Outside That Door

by Jennifer Robins

  Moving along carefully, his only fear was coming up against the same or another large brown bear again. He might not be so lucky the next time. At least the sky looked clear and the morning sun brought promise of a warmer day. He moved on, hoping he could find answers to what was happening.

  Suddenly the shock of a wild rabbit racing across the path in front of him had him ducking behind a large bush. His heart leaped up into his throat. He took a deep breath when he realized what it was. Reluctantly, he returned to his journey. The sound of flowing water distracted him, and he froze for a moment to listen, to distinguish where it came from. He looked to his right then proceeded. The narrow organically-formed path led in the direction of the sound. Everything had changed so much. He thought of the river where he went fishing. It must be the same one, he thought as he moved forward.

  In his peripheral vision he saw sudden movement to his left and turned quickly. A long, black, slithering snake joggled past his boots and quickly disappeared in the brush on the other side. To swallow the lump in his throat seemed impossible. His mouth now dry, he couldn’t even try. Deep breaths of cold air only made his mouth feel worse. Overhead, the sun beat down through the parted dark clouds, threatening rain. It meant he would have to hurry along with his inspection.

  The path took him right to the foot of the river where he looked out across the water at what used to be cottages, piers and fishing boats. Nothing but trees, brush and what appeared to be another path going deep into the forest which traveled out as far as he could see.

  The open area of earth in front of him had evidence of something once placed there, like a small boat or maybe a canoe. The imprint on the ground was narrow but long. Alongside of it, foot prints of bare feet. Apparently the item had been dragged to the water. Carl was not aware of any canoeing done at the park but, then again, this was no longer the park, at least not the one he knew.

  No point in staying any longer. He turned around to head back. It was still best to be careful and as quiet as he could be on his return journey. This search revealed nothing he had hoped it would.

  Sprinkles of rain hit his head and face as he walked along the pathway, causing him to speed up his pace. Clouds in the sky had now covered the sun, and the rumble of thunder could be heard overhead becoming louder, signaling a storm about to happen. Out from a bush to his left ran a groundhog. It scurried off to another place further into the thick underbrush surrounding the area. The skies had darkened with only bright streaks of lightening, followed by more thunder that walked across the sky with loud rumbling.

  The sudden downpour, cold, strong, and blinding, hit him as he ran to take cover in the cottage, still several yards away. He struggled to keep the fierce rain from soaking through the top of his jacket as he held it close to his chin, tightly around his neck. A vine wrapped around his ankle bringing him to his knees. He pulled himself back up after ripping the tough rope-like plant’s hold on him. A muddy stain on his pants soaked through to his skin, but he kept on until he finally came within a yard of the cottage. His step hastened, his heart beat faster, and he ran to the door, grabbed frantically at the knob and swung the door open.

  Once inside, he yelled for Beth. She came running out from the bedroom. The rain dripped from his hair down to his eyes, his clothes were soaked, and his boots had mud climbing up the sides.

  “You’re a mess.” Beth grabbed a towel from the counter to wrap around his head. “I didn’t know it was raining so hard out there. Are you all right?”

  “Do I look all right?” He took the towel from her to wipe his head and eyes. “I just want to get out of these wet clothes. I’m freezing.” The cold and wild experience outside had Carl at his wit’s end. He started to take it out on Beth which was something he never did before. He needed to get it together and calm down.

  “I made some tea; the water is still hot. I’ll fix you a cup. Go to the bedroom and put on something dry,” she told him as she reached for a cup from the shelf above the sink.

  The fire in the fireplace was down to only two half-burned logs, but the room felt warm to him. He pulled the wet clothes off and laid them on the bedroom floor. The suitcase on the bed lay open with some of his things out on the bed. Without hesitation, he quickly put on clean, dry clothes and a heavy sweater. As he moved around the room looking for his watch, he suddenly realized he could not hear the thunder. Did the storm stop? he wondered. Could it have stopped so quickly?

  Out in the living room he put a log he brought in with him on the fire, and then hurried to the kitchen. At the door he put his hand on the knob, paused a moment before he opened it. As he looked outside, lightening flashed across the sky followed by loud earth-shaking thunder. He closed the door, but inside he heard nothing. Beth stood by the table watching him with fear written all over her face. He could see she also heard and seen what he did.

  “This is very strange. I don’t like it. I know you heard what’s out there—well, where the heck is it now?” He slammed his hand down on the table. “This place is not soundproof.”

  Frightened by his outburst, she went to him. “There has to be some logical explanation for all of this. It just doesn’t happen.” She raised her hand to touch his head, but he pushed it away and went back to the door.

  This time, when he opened it he stepped outside to look around. It was still raining, so he didn’t stay there long, just long enough to verify what he had experienced those few moments before. His face grew pale, his hands shook, but he wouldn’t let her near the door when she started to approach him. He held his fingers to his lips for her to be quiet and listen.

  Tabitha meowed for something to eat as she sat by the kitchen counter, looking up at the can opener. Her cry for food was the only sound they heard.

