The Door They Forgot To Lock

You hear the screaming before you see the house.

It comes from somewhere beyond the parking lot, rising above the laughter and music and the occasional shriek of someone who has already made it through to the climactic end of the attraction. The sound is exactly what you expect from a haunted house on a cold October night.

Fake screams.

Fake blood.

Fake ghosts.

That is what the sign says.

THE BLACKWOOD MANOR HAUNTED HOUSE — A HORROR ATTRACTION.

You stare at the words for a moment as the wind catches the bottom corner of the banner and makes it flap against its metal frame.

Just an attraction.

You laugh to yourself.

Of course it is.

You paid for the experience, and you came for the experience. You expect people in costumes jumping from closets, actors crawling across floors, fake corpses hanging from ceilings, and carefully timed noises designed to make you jump and scream.

You don't expect anything "real." No monsters, the chainsaw is fake, and there are no real corpses.

That is probably why you don't notice the house watching you.

The line moves forward, and you follow. Inside, everything is exactly as advertised.

The first room is a funeral parlor, complete with a coffin that suddenly opens when you walk past it. You jump despite knowing something is going to happen.

The second room is darker.

The third is worse.

You duck beneath something that looks like a hanging body.

A voice whispers your name, and you stop in your tracks. For one strange second, the entire room seems to hold its breath.

Then someone jumps from behind a curtain, and you scream. Everyone in your group laughs, and, in turn, you laugh too. It's part of the attraction, after all.

You keep moving. The deeper you go, the older the house seems.

The decorations become less polished. The walls don't look painted anymore. The wallpaper appears genuinely yellowed and peeling. The floorboards creak beneath your feet with a weight that feels different from the carefully manufactured sounds in the rooms behind you.

You tell yourself it is all part of the show.

That's what you tell yourself when the lights flicker.

And again when a door slams somewhere behind you.

You again remind yourself when you hear footsteps following you through a hallway, but you look around and see no one... not even your friends. The footsteps stop... You keep moving.

You reach another door.

It looks different from the others.

There is no black paint.

No fake blood.

No warning.

No theatrical decoration.

It's just an old wooden door with a tarnished brass handle, and you figure it has to be yet another part of the attraction. You still don't hear your friends; no other groups have caught up to you... Somehow you lost everyone, so opening the door in front of you seems the only plausible next step. You're not going to go back through all you've been through -- they must have gotten farther ahead of you, and you'll find them on the side of that door... at least that's what you keep trying to convince yourself.

The moment you step through, the door closes behind you, and you jump, but assume that was only the prelude to a bigger scare. Yet, as you stand there, nothing else happens.

You turn around and grasp the door handle, but the door won't budge. You push, you pull, but the door won't budge. You pound both fists on the door and holler, "Hey!" Though your voice seems to echo down the hallway, there is no answer.

You try the handle again, but this time there is a knock at the door in response, though the door still doesn't open. There are three slow taps, and then silence again. The doorknob jiggles, but it still doesn't open... and this makes you take two steps back.

Deciding it's futile to waste more time at the door, you turn from the door, and the hallway in front of you stretches into darkness. It doesn't look like part of the haunted house.

There are no speakers or spooky lights. There are no fake cobwebs, and there are definitely no actors about. All that lies ahead of you is an old corridor with faded wallpaper and portraits hanging crookedly along the walls.

You take your phone out of your pocket and see that you have no service, but at least you can use your flashlight to get a better sense of where you are. The beam travels down the hallway. You notice that at the far end is another door, so you start walking.

You tell yourself the attraction must have changed since you visited last year. Maybe this is an employee area, or you took a wrong turn. Perhaps someone will find you.

You reach the first portrait, and the woman in it makes you pause. She seems to be staring right at you, in such a way that makes your stomach tighten. You shine your flashlight on the painting and see that it is very old.

The woman is dressed in a black dress with a high collar. Her hands are folded neatly in front of her.

You pull yourself away after a couple of minutes and start your path down the hallway again.

The next portrait shows a man. Then a little girl. Then another woman.

You begin noticing something. Every person in every portrait is looking right at you. Their eyes even seem to follow you if you move to one side or the other.

You walk faster.

Behind you, something creaks, and even though you want to run away from the sound, you stop. You turn and see nothing. You shine your phone flashlight down the hallway where you came from but see nothing. You check the screen... still no service. Even worse, the screen flickers, like an old television losing reception.

For a moment, the flashlight goes out. You're still distracted by the flickering screen when it comes back on. But the sudden return of light makes you look up, and someone is standing at the end of the hallway.

You stop breathing. Any moment of hope you had that it might be someone you know or a worker at the haunted attraction disappeared the moment you noticed it was a little girl -- too young to be walking through this type of haunted house attraction.

The little girl stands perfectly still. You notice that her dress is old-fashioned and her hair hangs in long, dark strands around her face.

Your flashlight turns off again, and then back on. The girl is gone. The light was only out for about a blink of the eye. You shine the light from one side of the hall to the other, but there's no one there.

Then you hear a child's voice behind you that says, "You shouldn't be here."

You spin around, almost too fast, as you feel suddenly lightheaded. There's no one there. Your heart pounds -- so hard you think you're going to pass out. You start walking again, faster this time.

You reach the door at the other end of the hall and throw it open. You half expect to find another part of the attraction, but instead, you find a dining room.

