Behind the Door

by Mary SanGiovanni

  “I have?”

  “Yes, you have,” Kathy said. “I’ll add what you told me to my notes, do a little comparing, and hopefully we’ll find a way to get everything back to normal, okay?”

  She glanced at the little girl as she picked up the toolbox and rose. “There’s a room in back here, an office, that we can speak to each of you privately in, if you have anything at all to contribute about the Door. Even if something seems little or unimportant to you, let us know anyway. It could be that little, seemingly unimportant detail that serves as the last piece of the puzzle. As for the rest of you, I would caution that at least for the next few hours, you remain here. Make yourselves comfortable. We’ll put a pot of coffee on. Kick off your shoes. But please stay here. We’re pretty sure that these things are more likely to attack when you’re alone, or in small numbers. Bill, Sheriff Cole—a word, please?” She indicated the office and the two men rose to follow her.

  Once inside the office, she set the toolbox down on the desk next to her file on the Door of Zarephath. Mrs. Pulaski of the Historical Society had been kind enough to lend both her office and her desk to the three of them as a command center. Kathy was going to need it now more than ever.

  The men sat in chairs opposite the desk and Kathy sat behind it.

  “Those things Kari Martin was describing—I saw one,” Cole said. Kathy and Bill gaped at him, but his gaze was fixed on the toolbox. “When I went to pick her up. I heard noises in the house and went to check it out. She was in the back of the cruiser then. And when I came out, one of those things was on the hood.”

  “Did you kill it?” Kathy asked.

  “Tried to,” Cole replied. “I don’t know if I killed it or hurt it or just pissed it off. The first few times I shot at it, nothing happened, but then I nailed it right in the mouth, and that got the thing all bothered. It sort of…well, it’s tough to explain, but it sort of sucked itself up into itself. It disappeared.”

  “So they have weak spots, at least,” Kathy said. “Good work, Sheriff Cole.”

  “Thanks,” Cole answered, looking surprised. “I was just focusing on how to get it off my car and get Ms. Martin here safely. Now, I gotta ask—what’s in the toolbox? Seeing as how you look a bit worse for wear, if you don’t mind my saying so, I figure it’s important enough. Me, I’m hoping it’s some kind of interdimensional rocket launcher.”

  “Nothing as fun as that, I’m afraid,” Kathy said. “We found it in the Kilmeisters’ garage. All we know is that Grant Kilmeister was in possession of this thing, and that it comes from the other side of the Door. I’m not sure how it got here, and it looks like the only people who can tell us are dead or missing.”

  Cole looked floored. “The Kilmeisters?”

  “Both dead,” Bill said.

  “And Ed Richter?”

  “Toby Vernon says he was taken. By what or to where, we don’t know.”

  Cole frowned. “This is turning out to be one hell of a shit show.”

  “No kidding,” Bill agreed.

  “And what’s in this box,” Kathy said, “could make things much worse. We need to keep it locked in this office until we figure out what to do with it. There’s an inscription on the box inside this toolbox, and it would be useful to know what that inscription means.”

  She opened the file, stuffed with papers messily paper-clipped and stapled to each other or the folder itself. Flipping through the pages, she unclipped a packet with runic writing and handwritten notes on it, turned it around, and slid it across the desk to the men.

  “What’s this?” Bill asked, leafing through the packet.

  “As much of the language carved in the stones around the Door as some colleagues and I have been able to decipher. As you can see, we have most of the inscription figured out, thanks to a faint second set of characters, almost like a shadow to the prominent ones.” She handed them a close-up photo of the Door and pointed to the stonework surrounding it. “Your Door was never meant to be a wishing well. In fact, it came with a warning; the first few words are essentially Enter not, nor give your soul to them behind this Door. It’s a rough translation, of course. The word soul is probably closer to the idea of essence, and them may be a more literal translation than a pronoun. Anyway, there’s this missing piece here, and the words key and lock and what we think might be some sort of time frame.

  “We aren’t sure, of course, who inscribed the stone or why—clearly, it wasn’t our god-monsters warning people away from feeding them. More likely, these inscribers built the Door or were Travelers who used it. That second set of inscriptions we discovered,” she explained, pointing to a thinner, fainter set of runes around the Door’s frame, “were actually Latin words, while the primary runes were in an alien tongue. It was like whoever inscribed them wanted to make sure that no one from either side made the mistake of opening the Door. And the aspects we can’t translate are the parts where the Latin version is too faint or worn away completely.

  “Now, my guess is, if those inscribers built or used the Door and even they couldn’t remove it but only warn others about it, then we don’t stand much of a chance of getting rid of it, either. Your town may be stuck with the structure itself. However, the inscription does mention a lock and key. My theory is that however this box got here, that process triggered the unlocking of the Door. Maybe it was a letter some unthinking, curious individual wrote asking for a little keepsake or knickknack from that other dimension. Maybe it was a remnant of those ancient Travelers, unearthed somewhere and then forgotten about in an attic until the Kilmeisters came to be in possession of it. But I think its materializing in this world may have acted as a sort of key. And maybe none of it would have mattered if Kari Martin had never actually opened the Door. But she did. My hope is that we can use this thing to relock the Door. I just need to work out how.”

