Behind Dark Doors (the complete collection): Eighteen suspenseful short stories

by Susan May

  Her fingers paused in mid-movement.

  She felt a release, as if something inside her had skipped free. In that split second, the world stopped, and then as if the direction of the wind had changed, something pushed back at her. Everything about her began to swirl, and she became the center of a universe that stretched off in a blur in all directions to infinity.

  Something ethereal had changed. In her surprise that she’d actually affected her environment, she lost concentration, and lessened the mental pressure she was applying to her hand. The moment in time she’d managed to suspend, simply broke away from her like crumbling ancient paper and, before she could recover her focus, her hand had pulled upward and the door swung open.

  She’d lost the fleeting control she’d gained, but it had been there. For one moment she’d paused the present, or the future, or whatever this thing was that she was caught up in. Once again, though, she was merely a passenger inside her body, sliding inside the car, and throwing her bag onto the seat behind.

  She glanced down at the dashboard clock, grateful she had done that the first time around. Keeping a check of the time now seemed the most important thing in the world.

  4:30

  And twenty seconds. In less than two minutes, her son would pass through the door, wave to her, walk to the car, and then… die.

  Dawn reached across and pulled her phone from her bag. What came next would be insanely pointless. She would check her Facebook account and create a status update. That’s what you do on a normal day. You fill it with unimportant details.

  Today was meant to be normal.

  She posted:

  Doing the after-school run. Tuesday is guitar lesson. Home soon. Anyone else feeling like a taxi?

  About now Kylie would be getting into her car. That’s what a witness had told the police. He’d noticed her because she’d seemed very agitated. Kylie’s phone records were checked; she’d received a text thirty seconds before the accident, a half-written reply was still waiting to be sent.

  Finishing her status update, Dawn looked up at the clock, the same action as the first day down to the smallest flicker of her eyes. Except this time she knew what was coming—his last moments, her last sane moments. Her stomach was on fire. If she could die at this moment and not live through this again, she would. If she could give her life for him, she would.

  He would be packing up his guitar now.

  4:31

  Her hand moved across to grasp the water bottle. Here was another moment to try to alter. She mentally tugged at her own hand, pushing and pulling as if it were a puppet attached to her arm. Even though she used the same amount of pressure as before, she could not assume control.

  She swung the bottle upward, gulping down the water. It didn’t quench her thirst. Had it on that day? She couldn’t remember.

  4:32

  Any second now she would turn her gaze to the rear-vision mirror. A window into horror, the mirror grew in size as she watched. Her pulse throbbed in her ears; the beat was the countdown of the seconds. She didn’t want to look, but she knew she had no choice.

  Coming back, being trapped in a body locked into a timeline, seemed now like a punishment instead of a gift. Watching your son killed once was hell enough. So what was her sin?

  Every nerve in her body burned with anticipation.

  4:32 … and thirty seconds.

  The second hand ticked off the last moments. She heard them in her mind.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Her head turned toward the door. There was Tommy, pushing it open with the guitar case, struggling through. There was the wave, the I see you mom wave. She gave hers back as she reached down to pop the trunk.

  Her fingers found the switch. Don’t pull the lever, she screamed at her body. Every muscle, every wish, every ounce of energy inside her now focused on those fingers, willing them to not lift the latch.

  If she could stop her hand from reaching down, he might not go to the back of the car. He might move back around to her window and ask her what was up.

  Just fourteen seconds was all she needed of him not standing at the back of the car. Fourteen seconds was enough time for that girl to keep driving past them. Then she would never learn her name and never meet her again.

  Every muscle in her body felt pulsed with the energy of her will.

  Please, let this work. Stop this. Please.

  She failed. Another moment, lost.

  No, she screamed inside, as she felt the lever begin to move.

  Then it happened, just like before, as if a trickle of power had seeped through. Her fingers paused, the world spun. Her hand stopped before completing the upward pull.

  A tremble began in her fingers, growing into tremors so violent she felt her wrist might break. Her fingers retreated, actually moved away from the lever.

  Now she just had to hang on to the moment as if she were holding in a breath. She couldn’t look up, because she’d never looked up on that day when she’d pulled at the latch, so she didn’t know how close Tommy was to the car.

  The time must be close. That was all she knew. At least 4:33. Only seconds must remain, before it was over. Then she could release her fingers

  She strained to look in the mirror even though it was an awkward angle. Her fingers were still at the lever, still holding off pulling it.

  It was too much, the drag from the original timeline too strong. Her fingers pulled upward, and she heard the trunk pop. Her body stretched up, and she immediately looked in the mirror.

  He was there at the rear of the car, waiting for her to open the trunk.

  Nooo. Tommy move!

  One second he was looking at her. Smiling. The next, there was just an empty space and the sound of squealing brakes. Gone, just like before.

  Her hand flew from the latch to cover her mouth.

  This time the shock came from knowing she’d been so close. Would it happen all over again? Nothing had changed.

  Oh my God! Oh my God!

