The Phantom Knocker

© Michael L. Emery

In the town of Godfrey, Illinois, there was a man named Simon McDennis.
He was reportedly a very mean man. He hated kids for some reason...a lot! Never married and as far as anyone in town knew he had never been in a relationship. He kept no friends that anyone knew about, and no one could recall ever hearing him say much to anyone outside of a few unkind words now and again.
It was said that for fun he would shoot his .22 at dogs and cats just to watch them spasm in pain, and he would film them as they died so he could enjoy it again later.
When local women started to go missing every month or so for awhile, some folks thought Simon was to blame. They suspected he had kidnapped the women and kept them in his basement for his own sick pleasures and twisted tortures. Without any real evidence to support it though, the police were unable to get a warrent to search his property.

Once a month, Simon would be seen at the local market. He never talked to anyone, and as far as anyone could tell he never bought much more than canned goods and toilet paper. Locals claimed he had this look on his face that could drain the blood from your face, so folks just avoided making eye contact with him.

Then one night, a farmer named Walter Ross heard his chickens going crazy and assumed it must be a fox or some other scavanger. Grabbing his shotgun, Ross headed toward the coop. He saw a man running away, a chicken in each hand, and the farmer was certain that it looked like Simon McDennis.
Fearing the police would question his sight...he did wear some pretty thick glasses, after all...Walter Ross contacted a few neighbors and convinced them to form a posse and go after McDennis.

An hour later, the police got a report of gunfire out by Simon McDennis' place. When they arrived they found four men dead along the property and the Dennis house ablaze.
Despite a three day investigation at the residence, no trace of Simon or his body were found. They did eventually find close to a dozen shallow graves in the basement however, which most concluded held the bodies of the local women who had gone missing...and probably the bodies of hitchhikers or unreported missing women from other towns over the years. After identifying Walter Ross' body and speaking to his widow and learning about the chicken theft, police concluded that Ross and his posse likely tried to charge Simon McDennis' house and were killed in the obvious gunfight that followed. The fire, they assumed, was probably an attempt to flush McDennis out of his home.

For several weeks, there had been no reported sightings of Simon McDennis...it was as if he had just simply vanished. Rumors began to spread that McDennis had used Walter Ross' chickens for some kind of black magic ritual, and that the missing women were probably used for the same thing when he was done using them as sex slaves. Black magic, they said, was how McDennis got away that night Walter Ross and his friends tried to attack.

Then exactly three months, to the day, after the incident, an elderly woman called the local police and said an evil spirit was in her home and had killed her cats. She swore that she saw the evil spirit...and that it looked exactly like Simon McDennis!
The police were skeptical, especially since just one day earlier she had called police claiming some "undisaplined snot-nosed brats" had knocked on her door and then taken off before she answered. Still, an officer was dispatched. The elderly woman was dead when the officer arrived; it was ruled a heart attack.

The following night, Walter Ross' widow called a neighbor and told them someone had just knocked on her door and apparently took off, and wanted to know if it was their son playing a prank. The neighbor told the boy had been sitting with them for the last hour watching television. The following night, Mrs. Ross allegedly hung herself.

Within a month, there had been a number of reports that someone was knocking on doors but gone when the resident opened the door, followed by a sudden death or series of deaths in the house that same night or the next.

In one home, the owner's golden retriever was found dead, shot in the eye, and the two owners had apparently died as a result of a murder/suicide.

In another home, the owner apparently drown while taking a bath.

In still another home, the elderly woman was found dead with her parakeet lodged in her throat, and her Grandson had allegedly died as a result of slipping on some water in the kitchen and hitting his head on the edge of the stove.

The authorities felt that these deaths were the result of a serial killer. However, a rumor quickly circulated that this was the work of Simon McDennis. Soon people all over town were saying things like, "He hated animals, and look at how brutal the animals in them homes died!" and "That man hated everyone in this town, and his spirit is taking vengence!" and "I always knew he did black magic, this just proves it!"

The rumor got the attention of a television psychic, who visited the town to shoot a nighttime special. A medium was brought along, to speak to the spirit, to confirm if it was in fact Simon McDennis or some other spirit. Unfortunately, due to apparent equipment issues and the medium coming down with a rather severe bout of diarrhea, the special had to be postponed and was ultimately never rescheduled.

After that night, the strange deaths seemed to just stop.
Some people think the killings just started back up in a new town, like some spirit on a road trip adventure from Hell. Many sudden and strange deaths have certainly occured since then...though it's hard to know for sure if any of them were preceeded by a knock at the door by someone who isn't there.

Through the years, the rumor turned into a campfire story, and named "The Phantom Knocker."
The story goes that Simon McDennis was so deeply involved with the dark arts that his spirit is drawn to homes of negative or violent energy. Some claim his spirit can be drawn to something as "low negative energy" as  a couple fighting, to being drawn toward homes where violence has occured.

One thing no one seems to be able to answer though is...what really happened to Simon McDennis the night Walter Ross and his posse paid him a visit? Did he die that night? Did he conjure a demon and make a deal for his spirit? And where is his body???

Speculate all you want, no one seems to know for sure.


So, if you get a knock at your door but are not expecting anyone...you my not want to answer it. After all, if you open the door and no one is there...you might have just let him in.

The Widowed Bride

© Michael L. Emery

A woman named Lisa had accepted a marriage proposal, even though she was not sure she really loved the guy enough to be his wife.
She did it because she thought if she declined, she would never find someone else who would want to marry her. It wasn't that she thought she was ugly, she was actually very pretty; she was just insecure.

The night before the wedding, Lisa paced in her room. Part of her felt it was wrong to enter into marriage with someone she was not fully in love with, and part of her felt desperate to cling to the security of being someone'e wife. She worried that God would punish her for tainting the purity of matrimony, yet worried that being alone would be far more painful.

Despite being very unsure if she were doing the right thing, Lisa decided to go ahead with the wedding.

The next day, though Lisa was still visibly worried about what she was about to do, everyone just assumed it was nervous jitters and the ceremony took place without a problem. The reception went fine, and with each passing moment Lisa accepted that she had to honor having gone through with the wedding.

The time came for Lisa and her new Husband to leave for the airport to begin the Honeymoon. As she said her "thank you's" to everyone and headed toward the car, she approached one of her Bridesmaids and said in an ominous voice, "I have accepted what must be done." And then left, before the Bridesmaid could respond.

About ten miles on route to the airport, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction blew a tire, swerved into oncoming traffic, and it hit Lisa's and her Huband's car head-on. He died instantly. Lisa, in her wedding dress now covered in blood, lingered just long enough for Paramedics to arrive.
As they fought to stabalize her, Lisa uttered, "I have accepted what must be done" and then died.

Ever since then...in places all around the country...women have reported being visited by a spirit in a bloodied wedding dress.

Some have said they were trying on their wedding dress and saw the spirit in the mirror.

Some claim the spirit stood at the foot of their bed, waking them from sleep.

Some claim she appears in the shower, as they get ready for the ceremony.

And some have sworn they saw the spirit in her bloddied wedding dress standing in the back, behind all the guests during the ceremony. Strangely, this one has always been followed by a far more graphic death than the other alleged sightings.

Sadly, the reports have come from Bridesmaids of the women...you see, the women themselves have all died...in various ways...just hours after getting married. First the Husband perishes, then the woman not long after. And according to the Bridemaids, the spirit in the bloodied wedding dress tells all the Brides the exact same thing:

"Accept what I must do."

All of the Brides that have seen her have been of various nationalities, various ages, and various religions. The one thing they all seem to share in common is, they all went through with a wedding to a man they were not fully in love with.

Makes you wonder...who will she visit next?