Sorry about the delay posting August's story but I was away on holiday in Turkey. I'll post September's tale in the next couple of weeks.
Door
Gary
McMahon
The film was over and I was tired. I reached out for the remote and switched off the television and the blu-ray player. The sudden silence seemed deafening, like the air pressure at high altitude.
I stood, stretched, and turned towards the door.
The door
was not where it should have been. The place where the door had been
for the six years we'd lived in this house was a blank wall.
I spun
around and saw the door in the same wall as the main window. As I
took a step towards it, the door vanished. It didn't fade away, or
shrink back into the brickwork, it just wasn't there any more.
Turning
again, I saw the door in the floor near the sofa.
It
vanished again as soon as I made a move.
This
time, none of the walls appeared to have a door. I turned and turned
and didn't know what to do. Every wall was just a wall, apart from
the ones with windows. Should I break a window in order to escape the
confines of my own front room?
Slowly, I
looked up. The door was now in the centre of the ceiling, where the
plaster ceiling rose and the light should be. Somehow the light that
was no longer there still provided illumination: the room was just as
bright as it had been.
Panicked,
I grabbed my phone and called my wife, who was upstairs in bed.
“Erm...hello?”
She sounded sleepy; I must have woken her.
“Helen,
I'm trapped. I can't get out of the lounge.”
“For
fuck's sake, Bob, stop it with your stupid games. You woke me up for
this shit?”
“I'm
not joking, Helen. Really, I'm not.”
“Bob?”
The fear in my voice must have convinced her. She sounded concerned
and fearful. “Honestly, Bob?”
“Honestly,
Helen. The door...I know this sounds insane, but it won't stay put.”
“What
do you mean?”
“I
mean, the door keeps moving. It won't let me out.”
That was
when the phone went dead.
I heard
banging noises above me, coming through the ceiling: Helen was
obviously getting out of bed and moving across the room.
Then she
screamed.
It was at
that point I realised it was happening to her, too. The doors were
toying with us, playing some kind of game. They'd trapped us here
like prisoners, and I didn't understand it at all.
--
I've been
here for two days now. I did eventually try to break the window but
the glass wouldn't shatter. It was like throwing things against the
wall. The laws of physics no longer apply; only nightmare logic works
here.
I'm
writing this on the Notes app on my phone, but the battery is almost
flat. I'm not sure how much longer I have left.
--
The door
finally stopped moving an hour ago.
--
I haven't
heard Helen's voice from upstairs since late last night. The last
time I heard her, it sounded as if she was talking to someone. No,
not talking: pleading. Crying. Then she went quiet and I heard a door
slam. I'm hoping she managed to get out.
I'm
hoping...
--
The door
to this room is no longer inside the house.
It's in
the same place every time I look out the window. The door and the
frame – all of it – are standing upright in the middle of my
garden, on the small lawn.
--
The last
time I looked, the door was open.
--
Not long
afterwards, I saw a shadow move quickly across the window.
I think
there's something out there.
I wonder
if it's the same thing that stepped through to see Helen, or if there
are more than one of them. Whatever they are.
I'm going
to switch off the phone to conserve the battery. If there's nothing
else after this, it means that something came calling. Something came
through the door and got me.
Or else,
another door appeared and I managed to get out to somewhere else.
Neither
option fills me with anything but dread.
© Gary McMahon 2019
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