Fredric Brown - Knock

There is a sweet little horror story that is only two sentences long:

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door

Two sentences and an ellipsis of three dots. The horror, of course, isnt in the two sentences at all; its in the ellipsis, the implication: what knocked at the door? Faced with the unknown, the human mind supplies something vaguely horrible.

But it wasnt horrible, really.

The last man on Earthor in the universe, for that mattersat alone in a room. It was a rather peculiar room. Hed just noticed how peculiar it was and hed been studying out the reason for its peculiarity. His conclusions didnt horrify him, but it annoyed him.

Walter Phelan, who had been associate professor of anthropology at Nathan University up until the time two days ago when Nathan University had ceased to exist, was not a man who horrified easily. Not that Walter Phelan was a heroic figure, by any wild stretch of the imagination. He was slight of stature and mild of disposition. He wasnt much to look at, and he knew it.

Not that his appearance worried him now. Right now, in fact, there wasnt much feeling in him. Abstractedly, he knew that two days ago, within the space of an hour, the human race had been destroyed, except for him and, somewhere, a womanone woman. And that was a fact which didnt concern Walter Phelan in the slightest degree. Hed probably never see her and didnt care too much if he didnt.

Women just hadnt been a factor in Walters life since Martha had died a year and a half ago. Not that Martha hadnt been a good wifealbeit a bit on the bossy side. Yes, hed loved Martha, in a deep, quiet way. He was only forty now, and hed been only thirty-eight when Martha had died, butwellhe just hadnt thought about women since then. His life had been his books, the ones he read and the ones he wrote. Now there wasnt any point in writing books, but he had the rest of his life to spend in reading them.

True, company would be nice, but hed get along without it. Maybe after a while, hed get so hed enjoy the occasional company of one of the Zan, although that was a bit difficult to imagine. Their thinking was so alien to his that there seemed no common ground for discussion, intelligent though they were, in a way.

An ant is intelligent, in a way, but no man ever established communication with an ant. He thought of the Zan, somehow, as super-ants, although they didnt look like ants, and he had a hunch that the Zan regarded the human race as the human race had regarded ordinary ants. Certainly what theyd done to Earth had been what men did to ant hills-and it had been done much more efficiently.

But they had given him plenty of books. Theyd been nice about that, as soon as he had told them what he wanted, and he had told them that the moment he had learned that he was destined to spend the rest of his life alone in this room. The rest of his life, or as the Zan had quaintly expressed it, forever. Even a brilliant mindand the Zan obviously had brilliant mindshas its idiosyncracies. The Zan had learned to speak Terrestrial English in a manner of hours but they persisted in separating syllables. But we disgress.

There was a knock on the door.

Youve got it all now, except the three dots, the ellipsis, and Im going to fill that in and show you that it wasnt horrible at all.

Walter Phelan called out, Come in, and the door opened. It was of course, only a Zan. It looked exactly like the other Zan; if there was any way of telling one of them from another, Walter hadnt found it. It was about four feet tall and it looked like nothing on earthnothing, that is, that had been on Earth until the Zan came there.

Walter said, Hello, George. When hed learned that none of them had names he decided to call them all George, and the Zan didnt seem to mind.

This one said, Hel-lo, Wal-ter. That was ritual; the knock on the door and the greetings. Walter waited.

Point one, said the Zan You will please henceforth sit with your chair turned the other way.

Walter said, I thought so, George. That plain wall is transparent from the other side, isnt it?

It is trans-par-ent.

Just what I thought. Im in a zoo Right?

That is right.

Walter sighed. I knew it. That plain, blank wall, without a single piece of furniture against it. And made of something different from the other walls. If I persist in sitting with my back to it, what then? You will kill me?I ask hopefully.

We will take a-way your books.

Youve got me there George. All right Ill face the other way when I sit and read. How many other animals besides me are in this zoo of yours?

Two hun-dred and six-teen.

Walter shook his head. Not complete, George. Even a bush league zoo can beat that could beat that, I mean, if there were any bush league zoos left. Did you just pick at random?

Ran-dom sam-ples yes All spe-cies would have been too man-y. Male and female each of one hun-dred and eight kinds,

What do you feed them? The carnivorous ones, I mean.

We make food Syn-thet-ic.

Smart, said Walter. And the flora? You got a collection of that, too?

Flo-ra was not hurt by vi-bra-tions. It is all still grow-ing.

Nice for the flora, said Walter. You werent as hard on it, then, as you were on the fauna, Well, George, you started out with point one. I deduced there is a point two kicking around somewhere. What is it?

Some-thing we do not un-der-stand. Two of the oth-er a-nimals sleep and do not wake? They are cold.

It happens in the best regulated zoos, George, Walter Phelan said. Probably not a thing wrong with them except that theyre dead.

Dead? That means stopped. But nothing stopped them. Each was a-lone.

Walter stared at the Zan. Do you mean, George, you dont know what natural death is?

Death is when a be-ing is killed, stopped from liv-ing.

Walter Phelan blinked. How old are you, George? he asked.

Six-teen-you would not know the word. Your pla-net went a-round your sun a-bout sev-en thou-sand times, I am still young.

Walter whistled softly. A babe in arms, he said. He thought hard a moment. Look, George, he said, youve got something to learn about this planet youre on. Theres a guy here who doesnt hang around where you come from. An old man with a beard and a scythe and an hour-glass. Your vibrations didnt kill him.

What is he?

Call him the Grim Reaper, George. Old Man Death. Our people and animals live until somebodyOld Man Death stops them ticking.

He stopped the two crea-tures? He will stop more?

Walter opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it again. Something in the Zans voice indicated that there would be a worried frown on his face, if he had had a face recognizable as such.

How about taking me to these animals who wont wake up? Walter asked. Is that against the rules?

Come, said the Zan.

That had been the afternoon of the second day. It was the next morning that the Zan came back, several of them. They began to move Walter Phelans books and furniture. When theyd finished that, they moved him. He found himself in a much larger room a hundred yards away.

He sat and waited and this time, too, when there was a knock on the door, he knew what was coming and politely stood up. A Zan opened the door and stood aside. A woman entered.

Walter bowed shghtly, Walter Phelan, he said, in case George didnt tell you my name. George tries to be polite, but he doesnt know all of our ways.

The woman seemed calm; he was glad to notice that. She said, My name is Grace Evans, Mr. Phelan. Whats this all about? Why did they bring me here?

Walter was studying her as she talked. She was tall, fully as tall as he, and well-proportioned. She looked to be somewhere in her early thirties, about the age Martha had been. She had the same calm confidence about her that hed always liked about Martha, even though it had contrasted with his own easygoing informality. In fact, he thought she looked quite a bit like Martha.