Haunting of the Gatekeeper

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. From the nearby hiking trail, Susan saw the tall flame dancing in the dark. She smiled at the beacon of hope that offered her the possibility of a warm meal and shelter from the threatening storm clouds. When she approached the cabin, the first flash of lightning lit up the night sky, revealing the cabin's moss-covered roof and a cracked front window. She slowed her pace and took care stepping on the warped and broken porch steps. Finding the front door ajar, she peeked inside the dimly lit room. It was empty except for a stone fireplace.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" she asked, rapping on the door.

A gust of rain-filled wind blew the door open, and the bang from it hitting the wall made her turn to leave. When another flash of lightning spread through the clouds, it revealed a skeleton hand reaching out from the dirt below the steps, which startled her backward. She tripped over the entryway and fell onto the cabin's hardwood floor. The door slammed shut and locked, forcing her to scooch backward further into the room until she became held in place by an invisible force.

A long red-haired ghost of a child with a slit neck appeared in front of the burning candle, and the flame went out. She had black holes where her eyes would have been and her wicked sneer sent shivers through Susan. The ghost was in front of her before she could blink and made a slashing movement with a blood-stained fingernail across Susan's neck. A trap door fell open beneath Susan, and she shrieked, grasping for the edge of the floorboards. She landed on her side, and a cloud of dust erupted into the warm, stuffy air.

A light was flickering above the dirt floor she landed on, and a muscular man with black eyes was under the dying bulb carving "Help Me" over and over again into his bare chest. It was as if she was watching a short video set on repeat. She would have dropped to her knees had she not already been there. She wrenched at her clothes and wished she'd been abducted by the truck driver who had stopped to offer her a ride instead of becoming a victim of nightmares.

With tears streaming down her face, she pulled a gun from her backpack and pointed it at her head. Before she could squeeze the trigger, the man was at her side and yanked the gun from her hand. He shot himself in the head, and blood splattered all over her face, but the man remained standing with a hole in his head. The smell of burnt flesh made her gag and retch up stomach acid. The man retrieved the abandoned knife and thrust the blade into her neck. Blood filled her mouth and spurt out from the gash when he pulled the blade out.

She woke up in her childhood bed and her neck hurt and was wet and sticky at the location of the pain. Placing a finger on her tongue solidified the fact that it was blood, and she screamed, remembering the thrust of the blade from the black-eyed man. The bedroom door swung open, and the child ghost rushed to the foot of Susan's bed pointing the blood-crusted knife from the cabin at her.

Gathering upon all the heartache and sorrow she'd experienced in the foster parents' home and the child care institution, she found the courage to ask the ghost what it wanted.

"All this," the ghost said, opening her arms wide.

Susan looked about her bedroom with its painted pink walls and stuffed animals and dolls everywhere. Although it looked like a happy, safe child's room, her childhood was not a joyful one. Her foster parents had been abusive, and the room was decorated for gaining the case worker's approval.

When the ghost sneered at her, she knew that telling it to take whatever it wanted would be in vain. The ghost let out a shriek, lunged into the air, and landed on top of her. The knife kept plunging into her chest and neck, and each stab sent a flood of pain through her, which caused her body to spasm. The last thing she saw was the ghost licking blood from the knife's blade.

A light filtered through the darkness ahead of Susan. She started toward it, but when it began to look like a flickering light bulb with a person below it, she ran into the darkness behind her. She crashed into a black, metal gate that was chained and locked. Fog creeped out from between the rusted metal bars and swirled up around her. She grabbed two of the bars and shook the gate until the chain and lock fell away.

She passed through the gate's opening and found herself surrounded by an endless sea of tombstones. The one closest to her had a large granite angel standing on top of it. Her name was etched into it with the dates 1982 to the current year underneath it. Her cheating husband's name was next to hers, but only his birth date was there. She would have scratched out his name if she could. It was his uncontrollable anger that had sent her running out of their home and into the fateful night from which she'd never return.

"Welcome to purgatory," the ghost said, eating an apple from her perch on a tree branch.

"Who are you?" Susan asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Here, try some," the ghost said, holding the apple out toward her.

Everybody knew about the story with the woman, an apple, and a serpent. She didn't dare take a bite from the apple lest she fell back into the nightmare she hoped she'd escaped. When the ghost vanished, she began walking among the weather-worn tombstones toward a green glow.

She was prevented from walking into the green-glowing mist by a glass wall that stretched further than she could see in every direction. The other side of the glass contained an uncountable number of lost souls that were floating up from an abyss. The ones that approached her had frowns and jeers on their eyeless faces as they bumped into the glass inches from her. As she turned around, the ground she stood on started to descend. When it stopped, there was an elevator door, and she involuntarily pressed the open button.

The ghost stood on a platform at the end of a long hallway filled with the dead who were waiting for their next fate. Susan swung around only to face a black, rock wall. She stood in line and watched as black-winged demons walked among the dead, impaling some of them with ice hooks before dragging them screaming and writhing into the darkness beyond. When she reached the edge of the raised platform the ghost stood on, she was again offered the apple. Sensing that the ghost liked her, she accepted the apple and took a bite. The bitterness jolted her, and she dropped it.

"You are now like me," the ghost said, smiling at her new friend. She'd been wanting company ever since she had been given the gatekeeper position. Consequently, she changed Susan into a ghost who would walk between the worlds of the living and dead until time stopped.