Behind the Door

by Mary SanGiovanni

  By the time the interviewers were finished with Edna, they were exhausted. So much tragedy and horror had visited the town of Zarephath, and Kathy could see how people would try to fix it using the Door. It was human nature that in times of fear or sorrow, people leaned toward wanting to believe in something over nothing, to take whatever god was available to them: even faceless, nameless gods behind a freestanding door in the woods. It was sad, in a way, but not surprising that their trust in those gods was so often misplaced.

  It was almost six thirty in the evening when they left Edna Tremont at her picnic table and headed back to Bill’s truck. Their other interview that evening was with Ed Richter, owner of the local hardware store. They were scheduled to meet him at his home on the edge of town. Kathy remembered passing the house on her way to meet Bill in the woods. It was the only one that far out, and Kathy suspected Ed liked it that way.

  As they drove out to the place, Kathy asked, “So this guy Ed…what’s he like?”

  She noted that Bill and Cole exchanged a subtle glance before Bill said, “He’s been a townie his whole life, far as I know. No family, few friends, though he knows everyone. Seems okay—quiet. Mostly keeps to himself.”

  “Sounds like a serial killer. That all you’ve got for me?”

  “Not much else to tell, really,” Cole added. “Kind of an odd guy. Bill and I never got complaints about him, though. He’s never been arrested. Guy’s never even gotten a parking ticket.”

  Kathy thought there was more to their opinions of Ed Richter, that they were leaving out something they suspected, though perhaps couldn’t prove. She’d known a lot of cops in her line of work, and had come to understand all the little tells that clued her in on how they thought. She was especially observant of the ways they hid all kinds of things they might not be inclined to tell her. She decided not to press the issue for now, and leaned against the backseat window.

  Outside, the sun was sinking fast behind the tree line, almost too fast for this time of year. Ever since Connecticut, weird weather and light cycles made her suspicious and a little anxious; it wouldn’t have surprised her if the Door could somehow effect time as well as space.

  They arrived at Ed’s house a little after seven pm. As the three got out of the car, Kathy sensed something wrong. The air felt off, subtly crackling with an energy that grazed the skin and raised the tiny hairs all over her body. The house itself seemed unwelcomingly quiet. The car in the driveway slumped against the pavement on four flat tires. The light bulb above the door was broken and the windows were dark. There was a smear of something rusty-brown along the siding of the house just below the front windowsill.

  “None of that’s a good sign,” Bill muttered, gesturing at the house. Cole clicked the safety off his gun.

  The three approached the front door. Bill knocked heavily. When no sounds came from inside, Bill called out, “Ed? Ed, it’s us. You in there?”

  “Looks like we got blood,” Cole said, examining the smear by the window. “Can’t see much inside.”

  Bill nodded, and he and Kathy moved out of the way so Cole and his gun could enter first. Cole tried the front door and found it unlocked. He eased the door open, gun raised, and the three went inside.

  * * * *

  Across town, Kari was bleeding heavily. Jessica had come just as the sun had begun to sink behind the trees.

  The first time Kari had seen her since her death, the girl had looked much like she did when Kari had found her. That night, her skin had been cold and clammy, bluish around the lips and fingertips, and she hadn’t been breathing. There was vomit on her chin and all over the front of her nightgown. Kari had found that despite her whimpering panic, a current of measured control coursed through her that allowed her to think, to turn Jessica on her side and then call 911 on her cell. It had been too late, though. Jessica had stopped breathing an hour or so before Kari found her, having chosen to take the pills right after Kari had tucked her in and kissed her good night. Kari hadn’t seen her again until she herself came up to bed and went in to check on her daughter.

  Now, when Jessica visited, she looked like she was falling apart. In so many of Kari’s worst dreams, Jessica, her only baby, was rotting alone in the cold ground, the little life that Kari had a hand in creating snuffed out, and its delicate little shell putrefying, devoured by worms. Those dreams would leave her gasping for air, clawing the dark toward wakefulness. Even now, the thought gave her panic attacks. She couldn’t bear to think of her beautiful little girl like that. And every time Kari felt a chill and a hum in her chest—the usual indications of Jessica’s return—the decaying waif that came to confront her embodied every horror Kari had ever feared.

