On a cold October night in 2003, Shirley Yeats
of Seattle, Washington, was just about to get ready for bed when she heard a knock at
the door. She approached the door and asked the person
on the other side to identify themselves. The voice outside responded immediately, it
was a salesman who wanted just a few moments of Ms. Yeats' time. This was odd for two reasons - First, it was
almost 10 o'clock at night, much later than is usual for door to door salesman. And second, the knock hadn't come from Mrs.
Yeats' front door. It was coming from the door to her bathroom. Has your home ever been visited by a door-to-door
salesman? If you were born in the last forty years,
then your answer to that question is probably 'no'. In the age of online shopping, the idea of
a salesperson going from house to house hawking vacuum cleaners or encyclopedia sets feels
like a relic from the past. It's highly unlikely you'd ever see one walking
the streets nowadays, and equally unlikely that one would knock on your front door. However, if you live in Washington State,
you might need to be wary of a certain salesman who is still doing the rounds. SCP - 1879, also known as the Indoor Salesman
and the Door Man, is a phenomenon that manifests randomly in homes throughout Washington. Subjects will hear persistent knocking from
the interior doors of their homes, and the affected door becomes classified as SCP - 1879
- 1. The knocking doesn't stop until the door is
opened, at which point the subject will be greeted by SCP - 1879 - 2, a Caucasian man
of indeterminate age, standing around 170 cm tall. The man will claim to be a salesman, and immediately
try to pitch a bizarre product to the subject whose home he's just invaded. The SCP Foundation was first alerted to the
existence of the Indoor Salesman when they intercepted a 911 call coming from the home
of Mrs. Shirley Yeats. She had opened the door to her bathroom in
an attempt to get the salesman to stop knocking, and once he was in her home, he refused to
leave. According to Yeats, he kept disappearing in
and out of random doors in her house. Foundation Field Agent Rogers was equipped
with a recording device and sent to investigate the case with several other agents. When he arrived at the home, he found Mrs.
Yeats inconsolable. SCP-1879-2 was still rapidly talking at her,
and strangely enough, the product he was holding and trying to sell to her was a border collie
puppy. As soon as Agent Rogers entered the room,
the man shifted his attention away from Mrs. Yeats and towards him. He then started trying to sell the puppy to
Agent Rogers. Agent Rogers did not want to purchase this
puppy, but he found that the man spoke so quickly and urgently, he couldn't get a word
in edgewise. The man was begging Rogers to take the puppy,
practically shoving it in his face, saying that he didn’t need any money, and that
the only payment he needed would be 'some of your time'. Rogers grew so annoyed at being talked over
and interrupted that he ordered the other Field Agents to apprehend the Indoor Salesman. They did so, but as soon as the agents walked
him out the front door of the house, he disappeared without a trace. The agents remained in the area to monitor
the situation, and sure enough, SCP-1879-2 manifested again in Mrs. Yeats' home six hours
later, still trying to trade the puppy for no money, just a little of her time. 12 years to be precise. After hours and hours of being worn down by
this supernaturally pushy salesman, Yeats relented and agreed to take the puppy… and
immediately disappeared. The Indoor Salesman then disappeared himself
through the closest door before he could be apprehended again. At a loss for what to do, the agents administered
Class-A amnestics to Mrs. Yeats' family and left. The reason for her disappearance wasn't fully
known until 12 years later in 2015, when she reappeared in the same spot she'd disappeared
from, having no concept of how much time had passed. The puppy really had just cost her 12 years
of her life. Stories like that of Shirley Yeats have popped
up all over the state in the years since, from Everett to Walla Walla and everywhere
in between. Due to the random nature of SCP-1879 events
and the way that the Indoor Salesman can disappear instantly in and out of any door in a building,
the SCP Foundation has been unable to capture him. The best they’ve been able to do is monitor
911 calls from across the state, listening for key words that might indicate another
SCP-1879 infestation. When such an event is reported, the foundation
deploys Mobile Task Force Rho-4, aka “Shoos Salesmen.” This task force's entire purpose is to minimize
the amount of harm the Indoor Salesman is able to cause by intercepting him before he
can make a sale. This is a very important task, as evidenced
by the story of Mrs. Yeats, since while the products this salesman sells might be innocent,
he doesn't accept payment in any normal currency. The prices he asks for his products are always
bizarre, and often deadly. If all someone loses is 12 years of their
life, they could be considered to be getting off easy. In one instance, the product being sold was
a single red rose, in exchange for the subject's heart. Once the deal was sealed, the subject dropped
dead on the spot, with an autopsy revealing that his heart and circulatory system vanished
from inside his body. In another, the Indoor Salesman offered 220
bananas, and told the subject to simply 'give him some sugar'. The subject agreed, and all candied goods
in the home disappeared. In a third, the Indoor Salesman was trying
to sell a thermonuclear warhead, the price of which was the subject's soul. The subject accepted, and at first, nothing
