Four Doors

Sam tentatively walked up a few stairs to enter the living room and felt violently unwelcome as the fragile wood creaked obnoxiously beneath the thick rubber soles of his Birkenstocks. The brown wooden stairs had a nice cosmetic appearance, but they were flimsy because the sellers of this house were frugal bastards. Actually, not just frugal. The sellers were cheap, stingy sons of bitches who would squeeze Sam and his young family for every penny they had ever earned.

Despite the subpar stairs, the entrance to the craftsman style house was quite charming. A red door with a brass knocker. Not an obnoxious American Beauty kind of red, but a respectable, suburban, Republican red. The type of door that will let passersby know that hard-working and responsible people sleep in this house on warm summer nights. The respectably red door with the brass knocker opened into a great room full of ostentatiously high windows and unforgiving sunlight. Sam noticed his “transitions” eyeglasses turning a darkish yellow, as he hung a left and made his way into the bright white kitchen.

Certainly a family had lived here, but the house had been staged by professionals to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the unsuspecting purchasers. Sam had a hard time deciding what the staging professionals were trying to accomplish with their curious decorating decisions. Surely they were trying to create a sense of warmth, safety, security, and prosperity. What they had done, however, was turn a nice family house into the illusion of a home inhabited by accomplished but boring individuals.

The kitchen counters were completely empty. Not a cup, spoon, cutting board, towel, or utensil in sight. The family room made Sam chuckle out loud. Two small love seats faced each other, directly adjacent to a wood-burning fireplace. No TV, and no place for a TV anywhere downstairs. Every wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, with the exception of the big, stupid fireplace. No place for a recliner to read books at night, and no place to lie down and take an afternoon nap. This was a house built for a couple of chatty Cathys who want to sit by the fireplace all night long in the smoldering Southern California heat and jawbone the night away. Who wants to live in an uncomfortable house like this?

“Oh my God, this family room is absolutely adorable. It’s so cozy and cute. The natural light in the kitchen is just what we’ve been looking for, right honey,” said Sam’s wife, Nancy. Women don’t chat, they conspire.

Beads of hot salty sweat formed on Sam’s upper lip, as he turned towards Nancy and managed a half grin out of the left corner of his mouth.

“I’m going to take a look upstairs,” said Sam, motioning toward the realtor.

“You go right ahead,” said the realtor, with an approving nod, as if Sam had needed her permission.

Sam regretted hiring a woman realtor. He could already hear the two of them chatting and cackling down below in the kitchen, and of course the realtor would give Nancy the hard sale to buy this torture rack of a house, a place where Sam would never have a chance to enjoy a Rams game on Sunday or recline in his chair at night and read his true crime books. I swear, they’re all in it together.

The top of the stairs opened up into a long hallway, breaking to the left at a sharp angle. The hallway was long and dark and was covered with carpet that was short and tightly wound. The carpet was brand new and was bordered by thick, white crown molding. The hallways were freshly painted light gray. A skylight in the middle of the hallway produced some ambient light, but a heavy darkness engulfed the small amount of light that made its way through, smothering it with the obsessive embrace of a murderous mother.

Four bedroom doors emanated from the hallway, with each one permitting just a trickle of sunlight to spill onto the light brown hallway carpet. Sam stood there for a moment, stiff like a Swiss guard at the Vatican, with his arms at his side and his palms turned inward toward his thighs. The high-pitched voices of Nancy and the realtor slowly faded away, as if a brittle winter’s wind was delicately blowing them to the other side of the universe. Sam continued to sweat, as heat generated from the floor and made its way up through his Birkenstocks and into his feet and calves. Sam stood there, basking in the increasing silence and enjoying the soothing heat.

Straight ahead and to the right, Sam heard the hinges of the door from the first bedroom creak, as the door slowly opened, causing the patch of light in the hallway to flourish. Sam was overtaken by an all consuming sense of peace and well being. This is what it must feel like to shoot heroin.

