Title: Knock Knock

Genere and Sub-Genre:

Verbal Folklore: Horror Story (Campfire Story)

Language: English

Country of Story Origin: United States

Informant Data:

Melissa Dunham is originally from a town just outside of Chicago Illinois, before attending Dartmouth College she and her older sister would often tell each other scary stories.

Contextual Data:

The first time Mel heard this story was when she was home alone with her sister (much like the siblings in the story) and she and her sister were telling each other scary stories.

Item:

Transcript of Audio File:

“It’s called Knock Knock. There’s this family, a brother and a sister, and their parents are out of town for the weekend. They’re told not to answer the door under any circumstances, and that the neighbors are there and that if anything happened they could go over there and ask for help.

So while their parents were gone one night, they were watching TV and then they went to bed. But, while they were sleeping they were awakened by a knock at their front door, they ignored it like their parents told them to. But, when they heard it a second time, the sister decided to go downstairs and investigate.

However, after a little bit of time, she didn’t come back. So the brother got really really worried and went to the next door neighbors house. When he arrived there, they warned hum that there was a murder in the neighbor hood that had just murdered someone within a couple of blocks of their house, and to be careful. But then the brother told them that his sister was gone and missing-he didn’t know where she was. That worried the neighbors a lot so they grabbed a gun and went over to his house top investigate. When they got there they found his sister’s body on the floor and the knife that was used to kill her on his bed.”

Informant’s Comments: Mel commented that she heard this story from her older sister when she and her older sister were home along, and that she heard when she was younger from other kids as well.

Collector’s Comments: I have heard different variations of this story, where the brother and the neighbors see the murderer behind the door or standing over the sister’s body.

Collector’s Name: Alexandra Collins