Invitation Only
JEMMA BENSON
I had been tossing and turning for hours and felt myself almost drift off completely. Then, a frantic knock at the window jolted me upright.
‘Quick, miss! They’re after me!’ A voice gasped. ‘Please, let me inside so I can hide!’
I fumbled in the dark; bedsheets tangled around my body. Sleep pressed heavy against my skull, and my eyes squinted against it. I pushed myself forward, elbows sinking into the mattress as I leaned over the windowsill. My hand met the cold metal of the lock. It lingered there, fingertips trembling against the chill, my pulse drumming in my ears.
The moonlight flattened his features; his cheeks were hollow, his skin devoid of colour, and his body small and thin. His eyes practically bulged out of his head. They stayed locked on me, not roaming my face or taking in even a single feature, but holding a blank, unblinking stare. A hollow, falling sensation tumbled through my stomach.
—-It was then I truly processed what he had said. They were chasing him? Yet his chest didn’t rise or fall, and there was no sweat on his forehead. He just stood there, utterly still, rooted in the earth beneath my window.
‘Sorry— I don’t... Who’s chasing you?’
—-He opened his mouth, but before any words came out, he suddenly swung his head over his shoulder. I followed his gaze into the darkness. The trees stood stiff under the moonlight. Their trunks tangled into a blur of shapes.
He kept the treeline in his view and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Please, friend. They won’t be far behind me now. Please.’
My hand slipped away from the window. He looked back at me; an expression somewhere between betrayal and anger flicked across his face for a moment. My hands clenched the bedsheets so tightly my nails bit into the fabric. I expected him to call me heartless, or maybe even curse me with some vague misfortune. Instead, he slowly crept his hands up the glass until his long, pale fingers framed his face.
‘I won’t stay for long, really. Oh, please... help me, miss. Do me this one kindness and I’ll leave you alone,’ his voice trembled as if he were about to burst into tears, and yet his eyes remained dry.
‘I... can’t. I’m sorry.’
The words came out pathetically quiet, and I felt my cheeks grow hot with shame. My trembling fingers fumbled with the edge of the curtain and dragged it across the window. The rings clinked and scraped across the metal rod. His face stayed pressed against the glass, staring blankly until there was only a sliver of light left.
I sank back onto the mattress, hands resting on my head, still trembling. My breath came ragged, uneven, as I wished the room could swallow me whole. Normally, I would have let someone inside—especially if they were in danger. Being kind, helping when I could, was almost instinct. But tonight, I didn’t want to. I strained my ears, expecting to hear shifting feet or the creak of the windowsill, but nothing came.
The next night, there was someone waiting at my front door. It was late. Half past ten, I think. They didn’t knock; I only noticed them when their shadow appeared in the little square of stained glass. I considered waiting them out, as I would with solicitors or missionaries during the day. But there was something different about this shadow, something that made my hands twitch and my pulse spike, compelling me to see what they wanted.
My hand hovered over the doorknob. Nerves twitched in my fingers. My pulse thumped in my ears, and I could feel the cool draft from the gap beneath the door curling around my ankles. The shadow shifted slightly behind the glass. I drew a deep breath, wrapped my fingers around the doorknob, and opened it.
He stood just beyond the doormat; hands folded loosely in front of him, shoulders straight, perfectly still. The jacket of his suit hung long at the sleeves, and his trousers bunched at the ankles. He raised his head to meet my eyes and pressed his lips into a wide grin. I almost said something—hi... and his name? But nothing came. My lips stayed still, uncertain. He seemed to catch this, and withdrew into a small, thin smile.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Oh wow, I’m hurt,’ he replied, raising his hand to his chest with a theatrical tilt of his head.
I said nothing. He shifted his weight and scratched the back of his head.
‘Aw man, you really don’t remember me?’ He let out a small chuckle. ‘We went to school together, just down the road. We would walk home together. I remember you tripping into a mud puddle once.’
I blinked. It’s been far too long since I’ve thought about school, let alone an embarrassing moment like that. I’d forgotten so many faces, names, and moments that have slipped away with time. But his casual demeanour, it made me wonder if perhaps he remembered me better than I remembered him.
‘I’m really sorry, I don’t.’
‘It’s been so long since we last saw each other. I just wanted to come in for a cup of tea and catch up. I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to these days. Can I come in?’
I shook my head. ‘No... sorry. Not tonight. You can come over tomorrow, though. For the tea.’
‘But I’m here right now. It’d save me another trip. Is that okay, friend?’
‘Friend?’ I repeated, my voice sharper than intended.
I was reminded of that strange encounter the night before, of the man at my window who begged me to let him inside. How I could have forgotten something like that, I don't know. But upon looking at the man, I saw the undeniable similarities between them. His same bulging eyes and pale skin. A part of me recoiled at how familiar he felt.