A long table stretches across the center of the room, and everything is covered in dust. You think to yourself, "Maybe this is another part of the attraction." You try to convince yourself, but there's something too real about this room. The dust looks authentic.

Unburned candles sit in silver holders. Every chair is empty, but pushed neatly up to the table, except one. The chair at the head of the table is pulled away from the table as though it is waiting for someone to take a seat.

Your intuition tells you that you shouldn't enter this room, but you find your feet moving without any thought. Once you cross that threshold, the door closes behind you, and you spin to look at it.

Laughter echoes through the room with a sense that it is bouncing off the walls. It's an unearthly sound that you know couldn't be coming from any human being.

You turn away from the door to see that the chairs are slowly starting to pull away from the table, one at a time. The sound of the wood legs dragging across the floor makes your hair stand on end.

You back away, almost standing flush against the closed door.

Then, the chair at the head of the table moves, just a bit more from the table as though it is inviting you to come sit.

You shake your head slowly from side to side, not sure if that's your answer or if you're trying to shake yourself free from what you're seeing. You whisper, "No," too afraid to speak any louder at this point.

To counteract your refusal, every candle on and around the table lights at once.

You scream, without even realizing that's what you were doing. It's one high-pitched burst. And, as though your scream frightened it, the room suddenly changes. For a brief moment, you see the room as it must have looked when people actually lived here.

The table is covered with food, people sitting around it. There are men, women, and even children. Each of them is dressed in old clothes.

But what makes this sight especially unnerving is that they are all staring at you. Until the room suddenly reverts back to the dark and dusty space, void of any human but you.

You stumble backward. A chair crashes onto the floor, nowhere near you.

You start to run. You don't care where you are going; you only know you need to get out.

You throw open another door, and find yourself in a bedroom. You don't give this door a chance to shut behind you as you slam it closed yourself. You look around and find that you're essentially at a dead end... the only way out of this bedroom is the door you just came in through.

You grab the handle, but it won't budge. This time, you hear scratching at the door -- three scratches, to be exact. Then silence, before you hear a voice whispering behind you. It's a creepy child's voice that says, "You came through the wrong door."

You turn and see that same little girl from earlier standing beside the bed.

You're frozen in fear.

She points toward the wall, and your eyes alone follow her finger. You notice there is a photograph hanging there. As though moving without your will, you find yourself walking slowly toward that image.

It's a photo of the house you are in, but it has no signs of the haunted attraction it currently runs as. There isn't even a parking lot. Closer inspection lets you see that there is a date written on the bottom of the photograph, which reads October 31, 1896.

You look back at the girl who is still standing in the same place, finger still aimed at the photo. You ask, "Who are you?"

The girl smiles, but her grin is all wrong. It's too wide. She shakes her hand that is pointing at the image. You look back at it again, and this time the photo suddenly has people in it that weren't there before. There is a group of people standing on the porch, all those you saw lining the walls of the hallway... with one strange addition that makes your stomach turn.

You're on the porch with them.

You rub your eyes, but it's still the same. In your ear, the little girl whispers, "You always come back."

Just as you scream and turn around, the door behind you opens. The sounds of the crowds walking through the haunted house attraction filter through, or at least that's what you think. Once you step through the door, you realize the people on the other side are the ones who were in that picture.

Again, you scream. Even in the utter depths of fear, you somehow remember there's no way out behind you, so you push through the dead people, your hands not touching flesh, but only feeling cold air... too cold.

Once you're past them, the hallway ahead seems longer than it should be. The faster you run, the longer it feels like it takes for you to get anywhere. But suddenly you find yourself at a door that is splatter-painted with neon colors.

You grab the handle, and the door opens so fast it pulls you right through to the other side. You fall on the floor, blinded by flashing lights. You hear the screams of people being startled by scare actors, like the one dressed as a corpse staring at you lying on the floor.

You scramble to your feet. People are walking into the room, laughing and talking.

You stay in front of the group and find you're right at the exit. You step outside, seeing the parking lot and even your group of friends, though they don't seem to notice you.

You look back at the house and see the banner still hanging above the entrance.

A HORROR ATTRACTION.

You laugh so wildly that it turns into sobbing. You tell yourself you imagined it, but as you walk toward your car and your friends, you hear a little girl laughing behind you.

You stop and slowly turn around. No one is there. Every window in the house is dark, except one. The window on the second floor is lit just enough that you can see the little girl standing behind the glass. She raises one hand. You raise yours without thinking, but quickly realize she isn't waving. She's pointing at you.

In response, you look down and notice that you're holding something in your hand. It's a small brass key. You look it over and notice it is engraved with the number 13.

When you glance back toward the house, it's all dark again... the girl is gone.

You instinctively slip the key into your pocket and head to your friends. They ask where you've been, and you tell them you had to use the bathroom. You know they'd never believe you.

After you drop everyone off, you head home, where you lock every door and window. You put the key in a junk drawer and head to bed. You're rudely awakened from sleep when you hear three slow knocks on the door.

Like a sleepwalker, you get out of bed and slowly walk through the house. At the front door, you try to open it, but it won't budge. Three more knocks follow.

There's something in your hand. You realize it's the key, and it fits the lock on your door. You put the key in and open the door, and instead of your porch, you find yourself in the haunted house again.

You hear the little girl whisper your name.

All the lights go out.

This is not the haunted attraction. This is the ghost of the house that lived before the haunted house attraction was set up within... and this is where your soul now lives.

You should have stayed home.