Knock Three Times, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Emerald O'Brien
Editing by Three Owls Editing
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Prologue
1. 10 Days After Discovering Marlena’s Body
2. Three Weeks After Discovering Marlena’s Body
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
20. One Week Later
Also By Emerald O’Brien
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
This one’s for all the buddies who look forward to enjoying that upcoming episode, movie, album, or book together. Some experiences are so much better when shared and discussed with someone who appreciates them, too.
And for my best friend and horror movie partner since 2004, Ashley.
Always looking forward to the next one with you.
PROLOGUE
The echo of my boots against the cement is drowned out by sirens, wailing somewhere close to my apartment complex parking lot. I quicken my pace, past the concrete pillars in the underground parking, toward the exit door. I slam the metal bar down and step into the gray light of late afternoon. The plastic around my fingers is tight. I grasp at the ties of the garbage bags clutched in each of my fists as two police cars screech to a stop before the row of concrete blocks lining the edge of the parking lot up ahead. The sirens stop, too, but the red-and-blue lights flash, lighting up the cars they’ve parked beside.
What’s happening out here?
A small crowd has gathered around the side of the dumpster several feet to my left, along the back of the building. A shallow ditch separates them from the lot. They’re all looking into the opening of the small sliding door where I toss my garbage. A woman in a pink peacoat from my floor steps away from the little door—her eyes squeezed shut, her hand pressed against her mouth.
My stomach muscles clench, and I stop at the back of the group as a woman, who’s always gardening at the front of the building, and her lanky teen son eagerly step into the place where Pink Coat stood seconds before. Another siren in the distance screeches louder by the second. I glance over my shoulder, toward the entrance to the lot.
A pair of police officers step out of their vehicle and approach the crowd. I turn back to the dumpster. Two men in front of me shuffle to the side and wave the officers over, pointing to the side sliding door ahead. The police don’t seem to be in a hurry. I step up behind the mother and son, peering between their shoulders.
Something smooth and pale protrudes from between black and white garbage bags. A pillow? No, there’s a waxy sheen to it. Is that skin? It couldn’t be. The woman steps aside, pulling her son away, revealing floral material. Pink and blue in some parts—maroon splotches stain others. I recognize that dress. A cold panic washes over me as I struggle to breathe.
Marlena wore that dress the last time I saw her. My skin prickles with goosebumps.
She always flashed me the most beautiful smile when I passed her in the hallway, when I saw her and Scott coming out of their apartment. But I think it was for show.
My boyfriend Logan and I heard everything through the wall that separated us: their shouting, the banging, the bright tinkling of glass. Her crying. And I knew what was behind those sunglasses she always wore—knew about the bruises around her eyes. Every time I heard her cries through the wall, I wished I could hug her or hold her hand. I wanted to tell her she deserved better and that she deserved to feel safe. I wanted to protect her. Even if Logan kept telling me to mind my own business.
You can’t save her, Logan’s voice echoes in my mind. It’s what he said to me after I tried to befriend Marlena one day and ask her out for coffee. I told him that instead of accepting my offer, she’d whispered in a delicate voice like a breeze through bluebells, “If I knock three times, call my mom. Please. Anything else, and he’ll kill me.” She shoved a piece of paper into my hand and turned away from me after that, ducking into the elevator before I could protest, her pink-and-blue floral dress flowing.
That stained dress barely covers the pale skin of the leg tucked between the garbage bags.
Behind more bags, a hand sticks out toward me—like it’s reaching for help. My whole body shivers.
Knock, knock, knock.
Is this my fault? Last Friday night, we’d heard the sound against our shared apartment wall: the knocking.
I called the number, and a woman’s voice answered—I guessed Marlena’s mom. I told her I heard the knocking. Exactly as Marlena instructed. Logan and I stood by the wall, listening to Marlena cry, waiting for something to happen. Someone else always called the police on them in the past, but that Friday night, when no one came to help, we couldn’t just stand by. Logan went to the front doors of the building and called the police. He waited for them down there while I listened at the wall, desperate for help to arrive.
I stare at the dumpster as an officer ushers me to the side. I hear Marlena in my head, the soft croon of her voice, Call my mom. Anything else, and he’ll kill me.
She’d warned me this would happen. Every shaky breath I draw burns at my lungs. Did this happen because of us? Someone pushes me back into the bigger crowd that’s gathered as the officers each shine a flashlight into the sliding door.
