The Door

by Tony Harmsworth

  I found I could reach into my pockets without any problem. The invisible quicksand seemed only interested in me if I tried to rise. I removed my iPhone. It was dead as if the battery had drained, yet it had been on charge all last night. I put it back in my pocket and removed the camera. I tried to photograph the room, but it too was dead. I looked at my watch. Also drained of power and stuck at twelve fifteen pm. Perhaps this force field caused batteries to discharge. I remembered The Day the Earth Stood Still. Another story in which mankind was judged to be unworthy by aliens.

  Out of curiosity I tried to shuffle the chair forward, but it seemed fixed to the floor. It patently wasn’t fixed, so the force field, if that was what I was going to call it, must have locked it into its current location.

  I needed to talk to these aliens. Try to reason with them. Find out what they wanted. I resigned myself to sitting quietly. I could see trees through the window so had to be in the ground floor of the convent looking towards the neglected orchard.

  I listened but could hear nothing at all, not even natural sounds from outside – no birdcall, wind, cars going up and down Station Road. Nothing.

  I have no idea how long I sat there, imprisoned in the chair. With no watch, only the outside light could give any clue as to time. It was beginning to look like late afternoon. I realised I was thirsty, needed to use the bathroom, and was beginning to feel hungry too.

  I had just had those thoughts when the door opened allowing a tall, smartly dressed man to enter. I put him at six foot four at least. He was quite slim-built with black hair and dark skin. Strangely dark. This was not an Asian or African skin colour but was more like a dark Middle Eastern complexion. His hands were smooth and hairless. He was wearing dark blue trousers, a warm orangey coloured shirt, and a black jacket which didn’t match the trousers. His shoes were slip-on brown and nondescript. Hazel often said I had no taste, but this guy was way worse than me with his colour coordination.

  He placed a litre bottle of Evian water on the desk together with a pack containing two mini-pork pies, a sandwich in a wrapper, and a transparent pack with some fruit in juice within it.

  ‘What’s going on? Let me go,’ I said forcefully.

  ‘There is a toilet in the hallway to the left and here is some food and drink for you,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t move,’ I protested.

  ‘You are mistaken, Mr. Mackay.’

  I tried to stand. I could. Whatever had been holding me to the seat had released its grip upon me.

  ‘I insist you release me,’ I said.

  ‘Mr. Mackay. You have meddled in our affairs and we are considering what we are to do with you.’

  I took two threatening steps towards him, not really knowing why. He was more powerfully built than me, but I was furious at what they had done to me. I suppose, vaguely, I was intending to strike him, but suddenly all my motions slowed and I could not approach him any closer. The quicksand had taken over my whole body. I couldn’t even raise my arm.

  ‘Mr. Mackay. I suggest you go and use the bathroom, return here, and eat your meal.’

  ‘You, you, you… can’t do this to me,’ I stuttered, ‘I insist on being set free!’

  ‘That might happen, Mr. Mackay, but not until we have decided that you are not a problem for us.’

  ‘Who are you? What did you shoot me with? What is this force field?’

  ‘Mr. Mackay, I suggest you go and use the bathroom, return here, and eat your meal,’ he repeated.

  I did need the loo.

  ‘Okay. Release this force field.’

  ‘Mr. Mackay, you are released. It will only restrain you if you try to do anything threatening to us or try to leave.’

  I turned and walked to the door, feeling slightly foolish and most certainly inferior. Out in the corridor, equally bare of any ornamentation, I turned left and entered the toilet.

  I took out my phone. I had hoped it might be working again free of the force field, but no, it was still dead.

  In the corridor, to my right the passage led to a junction and I could see a newel post so there must be stairs to the next floor. I turned left and could see a door at the end. Should I try to make a run for it? Yes, even if it was just to discover the extent of my prison.

  No one seemed to be watching me so I walked straight past the open door to my room and head first into the same quicksand. It closed around me and stopped me dead in my tracks. I took a step back and returned to my prison. They didn’t need to watch me. They’d set up extremely effective prison boundaries.

  Back in the room, the man said, ‘Eat your meal, Mr. Mackay. I’ll be back to speak to you later.’

  ‘You will regret this,’ I blustered.

  He didn’t answer and closed the door as he left.

  ‘Bastards!’ I shouted after him as loudly as I could.

  I walked to the desk and opened the bottle of water, drinking deeply. I had no real idea of the time, but I was certainly thirsty and hungry. The sandwich was from the local Mace store. Chicken salad. I opened a mini-pork pie and munched my way through it, then polished off the sandwich and the second pie. I picked up the container and saw that it held chunks of pineapple, apple, orange segments, and mango. A plastic spoon nestled in the lid. Again, it was from the Mace store.

  Refreshed, I paced aimlessly around the room, then examined the furniture. The desk held three small drawers in the left pedestal with one more in the right side with a deeper filing drawer. They were all empty. No papers, no pens, none of the usual objects you would expect in or on a desk.

  I walked to the sideboard. Completely empty. I returned to the window. Did it offer a means of escape?

