The Door That Didn’t Belong

It has been a hard couple of years.

The loss of child is enough to break any family apart. And I don’t blame my wife for leaving. Our combined grief was too much to bear. Never mind my madness.

I’ve never been the same since the day of the door.

That damned door.

No one believes me. No one believes it’s real.

I can’t tell you how horrifying all of what transpired has been for me. But you can probably see it in my face. I catch my reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror and the pale, gaunt face with dark, sunken eyes seems like a stranger to me. A ghost of who I once was.

***

Michelle had gone to the store and Jayden and I sprawled on the floor of his room, playing with the train set Michelle and I had bought him for his fifth birthday only a few days prior. All of a sudden, Jayden said “There’s a door, Daddy”.

I looked at him and saw he stared over my shoulder. I turned and looked and there it was. A door—just like every other door in our house. Except it wasn’t there before!

I don’t know how long I stared at it, trying to make sense of what my eyes were showing me.

“Where does the door go, Daddy?” Jayden asked.

I had no idea.

“Stay here,” I said.

I got up and stepped slowly to the door that didn’t belong.

I closed my eyes, focusing, to see if I could hear anything on the other side.

Nothing.

“Daddy?”

“Just a minute, son,” I said. I was struggling to give the boy a calm, “everything’s okay” attitude, but my heart had begun to race and I felt sudden, unwelcome chills slithering over my skin.

But I had to open the door. Or did I?

“Are you gonna open the door?”

I couldn’t think of a reason I could offer him why I shouldn’t.

I grabbed hold of the knob, turned it and slowly opened the door. Just a crack. Peered with one eye.

My mind could barely comprehend what I saw. A pandemonium of terrors, like a lightning-speed flight through unending hallways of nightmarish horrors. The howling, screeches and screaming in my ears alone.

I slammed the door closed. Frozen. Fighting to control my breath which desperately wanted…needed to hyperventilate.

“What’s behind the door, Daddy?’

I wrestled with every ounce of willpower I had to keep as calm a façade as I could. For Jayden’s sake. I thought it would kill me. I prayed for a way out. Anything.

Then I heard Michelle returning from the store. Relief washed over me as I turned to Jayden and said, “Let’s go help Mommy with the groceries.”

“But, what about the door?”

“After we help Mommy,” I lied.

He scrunched his face in a grumbling pout but slowly got to his feet.

“Good boy,” I said and headed out the door as he slowly shuffled behind me.

I burst into the kitchen, glad to be away from the door and near Michelle who looked at me with an odd smirk.

“What have you been up to?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I know that guilty face. And you’re all flushed. Like you’ve seen a ghost or something. What have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” I repeated. “Jayden and I were just—”

I looked around. Jayden was nowhere to be seen.

“Jayden?” I called.

Panic hit me like a wrecking ball. I could feel the color drain from my face, my eyes going wide.

Michelle looked at me with an expression torn between worry and fear.

“Ted, what is it?”

“Oh, my god! JAYDEN!”

I bolted from the room.

“TED!?!”

I pounded my way up the stairs. I could hear Michelle behind me. I hurled myself down the hall and through Jayden’s bedroom doorway and froze.

He was gone. The door was gone.

And they never came back.

***

I told them all the truth.

Michelle.

The Police.

The shrinks.

No one ever believed me. And, one by one, they all left me alone.

And I’ve been in this house ever since. Waiting. Waiting for that door to reappear.

And when it does, I’m opening it and I’m going to find my son.