The dumpster fades, and suddenly I’m watching through the peephole of my apartment. The police knocked on Scott and Marlena’s door, and I remember just waiting—wincing at the loud crash as they broke the door down. In the aftermath, the officers berated us, telling us that the emergency number was for emergencies only, and that they took fake filing seriously since there was no one in their apartment. They gave us a warning not to let it happen again. I told them about the deal we’d made when we heard the knocking, but neither of them were interested. They’d left right after.
That was last Friday night, when I still had hope I’d see Marlena again.
Knock, knock, knock.
My vision clears as one of the police officers steps aside and speaks into his radio. The remaining officer shines his flashlight into the dumpster, his beam catching on a yellow circle of flesh around a deep-brown eye. Marlena’s dead stare is fixed on me.
Tears slide down my cheeks, burning my eyes. “No. Please, no.”
I squint, desperate for a clue that the woman is not, in fact, Marlena. That it’s someone else wearing her dress. But I know it’s her. We failed her.
“Oh, dear.” The woman in the pink coat from my floor steps beside me and tugs at the arm of my coat. “You mustn’t look. Come on, now. Let’s make room for the officers.”
My body goes with the momentum of her tug. I let her lead me back toward the underground parking, the world a blur through my tears. We stop several feet away from the gathering crowd on a patch of grass between the lot and the door to get back inside.
“I think that was that young girl beside you, isn’t it?”
I turn to Pink Coat and realize she’s staring at me, waiting for an answer.
That young girl beside you.
I press my lips shut. I don’t want to say it, because if I say it, it’ll make it real.
“That’s that girl with those flashy purses,” an older man says as he approaches us, stopping next to Pink Coat. “She’s always wearing a new one. And the big sunglasses.”
She wore those to hide the bruises, but we all know what was under them. Everyone knew what was happening to her, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t stop him. My chest heaves as I blink at my tears, trying to stop them from falling.
Pink Coat leans in, shooting us each a wide-eyed glance, and whispers, “She’s the one with the abusive boyfriend. I almost called the cops on him last month.”
Wait… did she say almost? Who else called besides us?
“You don’t say.” The man glances over his shoulder.
Three officers surround the side opening to the dumpster. Another officer with neon yellow police tape in hand uses his body to make space between the crowd and the line he’s creating. They step back bit by bit as he does. A woman with a little terrier on a leash peels away from the crowd and strides toward us with her nose in the air, shaking her head. Pink Coat makes room for her in our circle.
“I got a good look—not that I wanted to. It’s Marlena,” she says, lifting her dog up into her arms, not bothering to whisper. Now, it’s confirmed. She knew her—knew her name. Maybe they were close. Maybe she had a friend here and wasn’t as isolated as she seemed. “The one with the terrible split lip last summer.”
I wince, my stomach muscles clench, and my breath catches in my throat.
Logan and I only moved into the apartment t his summer after six months of dating. We hadn’t even been together when Marlena had that split lip. The length of her relationship—the true length of her pain—hits me with an empathetic pang in my own chest. And before us… it’s possible that no one had called the abuse in. Maybe they’d all assumed the neighbors closest to the couple would call—the bystander effect. No wonder the police thought we were full of it.
Pink Coat nods. “Yep, I knew it.”
Panic swells in my chest. I can’t breathe. I glance over at the dumpster. I can’t stand here anymore, so I take a step back.
Pink Coat leans in closer to me. “Just terrible. She just wouldn’t leave him, even after what he did to her. This is what happens.”
“Terrible,” the man agrees.
This is what happens?
My chest heaves with anger, my fists clenched in balls. I will myself to take another step away before I lose it on them.
“You poor dear, all that ruckus next door,” Pink Coat says to me, then turns to the others. “I heard them all the way down the hall sometimes.”
“What kinds of things did you hear?” the man asks.
It takes a moment of silence in the group before I realize everyone’s staring at me, waiting.
I can’t speak. I can’t move. All I can see is Marlena’s dead eye, staring at me.
Knock, knock, knock. I imagine it coming from inside the dumpster.
I knocked, Remey. Why didn’t you help me?
But I did. I called her mom like she’d asked me to. We even called the police when nothing happened. But we didn’t do enough, and it wasn’t just Friday… The final actions that led her here happened Saturday night…
“Her boyfriend’s been out of work for a while.” The woman pets her dog’s head, pulling his long hair away from his eyes, and puts him down. The dog shakes and trots toward the direction of the dumpster, only stopping at the resistance from the leash. “That kind of stress can cause people to do some pretty desperate things…”
Knock, knock, knock.
The dog stares at the dumpster. Does he hear it, too?
One officer talks into his radio while another finishes off the line of tape a few feet away, making sure no one can get close enough to see her. I saw enough. I saw too much. All the voices and noises around me fade away.