  I undid the clasp between the two sash segments, took hold of the circular handles in the bottom of the lower casement and lifted. It rose six inches, but no matter how I tried it wouldn’t budge any further. I put my hand through the opening and it was immediately swathed in the mysterious force field. This offered no route outside.

  I paced over to the door and reached for the handle, but again my hand seemed to be immersed in jelly. It released me if I stopped trying to reach the handle, but the moment I tried it seemed to close in upon me. Were they mind readers?

  I examined my phone, the camera, and my watch anew. All completely dead.

  I really was in a pickle. Dusk was descending outside. Hazel would be home and wondering what had become of me. Why hadn’t I gone straight home with the pictures I’d taken? We could have talked through a plan of action. In her eyes, she’d consider I’d behaved incredibly stupidly. No foresight. No sense of danger. Well, she was right, wasn’t she?

  Were these people alien? They certainly had the technology, yet they were so human in appearance. Humanoid aliens only existed in the myriad realms of poor science fiction. I’d always believed that if we encountered extraterrestrial life it would be exceedingly different.

  7 Company

  Despondent, I sat in the chair. There was nothing else I could do, really. The quicksand didn’t seem to envelope me unless I was trying to escape. I was uncomfortable. This was not a comfy chair for a long sit. Outside, night was falling. I began to feel tired and needed the loo again.

  I stood up. I walked over to the door with the intention of banging on it and calling someone, but as I reached for the handle there was no sign of the quicksand. I opened the door and looked both ways.

  I wondered if their system had failed. I turned to the right and was stopped in my tracks. There it was, like I had walked straight into a vertical mattress. It wasn’t hurting me, it didn’t cause me any pain, but it was firmly saying thus far and no further.

  I turned the other way and entered the toilet without any restriction. It was dark inside. I finished my purpose for visiting, then went to walk to the window. The moment I tried to reach up to it the force stopped me.

  I returned to the hallway and tried to turn right. I knew I wouldn’t be able to but needed to test it. Right enough, I came up against my gentl
e prison bars.

  When I returned to my room I sat down, disheartened. What on earth was I going to do? I was well and truly scuppered.

  As the room darkened, my eyelids became heavier and I fell into an uncomfortable and fitful sleep.

  The door opened noisily and jarred me awake.

  The old man we had watched entering the convent garden came in carrying an object about the size of a twenty-inch flat-screen television. It was glowing. He perched it on top of the sideboard, so it was resting against the wall, ran his fingers across it, and it brightened, providing a natural light to the room. He turned and looked at me, a severe expression on his face. I noticed that he too had the swarthy dark skin. His dress sense was just as bad as the first man’s. Neat, crisply-pressed brown trousers, but with a worn, blue-denim jacket, fifty years too young for him. Under that a green shirt. No socks but black brogue shoes. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so frightening.

  I heard more noises and the first man came back into the room. Behind him, lying flat as if on a stretcher, floated Hazel. There was nothing supporting her, at least nothing I could see.

  ‘Hazel!’ I shouted, trying to jump up and finding, once again, I was firmly ensconced in the gelatinous quicksand. Anger rose within me and I tried to overcome the force field, almost managing to raise myself, but suddenly being propelled back into my seat as if the force had been doubled. I wanted to beat them to a pulp, to kill them for whatever they’d done to Hazel.

  ‘Calm yourself, Mr. Mackay,’ said the old man.

  ‘What have you done to her, you monsters?’ I shouted.

  ‘She is unharmed,’ man one said as the second of the two men who had captured me, followed Hazel into the room.

  He pushed her feet and she moved smoothly through the air past me. She appeared to be sleeping.

  ‘Let us go. You can’t do this!’ Again, I tried to resist the force with the same initial success and was firmly defeated. Now I was held even more firmly in the chair.

  ‘Be still, Mr. Mackay. Mrs. Mackay is unharmed. Please stop your outbursts,’ he said as he brought over the second of the carver chairs and positioned it at forty-five degrees to me.

  The second man made some motions with his fingers and Hazel’s torso contorted in front of my eyes, magically adopted a sitting position in mid-air, and was deposited on the second chair.

  This was, to all intents and purposes, pure magic. I was now convinced they were aliens. Nothing on earth could perform these feats. It has been said that if we encounter an advanced race, their technology would be indistinguishable from magic. I guessed the premise was true. Even a television would have seemed like magic in the nineteenth century and the Internet and smartphones as recently as thirty years ago.

  They must have abducted her the moment she arrived home from work for she was still wearing her smart dark suit with white blouse. One foot had a shoe on it and the other shoe was sitting on her lap.

  The old man had left the room temporarily but returned with some more water and supermarket food which he deposited on the desk.

  ‘I demand that you release us!’ I shouted.

  ‘Mr. Mackay. As you have already been told, we are considering your situation. You are in a position to demand nothing. Be patient.’

  ‘What have you done to my wife?’ I asked loudly.

  ‘Mrs. Mackay is unharmed. Be patient. She will wake soon.’

  It was like a gramophone record. A number of stock words, phrases, and sentences being churned out to match the circumstances. They all turned to leave.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ I screamed.