  Also, please let her rest in peace knowing, wherever she is, that she is very much loved by her mother and father, Kari had written in her note. It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d opened the Door that this specific part of the note would be undone too. It had been stupid of her not to remember—stupid, stupid, stupid. Now her daughter was a restless, rotting thing deprived of the simple comfort and security of undoubtable parents’ love.

  If that thing was her daughter, that was. Whether it was or whether it was some kind of manifestation of her daughter that the Door was using to punish her didn’t much seem to matter; the feelings were the same. The result was the same. The implication was the same: that her daughter had once again been wronged by her own mother.

  Jessica didn’t physically hurt Kari at first. In the last day or so, that had changed. At first, it was just little scratches to the face or small, ineffectual fists on her back. Kari had been surprised that Jessica could actually touch her. She’d harbored the thought in the back of her mind that despite the emotional and mental pain the girl was capable of causing, Jessica was still just a phantom or thought form brought into being by her guilt, Jessica’s unrest, or the Door’s malevolent whims. It had never really been a concern that Jessica could or would hurt her.

  Dusk was descending on Zarephath, and when Jessica lunged at her from the shadows, Kari cried out in surprise as much as pain. Jessica had been a blur and a hum and a banshee cry of anger as she flashed by, and her punch rocked Kari back a little. The blood gushed from her left nostril in a hot stream, pattering onto the hardwood floor of the hallway where she stood, shocked.

  Kari screamed a few seconds later, a leak in the dam holding back her pain and frustration. The sound hung in her daughter’s wake. Where had Jessica gone? Was she coming back?

  A sharp crack to the back of Kari’s head answered her question. Kari saw white fireworks in front of her eyes for a second before she could wheel around and face her attacker.

  No one stood behind her.

  “Jessica?” she cried out. “Jessica! Why are you—”

  Kari caught a flash of angry eyes before a sharp blow to her gut forced the rest of her sentence out as a huff of air. She doubled over, clutching her stomach. She managed to stumble toward the den before what felt like a kick to the ribs toppled her over onto her side. She groaned, trying to roll over onto her knees and get up. A flurry of brown hair and another blow to her face split the skin along her cheek, and another knocked her down again.

  She looked up, glancing around the room in terror. She saw no sign of Jessica anywhere. The blood on her face was growing sticky and the back of her head felt wet, her hair matted. She pulled herself to her knees once more and began to crawl toward the kitchen. Her purse was in there and her cell sat inside her purse. She had to call that lady from the town meeting, the one who could make them behind the Door stop.

  Little feet blocked her way, bare and crusted with dirt and hovering just an inch or so off the floor. Kari looked up. Jessica glared down at her, skinny arms folded beneath the beginnings of breasts. She wore the dress that Kari had buried her in, though it was shredded now along the hem, crusted with vomit along the front. One sleeve was torn at the shoulder
and hung almost to her elbow.

  “Jessica,” she breathed. “Stop this. Please!”

  Jessica said nothing. Kari knew that stubborn look well, that expression of preteen defiance that had promised only to get stronger and more unmanageable as Jessica grew older.

  “Please, baby. Let’s talk. Talk to me. Tell me what happened so I can try to make it right.” Her words had sounded weak in her own ears, but it still hurt to hear such derisive laughter from her daughter. Make things right? that laughter said. When have you EVER made anything right?

  The girl above her sank to the floor and crouched down. She moved in toward her mother so that her face was close, very close to Kari’s. Every fiber in Kari’s being screamed at her to flinch, to move away, to escape the miasma of rot that Jessica’s skin and hair gave off, a cloying smell that crept down Kari’s throat. The part of her brain that could focus through her own fog of pain was tensely coiled, expecting a bite or some other savage attack to the face.

