The Door – Part One and Two.
Here are the first two chapters (they’re more like chapterettes. But who’s counting? Besides That One Guy. Sorry to you, One Guy.) of the short story I’m currently working on, tentatively entitled “The Door.” It’s the story of a man who comes home from a long business trip to find a mysterious new door in his apartment, and is forced to Learn A Valuable Lesson about community and associated whatsit. It’s all rather nebulous right now, and this is more or less what the kids call a ‘first draft.’ So, please forgive my excessively rambling sentence structure and occasional tense confusion. I’d love to read any comments, feedback, questions, and/or criticisms, so please let me know what you think! Anywho, without further flogging of the ottoman, here it is, parts 1 and 2 of…. The Door! Tell your friends!
Chapter 1.
On a hot July afternoon, a nondescript silver Saturn pulled into the weather-beaten parking lot of the Splintered Pine apartment complex off ofMercer RoadinBridgeview,Kansas. The car circled the lot twice before finding a spot hidden between an SUV and the ludicrously unnecessary Ford F-350 with full-length bed and extended cab owned by a bachelor web designer who had never hauled anything more taxing than a MacBook and venti latte in his entire life.
The driver killed the car’s engine and stepped out onto the oft- (and poorly-) patched pavement, pausing to reach behind the driver’s seat and retrieve a world-weary canvas duffel bag. The bag’s leather accents and grips were burnished black and glossy from age, accentuating the threadbare nature of the once-green canvas, now nearly white and patched sporadically with duct tape. Writing in black marker, obviously retraced many times, proclaimed the owner’s name as Cameron Howell. Below that, a series of crossed-out addresses had accumulated like residential driftwood, indicating past homes fromBerlintoSan Francisco.
Hoisting the duffel bag over his shoulder, Cameron hurried towards the front entrance; he had just returned from a month-long job in northernMinnesota, and was not dressed for the heat of aMidwestsummer. The soft sound of his tennis shoes pulling against bits of brightly-colored chewing gum and scraping bottle caps half-sunk into the soft tar patching the many cracks in the pavement blended with the drone of cicadas and suburban traffic. Glancing up at the tasteless and unadorned beige facade of the complex as he approached the door leading to the breezeway, he felt the usual wash of vague depression that rose up every time he remembered where he lived.
Just inside the main door, a workman in blue uniform coveralls brushed past him carrying a toolbox and what seemed to be a bag full of doorknobs. Trying to ignore the overpowering smell of stale curry and the souring leaves caught under the stairs, Cameron gave his mailbox a passing glance (empty, as usual) and headed up the stairs to his third-floor apartment.
The stairs were only carpeted halfway up the first flight; almost everybody going up and down stumbled at the unexpected change. After that, the water-stained mottled-purple carpet gave way to a grey rubber material covered with raised, quarter-sized circles; Cameron always found himself distracted by the bits of foil, dirt, gum, and other nameless gunk that managed to gather in between the circles.
Cameron arrived on the third floor without running into any of his neighbors- a feat he had so far managed for the entirety of his residence at Splintered Pine. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the address, he felt himself relaxing as he approached his door. After a month in cheap hotels, freezing half to death, in near-constant contact with clients and coworkers, Cameron was looking forward to finally having a few days to himself in his own home. Perhaps cook some dinner, watch television, get caught up on the books he’d been meaning to read.
Unfortunately, life had never put much stock in what Cameron Howell was looking forward to.
Coming up to his apartment door, he noticed a white card hanging from the door knob. A flash of irritation was quickly overtaken by puzzlement as he recognized the apartment maintenance crew’s While You Were Out notice. The brief notes mentioned something about replacing his door, which gave Cameron a moment of panic, imagining his apartment being ransacked and burgled. Reading the rest of the notice, however, he recalled complaining to the landlord before leaving forMinnesotathat his door had been jamming almost constantly. Perhaps the era of three-month maintenance delays was at last behind them.
Satisfied with his reasoning, Cameron folded up the notice and pushed it into his pocket, retrieving his keys at the same time. However, he immediately began questioning again as he put his key into the same battered and tarnished keyhole he’d been struggling with for the last eighteen months; he recognized the familiar hesitancy as the key turned, and the bone-jarring body slam required to then open the door itself.
Massaging his freshly-bruised shoulder, Cameron stepped into his apartment. It was a small, eclectically-decorated affair; movie posters and art prints dotted the walls, peering out from behind and in between bookshelves spread around the main room, furnished with a bedraggled sofa and television standing on a makeshift shelf composed of cinderblocks and the salvaged bar counter from a now-closed coffee house down the street. A kitchen, floored with yellowing, cat-smelling linoleum and barely big enough to turn around in, sat like an afterthought in a walled-off corner. The limited counter space was taken up by a hotplate, microwave, and Cameron’s ongoing pet project, a rebuilt manual espresso machine. His bedroom and bathroom were down a narrow hallway lined with more bookshelves, bending under the weight of Kipling, Tolkien, Pratchett, and Whitman.