  “Why in the world can’t we hear the storm in here?” Carl bellowed.

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to feed this cat before she drives us nuts.” The cat stood high, with her front paws stretched up to Beth’s thighs. Once the food was placed in her bowl, the furry feline pounced on it.

  The worried couple moved to the living room where the heat from the fireplace could warm Carl and dry his hair. Chilled to the bone, he shivered as he sat on the sofa in front of the fire. Beth brought his cup of tea in. Handing it to him, she asked the big question, “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered as he reached up to take the cup from her. He sipped at the hot tea. “There has to be a way out of this, some kind of reason for what is happening.” He shook his head and set the cup down on the coffee table.

  Beth circled the room as she clasped her hands together holding them down close to her waist.

  The solemn look on her face let her thoughts be known. She came back around in front of him.

  “We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

  “Sit down… Let me think.” He motioned to her to take a place in the chair across from him. She sat.

  Carl leaned back on the sofa, his eyes closed, hands crossed on his lap. How to come up with something logical was more than he could put together, but he had to think of something—something logical, workable, but what? Never having faced anything like this, it became almost impossible to understand.

  Beth fidgeted in the chair and looked at him with real anticipation, but she remained silent. When she finally couldn’t take it anymore she stood and shouted, “What are you doing?”

  Her outburst brought him forward with anger in his eyes. “I’m trying to figure out what we should do. That is what you wanted from me, right?”

  “I think we should go out there and find someone who can help us. There has to be a place where others are. They didn’t just all disappear.”

  He thought a moment. “You might be right, but we have to be very careful. You don’t know how bad it is out there.” He went back into the kitchen toward the door. She followed him. When he opened it they saw the rain had stopped, but the skies were still cloudy. He closed the door and sat at the
table. She pulled out a chair to join him.

  “We will need to wait until tomorrow morning. It’s getting late in the day to go out there again.” The late fall days had gotten shorter, leaving less daylight. “Besides, it’s all wet from the downpour.” He reached for her hand. “I’m worried about you going with me. I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s better to wait until I’m sure it’s clear out there and no more storms on the horizon.”

  “Well, I’m not going to sit around here again waiting for you to come back. You know how scary that is?” She pulled her hand away from him. “I’m going with you.”

  “All right, but for the rest of today, we will prepare for this. We need to stay calm while we do this. It’s all too weird but I don’t think either of us can afford to lose it. What I mean is…”

  “I know what you mean, so stop talking about it.” She went to the cooler. “We need to eat, so I’m going to prepare something of a meal for us.”

  The two separated. Carl went to the bedroom while Beth remained in the kitchen searching for ways to fix some kind of meal. She checked the dry foods first but discarded most as not good enough. Potato chips or pretzels might be good to take along with them and the bag of chocolate cookies or the granola bars she liked so well made a good pick-me-up snack if they needed it. Don’t forget a couple of bottles of water. For now, it had to be something filling, nourishing. She was sure it was past the noon hour and heading for late afternoon, but what the exact time was she didn’t know for sure. At least, while in the confines of the cottage, their watches were still working. But every time Carl went outside that door wearing his watch, it would stop.

  “What time do you have?” he asked as he proceeded to reset his watch. “I can’t understand why I lose the time when I go out. Everything about this is becoming more bizarre by the minute.”

  “What difference does it make, what time it is? Doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere.”

  “I just like to know, that’s all.”

  The fire in the fireplace would provide a means for her to cook something decent for them to eat. The large log Carl had brought in would last for hours. The cooler had steaks and other perishables that could be cooked over the fire, but how to do it was another problem. A large iron skillet had the best chance of making it through the extreme heat. She worried about how long any of the food would last without refrigeration, so it would be a good idea to cook up those steaks before they became questionable.

  In the bedroom, Carl searched through the clothing they brought with them for items suitable to wear for their uncharted journey in the morning. The elements outside were such that they would need something warm. He could hear his wife out in the living room preparing their food on an open fire. His thoughts meandered back to the many cookouts on the grill and the succulent medium rare T-bones they often had, but eating a steak no matter how it was cooked stirred his appetite. They needed the strength from food to be able to go on with a search they were about to undertake. A journey out in the wild virgin grounds beyond their door had him deeply concerned. How far could they go before finding someone, something to give them an answer to what was happening?

  The fire leaped upward to the open skillet resting on a long log stretched from one end of the fireplace to the other. Beth had it balanced with another log beside the burning one. The thick sirloin sizzled as it cooked. This might have been fun had it been done outside on an open fire with some nearby friends and a keg of beer, the kind of event so common there in the park when everyone came for the weekends. But that wasn’t the case this cool, wet, fall day in the mountains. There was no fun whatsoever about this kind of undertaking.

  The buns they had for hamburgers had a place next to the almost well-done steak she put on their plates. Asking for a choice of rare, medium, or well was out of the question; you got what you got. The fire had no mercy on the meat, which looked very well done in just a short time. Carl came from the bedroom as she set the plates down on the coffee table. He sat on the sofa and prepared to eat.