  The men were quiet for several moments, thinking about what she had said. She thought she read a lot of mixed feelings into their expressions, and so kept quiet, letting them process. Confusion led to panic and she needed them to be clear and in control.

  Finally, Cole broke the silence. “We need to ask that Toby Vernon fella everything he can remember Ed telling him about this box. Bill and I could talk to him while you work on whatever’s written on the box in there.” He gestured at the toolbox. “In the meantime, I’ll call my deputies back in and have them guard this place. Guns…well, they don’t do much other than scare the things off, far as I can tell, but at least that could buy us some time, keep those things at bay for a bit.”

  “And after we talk to Toby, I think we ought to round up these other folks and give them something to do. Keep their minds occupied,” Bill said. “We don’t need any nervous breakdowns. Asking them about the Kilmeisters might be helpful. Putting them to use in some plan I hope you’re forming in that pretty little head would be better.”

  Kathy winked at him. “Great ideas. I’m genuinely glad you two are on this case with me. You’ve both been invaluable.”

  The men looked pleased, even if they did their best to mask it behind fidgeting and clearing their throats.

  “Hey,” Bill added, “I saw that guy Ted sitting with the Latin teacher from the local high school, Rob Sherman. I can give him the heads-up that you might need his expertise, if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said.

  The men got up to leave. At the door, Cole turned and asked, “Is, uh…is that thing poisonous? I mean, is this a quarantine type of situation?”

  Kathy said, “At the moment, no. If there was a biological threat, you’d have all been infected long ago. It’s not dangerous like a disease, locked up like that. It’s more like…a caged tiger. If we open it, though….”

  “Got it,” Cole said with a nod, and he and Bill let themselves out of the office.

  Kathy sighed as she sank into the desk chair, her injuries howling and h
er body exhausted.

  It was a valid concern that Cole had raised. What had been happening to Mrs. Kilmeister’s body before she died suggested it was more than probable that something inside that box could change people into…something else. In most cases she had consulted on, contamination of that sort hadn’t been an issue. Many of the dimensional beings she had dealt with were not capable of introducing alien pathogens except possibly when solid, and most chose not to be. Post-case scans of people and objects for trace remnants of other worlds returned negative results. Occasionally, she did find herself wondering if her very fiber, physically and mentally; her mind, heart, and lungs; her flaws and abilities; her thoughts and dreams, were impacted somehow by her exposure to elements from other dimensions. She was fully aware intellectually that every case she took on might be exposing her body, mind, and soul to a kind of supernatural radiation and that over time, it might very well change her. It was an occupational hazard, but generally not a serious consideration for the people in affected interdimensional hot spots. She didn’t often let herself think of being caught decades from now in the grip of some alien cancer or mutation, but once in a while, it crept into her thoughts. It was one reason she had never had children—one of many, given her family’s history, as well as her profession—and one reason that until Reece, she had never been much inclined to settle down. The doctors gave her a clean bill of health every year or so; sure, they told her to cut down on her drinking, but invariably, they were amazed that the amount of alcohol she admitted to consuming had done no discernible damage to her body. Both the drinking and the stunning lack of liver damage she believed to be by-products of her job, and so far, the only qualifiable or quantifiable effects. All those other worlds and other dimensions and the denizens within that she had pissed off were going to make damned sure she could never drink herself to death, at least until they could get a crack at her again. Lucky her.

  She stared at the toolbox for several minutes before finally undoing the clasp and opening the lid. The blue glow was fainter, as if the thing inside the wooden box was sleeping. She reached in and very carefully, took the wooden box out and placed it on the desk. She frowned. There was a symbol carved on the lid that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed back in the garage. It was crudely carved, an oversimplified pictogram, really, but it looked very much like the Door in the woods. Had that carving been there before? Or were the contents of the box so malleable as to be remaking themselves into what she needed them to be? Was that it? Did the Kilmeisters open the box expecting a monster, and so they found one?

  Kathy shivered. It was the first artifact she had dealt with that genuinely scared her.

  She turned the box over, copied the inscription along the bottom onto a piece of paper, and then put the box back inside the toolbox, closing the lid and fastening the clasps.

  Then she got to work.

  Chapter 15

  As Bill Grainger and Sheriff Cole approached him, Toby felt a pang of unease that years of practice allowed him to hide well. He hated that cornered animal feeling, when all the muscles in his body were tense, ready to strike or run. He also hated how easily all the little manipulations and practiced survival mechanisms had come back to him since the opening of the Door. Police had always made him intrinsically nervous, but adding to his discomfort was Bill, an ex-sheriff himself, with a very dangerous bit of information about the predatory weakness in Toby’s lifestyle, which he may or may not have shared with the local law.

  Toby knew what happened to guys like him when there was any wiggle room whatsoever in dispensing justice. Toby would never make it to jail. What was left of his tortured and mangled remains would be dumped in a ditch on the side of a highway. It had happened to others he knew. Word got around on the forums. Rabid dogs were put down, not treated to a stay at a hospital or even a jail. One less rabid dog in a rural community was just fine by the folks who lived there.