Holding the aging duffel out in front of him to fit through the narrow hall, Cameron made his way to his bedroom to stow the bag out of the way before making dinner. He dropped the bag on the floor by the bed before switching the light off and leaving the room.
Twelve seconds later he burst back in and gaped at the door in the far wall of his bedroom; a door that had not existed one week ago.
Chapter 2.
“Yes. I know that. Because I’m the one who told you about it! Listen, you inbred…ible… man…”
Cameron was on the phone with his landlord, trying to figure out why a door had been installed in the middle of his bedroom wall. So far, the landlord had only succeeded in informing him that that apartment’s front door had been sticking, that his apartment was rented to a very nice woman named Camera, and reminded him very sternly of their strict No Pets policy.
“Tell that to the guy who had this kitchen before me. No, I don’t want somebody to come by next week! No no no no, listen to me….
“Look, there’s a door in my bedroom. …No, not the usual one. I’m used to that one. This one’s new since I came back from a business trip this afternoon.
“What? Why do you…. ..Twelve and a half.
“Don’t put me on hold! No, don’t put…”
But Cameron’s protests did no good; the disinterested voice on the other end of the line was replaced by the stridently atonal stylings of the latest Persian folk rock band to (regrettably) reach the hands of his musically irresponsible landlord.
With a disgusted sigh, he hung up the phone and flung it onto the bed where it disturbed a week’s worth of dust and latent cat hair. Cameron mused that there must be some cosmic law dictating that the atmosphere of apartment complexes turn to 47% cat hair as soon as everybody’s back is turned. As the cloud settled, he turned his attention to the door in his bedroom wall.
It was, as doors went, perfectly unremarkable. In fact, it was exactly identical to every other interior door in the apartment- cheap particle board coated with cheap eggshell paint, a flimsy brass knob exactly one handsbreadth too low for an average human to use comfortably. The paint had been applied quickly and inexpertly, with long drip-lines and beads dried into the surface. Fresh sawdust and plaster dust was still visible on the carpet, although it appeared a half-hearted attempt had been made at vacuuming. He couldn’t see any light coming from under the door; however. he thought he could hear some manner of sound on the other side.
He placed a hand against the door, noticing it felt oddly warm, and was humming sightly. He began to reach for the doorknob, but a strange and sudden sense of pending disaster welled up in him- the kind that he always used to get as a child when he was about to get in trouble for something much bigger than the usual Army brat mischief. The blood in his legs turned into ice water, and his stomach balled up like an old dishrag and took cover behind his belt buckle. He had read in books many times about people in fear ‘tasting bile,’; while he had no idea what bile actually tasted like, and even less desire to find out, he had always associated the sensation with the feeling he had now, a sour taste welling up in his throat while his mouth spontaneously dried like an orange peel in a kiln.
The suddenness and extremity of his fear surprised Cameron. He had been in some hairy situations in his life- mugged several times in Los Angeles, taxi he was riding in carjacked in Chicago, been told he would have to move to New Jersey for a month- but none of those things had given him the rush of pure terror he had felt just now. He tried to think of what could be behind a door that was so terrible, and then decided it was best not to let his vivid imagination run away with him.
For several minutes, minutes that felt like hours, as the clock over the bed ticked and the cat hair wafted on the breeze from the air conditioning, Cameron merely stood and stared at the door. The fingers on his left hand twitched slightly every time his eye went past the door knob. Several times he thought he heard distant voices through the door; sometimes it sounded more like mocking laughter. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, between his eyes, and finally perched on the tip of his nose. He tried to ignore it, but it soon began to itch. After a moment the itch grew; another, and it spread to his entire face. Soon every nerve and fiber of his body itched, and with explosiveness suddenness Cameron frantically and involuntarily scratched his nose.
That distraction broke the door’s hold on his attention; with an indifferent wave at the door, Cameron stalked out into the hallway of his apartment to prepare his belated dinner.
“Stupid, what I am doing, being so concerned about a door, it’s just a flippin’ door. What’s wrong with you? All that cold weather inMinnesota, messed with my brain, that’s what. Made me paranoid about doors. …And talk to myself.”
Eight seconds later, Cameron stormed back into his bedroom and up to the Door, grabbed the knob with both hands, took a deep breath, and pulled it open with a single swift yank.
Then he screamed.
