The Forgotten Door (2 of 2)

*Author's note*: This is part 2! Please click here to read part 1. Content warning is for horror content

"That's... not possible," Alex whispered, his eyes going as wide as mine. It was gone. The door was completely gone. The only thing that stood in its place was a blank wall. We were trapped. he walked up to the wall his hand lightly touching where the door had once been. "any chance you have your phone on you?"

"No" I said, my face pale. "I left it on the nightstand in my room charging."

"Damn. I don't have mine either," His voice was barely above a whisper.

"Would they even work?" I asked, genuinely unsure.

"I don't know...just...damn it." He swore again, letting out a cry of anger before kicking the wall where the door had once been The room shook a little, disturbing some of the dust, but for all the good it did he may as well have tossed a pebble at an elephant. The wall stood as sturdy and uncaring as ever. Alex put his hand to the wall again and rested his head against it, his body visibly shuddering. I got up and placed my hand on his shoulder.

"Alex, we have to try to find another way out," I said, my voice trembling. He turned to look at me, his face every bit as pale and scared as my own.

"Yeah... Guess we know why your grandparents never let you in here now," he said softly.

"Guess so" I replied, unsure of what else to say. The two of us began to search the room for any hint, any clue of a way to escape. It didn't take long given the size of the room. I checked over the couch-behind it, between the cushions, and beneath it Alex looked over the tv stand opening its various drawers. They were all empty. He attempt to turn the TV on but unsurprisingly, it was unplugged and on further examination there was nowhere to plug it in.

"Any luck?" he asked me after turning the knob on the TV several times, making the distinct clicking noise old TVs made.

"No..." I said sadly. I had hoped to find something, anything—a hidden journal, a false floorboard, anything. I would have even freaked out for an old gum wrapper at this point. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Guess there is just nothing in here,"

"Not about that. It's my fault we're stuck like this. I should have just ignored the door. Pretended it was a broom closet."

"You're being silly because you're scared. You don't think one of us would have eventually just opened that door and come in here anyway? It's not your fault your old family home has a secret evil door. At least we're together. If I was alone, I'd have found a way to get under the couch, babbling like an idiot, convinced I'd gone crazy." He moved to the window and looked out into the quiet darkness.

"Thanks. You're right."

"As much as I hate to say it, Tammy, looks like there is only one way out of here." Alex pointed his head to the double window. A cold shiver ran down my spine.

"As much as I want to argue that we have no idea what is out there or where it leads, given our options appear to be 'hope someone wonders where we are, stumbles on the murder door, and happens to open it, assuming that would even afford us a way out' or 'starve to death in here,' I guess we'll just have to take our chances." I nodded.

Alex felt around the windows, quickly finding a way to unlock them. He pushed on them hard expecting them to stick given how old they appeared but surprisingly they sprung open with ease. The warm summer night air blew through and would have been comforting if not for our situation. Alex stuck his head out the window and looked down.

"That drop... seems much shorter than it should be given we're on the second floor."

"Given everything else, are you surprised?" I replied.

"No, I suppose not. Guess I'll go first." He swung his leg over the sill and, gripping it tightly, lowered the rest of his body down before letting go. I waited, expecting to hear a thud, or maybe even silence if he had fallen into an infinite void. Instead, I heard him call, "Come on!"

I breathed a sigh of relief before moving to the window. Without looking down for fear of psyching myself out, I swung my leg over and lowered myself the same way he had and dropped. My feet hit the ground much sooner than expected. I couldn't have dropped more than three feet. I glanced at Alex and then up at the window. It was high enough that if I stood on his shoulders, I could climb back inside.

"That felt like a drop from a first-floor window."

"Agreed. Just add it to the list of things about this situation that don't add up," Alex said, shaking his head.

I looked around. We were definitely outside, but the surroundings were unfamiliar. None of the houses of our neighbors were nearby. The room we had dropped from was not attached to our house, but what appeared to be a small rise. A quick walk around the perimeter showed no other means of entry besides the window we had fallen from. There were some trees to our left, but they were just as unfamiliar, standing in the dark like giant shadows in the moonlight.