seemed to have happened. The Foundation confiscated the warhead and
placed it into non-anomalous containment. Later that day, the subject went to listen
to some music, only to find that two of her vinyl records had gone missing - Lady Soul
and Almighty Fire, by world-famous soul singer Aretha Franklin. So, even though he's incredibly invasive,
annoying, and his transactions can be deadly, the Indoor Salesman still maintains a sense
of humor. The fact that the Foundation can't capture
the Indoor Salesman means that a lot of questions about him remain unanswered. The biggest by far is why he does what he
does. In most SCP-1879 events, the Indoor Salesman
seems frantic and desperate to make a sale. Often he will refer to having quotas and deadlines
to meet, which implies some other, unseen entity that he has to answer to. These questions remain unanswered, because
all attempts to interrogate the Indoor Salesman have been unsuccessful. When he manifests in a location, it's impossible
to get him to stray from his sales pitch, and he disappears as soon as he successfully
sells his wares. However, there was one instance where, after
an SCP-1879 event took place, Foundation agents were there to witness a rare interaction between
the Indoor Salesman and his mysterious employers. Agent Rogers and the rest of the Shoos Salesmen
were called out to a home in Spokane where rapid knocking had begun to emanate from the
bedroom door. Equipped with recording devices, Rogers was
able to record the voice of the Indoor Salesman coming from inside the bedroom. In the recording, the salesman grumbled to
himself about not being able to meet his quota by tomorrow, saying that if he didn't, he'd
be stuck in this world for the next century. He started knocking again, yelling through
the door that he knew that he knew they were home. He kept knocking until he was interrupted
by the sound of a phone ringing. The Indoor Salesman was heard picking it up,
and Rogers managed to record the conversation. The person calling was, apparently, the Indoor
Salesman’s boss, who was calling to complain about his performance. Only one side of the conversation was heard,
but evidently the Indoor Salesman’s boss wasn't too happy about receiving two Aretha
Franklin albums as payment instead of an actual human soul. The Indoor Salesman apologized for the joke,
then told his boss - “It won't happen again. Please don't hurt it, I'll meet the quota
this time, I swear.” He hung up, grumbling to himself again, “I
better get to move up to at least Accounting this time.... I've paid my dues and then some.” Rogers finally opened the door, to the apparent
disappointment of the Indoor Salesman, who was hoping to speak with the home’s owner
and was quite annoyed at having another one of his sales interrupted by MTF Rho-4. Rogers tried to ask the Indoor Salesman who
he'd just been speaking to on the phone, but as usual, the Salesman started talking over
him. “Now, see here, let's think logically,”
he said. “You know I'm not gonna tell you anything. I know you're not likely to buy what I'm selling. So let's just move on to greener pastures. I'm coming up close to a deadline, and I'm
sure you're swamped with making sure good people don't do their jobs, so I'll just be
on my way and let you do that. Ciao.” The Indoor Salesman tried to close the door,
but Agent Rogers blocked it with his arm. He was tired of this SCP giving him the runaround,
and he was going to keep the Indoor Salesman here if it was the last thing he did. He demanded the entity stay and be interviewed,
and other members of the task force apprehended the Salesman, making sure he couldn't leave
the room. The Indoor Salesman, now held in place by
several armed men, seemed to finally relent. He told Rogers - “I'm busy, so I'll tell
you what. I'm going to give you something, no money
out of your pocket, and we'll call it even. Sound good?” Rogers, just wanting to get this whole thing
over with, agreed to these terms. Three seconds later, every agent on the scene
was dead, and the Indoor Salesman was able to straighten his tie, pick up his briefcase
and walk through the door to the bathroom. When the bodies of Agent Rogers and the rest
of MTF Rho-4 were examined by Foundation scientists, the cause of death was found to be, in every
case, thousands of coins suddenly appearing in not only their pockets, but also inside
their stomachs, lungs, and even under their skin. Later that day, the Indoor Salesman was reported
at a home in the same neighborhood. He was seen trying to sell the house's owner
- 80-year-old retiree Alan Johnson - a Glock-18 pistol in exchange for 'his attention.’ As he had done so many times before, the Indoor
Salesman disappeared through another door before the Foundation were able to reach the
scene, and when the SCP arrived, they found Mr. Johnson, still alive but now missing his
prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that controls attention. It's likely that, because of the nature of
the entity, SCP-1879 might be entirely impossible to contain. The Foundation might never find out anything
more than what they already know about the Indoor Salesman, the way he's able to manifest
behind closed doors, or the reason he has to keep filling quotas for an unseen boss
who, apparently, doesn't have a very good sense of humor. So, if you're ever in Washington state, be
careful who you open your doors to, especially if the knocking you hear is coming from inside
your house. But now, if we could have just a few moments
of your time, we’ve got something special for you. It’s SCP-001, Which is the Real 001! This is a thirty for one deal that you can’t
pass up so go watch now!