  His first bite into the meat gave him cause to chew hard and long. “Nothing like an over-cooked steak to give your mouth a good workout. This is like the cavemen of long ago who finally discovered fire.” He sat by the open flame, trying to devour the tough meat. “Surely they had better teeth than we have today.”

  “I’m sure they did,” Beth managed to say with her mouth full.

  A little piece of the steak for Tabitha thrown down on the floor proved how hard it was to chew when even the cat had trouble with it. Washing it down with the muddy-looking coffee, they managed to consume all of it.

  Evening came upon them with still no power. Beth lit a candle in the living room, but that would be the only one she would spare, thinking they may need candles for some time and didn’t want to run out. The fire in the fireplace crackled and danced, sending an amber glow out into the room. It could have been a nice relaxing time had it not been for the circumstances. What might be waiting for them outside had them both deeply troubled, with apprehension rising every minute.

  Carl went around inspecting the doors and windows before they settled down for the night. To peer outside from any one of the windows and only see total darkness had him on the verge of panic, but he kept his cool so as to not upset his worried and frightened wife. Instead, he held her in his arms while they lay in bed, hoping to get some needed sleep before they ventured out first thing in the morning.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The chill of the morning had Carl up trying to bring the fire back with two new logs he placed on the few simmering coals left in the fireplace. Beth poured water into a pan to heat for coffee. No electricity, no sign of life outside—it had her un-nerved, her stomach churning inside, her hands cold as ice, her mind wandering. This would be a day of discovery, she hoped.

  Everything inside remained the same except the power. Outside was another issue of some supernatural or paranormal thing they knew nothing about. But, in just a short time, they would venture out to the other side of that door to a world unfamiliar to them. Would they, could they, find the answers?

  With hopefully all they needed crammed in a small backpack to ride on Carl’s back, they were prepared to go. Recalling Carl’s encounter with sharp stabbing thorns, Beth brought to the collection a small emergency kit to include bandages and other first-aid items.

  “How long do you expect we’ll be out there?” she asked. “Are you planning on this little investigative trip taking all day?”

  “Most likely we will be back here by dark, but I do want to go as far as we can, and I hope we find someone who will be able to tell us what is going on here.” He pushed the backpack over to the end of the table then made a few steps to the hook where his jacket hung. “Let’s get going.” He put his jacket on, slipped on gloves and, with boots on, he was ready. Beth looked like a dressed-up Eskimo, with her hooded parka under a thick leather jacket. Carl picked up the heavy backpack to harness it to his back and tightened the straps. “What did we do, pack the kitchen sink?”

  Nothing could hold them back now.

  Beth’s boots came up to her knees. When she looked down at them, she wondered if they were thick enough to ward of a possible encounter with a snake or some creature wanting a bite of her. A city girl like her couldn’t be too sure about tromping around in what lay outside in an overgrown world, the likes of which she’d never had to deal with before. Her greatest wish was to run into a person or persons from the park who could not only inform them, but guide them out of there. She no longer cared about the cottage. She just wanted out of what appeared to be some kind of fluke of time—a subject she had read in science fiction books.

  Carl made sure they left plenty of water and dry food for the cat. With his hand on the knob, he motioned for his vigilant wife to follow him.

  The brisk morning air hit them in the face full-force as they stepped out into the fresh morning air. Heavy dew had settled on all the foliage with a thick covering
. Colorful leaves floated down from the tall trees like little glider planes making their landing. The sound of a few cardinals chirping, looking for breakfast, echoed from the limbs. It seemed peaceful somehow, almost calming. The cool fresh breeze swept around them, piercing their faces and blowing through their hair as they slowly walked away from their little get-away home.

  They made their way past a row of trees, pushing through overgrown brush and high growth of all kinds of weeds, bushes, and grass. Carl led the way, with Beth holding close behind. Neither of them spoke, just kept trudging along with a watchful eye on everything around them. The morning sun shed brightness on the frost that sparkled like shimmering ground diamonds.

  With several yards behind them, Beth tapped Carl’s back. “Do you think we’ll find something soon? This thick growth means nothing has been here for a while. How on earth could this be?”

  He stopped and turned to address her. “I don’t know, but this is almost ridiculous. There were roads here, buildings, telephone poles. You know…all the comforts of modern life. Where on earth did it all go? I can’t figure this out.” He turned back and started forward again. “Let’s go a little more. I saw some clearing yesterday. I think it’s up a little ways from here.” He glanced back at her. “Stay close to me.” But she was already pinned so close, if he took one step back he would knock her down.

  As though on schedule, what seemed to be the same hawk he’d seen yesterday flew overhead, then dove for whatever it spotted. They both stood still as they waited for it to take off again. Loud squawking came from the other side of the bushes ahead, and then the large bird took to the air with some small creature in its talons. Beth shivered. Carl could feel her as she was tightly pushed up against his back. “Take it easy; it’s only nature, after all. They have to eat too.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to watch it being carted off that way. It seems so cruel.”