  She was out of the car and running to him, grabbing at his body. As before, she was holding and hugging him, but this time she had the insight to tell him how much she loved him and would miss him. Not with words, but with her heart.

  Later at the hospital, instead of waiting for the terrible news she knew was coming, she used the time to think back over the moment she’d changed when she’d paused her body mid-action. That was twice today she’d taken back control. It hadn’t worked, but it could work.

  Ten days lay ahead. Ten days of waiting for the jumping back moment. Ten days of another kind of hell, not grief and mourning, but of praying and hoping she would be given the chance to come back again.

  Movement 7

  The bedside clock, time’s servant, and now Dawn’s master, stared back at her. Time, once so certain, was now a circular path looping in on itself, with Dawn, trapped in two worlds, uncertain of anything and everything.

  One world, the world she inhabited before this, travelled into the future and away from her son and the day that stole him; the other, a Twilight Zone world where she could again have her son alive, but only for a short grief-filled period.

  If she could choose, she’d live forever in the second world, even if for the rest of her life she would return to that day. No matter how painful or tedious it would become, she would accept it, because she would at least have Tommy back. Spending those precious few hours with him, even if they were the same few hours—she would take them. This was akin to Tommy’s life support. Her life support. Like any parent faced with turning off their child’s life support, the idea of losing the chance to save his life was unbearable.

  She could still enjoy the smooth, warm feel of his skin beneath her fingertips as she cupped his face to kiss him goodbye before school. She could still watch him smile, hear his voice, and smell his sweet breath; still feel his hand on her arm as he ran past her to the door.

  She’d been back again so many times she’d lost count. The more she returned, t
he more she’d settled in to the routine. It was no longer like the first dozen times, when she’d spent every waking moment focused on whether or not she’d be given the chance again to come back; those times she’d anxiously waited through the days, counting down the time. She hadn’t known the exact time then. All she’d known was that it happened at some point while she stared at the clock. Then, just before she fell asleep on the tenth night after the accident, she would return.

  In the first few returns, Dawn had made her best attempt to align her thoughts to match those she remembered from the first night. Silently, she would repeat them to herself as best as she could. Her theory had been it could be those exact words that were the spark, the abracadabra magic.

  I want to go back. If only I could go back.

  Even as she focused on the words, she’d question herself. It was craziness. Was this reality or was she in the middle of a nervous breakdown? One day would she awaken in a small room wearing a tight, white jacket?

  The second time she travelled back, there was no warning, no flash of light or sensation to be felt. She was there one moment, repeating the words I must go back and staring at the clock. In the next, she was in the kitchen, Tommy at the bench, the smell of the freshly toasted bread filling her nostrils.

  Even though she didn’t care to eat, didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry, she picked up the toast and began to bite into it. Of course, that was her action previously, so it would be her action every time.

  Dawn put down her toast. Now she would say—had said—something about bringing Nan along to the school music recital. Tommy would then excitedly bounce in his chair. He loved his Nan and wanted her to come along to everything. If her memory was correct, this was a good opportunity. She was about to tell Tommy to calm down in case Nan couldn’t come.

  She brought every ounce of energy to the moment as if speaking were a new skill requiring everything of her to enunciate a few simple words.

  “Tommy, now I don’t want you to g—”

  There. She had it. She’d captured the word as if she’d seized hold of a dangling rope. Her surprise and excitement was multiplied by the fact she’d only been back this time for just a few minutes.

  Tommy appeared unaware anything had changed. He just kept eating, digging into the cereal bowl with his spoon as if he were looking for a surprise at the bottom.

  The next words after “don’t” should have been “get your hopes up.” She’d stopped them from being spoken. Now she forced the next word into her mind, thrust it into the synapses of her brain, and down into the muscles of her jaw to her mouth.

  A pressure built inside her. Her lips quivered as she took control of her body or at least of her mouth. She was doing it. She felt an overwhelming sense of power.

  Okay. Now all she needed to do was say “don’t go to school.” He’d jump on that—wouldn’t even question it. If she could change even one word, then that might change everything.

  Go. That was all she had to say.

  With go out there, then he might say something else, change the script.

  Oh, but it was so hard. She couldn’t get her lips to move. The best she could do was hold in the word get. Tommy had looked at her quizzically for a few seconds, but she could see he simply presumed she’d changed her mind. With barely a second look, he turned back to his bowl.

  Inside she was churning and fighting and willing her mouth to obey, but the words came out exactly as they had before.

  “G-g-get. Get. Your hopes up.”

  Go was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it.

  Tommy didn’t even look up to answer. “I know mom. Nan might be too busy.”

  Dawn’s heart shrank. A gnawing began in her stomach. She’d been so close. It hit her then she probably couldn’t change anything. The chance she’d just had might be the best she would get. Three words were all she had needed, and she couldn’t even get those from her mind to her mouth.

  She’d never felt so alone or so helpless.

