Drabble Wednesday: Behind the Door

Today, on Drabble Wednesday, horrors lurk behind that closed door...

A Scratch at the Door

In the darkest hour of the night, when the wind ceases howling and the owls fall silent, you hear it. That scratch, scratch on your cellar door. You burrow under bedcovers, tell yourself it’s the elder oak on the downstairs window pane.

But you know. It’s coming from the bowels of the house. A repeated scritching scratch on the wood, a plea, a calling to come and see. You close your eyes tighter, cover your ears, but you know. You hear. It beckons you each night.

And soon, compelled by curiosity, you will open the door and let me out.

~*~

The House on the Lane

A commonplace door, pale oak wood with a half moon window and a shiny brass knob. Nearly identical to every other door in every other house on this quiet little lane. The man who lives there goes to work each day, smiles at his wife as she waves goodbye.

Then she shuts that ordinary door.

She descends the stairs to the basement, to a locked room. Where she keeps her knives and her strange private life. No one suspects, but...

Tonight her husband will come home early.

Tonight he will open his mundane door and discover all of her secrets.

~*~

The Door at the End of the Hall

They tell me not to go there, not to walk down that hall. Not to open the door. That it’s private. Forbidden. Dangerous.

I know.

But I keep asking questions, needing them to tell me.

I’m making them angry.

I want to stay away. I don’t want to stare down that corridor, gawk at that wooden door, my feet restless, my hand itching to turn the knob. Not that it would do any good; the door is locked.

They keep telling me.

There’s something I don’t tell them.

I can hear the screaming from the other side of the door.

© A. F. Stewart 2017 All Rights Reserved