The Door

Just a quick short horror story I wrote one night.

They lived underneath the floorboards.  Sometimes I hear them scatter inside the crawlspace.  I have no idea what they are.  Just the other night I heard them scratching at the wooden two plied door.  Nails etching into the grain like scissors cutting a piece of paper, nice and neat and devilishly accurate.  But when I open the door they stop.  Those sounds disappear like echoes moving like shadows over all the junk piled in the crawlspace.

One time I put a recorder inside just so I could hear a glimpse of what they were saying, trying to find out what exactly what they are.  I left it there overnight on top of one of the many storage boxes holding old junk from the past.  I carefully made my way upstairs, took a nice long hot shower, brushed my teeth and wrapped myself in my blanket.  That night I would not dream but wondered before sleep what noises I would hear, what the recorder would pick up.

That morning I could not wait.  Excitingly I dashed into the basement where my office was.  I swung open the storage room door and into the crawlspace to pick up the recorder.  Feverishly I lurked over the phantom box as a ghost wanting to hear his own voice.  I played it ever so quietly making sure no one in the house heard what I was doing and listened thoroughly.  Nothing, absolutely nothing.  Just the occasional sound of the water pump slushing on and off just as a toilet flushes.  The random tap-tap-tapping from the floorboards underneath the house, easily debunked from my mother walking to and fro in the kitchen.  Blast, damn it.  I distinctly heard them the night before.

That afternoon went by drudgingly slow, the minutes and hours ticked away as I, the madman, stared at the clock almost as a patient waits for his daily dosage.  I knew I heard them and as I worked at my desk late that evening, the scratching came back.  More distinctly this time, the sound of irking vile nails gave way to three knocks which made jump out of my seat.  One knock startled me, gave me goose bumps.  Second knock, made my heart flutter.  Third knock, made me shake to the bone, literally, hyping me up from my chair.

“Who is there!?”  I yelled, feeling the adrenaline course morbidly.  At first the astound abruptness of it all left me enthralled but then the horror of what lurked behind the crawlspace door stirred by stomach as if I came down with flu or some innate disease.  Blood boiled underneath skin, sweat beaded down my face as I churned inside and got enough courage to open the door.  Absolutely nothing, just like on the recorder.

The blackness of the crawlspace made it seem like dungeon where all of its torturous devices came in the form of scratches and knocks.  I could not take this anymore.  Dare I stay up tonight, in the wee hours of the morning cautiously sitting at my desk chair just to wait to hear the sounds again?  No, I was to frightened of the thought of someone or some ghastly figure bombarding through the door like an insane madman or a ghoulish spirit.  Tonight I will try again.

Same thing, I placed the recorder in a different position in the crawlspace, this time in one of the four corners, not on top of any debris or boxes or furniture but on cold cement ground.  There it rested until the morning till I awoke eagerly and rushed down into the basement.  Once again with the recorder in one hand and my other hand with a pencil wrapped in fingers, I brought out a piece of paper to write down any word or creak or whisper that I would catch.  And to my surprise, nothing revealed itself.  Dead silence came out of the recorder and it turned my stomach into a boiling pot of emotions.  Getting so mad I tossed the recorder in my office shattering it into pieces.

No longer for cowardice or foolish mistakes, this evening well into the confines beyond nighttime I will sit here and listen.  As my work piled up I felt exhausted almost falling asleep in my desk chair a couple of times.  My heart fluttered then winced back to normal.  One time I did dose off for roughly a half hour and I thought I heard that fiendish scratching in the back of my head.  Those nails tempting me to jolt open the basement door and to finally stare into the eyes of who or what was causing this.  But when I heard the knock it ruffled me out of my nap.  Quickly I brushed this off as some sort of hallucination or nightmare but my wiles told me it had been more coming from the basement door.  

Well into the evening I grew restless with my work, I even disregarded dinner proposing to take a meal downstairs with me.  Ignoring my mother and father completely for that day, I had a goal to finally deluge myself into this mystery of the crawlspace.  Tonight I would wait sitting at my desk keeping my eyes fixated on the door at all cost.  Roughly when the sun snuck into the corners of sky and after having a quick cigarette I decided to make due with my investigation.

There I sat sitting at my desk, my hands folded in my lap as I stared at the basement door.  Oh how luminescent it was having only a lamp acting as the only source of light in the entire basement.  Shadows did not dance barely they moved and once I saw my own shadow in the corner and I jumped but it was only for a hesitated moment.  I believe I must have dozed off again for a second time today as I felt my head bow and shoulders slumping over.  

Somewhere in the dead of night I heard the knocking once more.  I could brush this off as being another nightmare but it came from the basement door.  I jerked my eyes open at the knock and I waited.  Before it came in three but now it uttered only once.  I sat up straight in my desk chair thinking maybe it had been in my dream until the second knock happened merely minutes later.  This time a loud pound shook the door.  I was afraid it would fall off its frame but I remained.  My bones came to staggering halt, my eyes wide in a gasp.  My mouth wanted to speak but hung open as if I was dumbstruck.  

The third knock was no knock but a loud thundering literally shook the door.  In one aspect it was captivating, in the other confines of my already frightened mind I was too mesmerized to do anything.  There I sat like a coma patient, mouth open a little drool streaking down my chin as I could not grasp what I had heard and saw.  Those three voluptuous pounds gave way to the scratching.  Like nails sliding down a chalkboard it tore specs into my heart, each scratch gave me one terrifying thought after another.  It all stopped at once like the vastness of outer space suddenly arrived. 