  It was hard not to look into those eyes. They had always been so beautiful, so blue, and now they were misted with the desiccation of unblinking death, a film that prevented Kari from truly seeing into her daughter, and likewise, from Jessica truly seeing out.

  Her face was so close. Her teeth….

  The girl twitched and flickered.

  “Jessie, baby—”

  The girl wavered out of focus for a second, two, and then was gone.

  Kari crumpled to the floor and bawled, her tears and blood mixing, drawing the dust on the floor to adhere to her skin. She lay there a long time, letting those fluids of life and feeling drain away. When she finally sat up, she felt dried out and a little dizzy. She managed to pull herself to her feet, groaning from all the places that hurt, and shuffle over to her purse on the counter. She fumbled with the phone, but eventually found the number she had entered for Kathy Ryan. She pushed the little green call circle on the screen and listened to it ring.

  When the voice mail picked up, Kari said, “Ms. Ryan…It’s Kari. They can hurt us. They can kill us if they want to. And it’s my fault. I don’t know how to fix it. I opened the Door. I closed it again, but I guess I wasn’t fast enough. Please, please stop them. They’re going to kill us. Please check on Cicely.”

  Then she hung up. The world was dissolving into little pinpoints of white. She managed to drop the phone back into her purse before she fainted, dropping heavily to the floor.

  Chapter 11

  The hallway of Ed Richter’s house was absolutely silent, so much so that Kathy’s internal alarm bells went off. It wasn’t just the absence of the sounds of human life—breathing or snoring, rustling of clothing, shuffling of footsteps—but the utter lack of sound throughout the residence. No clocks ticked softly into the room, and no TV or radio shilled indispensable products or mindless entertainment. There was no groan of old water pipes or creak of settling foundations, no buzz of latent electricity or trickling of water. There was no music of crickets and tree frogs from the open window. Although a house missing any one of those sounds was nothing unusual, a house missing all of those sounds certainly was, particularly given the proximity of Ed’s house to the edge of the woods where only an hour’s hike in stood the Door. It was as if sound was somehow dampened, if not swallowed entirely inside the house; even their own footsteps and whispered words seemed hollow and devoid of substance.

  Cole checked and cleared each room as they made their way from the front hall to the den. Then Cole cleared the other rooms before returning to say, “He’s not here. Doesn’t look like anyone is.”

  “Maybe he stepped out,” Bill said, but he didn’t sound like he believed the idea any more than Kathy or Cole did.

  Kathy looked around the den. Clearly, this was where Ed spent most of his time. There was a TV remote and a small forest of beer bottles on the side table by the couch and another handful on the coffee table. A large TV stood on an old wooden stand. A small oscillating fan in the den spun along soundlessly, generating its modest breeze. The window in this room was open; it was the one under which they’d seen a smear of blood. Kathy examined the windowsill, expecting to find more, but she didn’t. Instead, she found streaks of something bluish, almost the consistency of grape jelly.

  “Did you see any blood in any of the other rooms? Signs of struggle?” she asked, turning to Cole.

  The big man shook his head. “Nothing like that. Some indication that he burned a bunch of Post-it notes in an ashtray in the bedroom, but otherwise….” He shrugged.

  “Guy’s old,” Cole said. “Maybe he forgot we were coming and went out.”

  “Car’s in the driveway,” Bill said. “Maybe someone picked him up?”

  “Maybe,” Kathy mumbled. “Or something dragged him out.”

  Cole cocked an eyebrow at her.

  Kathy pointed to the bluish substance on the windowsill. “There’s that—don’t touch it. If it’s from something that came from behind the Door, it could be poisonous.”

  Cole drew his fingers back, wiping them on his uniform anyway.

  “So…what’s the likelihood he’s still alive, then? What are we looking at here, a missing person or a dead one?” Bill threw up his hands.

  “Hard to say. I think we should proceed with this as a missing persons situation. Does Ed have any friends? We should start there, then maybe try the woods in the daylight. We still don’t have conclusive proof of these things being able to kill anyone.”