"This is too freaky. Where are we?" I asked.

"I don't know, but there are some houses over there." Alex pointed to a small collection of houses in what appeared to be a cul-de-sac a short distance away. There were no lights on, but given it couldn't be any later than four-thirty or five in the morning, that wasn't entirely unexpected.

"Maybe someone there can tell us where we are, or how to get home," I said hopefully.

Alex offered me his hand, and I took it gratefully. We started the short trek to the houses. I tried to stay hopeful, but despite the warm night, there was still something entirely eerie about it. There was not a single ounce of ambient noise. No rustling in the nearby trees. No crickets chirping. In fact, there weren't any bugs around at all. The silence was deafening.

We walked in silence, afraid to pierce the veil of quiet. As we arrived at the small collection of houses, our faces fell. They were decrepit, in disrepair, and in various stages of collapse. Alex moved to one of the houses and peered in the window.

"Nothing. These houses haven't been lived in for a long time."

"What now?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.

"I don't want to go too far, but the best guess would be to hike up this road for a while, see what we can find." Alex pointed at a road lined with trees leading away from the cul-de-sac.

"Don't think we have much choice. Let's go." I took Alex's hand again, and we started to walk up the road. I let out a long exhale, the silence was driving me nuts. "There has to be a way out of here. My grandparents clearly knew that room, that door, was dangerous since they didn't let us inside."

"That's true," Alex said thoughtfully. "The only way they could know how dangerous it is if someone else in your family told them, like their parents, or if they had come in here themselves."

"Right! And if they did come in, they clearly got out! And if it wasn't them and someone told them, they would have had to have gotten out!" I said, trying to conceal the excitement and hope this conversation was giving me.

"Hey...do you think your parents might know anything about this place?"

"Hmm, my dad might. Grandma and Grandpa were his parents." I pondered Alex's question when he stopped suddenly, causing me to almost trip. "Hey, what's the big idea?"

"Shhhh," he said softly, holding his finger to his lips. He pointed ahead of us. In the shadows, just barely visible, was the silhouette of a man standing in the middle of the road.

"That looks like a person," I whispered.

"I'm pretty sure it is," Alex replied, his eyes narrowing as he tried to get a better look.

"Maybe they're stuck like us?" The silhouette was standing in place but seemed to be staggering slightly, almost as if they were having trouble maintaining balance.

"Think they can help us?" Alex asked.

"As much as I want to say yes, I can't say even if I was lost under normal circumstances I'd be too keen on the idea of walking up to a strange person in the middle of the dark at five am," I replied, unsure.

"Yeah, anyone walking around at night like that is probably bad news," Alex agreed.

We stood there for a moment, debating our next move. The figure remained in place, shifting slightly as if its knees were constantly buckling underneath it. I felt a chill run down my spine, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

"What do we do?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Let's double back. Get back to the houses, or the room, wait for daylight before we try again," Alex suggested. I nodded, and we started to move again, stepping as quietly as possible on the gravel road. The figure didn't seem to notice us until there was a sudden scraping of stone against gravel. One of us, I'm not sure which, kicking a rock. I froze, gripping Alex's hand tightly.

Alex and I slowly turned around to see if the figure had noticed the noise. It had turned around and was staring at us now, or at least I think it was. Its skin was a pale grey, its face was twisted into a snarl displaying sharp rows of yellow teeth, and above its mouth were two black hollows that I think might have been its eyes. It made a noise like no earthly creature, something like the twisted squeal of a glove on the strings of a guitar and the cry of an eagle.

"Run," Alex said suddenly, and we took off, sprinting down the road as fast as we could. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the figure was following us, its movements were jerky and unnatural. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could barely breathe.

"Where are we going?" I asked, heaving.

"Back to the room!" Alex said. His face was contorted into fear and he was breathing heavily. The sick squeal of the creature behind us allowed us to find the strength to keep running. We ran past the ruined houses, the creature hot on our trail, somehow able to keep pace with us despite its abnormal motion.

"On my shoulders! Go! Go!" Alex cried as we reached the building we'd come out of. He knelt down, and I climbed up onto his shoulders, managing to grab the window ledge and pull myself up. As I turned to help Alex up, I saw the creature fast approaching letting out another gutteral cry.