My knees wobble. Acid bites its way up my throat—I’m going to be sick.
We failed her. I need to tell Logan what’s happened.
I stumble back toward the underground parking. I push through the door and step into the dark, damp underbelly of the building. The door closes, shutting out the chatter from the crowds and the static racket from the police radios. In the quiet, I’m left with the knocking, echoing in my mind. A clanging beside me makes me jump, and I look down, only now realizing I’m still carrying my garbage bags. A green beer bottle—one of Logan’s—rolls back toward the door.
One of my bags must have broken.
It clinks against the cement pillar behind me. I walk back, slowly, clutching my bags of garbage between my slippery, sweaty fingers.
He put her in with the trash. My body shakes with rage.
This is what happens, they’d said, but it didn’t have to end like this. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
I drop my bags and march toward the door. I need to tell the police what I know. They’re finally here for Marlena—but it's too late. Scott already killed her and put her in with the garbage.
1
10 DAYS AFTER DISCOVERING MARLENA’S BODY
I long to feel peace beneath the shadows of the golden leaves, clinging to the branches of the trees above me. Children play on the swings at the jungle gym several feet off the path we’ve stopped along. Dogs chase after each other on the other side of the path, in the soccer field.
Logan seems to be waiting to speak until I give him my full attention, but I watch the dogs nipping at each other’s legs and tails.
“When’s the last time you had contact with him?” There’s tension in Logan’s gravelly voice, louder now like he’s attempting to command my attention.
The couple approaching, hand in hand, takes my focus instead. I remember when we were as happy as they seem. It was only a few months ago that we rarely ever disagreed, never mind fought.
“Remey, did you hear me?”
“I haven’t spoken to Shawn since we broke up.” I hang my head, shuffling to the side to make room for the grinning couple.
My ankle boots clunk against the paved path until I step onto the long grass of the soccer field, swaying in the breeze.
“Nothing? Not even a text?” Logan lumbers to the grass, squinting against the bright sun headed for the horizon.
I stare into his gleaming brown eyes and shake my head no. He frowns slightly, studying me before shoving his hands in his sports jacket pockets. The bright yellow beauty of the sun casts a glow across everything on the field before it sinks into the horizon behind our neighbourhood across the street. It brightens his darker features and shines against the short regrowth of his new buzzcut after the last hockey season ended.
“Then I just don’t get it.” He shrugs, making a sour expression. “Why are you keeping those pictures in your nightstand?”
I exhale a loud, deep breath as I prepare to recite my reasons again.
“Shawn’s family took me to Italy. It was my first time travelling out of the country.” I fold my arms across my chest, waiting for his expression to change. When it doesn’t, I sigh again and drop the perfunctory tone. “It was a big deal, Logan. It was my first time on a plane—first time travelling out of the country. Just because he’s in some of the pictures, you think I should get rid of them?”
He runs his hand over his new short hair and shakes his head. “I definitely don’t think you should keep them beside you where you sleep every night. Come on, Remey. You don’t see how weird that is?”
Multiple dogs bark to our right—high-pitched yips mixed with low howls of the two hounds, desperately trying to catch up with the rest in the distance. I focus on the road a few meters ahead. The road back to our apartment. I just want to go home, take my sleeping pills, and curl up in bed.
Logan takes a step to the side, so I can’t see anything but his muscular frame. “Remey, you always say communication is important in a relationship. So, visiting Europe was important to you. Fine. Can you tell me why you keep the ones of him?”
I look up at him, exasperated. “You think I take out the pictures of Shawn and look at them while you’re sleeping or something? C’mon, I don’t understand what the issue is. I didn’t even remember they were in there.”
“You keep pictures of your ex—"
“And his family. There’s only, like, three of Shawn. Would you be happier if I cut him out of them? You want me to ruin the only photos I have, standing in front of the Trevi Fountain, just so you don’t get jealous?”
Even if he does—I’m not doing it. I’m keeping them.
He scoffs and shakes his head. “I’m not jealous.”
“Then what are you?”
He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Let’s go back to the apartment.”
So now we’re finished talking about it because he says we are?
Children laugh on the swings beside us, pumping their legs back and forth, shooting themselves higher and higher into the air with pure momentum.
If I go back to the apartment, he’ll swing me back into our normal routine, and because of the momentum, I’ll just go with it. It’s what I’ve always done. I’ve swung back and forth with his moods, hanging on for the ride like those children swinging. Some of them are so little, they can’t put their feet down to stop themselves, and sometimes, it feels like I don’t have control, either.
I thought I stopped the momentum with that phone call to the police for Marlena. I can’t get caught up in it again.