  Sheriff Cole was a very large man. Bill was a very strong-looking one, despite his age.

  The men turned the folding chairs around and sat across from him.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” he asked evenly.

  “As a matter of fact,” Bill said, “you can.”

  “We’d like to ask you about Ed Richter and what he told you about that box you all found in Grant’s garage,” Sheriff Cole said.

  “Don’t know that I can offer much more than I have on the subject, but I’ll try.”

  “Mr. Vernon,” the sheriff began.

  “Toby,” he offered. If he could establish himself as a real human being, with a real name, he thought he might be harder to beat up in an alley somewhere later.

  “Toby,” Sheriff Cole said. “Please just tell us exactly what he told you, everything he said regarding Grant’s box.”

  “Okay,” Toby said, shifting forward in his seat. “Well, he mentioned a few nights before he—uh, Wednesday night, I guess. The night of the town meeting. I offered to stay on the couch again, but he said no, so I said I’d stay at least until he fell asleep. Safety in numbers, like Kathy Ryan said, you know? Ed hadn’t been sleeping well, even with the booze. I think those things were at him day and night. When they weren’t beating the shit out of him, then it was terrorism—leaving little threatening notes, spray-painting things on his walls, breaking windows, knifing his tires, leaving little signs and messages everywhere. He was exhausted from covering it all up.”

  “Covering what up? The paint?” the sheriff asked.

  “Uh, yeah. The paint, the notes, everything. Ed was a private kind of guy and these…things…were dragging all his most personal stuff out into the light and throwing it in his face. Ed may not have been a saint—none of us are, really—but he was a good friend to me. He was an ear and a shoulder to a lot of people in this town. He didn’t deserve to get beaten up like that, mentally or physically.”

  “I’ll take your word for that,” the sheriff said, “not being fully aware of what skeletons, exactly, were being dragged out of his closet.”

  Toby chose not to respond to the undertone in the sheriff’s comment. “Anyway, he and I were watching the woods. He told me they usually came from the woods, and it turned out he was right. But that night, nothing came, and Ed and I hung out like we used to. It was…kind of nice, actually. I think for a little while, a couple of hours maybe, we both forgot about the Door.

  “Then all of a sudden, he got this really serious look on his face. Dead sober, he said to me, ‘You know Grant Kilmeister?’ I told him I did; I knew Grant in passing. I’d brought my car to his shop a couple of times, saw him at the Alexia once in a while, that sort of thing. His wife was always friendly to me.” Toby thought about the twisted, monstrous mess he’d seen in the Kilmeisters’ garage and shuddered. “I asked why and Ed said, ‘Told me at the diner this morning that he’s got something from there,’ and he nodded at the woods. So I said, ‘What, the woods?’ And he said, ‘No, the Door. From there behind the Door, wherever that place is.’ And I guess I looked like I thought that was bullshit because he shrugged and said, ‘I thought the same thing—bullshit. Nobody’s ever seen nothing from that side of the Door. But he swears he has it in a box and that he needs to get rid of it. Says it can kill people and he don’t want to hold onto it no more.’ So I asked him how Grant came to have it and he said he didn’t know. I guess Flora came back from the ladies’ room then and he got all quiet about it.

  “I remember I asked him if he thought that this thing that Grant had was what was causing all this trouble with the Door. He said no, because Grant had had it for years, then…uh, didn’t have it, then had it again. I don’t know where it was when he didn’t have it. Ed didn’t know, either.

  “And that was about it. Ed was talking about how all of us who’d asked the Door for something were screwed and got on this kick again that maybe we ought to be screwed, and I didn’t want to go down that road with him again, so I ch
anged the subject. Maybe twenty minutes later, he was asleep and I left.”

  “And tonight?” Sheriff Cole asked.

  “Tonight,” Toby answered, “the stuff in our letters came back to bite us in the ass.”

  “You told Bill and Kathy that Ed was taken away.”

  Toby eyed him evenly. “Yes.”

  “By what?”

  “Children.”

  “Children?” Sheriff Cole cocked an eyebrow.

  “They looked like children. At least, at first they did.” Toby couldn’t tell if the sheriff’s expression was one of genuine confusion, or the disgust of a dawning realization. He fought every instinct in him to bolt out of that chair.

  Bill said, “Tell him, Toby.”

  Toby looked away. It felt disloyal to his friend, but he said, “Ed had a problem. With little boys. I think it had been a while, since—well, Ed’s an old man now. I don’t guess the feelings ever go away, but I figure you eventually get too old to act on them, or even want to.”

  He still couldn’t look at the men, but he could feel their eyes on him, and the waves of moral indignation rolling off them like heat. “He asked the Door once to protect him from the wrath of…well, everyone. Anyone who might find out, or even suspect. He asked to be free of ever getting caught. And he knew…these last few days he knew that what he’d asked for was wrong, that karma finds its path to you one way or another. Ed, he thought the whole lot of us, everyone who had ever asked anything of the Door, were all getting what we finally deserved.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know. There are as many kinds of sins as there are sinners. I don’t think I’m in any position to judge what other people deserve.”