"Come on!" I cried, reaching my hands down and grabbing Alex's hand. I secured myself by holding onto the window sill as I pulled him up. He was able to clasp onto the frame of the window, and with a team effort, we managed to get him into the window, falling backward as we heard a sharp thud from the creature running full force into the wall outside. Alex scrambled to his feet and slammed the window shut, locking it.

We both sat on the floor, panting heavily, our hearts racing. The creature scratched at the walls outside, occasionally letting out an eerie squeal that pierced the night.

"We can't stay here," Alex said, his voice trembling.

"I know," I replied, my eyes wide with fear. "But where do we go? We're right back where we started." I tried to calm my racing heart. We had escaped for now, but who knew how long that safety would last? The room felt even more suffocating now, the walls closing in as the reality of our situation sank in. We needed to find a way out, and fast. "Do you think it can climb the walls?"

"I don't know, but if it can, that window won't stop it forever," Alex said his eyes falling onto the ancient TV. "That's a CRT, one of the old ones with the tubes. They weigh a ton."

"Is now the best time to be appreciating the antique television?" I frowned.

"How much do you think it would hurt to have one of those land on your head?" Alex asked. I smiled as I wrapped my head around his plan.

"Do you want me to help you lift?"

"No, you get near the window. Be ready to open it. I'll handle the lifting." I got in position near the window as Alex lifted the heavy TV, groaning as he did so, clearly regretting his decision to lift it himself. I unlocked the window, and he positioned the TV on the sill. With a quick confirmation that the creature was still below the window, Alex shoved the TV off.

I heard a crash as the TV hit the ground and a guttural cry that I could only assume was pain. I couldn't bring myself to look outside.

"Is it dead?" I asked, a slight tremble in my throat. Alex poked his head out the window to check.

"Eww," he shuddered. "Yeah, I don't think it's going to be getting up again." Alex shut the window and locked it. "I can't say I want to go out there again. Who knows how many of those things are out there? And what else could be?" I sat on the couch in silent agreement. Alex sat on the stand where the TV once was. I'm not sure how much time passed, but it seemed like hours. Somehow, I fell into an uneasy sleep.

----

I was very small and low to the ground. The dull wood floor before me was familiar as I crawled. I was in the living room. I could hear a familiar voice calling me, but I darted away. We were playing a game! I couldn't let them catch me. I crawled faster until I was sitting before a faded green door. There was something coming from the other side of it. A beautiful call. I had to see. With everything I could muster, I pushed on the door, it swung open and I crawled inside. There was a beautiful lady standing there. Her hair was a brilliant blue and her skin was like porcelain. She seemed so happy to see me! I clapped as she picked me up.

She stared at me for a moment, then her face contorted into a twisted snarl, showing rows and rows of yellow teeth. I started to cry when I was torn from her hands and there was an explosion of wood as a chair was broken over her head. I was in strong, familiar arms. I looked up to see the face of my grandpa and giggled. My grandma stood beside us holding the broken remains of a chair, which she swung again, hitting the blue haired lady. She let out a shriek as my grandma continue to land blows on her. I nestled into my grandpa's arms, safe, before I started to fall and everything went dark.

----

"AHH!" I woke up, startled, bracing myself on the ancient couch. I looked around the room, my eyes wide, before Alex wrapped his arms around me.

"Shhh...shh...You fell asleep," Alex said, patting my back, kneeling before me on the wooden floor. He looked exhausted. My eyes scanned the room to see the empty TV stand and the featureless walls. Through the window, the sky was still a rich black with light from the pale moon pushing through. I was very disappointed to find being trapped was not part of the dream.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Must have been hours. I think I fell asleep for a bit too."

"It's still dark out."

"Yeah, I am starting to suspect that daytime isn't a thing here."

"Fantastic. Can't say I'm too surprised at this point."

"Me either." Alex stood up and wiped the dust off himself, taking a seat beside me on the couch. "Were you having a nightmare?" he asked after we sat in silence for a long moment.