Sam slipped off his Birkenstocks and placed them at the far corner of the hallway. His bare feet felt welcome and comfy on the soft brown carpet. He spread his toes outward, then scrunched them inward, hearing each individual metatarsal crack and pop itself into place. By the time Sam had taken his first few steps down the hallway, his head felt warm and fuzzy and tingly. Sam turned and looked back over his shoulder for Nancy and the realtor, but the house was dead silent. They were both gone. Maybe not physically gone, but as far as Sam was concerned, neither of them existed anymore.

Sam found himself inside the first bedroom sooner than he had expected. He stood in the center of the room with his bare feet spread wide and his hands at his hips, as if he were about to embark on some great adventure. The room was empty and the walls were painted bright white — the kind of white paint that is used when trashy apartments are being prepped and cleaned after nightmare tenants have spent the past six months gulping from beer bongs and blasting old Motley Crue songs until 4 AM. Nothing to see here.

Sam gently closed the door to the first room, and made his way down the hallway. He placed his hand on the doorknob of the second door, but the knob felt cold and uninteresting. Without twisting the door knob, Sam let go, and walked farther down the hallway.

Sam arrived at the third door, which was just slightly ajar. As he peaked his head as close as possible to the crack in the door, he heard a tremendous howling sound, as if a terrible room tornado were creating itself in its own image in the center of the empty room. Sam took a quick step back and slammed the door shut, setting his sights upon the end of the hallway.

A small, handwritten sign had been taped to the dead center of the door of the fourth room. The writing was too small for Sam to read at that distance, so he took a few steps forward. The handwriting was sloppy and childish. Look in here, it said.

Before he realized what was happening, Sam’s trembling, sweaty right palm had gripped itself around the door knob at the end of the hallway. Sam’s right arm whipped the door open so hard that a gust of wind blasted back into his face, rustling his hair and moving his eyelashes just a tad.

The inside of the fourth room was dark and there was a single light bulb hanging from a string in the center of the ceiling, casting a harsh shadow upon each and every object. The wind from Sam’s dramatic entrance had caused the light bulb to sway back and forth, making the shadows perform a sly dance along the walls, rocking too and fro. A mysterious tugboat finding its way along the deep blue sea.

A dark navy blue cloth chair occupied the far left corner of the empty room. A hand written sign safety-pinned to the arm of the chair read: sit down here. Sam removed the sign, held it in his hands, and studied it with an imbecile’s curiosity. Sam then sat down as instructed. The chair was comfortable and warm, but not in an inviting way. Something truly awful had happened here.

The absolute silence within the fourth room made Sam’s ears ring, which made his heart beat rapidly, which in turn made his brow sweat profusely. He was listening ever so hard, without hearing a thing.

The door opened and a colorful presence entered the room, placing itself squarely between Sam and the door. Sam thought he could see a hodgepodge of rainbow colors, but he was not sure. He could definitely feel it, though. Something between shock, fright, giddiness, and unfiltered horror. Whatever it was, it was wholeheartedly interested in Sam and wanted something from him real bad.

Sam had given up on trying to see this thing, whatever it was, so he lied on his stomach and placed his ear directly onto the hardwood floor, hearing and feeling hysterical laughter mixed with guttural crying and primitive screaming. Come with us. We’ll make a nice place for you.

Sam rose to his knees and straightened his back, and stuck out both of his hands with his palms facing toward the ceiling. The laughing and screaming and crying became louder and louder until Sam’s skull was filled with a cornucopia of bouncing ghosts. His inner being felt warm and at peace for the first time since he was a little boy. I will go with you now.

A great wind swept the room, flinging the blue cloth chair through the window and down onto the dead brown lawn in the backyard. The wind was so intense that Sam could not open his eyes, and he felt as if his eardrums would rupture at any moment. The great warmth within his core strengthened, until Sam realized that he was already gone from the house and his wife and the realtor, realizing the life he had known was gone forever.

THE END