Psycho Thriller

A Story by Elaine O'Roake

What's behind the heavy metal door with all the shiny locks?

It was all started with my curiosity. My damn curiosity.

Knocks on doors and the constant creaking of musty wood held my interest late in the night. Of course I investigated. How stupid of me.

I just had to look, had to investigate. I didn't like what I found.

I waited. I waited some more, but the constant knocking and creaking was going to drive me mad. Banging against the walls as I tried to drown out the awful noise, but the damn noise always managed to slither around me, through me, inside me.

The sounds of giggling and hurried footsteps always managed bounce around hallways always, so I never was able to tell their origin.

Walking down the old hallways, I would always pass the door, the one I was to never open.

It had been so long that I forgot why I didn't go in there, or why the very thought of the door sent chills down my spine.

The door itself was out of place, harsh and metal where the other doors in the house were wooden. The forbidden door had locks, cold and out of place locks almost covering the entire frame. That was the thing about the locks, even though there were so many of them, all of them tainting my head with things that shouldn't be thought of, the locks were so easily opened. Sometimes I couldn't help myself, I would unlatch one of the locks, to test them, to wonder, only to quickly latch it again. Fear of the unknown always made me latch it again.

Sometimes walking aimlessly lost its appeal. The other rooms in the old house I could float through, memories of Things Outside The House flitted past my eyes in a blink, too fast to comprehend. Flashes of sunlight, of green and various shades of the sweetest reds. A bright and careful taste on my tongue, something long gone that only could be achieved by walking into a room. Those rooms were beautiful yet sad. Maybe it was sad because it was so beautiful. Something unattainable and lost forever.

It didn't matter how beautiful and precious those rooms were, I always found myself drift the halls, and I always found myself stopping at the door, wondering what was so important about the room within that it had to be protected like so, or maybe it wasn't protecting the room, maybe it was protecting me.

With that thought I shook away, cringing as my head started to pound with unfamiliar thoughts and twists. Whatever they were, I didn't like it.

I never know how long I wander, my hand drifting over the walls as I saunter through the chilly shadows.

I hear it. The footsteps. I stop, and the footsteps fade. A creaking. Wood creaking. There is someone here with me. This isn't the first occurrence of hearing another possible residence of the house, but the other resident or residents never approach me. Maybe they too are lost and confused, left to wander through the damned hallways.

“Hello?” I mumble to the air, hoping to appease to the fellow wanderer. Maybe we could walk together through the halls. Then the beautiful rooms wouldn't be so sad and the harsh metal door wouldn't be so terrifying.

Wood floorboards creak form weight shifting on them. My ears hurt, but I don't realize why for a long moment as it takes awhile to get through to my muddy and worn out mind.

Screaming, ear piercing screaming. I crouch down to protect myself from the assault. I shriek from the pain. My scream matching and reflecting the scream that hurt my ears so much. My throat burned and cracked under the pressure, my mouth suddenly tasting of copper. With the screaming came more flashes, flashes of pained light melting and breaking under constant changing pressure.

“Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop…..” My voice fades and so does the screaming, it appears I have appeased to the shrieker to spare me.

I am alone again. Maybe things are how they should be. It is quite possible I am destined to be alone, otherwise, who else would wander the halls?

The lights flickered above me, and it crossed my mind again what would happen if one day they were to fail and plunge me into eternal darkness. Would my wanderings simply be in the dark?

If that were so, then maybe there would come a time when I would forget all about the lights, never knowing that my walks were once illuminated with hopeful lights, lights that tried to lead me somewhere better, or maybe they were to lead me somewhere worse.

Worse, maybe. For it was always the lights that lit up the path to the heavy metal door. The locks glinted with the light. I noticed the little to no space between the locks, as if the locks were all a bunch of free loving friends. Life has no meaning when one begins to feel envious of inanimate objects. I was jealous of the locks, they had each other, locked in their own embraces with the door and the wall.

It was another one of the reason I could never open the door to the forbidden room and see what was inside. I was lonely and I didn't want to lock and the door to be separated from their numerous loves. No matter how much their theoretical pain would sate my own twisted mind.

So I was back to more wandering, boredom flooded me, but I always made sure to remain cautious. The other residents might not be so nice. But for that matter, maybe I wasn't nice myself. I cannot remember the last time I saw anybody, or if I’ve ever seen anybody, or if I am the only living thing in existence. Maybe I was a savage who would rip apart the next living thing I would see. Maybe that’s why the other residents hide from me.

Giggling permeated the air.

“STOP MOCKING ME!”

The giggling stopped.

I banged my fists against the walls, hitting lights and shaking doors. I yelled and screamed at the ceiling, unleashing my anger and pain onto this tiny pocket of a world.

I turned my attention to my true source of anger.

Those stupid, stupid locks!

Why did they have each other when my company was reduced to phantoms just around the corner forever out of my reach?

Damn my previous promises to keep the locks together, damn my sense of sentimentality! Damn everything and everyone in this house. The loneliness finally got to me. I had to do it.

I hated the locks, hated everything about them. I kicked at them until I heard my foot cracking, I felt the pain, but I simply didn't care. I pulled at them, my lonely screams became theirs as they shrieked in protest as they were pulled off each other. The locks themselves pulled apart, bared to the world in their loneliness. Except the world consisted of nothing but myself and the wooden house.

My hand started to shake as I realized what was in front of me. The door had no locks now, the locks weren't crying anymore as I stared at the unlocked door.

After all this time, I had never seen the heavy and daunting door unlocked, one twist of the wrist away from unleashing its secret onto me.

My breathing became labored despite the fact that I was still.

Curiosity burned my fingers as I reached out to the door. The knob felt huge and powerful in my hand. This was it. No going back.

Memories of this door, memories of this knob in my hand stopped me from twisting.

I have opened this door before. Yet only now did that fact reveal itself to me.

It was then I remembered why I was to never set foot in the room, to never open the forbidden door.

There it was, staring at me with their dead eyes and haunted face, me. The forbidden room was a room filled with mirrors, all of them showing myself. I remembered.

Screaming tore at my throat as I scratched my face to try to blind myself so I could be spared the horrible sight, the sight of myself. Memories of Things Outside The House flooded me, regret, bitter pain, and the sense of self awareness was everywhere, it was impossible to hide from. Then I knew.

I was the only one in the house, there were no hidden people hiding behind corners, there were no ghosts or phantoms anywhere in the house. It was just me, haunting myself. I was truly alone. Maybe once I wasn't alone in this house, but it hadn't been that way for a long time. There was no one in the house, just myself, screaming at mirrors as I desperately prayed for oblivion, for a reprieve from this place of the damned.

I also remembered that no matter how many times I screamed, begged, pleaded, that I would never achieve that. That knowledge only furthered the movements of fingernails scratching at myself, red smeared the mirror in front of me as flesh was reduced to partial ribbons under my gentle care.

I was to spend eternity wondering the halls of this creaky old wooden house, driving myself further into madness, torturing myself by going into rooms to reclaim some of the sweet and beautiful things I once enjoyed from The Things Outside The House.

There was only one thing to do. I wiped at the blood dripping down my face as I collected myself, I didn't look at the mirror, surely if I did i wouldn't be able to stop myself from surely restarting my efforts.

With shaky legs I managed to crawl out of the forbidden room.

I got up enough to turn the locks orange with blood as I rejoined them and made them whole again, locking the door and hiding its awful secret within.