The Forbidden Door

[Chromer]

As to try to write more mature like and be more eloquent, I'm going to start this story, finish it, then finish all my half done stories as well.

Enjoy.


The Forbidden Door - Chapter One


Like a lingering scent in the air, the door always remained in my mind yet was never powerful enough to warrant my attention after I left my house some odd years ago. As a child, it's presence dominated my world and caused my two older brothers and me to grow up in vivid curiosity of it.

We were never to question the door, ask to open it, or even ask to know what was inside. To do so would "shatter our fragile minds" my mother would say. So like obedient sons, we stayed away from the mahogany door that ended the downstairs hallway into a dead-end. At night my brothers and I would talk about the basic fears and fantasies: a coffin with a vampire in it, a severed head, a portal to a world where kids ruled like monarchs and the adults our slaves. You know, kid stuff. As we grew up however, the childish fantasies of our minds gave way to the perverse invitations the door seemed to throw at us whenever we would be near it or even look at it.

I guess you could say that one of my invitations was accepted. Running as fast as a cheetah to my upstairs room, I quickly snatched up my Buck Rogers Ranger Knife and sneaked downstairs, snatching glances into rooms and around doorways all the way down. I approached the door with the timidness of a prom night virgin, fumbling hands and rapid heartbeat, trying to find the opening to that lovely dress. I inserted the knife into the keyhole and started to fumble with it. The keyhole started to catch and turn and my heartrate went from a galloping horse to an army gatling gun. Just as I was about to turn it fully and open, a strong hand that smelled of gin and aftershave clasped my shoulder. I turned to the left and looked up into my father's face.

"Didn't I tell you to never come near this door?" he asked in the gentleness of a father but with the severity of an oncoming beating.

"Yes sir."

"Then you know what happens when you disobey, Anthony?" he said squeezing my shoulder within his vice-like grip.

"Yes sir," I answered, knowing that my buttocks would feel like hot coals in a few minutes time.

I was beat like I was never beaten before that evening. When Mother returned from her bridge game around 7 o'clock she even had a turn at me herself when she found out what I had did. All and all, that beating drove out of me all other curiosity and urges to ever see what was behind that forbidden door. No amount of pain was worth that.

When it was time for me to leave for college, I left behind all the silly childhood memories of that house and prepared for a life in the real world. I graduated at the top of my class and earned my PhD in Biochemistry, while holding only a minor Masters in Psychology. Then the war hit. Vietnam I mean. Since I was 23 and technically in college, I was excused from the draft. My two older brothers weren't as lucky as me however. They left and came back years later former shells of themselves. