front of the house, where the door hung uselessly by one hinge, and stormed across the yard. Anton took off into the field at a sprint.

“Oh, run now, I’ll leave a mark on you later,” Anna yelled after Anton. “Daniel, get yourself out of there.”

Daniel peered through the gap and weighed his options. Anna was already almost at the shed. He couldn’t squeeze out the back fast enough, but maybe she didn’t have her keys. “No.”

“Fucking hell.” A jingling sound was quickly followed by the rusty click of the padlock, and Anna’s good arm reached in and hauled Daniel out by the same spot Anton grabbed him earlier. She cuffed him upside the head.

“Ow. Fuck, Anna, we were just playing.”

Anna cuffed him again. “Watch your language. What were you doing in there, anyways?”

“Our ball went out of city limits. We’re getting stuff to protect ourselves.”

Anna’s scowl was replaced by a look of horror. “What?” Her hand reeled back to cuff him again, but then fell limp by her side. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”

Daniel’s eyes darted to Anna’s bad arm, but he said nothing.

She tucked her arm inside her hoodie pocket. “That’s from the mines. Dad and I just tell you it’s from the Them to scare you and Anton off from going beyond the fence. If any Them get you, you won’t lose just your arm.”

Daniel dug his bare toes into the hardened dirt at his feet. “But our ball. We don’t have another one.”

Anna looked ready to scold him further, but instead winced and pressed her hand against the side of her head where white scars streaked her skin. “Just stay inside city limits. Don’t be stupid. Don’t invite them in. Don’t invite anyone in. Even if they knock.”

“The good ones knock,” Daniel replied, repeating back the nursery rhyme out of habit.

“No such thing as a good Them. Now, get out of here before I decide to lock you in the closet again to keep you out of trouble.” She turned and went back into the house, gingerly climbing the front steps.

Daniel waited until she was out of sight. He retrieved his shoe, and, giving one more good look towards the house, crept into the unlocked shed and carefully pulled out a pitchfork and hoe. He stumbled towards the fields, handles dragging in the dirt behind him.

A few metres into the field, Anton appeared from the grass and grabbed the pitchfork from Daniel’s hands. “What’d she say?”

“Uh, it’s fine. Stay close to the fence.” He felt bad about disobeying Anna. Lying made it easier to pretend he wasn’t. “And don’t invite–”

Anton jumped in with another rhyme.

Whatever you do
(Paint yourself blue,
Eat a horseshoe,
Build a house from swamp goo,
Make grasshopper stew,
Speak only in moos)
But don’t–

Daniel joined him at the end. “But don’t invite them in.” Anton changed that one a lot. It was hard to keep up. He adjusted his grip on the hoe. “I wanted to use the pitchfork.”

“Aw, you wouldn’t know what to do with it anyways, if a Them jumped at you.”

Anton brandished the pitchfork in front of him like a sword. It wobbled in his grip. “If they charge me, I’ll charge back, like a knight, and stab him right between the eyes.”

Daniel laughed at the theatrics. “Yeah, but I thought the Them didn’t have eyes?”

“They do but they’re human eyes. That’s why they hunt humans, to steal their eyes. But the human eyes rot in their skulls, so they always need new eyes.”

Daniel racked his brain to think of something he could add to the conversation. “I heard they look like they’re made of paper and can fly on the wind, but if you touch them, it’s like they’re made of rock.”

“So? My sword can beat rock. King Arthur got his sword from a rock it was stabbed in. No, what you really got to be afraid of with them is their power over your mind. They make you so scared you can’t move, then they eat you.”

“They don’t just make you scared. They make you so hungry that you eat them instead, then they eat you from the inside out.”

“I know that. I was the one who told you that one.” Anton’s face got that scowl when he lost interest in a game he made up. “You can be really stupid sometimes.”

The boys made the rest of the journey in silence. Daniel entertained himself by fantasizing about bravely defeating a Them – which, in his mind, looked like the dragon from one of the few books they owned – and rescuing Anton. Brave, like the Knights of the Roundtable. Or the soldiers who battled the Them in the war, up and down city streets, before banishing them to the hinterlands and enveloping the city and the surrounding farmland in the protection spell.

The barbed wire fence appeared sooner than he expected. While behind them were corn and wheat fields, dotted with the occasional house or tree, beyond the fence was the untouched prairie grass as far as they could see. The bareness was intimidating. Their bravado was lost and their swords transformed back into rusty farming tools.

Daniel tried to get the fantasy back. “We should have brought magic potions.”

Anton scowled. “I don’t believe in magic.”

“What about the protection spell?”

“How do we know it’s even there? I don’t believe in anything I can’t see.”

Daniel shifted from foot to foot. He really wanted to believe in the protection spell.

“You’ve never seen a Them.”

“Maybe I don’t believe in them either.” Anton didn’t seem so sure of this last comment. “C’mon. Let’s get our ball.”

Daniel walked closer to the fence and squinted into the grass, as if that would encourage the ball to reveal itself. He wasn’t even certain that they were at the same spot where their ball disappeared, but Anton led them here and he knew better than to question Anton.

“If the spell is actually a thing,” Anton said, his eyes alight with the spark of a plan forming, “then it’s gotta still be on us if we’re holding onto the fence. And if one of us holds onto the fence, and then holds on to the other, then we can reach even further and still be protected.”