"No... but also yes... kind of. I was a baby, and I ended up in this room, and one of those things," I pointed to the window to indicate I meant the monsters, "was inside waiting for me. It picked me up, and I think it was going to eat me, but my grandparents saved me."

"I see," Alex said, sitting in quiet contemplation.

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually a dream. I think it was a memory," I said finally. "Like the last one."

"Anything in that dream about a way out?" Alex asked with a tinge of hope in his voice. I shook my head.

"No... last thing I remember was being in my grandpa's arms, then it was dark, and I was falling. Think it was just me waking up."

"Dang it." Alex stood up, kicking the TV stand out of frustration, knocking it over. "There has to be a way out of here, but it's probably out there somewhere with those sins against nature." I stood up and put a hand on his shoulder.

"If there is, we'll find it," I said, though I wasn't sure how much I believed it. There was something else about my dream that was still bothering me. My brain kept coming back to the dark and falling piece. Alex nodded at me and started to pick up the TV stand, ashamed at his frustration. As he picked up the stand, I noticed something I had not before.

"Alex, wait, what's that?" I asked, pointing at the floor where the TV stand was. The floor was clearly a slightly different color.

"Uh, that stand has been here a long time. The wood around it must have faded," Alex offered, looking at the floor.

"No, look, the area is smaller than the base of the TV stand." Alex looked at the bottom of the stand and then the floor several times.

"You're right!" he exclaimed as he fell to the floor excitedly feeling around. "I would have never thought to look underneath it." Sure enough, there were slight separations in the floor around it, barely a centimeter. Alex pushed down on the spot where the stand had been, and the different colored spot swung downward. It was a trap door.

"Think it's a way out?" I asked.

"I sure hope so," Alex said. A faint musty smell emanated up from the hole. We both looked down into the murky darkness of the trap door.

"Think we should risk it?"

"Considering our options," I gave a long look at the window, and then back to the hole in the ground. "I think we might be better off with the hole."

"Can't really see how deep it is."

"Well, we know outside is full of monsters most likely."

"Might be monsters down there?"

"Well, our options are the monsters out there, starve, or take a shot at the closest thing we've found to an exit in here."

"Well when you put it that way, the closest thing to an exit sounds best," Alex finally agreed. "I'll go first."

He swung his legs over the edge of the trap door, took a deep breath, and lowered himself down. He was able to lower himself all the way, gripping the edge of the floor. He hung there for a moment. "It's deep," he muttered before letting go. I watched as he disappeared into the blackness.

"Alex!" I called down. I did not get a reply or even an echo. "Alex!" Still no response. "Well, it was my idea," I thought to myself as I jumped into the dreary darkness. As I plummeted through the blackness, the dim light from the trap door disappeared.

I landed hard flat on my butt on what felt like dirt. The wind was knocked out of me, but given how long it felt like I was falling, I counted my lucky stars that's all it was.

"Tam, that you?" I heard Alex's voice from the dark.

"Yeah," I said, relieved. "Any idea where we are?"

"Not in the slightest." The room we were in was completely dark. There did not appear to be any windows anywhere. A slight metallic hum filled the room.

"Would be super nice to have my phone or a flashlight right now."

"No kidding."

"Let's feel around, see if there is a light switch or something." Alex and I began to wander around in the dark. After a moment, my hands laid on a wall. "I think I found the wall."

"I found a wall too!" Alex called. He sounded like he was across the room.

"Okay! Let's see if we can feel along the wall and meet in the middle!" I began to move slowly along the wall when I heard Alex make a noise. "Are you okay?" I called out fearing the worst.

"I'm fine. I tripped on something. I think it's stairs."

"Alright, I'll be over in a minute." I made my way along the wall, feeling as I went. No light switches, but I soon walked around in a complete square. I could just barely make out Alex in the dark in front of me.

"Alright...I'll go first," Alex said nervously.

"Wait. Let's go together." I reached out and grasped his hand.

"Okay." He sounded relieved. Slowly, one step at a time, we made our way up the stairs. After only twelve steps, we came to a dead end. Alex felt around. "I think I found a doorknob. I'm going to open it. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." I heard a slight squeal as Alex turned the doorknob and pushed. As the door swung open, we were greeted by the dim light of the moon. As my eyes scanned the room, I could feel my heart swelling with relief.