That was when I heard the voices.  Not some guttural beast or middle aged man yelling after getting drunk but the voice of a child.  Then came the voice of a second child and then a third one.  It sounded like they were having fun, laughing and giggling playing with a new recent toy.  Like a madman I jumped up stormed over to the basement door and flung it open.  Nothing.  Just like before.  Nothing but swelling darkness on top of mildewed boxes, old furniture collecting dust, and trinkets not used in years.  Was I delusional?  Am I going insane?  Is this how paranoia sets in?

I could not help myself but to go upstairs to bed.  I had to shake all this off because the more I was bothered by all of this I knew it would eat me up from inside out.  So dreamlessly I slept that night without a care in the world as if somewhere I could tell myself it will be alright and one day all this will be nothing but a dream.  Or maybe a sleepless thought.  

I awoke the following morning to begin my day as if nothing happened the night before.  Carrying on with my work as if nothing ever happened.  Carelessly I worked in the afternoon typing my work away, filing my important papers, even the occasional ramble as I paced back and forth.  The day was moving on just nice and splendid.  But that door…that old plastered maniacal wooden door kept haunting me.  I thought yet again of the knocks and the scratches and the voices and they tempted me so.  Every once and a while I would catch a glimpse of the basement door in my peripheral.  Its haunting gaze staring right back at me.  Never during the day, always at night.

That was when the idea came to me, to finally find out what is behind that door.  The thing or many things that made sounds only when I was here and not when I wasn’t.  I was about to do something daring, something foolish, something unfathomable.  I would sit inside the crawlspace tonight and wait.  To actually see what was behind the basement door.

I took my desk chair that evening and propped it inside the crawlspace.  I had to bend over just enough so my head would not hit the floorboards.  I took out my box of matches that I used for smoking and stuffed them inside my pocket.  To use them to give me some semblance of light to make any sense out of this horror.  Dare I say I was brave?  Well that is up for speculation, does one tempt the devil?  Every time I wanted to forget all this nonsense and just go up to bed, the basement door held its illusiveness upon me.  I had to know, I must know what was going on.

That night I stayed awake shaking in my own shoes, my hands fidgeting and playing with my matches.  I walked into the crawlspace ducked my head down and closed the basement door.  I did not keep track of the time that was of no importance, only the mystery of it all.  There I sat feverishly alone with only my thoughts to accompany me.  All there by my lonesome self just being so deathly quiet.  In a way it felt like dying like how spiders crawl up their spinning webs, disappearing into crevices of moldy rooms.  Like how ants creep and slide down drainpipes and how rats burrow deep into rotten sewers.  This is how death must feel just a wisp of endless silent.

But my breathing, I could feel my heartbeat pounding.  Knocking on my chest.  Trying to burst out of its ribcage as if a door wanted to bust open and frighten some onlooker.  I sat there quiet and wickedly still.  Just wondering how many minutes passed by, and how those minutes probably turned into hours.  How I just sat there waiting inherently for something, anything to make a sound but yet nothing came.  No naps or dozing off now, this darkness felt somewhat comfortable.  It felt quite calm being disturbed by no knocks or scratches or voices.  It felt almost livable as if life slowed down to an even tempered rhythm.  I patiently sat there silently contemplating even to the point of rocking back and forth on my desk chair.  No thoughts or worries or cares, this empty crawlspace just oozed its gentle darkness around me and I felt content.

I don’t remember how long I sat in there, it felt like hours but I did not want to leave.  Here alone with my thoughts in the darkness of an unkempt basement reminded by all the trinkets in my crawlspace.  All the old furniture tossed down here, remembering my old mattress and nightstand.  All my old toys I used to play with from when I was a child to the boxes that all held all my old memories like photo albums and old home videos.  It was quite my own down here, all wrapped up in a nice secure cocoon.  A nice dark cocoon of old stuff just growing older by the years becoming withered with time, dusty and out of date.  Just sitting here left undisturbed just like me, rocking back and forth on my chair.  At this point I did not want to leave, it felt like home, my own solace right here in the dark, where it became safe and comfortable and relaxing.  

I must have sat down there for a long time.  I cannot recall if it was day or night, everything down here is shrouded in darkness.  Time seems like an afterthought, time in my crawlspace doesn’t exist because it is so relaxing.  Every once and a great while I will hear footsteps over my head, those loud irritating people.  Who were they?  Oh yes, my parents.  My mind must have slipped while I just keep rocking away here on my chair.  And I know one day this chair will become a relic of my crawlspace along with all of my things.  All these boxes belong to me.  The furniture belongs to me.  All these things are mine, these are my things.

And I know one day they will come looking whoever it may be.  It could be my parents or my relatives or even a neighbor.  One day they will come down in the basement and wonder about my crawlspace.  This is my crawlspace, all these things down here are mine, they belong to me.  And I will let them know that these things are mine, that they belong to me, that this my crawlspace.  This is where I am comfortable and at peace, this is all mine, all these things belong to me.  I will let them know that these things are mine cause I will knock and slam on the door just so they leave me alone.  I will scratch on the wood just to hear their reaction.  Maybe one day just one day I will play with my things just like how I did when I was kid and see what they would do.  Because all of these things down here are mine and more whoever decides to wonder what is behind the basement door.

8/4/23

Author's Note

What did you think of the story? Did you enjoy it? How did you like the twist?