And yet, he wasn’t quite the same. The way his face caught the porchlight made it appear almost unnaturally smooth. His jaw seemed to be sharper, and his cheekbones were more pronounced, maybe higher. His shoulders were broader, and the muscles of his arms were more defined beneath that ill-fitting jacket. Even the way he held himself was different, he appeared much taller than when he was at my window, as if he had grown since the night before.
His voice, too, had changed. It carried a local accent that suggested he did live here, had even grown up here, alongside me. Though it sounded too precise to be authentic. A little too slow, too conscious.
He took a step forward, closing the gap between us. ‘Yes, friend. That’s what we are, right?’
I stumbled back instinctively. ‘You’re the man from last night. The one from my window.’
— His smile faltered, the practiced warmth slipping for the first time. The casual friend act, the teasing familiarity, all of it wavered. For a moment, his blank, unblinking expression returned.
He hesitated. ‘I... I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘What the hell are you?’ My voice shook as a sob escaped my throat. ‘Why do you want to come in so badly?’ My hands shook uncontrollably, gripping the doorknob as if it could hold me upright.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I slammed the door shut.
From the other side, I heard him whisper: ‘Tomorrow, then.’
—I didn’t sleep after he left. Couldn’t. My thoughts spiralled, looping on themselves, unable to settle. I sat upright in bed, the sheets bunched around me, every muscle pulled taut at each groan of the timber frame, every whisper of wind against the glass.
I sat in that spot on my bed, theorising all the different ways he might approach me next. I wondered, would he try fooling me again? Surely not, I knew him now. He couldn’t doubt that I’d recognise his tricks. Would he come back to the window? Would he try the back door? The roof? Would I hear the quiet click of a lock giving way, and wake to find him standing at the foot of my bed, smiling in the dark?
The night stretched on, seemingly endless. By the time the first ray of sunlight seeped into the dark sky, I had yet to fall asleep. My body felt hollowed out, feverish, and my mind worn raw from imagining every possible way he could come for me. Still, I dragged myself out of bed, determined to prepare for his visit.
I started with the chairs, stacking them against the front and back doors. It felt ridiculous even as I did it, flimsy wooden barricades against whatever he was. I had never been the type to scare easily. I didn’t believe in ghosts, or curses, or any of the strange things people whispered about in this town. But last night had left me grasping for explanations that didn’t exist.
I stood there, palms pressed flat against the chair backs and thought of my grandmother. Her house used to terrify me, not for what was inside it, but for what she believed might be waiting outside. Crucifixes lined every wall, their brass edges catching the light in strange ways. Ceramic saints stared down from the shelves as she made me kneel on the stiff carpet and whisper prayers I didn’t understand.
I used to think she was foolish for it, hiding behind symbols and old rituals. But as I wait in my barricaded house, I wonder if maybe she had simply understood fear better than I ever would.
Now I sit at the front door, waiting for his arrival. Listening for the shuffle of feet, the scrape of a coat, the faint sigh of air shifting on the porch. I strain to hear something—anything—beyond the usual groans of the house.
A shadow shifts at the corner of my eye. I snap my head to the window in its direction, my pulse echoing in my ears. Nothing. I rise slightly, my toes curling against the cold floorboards, struggling to see anything beyond the darkness outside.
Then I hear it: a step. Not a creak, but a step. The hard, deliberate tap of a shoe on wood. It didn’t come from the porch; it came from the other side of the hallway.
I spin around. The back door yawns in its frame, swinging slowly. The chairs I placed there have vanished.
I feel him before I see him. A presence in the kitchen doorway, draped in shadows. My eyes strain, but the darkness swallows him whole. It could be a trick of the moonlight, a shape in the corner of my vision. But I know it to be him.
He steps into the dim light. The hollows of his cheeks are sharp, the skin pulled so taut over jagged bones it appears almost translucent. His limbs are grotesquely elongated; elbows bending at unnatural angles, knees jutting oddly as he moves, fingers curling like talons tipped with chipped, claw-like nails. The jacket hangs loosely over him, a useless shroud; it exposes his ribcage as it rises and falls too visibly, and skin stretched so thin it quivers with each movement.
—-And then he speaks. Not from his lips, not from the air around me, but inside my skull. A whisper that burrows into my mind: ‘Hello, friend.’
I stumble back, but he’s already over me. Cold fingers hook into my collarbone, pulling me forward. His mouth opens wider than it should. I feel his breath, wet and shallow, against my throat.
Then all sensation narrows on the cruel point of his teeth, sinking into my flesh.
Jemma Benson (she/her) is a horror and science fiction writer living in Western Sydney. Her stories explore fear, vulnerability, moral struggle, and violence, examining how people confront the threats and horrors that encroach upon their lives. She also collects horror magazines, feeding a lifelong fascination with the macabre.