Daniel couldn’t quite follow Anton’s logic, which made it hard to argue against.

“That’s a smart plan, Anton.”

“I’ll hold onto the fence.”

Daniel’s eyes widened. “No! That’s not fair! I was the one who went into the shed.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re smaller. And now it’s ‘cause you’re dumber.” Anton leaned towards him and tapped his head. “The Them feed on your mind. And I have more mind than you. It’s like you said. I’m smart.” Anton crossed his arms, pleased with the intricacies of his argument. “You’re less vern-la-ble to them.”

Daniel paused, then nodded slowly in agreement. “Okay. But don’t let go of me.”

Anton patted Daniel’s head. “I wouldn’t do that. You’re family.”

Daniel glowed. Anton had never called him family before. Dad had called him son. Anna had called him brother. But never before Anton. The feeling sustained him in the climb over the fence, stepping carefully out into the untamed grass, holding Anton’s hand, and awkwardly waving the hoe through the dust-coloured stalks. Anton left his pitchfork on the ground, close at hand if needed.

No ball was to be seen, but Daniel didn’t want to let Anton down. He pictured the dirty black-and-white ball in his mind, straining to see it in the field as he pushed aside the grass with the hoe.

And there it was. It was in a spot he looked before, but, then again, Anna always got him to wash twice behind his ears because he missed dirt the first time around. It was just the right distance, too. He could probably reach it with the hoe.

Daniel tightened his grip on the handle and reached out. He was quite close to getting it hooked on the ball when the strength in his arm gave out and he hit the ball instead. It rolled slightly further away.

“Anton,” he said, “I see it. Stretch more, I’m so close.”

“Where?” said Anton, on tiptoe, peering over Daniel’s head. “I can’t see it.”

“There.” Daniel pointed with the hoe.

“I can’t see it.”

Daniel reached out again, pulling against his grip on Anton’s hand, which was slick with sweat and dust. He jabbed the hoe towards the ball, trying to hook it, but missed by a half foot. The ball rolled further away.

“Just a bit further,” Daniel called back. “I’m so close.” He was leaned all the way forward now, held up only by Anton’s hand.

“No, Daniel, you’re slipping,” Anton said. “Stand back up, we’ll figure something–”

Their grip broke. Daniel tumbled forward into the grass, cutting his elbow on a small rock. He lay there for a moment, waiting for the initial shock of pain to wear off.

When he looked up, a Them was looking back.

At least, he thought it was a Them. It certainly looked like no animal Daniel had seen before, but he hadn’t seen a lot of animals. About the size of a large dog, it crouched low to the ground, the joints on its long limbs sticking out awkwardly, heaving with a raspy, yeasty breath. It’s skin looked like dry, cracked dirt. It’s eyes–

Daniel’s sight wavered. He blinked back tears, and, through his blurred vision, saw the Them thumping a hand against the ground.

“Anton, he’s knocking,” Daniel called back, keeping his eyes as best he could on the Them. “Maybe he’s a good one.” Silence. “Anton?”

Daniel looked back to see Anton vaulting over the fence and sprinting away. His pitchfork lay on the ground.

Daniel turned his head back just in time to see the Them pouncing at him. His eyes clenched shut, bracing himself for the impact, and –

Nothing. He opened his eyes. Just grass. No Them to be seen.

Daniel cautiously stood up and looked around more. He picked up the hoe and pitchforks and turned to follow Anton.

“Anton! Anton” he shouted, sliding the tools under the fence. He scrambled over the top, scraping his ankle on one of the old rusty barbs. “It’s–” A wave of nausea hit him as his feet touched the ground on the other side of the fence. Knees buckling, he retched next to a fence post.

Breakfast must have been bad. Anna would have some medicine or tea for him. She soothed his fever last winter and kept him alive. She would know what to do.

Daniel stumbled on, clutching his pained, cramping stomach, his elbow and ankle bleeding. As he wound his way back home, his head began to pound and his ears rang.

Eventually, the lopsided shack he called home came into view. “Anna!” he called out, but his hoarse voice barely carried across the yard. Shouts from Anton drifted out of the farmhouse, but Daniel couldn’t make out the words.

Daniel tried to walk up the front steps, but a wave of pain crumpled him to the ground just as he reached the door. “Anna,” he called out again. He banged his hand against the steps to get her attention.

“I’m telling you, it got him,” Daniel could hear Anton saying.

Anna appeared in the doorway, but she stayed inside. “You’re not invited in.” Her voice cracked. Tears streamed down her face.

“Anna, I’m sick.” Daniel tried to reach through the doorway, but something unseen stayed his hand, thick and jelly-like. Blood trickled from his nose.

Anna stayed where she was. She opened her mouth to speak, but a sob escaped instead. Anton’s face popped out from behind her, panic in his eyes.

Another wave of nausea swept through Daniel, and he dry heaved on the steps. The throbbing in his head and ringing in his ears drowned out all other sound as he leaned his head against the steps.

He wasn’t invited in.

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Banner Art:
Door Boss: Bust of a Satyress, Northern Italian, 1575-1585, Art Institute of Chicago