  Bill shot her a look. “Kathy, you know they can. People are hurt, sick, dying. The Door is doing that.”

  Kathy squeezed his shoulder. “I know that. I know. I believe the townspeople are in real danger. I do. But we won’t know exactly what kind of danger until we get more information. We need to find Ed and at this point, gather up anyone else we haven’t talked to yet, or we might not have anyone left to talk to.”

  Bill nodded. “We could try Toby’s place.”

  “Who?”

  “Toby Vernon. He’s…well, he comes out here to see Ed sometimes. I guess you could say they’re friends. If Ed’s still alive and not here or at the store, there’s a chance he’s with Toby.”

  “Okay, good,” Kathy said. “Let’s start there, then. I have his address in my notes. Let’s pay Toby Vernon a visit.”

  She pulled out her cell phone and noticed a missed call from an hour before and a voice-mail message. She frowned. She’d never heard the phone ring.

  “I have a missed call,” she said, checking the list. “Looks like it’s from Kari Martin.” She put the phone on speaker and played the message.

  “Ms. Ryan…It’s Kari. They can hurt us. They can kill us if they want to. And it’s my fault. I don’t know how to fix it. I opened the Door. I closed it again, but I guess I wasn’t fast enough. Please, please stop them. They’re going to kill us. Please check on Cicely.”

  The three stared at each other.

  “This puts a wrinkle in things,” Bill said.

  “We’ll have to split up. Sheriff Cole, would you mind picking up Kari and this Cicely she mentions?”

  “Sure thing,” Cole said. “Just drop me back off at my patrol car.”

  “Thanks. Bill and I will check out Toby’s place. We’ll meet back at the Heritage Center basement at ten-thirty.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Bill said, digging his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  Bill dropped Sheriff Cole off at his patrol car in the parking lot of the Heritage Center and waited while the big man got out his keys. They couldn’t afford to lose anyone else and Bill wanted to make sure Cole got off safely. The sheriff honked as he drove off, and Bill pulled back onto the road.

  “Things are falling apart,” Bill said softly. “This whole town…it’s falling apart.”

  Kathy, who had spent the better part of her life uncomfortable around me
n’s pain, looked out the window. “All towns fall apart. And people rebuild them. It’s going to be okay. Not every place is Thrall.”

  “Where?”

  Kathy turned and smiled at him. “Never mind. My point is, we’ll fix this, okay? We’ll find a way.”

  “It was going to happen sooner or later. I always knew it. We weren’t ever meant to have things like the Door in our world. It ain’t something human beings should ever have had to live with. Too much temptation and too much of stuff far beyond most folks’ comprehension. It ain’t right.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Kathy agreed. “But it isn’t as uncommon as you might think. You know how I know there’s a place for us to go after death? Huh? You know why I know there’s an afterlife?”

  Bill shot her a sidelong glance. “Tell me you’ve seen heaven.”

  “Oh, hell no, not that I know of. If I knew there was a heaven, I’d have found a way to get out of here years ago. But I have seen other worlds, or at least doorways to them. Some of them are absolutely terrifying. Some spin on axes of utter indifference and some are fueled by malice and hate. But some of them are beautiful and safe, Bill. And what is heaven, really, but a beautiful, safe plane of existence different than ours? Heaven and hell are, theoretically, beyond most folks’ comprehension, and yet humans have lived thousands of years alongside those concepts, living and dying, fighting and sacrificing for them.” She patted his shoulder. “Your townspeople here, they’re strong. They’re not perfect, but I think for the most part, they strive to be good. They try to be better than they were yesterday, better than those who came before them. And they’ve lived a long time alongside that Door. Whatever is going on, they’ll weather it. We’ll weather it.”

  Bill offered a small, grateful grin. “Thanks, Kathy.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  Bill looked like he was about to say something else when his expression fell and suddenly, the car swerved. He rolled to a stop on the side of the road.