  Dawn finished breakfast with Tommy, walked him to the bus stop, and kissed him goodbye. No other opportunity had presented itself during breakfast.

  Throughout the day, she chided herself when doubts entered her mind. After all, she’d stopped the word get for a few seconds. There were so many opportunities ahead where she could stop a movement or pause an action long enough to create a flow on effect. She’d done it before, so she had to believe somewhere, somehow there was a way she could do it again and prevent Tommy’s death.

  All Dawn had to do was find the way.

  Movement 8

  As she had before, Dawn spent the day trying to alter events.

  Once, during a phone call with her mother, she attempted to insert today into the sentence instead of Sunday. This time she couldn’t even pause the word.

  While writing a grocery list, she tried to scrawl out a message of warning she could hand to Tommy, but her hand continued on without a single word changed.

  As she cleaned the house, she focused on her body’s movements. In picking up clothing or washing dishes, she repeatedly attempted to stop or alter the action.

  Over and over, she failed.

  Mentally and emotionally, she grew exhausted, as if she’d spent the entire day carrying a heavy weight around—for all she knew that’s what she was doing. The entire universe felt as if it were pulling at her, engaging her in a cosmic game of tug-of-war.

  By the time she’d picked up Tommy, she was shattered in every sense. She’d resigned herself to take comfort in the few minutes she would share with Tommy before dropping him off at his lesson. If it turned out she never came back again, she wanted to appreciate each treasured moment as if it were their last. Even as a repeat, these were technically still Tommy’s and her last minutes together, and she still felt them in all their heartbreaking poignancy.

  Tommy climbed in the car, smiling. Immediately, he launched into a monologue of his day, a nondescript day, which meant nothing to him, believing like she had the first time around, there were thousands more days to come, a whole life ahead of him. Dawn listened intently, cherishing every word, every inflection, and memorizing every nuance of his face.

  When he walked from the car to the studio, she watched him just as she had done before. She wondered if she’d somehow known the first time she was about to lose him. She hadn’t realized how much she’d watched his movements.

  A subconscious clock in her mind began the countdown—she had thirty minutes.

  Thirty minutes of attempts at stopping the clock.

  Thirty minutes before the nightmare began.

  Thirty minutes until his death.

  After fifteen minutes of waiting and playing on her phone—same Facebook status updates, same news—she left the car. She tried to not reach for her purse, tried to not open the door.

  Failure on both attempts.

  By the time she’d run the supermarket routine to arrive at the checkout, her heart was racing. There were only five to seven minutes left before the accident would play out again.

  Kylie and she repeated their banter.

  This time she really studied the young girl. She’d surprised herself the last time. She’d come away hating her. Dawn couldn’t share the magnanimous feelings toward her son’s killer other people felt for those responsible for the loss of a loved one. She couldn’t forgive. Tommy’s accident was preventable, caused by this thoughtless human being who now stood before her not caring a crap about anything except herself.

  The girl reeked of self-absorption.

  On the outside, Dawn knew she appeared calm and cheerful—she was a mother on her way home to cook the evening meal. Life was normal and pleasant, her attitude complacent and confident. Inside, Dawn felt her anger growing, a wild, hot, blind fury, a volcano of emotion with nowhere to explode.

  She focused on Kylie as the girl pushed the groceries across the scanner. This time she noted the way her gaze darted about, her mind clearly elsewhere. Her pou
ting top lip a signal something in her life was not how she wished it to be. Dawn had missed that the other times.

  Then her son’s killer reached out to her, handing Dawn her change. She unfurled her fingers to accept it.

  Behind her lips were the words Dawn thought every time, “Don’t get in your car. Don’t look at your phone. Don’t ruin my life, you selfish bitch.”

  Dawn pushed at her mind, shoving with the pent-up anger that had nowhere to go. She struggled to calm her emotions; taking control of her body seemed to work better when she was focused.

  Click.

  The gentle sound of a coin dropping and bouncing on the black travelling belt registered in her brain. It took another few seconds for the significance to sink in.

  She still looked at Kylie, still accepted the notes and other coins. What had just happened was swirling and swimming in her mind, as she tried to comprehend it.

  Instinctively, she took the next action. It was a movement she’d never made before. Her hand swooped down to pick up the coin and then dropped it into her wallet. When she looked back up at Kylie, with her metal adornments piercing her face and her bright pink makeup and hair, she saw a twitch in her mouth and a look in her eyes she hadn’t recalled seeing before.

  Then, before she could do or say anything more, Dawn’s legs carried her away with Kylie’s “Have a nice day” following her out of the door.

  Her anger dissipated, washed away by a churning river of possibilities. The action of the coin, dropping so innocuously from her hand, was different and new. She’d never before picked it up, never looked down to place it in her wallet at that moment. The movement, the actions, and her reactions were not part of the original timeline.

  She must have been so angry, so out of control, she’d moved her hand slightly, all without thinking about it. The exciting hope that now filled her was that if this past had been changed, then the future could be changed, not by grand movements but by small degrees.