Knock Knock Who's There?

• Kaitlin Terriss, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2011

The knife in my hand reflects my frightened face as I sit with my back against the refrigerator door, the breath escaping from my lungs in tortured emissions. My hair’s tangled, my pyjamas are wrinkled, I have extremely toxic morning breath and it’s 10 am on a Sunday morning. Usually I’d still be sleeping like a heavily sedated monkey, but today I was woken by several knocks on the living room window, and I’ve been on full alert ever since. I’ve determined from the irregular, random knocking that someone’s out to get me, most likely the famous serial killer Chopper. With my parents away on a day-trip to the Gold Coast, the responsibility of making it through this alive rests on my shoulders.
A sheet of paper lies in front of me, and I look at it with tear-filled eyes. On this sheet of paper I’ve written my only two hopes of surviving this massacre.
Plan A is to plant a seed of doubt into Chopper’s mind, force him to reconsider disembowelling me with a pair of pliers. I tug my phone from my pocket with unsteady hands and I start talking into it in a loud but subtle manner. “Oh, hi, Janine, what a pleasant surprise. No, you’re not bothering me, I was just practising the technique required to decapitate someone with a spoon. Yes, that’s correct; I have a black belt in karate. Oh yes, I can very easily kill someone with my bare hands, even if they’re armed with a gun or a pair of pliers. My friends at the elite karate club call me Chuck Norris’s executive assistant. You need me for a highly dangerous, top secret mission on Tuesday? I’ll check my calendar… Yes, I’m free. I’ll be there. Ok, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
I wait silently, hope filling my heart that maybe, just maybe, Plan A has been successful and I no longer have to fret about where my beloved possessions would end up if I was brutally massacred.
Without warning, the incessant, bloodcurdling tapping resumes, and my optimism is dashed. I sigh anxiously. I was hoping that it wouldn’t come to Plan B, which heavily depends on my sordid morning breath and Chopper’s sensitive sense of smell. As I’m getting ready to open the door and face my impending doom, I see my reflection in the mirror and I nearly burst a blood vessel.
“I can’t be murdered looking like this!” I shriek. Fifteen minutes later, I’m in my prettiest dress, make-up and hair done, eyebrows plucked to perfection but my breath still smelling like a rat-infested sewer. Satisfied with my appearance and my odour, I open the door and exhale heavily in every direction. When I fail to hear the sound of an unconscious body hitting the ground, I glance wearily at the window, and see nothing but my hazy reflection. I swallow noisily, holding my breath in anticipation.
And that’s when I see the Kookaburra tapping on the window.