  Number one man stopped in the doorway.

  ‘We have a pet animal. You know what a pet is? She’s shut in our garden without food or water. She’ll die,’ I said, calming down to make sure I was properly understood.

  ‘The situation will be considered,’ he said flatly, before turning and leaving the room.

  I tried to jump up, but I was still stuck firmly in the chair. I relaxed and then found I could rise. The force field seemed to be linked to what I was thinking. It wouldn’t let me stand to chase the man but would let me stand once he’d gone.

  I moved my chair around to face Hazel, so that I could hold her hand. I felt her brow. Took her pulse. Everything seemed normal. Her eyelids fluttered and her hazel irises widened.

  ‘Henry,’ she said quietly, then, as if the memories had come flying back, she said much louder, ‘What the hell is going on?’

  She looked around her, ‘Where the devil are we? Who are those men who were at the door?’

  ‘They captured you and made you unconscious.’

  ‘God. Yes. One of them had a gun.’

  ‘A blue gun?’

  ‘Yes. Henry, what is going on?’

  ‘We’ve been abducted by aliens,’ I said quietly.

  Just for a moment I thought she was going to laugh, then I saw her expression change from amusement to horror.

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I might be.’

  ‘Spill it! What has happened to us and why? In fact, I can guess why… we’re in that fucking convent, aren’t we?’

  ‘Sorry, but yes. They captured me when I discovered how to make the gate appear earlier today. I don’t know how they connected you with me though except that they called me Mr. Mackay right from the beginning.’

  ‘You damned fool! I told you not to get involved. I warned you it could be a government project or something.’

  I tried to interject, but she continued, ‘You just had to investigate, didn’t you? Now look what you’ve done!’

  She was right, of course. I started to apologise, but she was off again, ‘When they have finished with us, we must promise not to speak about it and then we might be able to go home. Is it MI5 or some other secret service branch? Any ideas?’

  ‘Neither,’ I said sheepishly.

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘As I said, I think we’ve been abducted by aliens. They are “considering” what they are going to do about us.’

  ‘I don’t believe in aliens,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Okay, Hazel. Get up and leave.’

  She tried to stand and I could tell the force field had her firmly within its grasp.

  ‘What the …’

  ‘It’s a force field. No one on earth has a force field, nor some sort of ray gun, nor doors which can appear and disappear at will. I really do think these people are not of our world,’ I said, realising that it would sound both stupid and fanatical if I told anyone not experiencing our predicament. If we did get away, no one would believe us.

  Hazel was still struggling to rise.

  ‘Darling, stop struggling for a moment,’ I saw her relax. ‘Now let’s eat something.’

  I stood and walked over to the desk and inspected our rations.

  ‘Come on. We have to eat.’

  She stood tentatively, stepping unsteadily towards me, slipping on her other shoe. We embraced briefly, but she pulled away.

  ‘The force field only holds you if you are intending to escape or to be violent towards our captors.’ I picked up a sandwich.

  ‘Do you want the cheese and pickle, cheese and tomato, or chicken mayonnaise?’

  She looked thunderously at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but we do need to eat.’

  Hazel grabbed the cheese and tomato sandwich pack and peeled off the cellophane cover as she walked to the window. I could see I was in the doghouse, good and proper.

  Between bites of her sandwich, she asked, ‘Come on. Tell me. What did you do?’

  I explained about the green door being covered by some sort of projection of the wall and that I’d found the handle and opened it. Then the two men, the ray gun, and how I’d found myself in this room. I didn’t tell her about the levitation used to bring her into the room. I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea just now.

  ‘You’re a damn fool.’

  ‘I know.’<
br />
  ‘What about Addy? Where’s she?’

  ‘I left her in the garden. I told them about her and they said they’d “consider” the situation – whatever “considering” means.’

  ‘Oh, Henry. What have you done to us?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s done and we have to make the best of it. We’ll have to reason with them.’

  It was dark outside now. We ate some more from the larger selection they had brought this time. More of the fruit cocktail snack packs, some crisps, two more pork pies, two Scotch eggs, some sausage rolls. As well as two one-litre water bottles they had given us a litre bottle of lemonade and a pint of milk, but no glasses or plates for anything.

  ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

  ‘Left along the corridor and first door on the right.’

  She tentatively opened the door, ‘It’s dark.’

  ‘Take that panel with you. I don’t think there is any earthly power here.’

  She examined the luminous flat screen.

  ‘It’s not plugged in!’

  ‘No. I know.’

  She picked it up, and entered the corridor, leaving me in the dark. I watched the corridor darken as she entered the loo and the door closed. As I ate one of the Scotch eggs, I gazed towards the amber glow in the distance coming from the lights of the centre of Goodwick.

  Eventually Hazel returned.

  ‘That force field stopped me going in the other direction in the corridor,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Unexpectedly she burst into tears. She had one of the strongest characters of any woman I had ever met. She really must be scared and, I admitted to myself, I was more than apprehensive about what I had done to put us in such jeopardy. We cuddled again, but this time it was mutual. I didn’t think I’d been forgiven though.