"Please tell me you're seeing what I'm seeing."

"I am!" Alex said, his voice sounding like he had finally exhaled after holding his breath a long time. Laid before us were our oven, our toaster, our kitchen table. We were standing in our kitchen, in the doorway of our basement.

"We're home," I whispered softly. I checked the clock on the stove; it read 4:00 a.m.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see a toaster," Alex said, taking a seat at the kitchen table, holding his face in his hands.

"I'm going to do a quick run around. Make sure everything is in its place."

"Alright, I'll be here. I just need a minute." I nodded to him and did a quick run-through of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. All our boxes, our pictures, our things, everything was exactly as we left it. I took a deep breath and headed upstairs. I needed to know. As I entered the second-floor hallway, I counted the doors. The faded green door was not at the end of the hallway anymore.

"Alex!" I called.

"What? What is it?" he asked as he bolted up the stairs.

"It's gone," I whispered.

"Good riddance," Alex muttered in relief. The two of us walked to my room. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and checked my calendar app. Sure enough, it was the same day. As far as the house, and our world, was concerned, we had only been gone about 15 minutes.

"There is literally no way we were only gone a few minutes," Alex said, shaking his head.

"Well, to be fair, dawn never came. Maybe time works differently in there."

"Screw that place."

"Yeah. Let's just say I have a lot of questions for my dad."

"If he knew about that door, let him know I have a punch in the jaw for him too."

"Stand in line," I agreed.

"Problems for the morning. I'm gonna grab my phone. Let's sleep in the living room or something. I don't want to be alone."

"Neither do I." I grabbed a pillow as Alex headed to his room.

"Tam!" he called. It was my turn to come running, holding my pillow and blanket. He was standing in his room.

"What is--" I didn't even finish the question. On the left wall of the guest room he was sleeping in, just beyond the bed, was the faded green door.

"It moves. Of course, it moves." Alex said rubbing his temple.

"Yeah. It moves," I said, walking up to the door.

"What are you doing?"

"I have to know," I said, grabbing the doorknob.

"Tam. Don't you dare go in there."

"I'm not going in there. I just...I need to know if it's how we left it." Before he could protest anymore, I turned the knob and pushed the door open. The TV was gone, and the nightstand was turned over, but the trap door on the floor was missing. That was not what I noticed though as I let out a loud scream.

"Shut the door, shut the door!" Alex yelled, freaking out. The window in the room was broken, and standing in the middle of the room was the creature that had chased us, having a difficult time maintaining its balance. Its head and face were smushed, but it was very much alive. It heard our screams, and what was left of its horrid face snapped in our direction. It moved quickly toward us but stopped right in front of the doorway.

"It stopped?" Alex whispered. The creature let out a shriek again and moved its clawed hand up to my face, but instead of coming through the doorway, it made a scratching sound, as if it was coming in contact with the wall.

"Then the door didn't disappear to trap us..." Alex began.

"It's to keep...them inside..." I finished his thought as the creature let out another scream. "Shut UP!" I roared in its face as adrenaline kicked in. I shot my leg up and landed a kick square in its chest, before grabbing the knob and slamming the door shut.

----

When morning came, I called my dad and told him we needed to talk about a particular door. He instantly knew what I was talking about and freaked out. He told me he couldn't say too much about the door over the phone because someone might hear, but he was going to come over and explain everything he knew. I pressed him for some answers, and he did say as much that my grandparents knew about it, and their parents before them, dating all the way back to when my family built this house. I gathered not wanting someone to hear was the same reason my grandmother never told me anything about it while she was in the nursing home and signing the house over to me. My dad was going to have a lot to answer for in terms of not warning us.

While we waited for him, Alex and I discussed the possibility of selling the house. It was a heated debate, but after some time we decided against it. We couldn't pass on the danger of the door to anyone else. No one else would ever need to go through what we did. No one else will ever have the horrors beyond that door. We would have to stay.

We were the new guardians of the faded green door.

Thank you for getting this far! More stories to come. Stay tuned.