In a town where nothing ever changed, his was the first new face in years. But Damien hadn’t moved here to see new faces — he’d come to avoid the old ones.
He hated people. Nosy, demanding, deceitful. He lived alone in a small English cottage at the edge of town, with a cozy, covered patio overlooking a beautiful garden in the front yard.
A cute, small house with a storybook picket fence.
The garden was picturesque: clusters of bright flowers arranged with care, a border of white stones neatly tracing the edges, surrounded by a lawn that looked like a lush carpet. Damien cared for the garden with the same devotion he gave to his house — and to himself.
His world was filled with silence, except for the rustle of leaves, the whisper of rain, and the soft chime stirred by a passing breeze.
Until a voice cracked it.
“Excuse me, sir…”
It was late afternoon on a hot summer day. Damien sat in the shade of his patio, watching the dirt road that lay quiet and empty at this hour. A breeze brushed past like a soft, cold feather, carrying with it the intermittent cry of cicadas — a sound he oddly found comforting.
Damien turned toward that unexpected, unwanted voice with a frown. A boy stood at the entrance, dirty, sweating, dark skin clinging to bone.
“…sir, can I have some water? Please?” The boy’s voice rasped with thirst.
Damien looked away.
“I’ll work for it,” the boy pleaded, palms pressed together as if in prayer.
Damien looked at him and then at the peeling paint spots on the fence.
“You can touch up my fence. Do that, and I’ll give you water or juice. Anything you want to drink.”
The boy’s dull eyes lit up with hope, and he licked his cracked lips eagerly before asking, like a child seeking reassurance, “‘Anything?”
“Yes. But finish the job first.”
The sun punished the boy as he worked, strokes uneven, hands trembling. Damien scowled at the patchy work.
“I’m done, sir! Can I now have something to drink?”
“No. That’s sloppy. Do it again — slow, steady. I’ll show you.”
Damien didn’t bother to hide his disgust as he took the brush from the boy’s filthy, sweat-slick hands. With slow, deliberate strokes, he painted over a patch — like Leonardo da Vinci, carefully restoring the Mona Lisa.
When he handed the brush back, his eyes glittered with the pride of an artist admiring his own work. He never noticed the tears in the boy’s frightened eyes: Will I ever be able to do it this good?
The time in the sun had worn Damien down — and he longed to wash the touch of the brush from the boy’s hands. As he turned to go back inside, he said,
“‘Knock once on the door when you’re done. Just once. Got it?”
The boy nodded silently.
Inside, Damien scrubbed his hands with soap — twice — then lay back on the bed, a glass of cold water slipping down his throat. Through the window, he watched the boy move carefully this time, dragging his body along the fence with each patch. Damien’s eyes soon grew heavy, and he drifted into sleep.
When he woke, dusk had settled. The boy was gone.
“He must’ve left. Too dark now to check the work.” He fixed himself a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He never saw the small body curled in the shadow of the patio, lifeless.
Around midnight, the full moon bled through the window, casting the room in a pale, blurred glow. The air turned cold, a smell of paint filled the room. Damien crouched in his bed, clutching the blanket to his chin.
And then he heard it.
One knock at the door.
Just one.
Damien frowned, eyes half open, “The boy… still working?”
His eyes, heavy with sleep, flicked toward the door. His breath caught in his throat — there, inside the room, stood the boy. Damien rubbed his eyes, blinked hard. The figure was gone.
“A dream,” he muttered. “Just a dream.”
Knock.
Small knuckles on hard wood.
Again. Just one.
Not at the door. From the bookshelf this time. Damien snapped his head around — and froze. The boy sat perched atop it, feet dangling, heels pounding the wooden doors. His head tilted at an unnatural angle, his grin stretched too wide, his eyes fixed on Damien with a piercing stare.
“I’m done, sir,” the boy rasped. “Can I have something to drink now?”
The laugh that followed was brittle, dry, like sandpaper scraping glass.
Damien jerked up, inching toward the door, but the floor was icy cold beneath his feet, numbing him, rooting him in place. The paint fumes grew heavier, suffocating him.
And then — the boy vanished from the shelf.
He dared a glance at the door, clinging to a faint hope of escape. But the boy stood there now, blocking it. His face was hard, his breath heavy, his eyes burning holes through Damien. When he spoke, it was no longer a child’s voice but something guttural, ancient.
“You promised,” it growled. “I can have anything I want.”
Damien collapsed to his knees. Hands pressed together, trembling, he begged, “Forgive me… please. Let me go.”
The boy’s expression shifted — years of anger, years of hunger, years of torment etched into it. Damien lowered his gaze. He saw the boy’s feet — raw, bleeding, caked with dirt — the endless miles walked barefoot under the sun.
A scream ripped through the house, echoing down that desolate corner of town.
Nobody heard it.
The next morning, Damien woke to find the novel on his bedside table. He let out a dry chuckle. “Just a nightmare, I really should stop reading horror.”
But the words died in his throat when his eyes shifted to the patio — where the boy’s body sat slumped in the shadow, eyes wide open, utterly still.
The police arrived and carried it away. The report was dismissive: unknown minor, dead from heatstroke and dehydration.
No one ever knew the truth.
From that day forward, Damien never dared to touch the fence. His house remained spotless, his garden immaculate, but the white picket fence stood untouched — its paint peeling, its boards weathered, a scar against the perfection.
In the silence he once cherished, he sometimes heard the boy’s frail whisper on the wind, “Sir… can I have some water?”
On darker nights, when he lay sleepless, he heard something worse — a knock at the door.
Just one.
Epilogue
Now, by the entrance, Damien keeps a jar filled with water on a small table. No one must ever pass his house thirsty again. It is his offering, his penance, his fragile hope that the whispers will fade, that the knocking will stop, that life might one day return to normal.
But deep down, he knows it never will.
Enjoy horror?
Claim a free copy of my upcoming horror novella: Google Form
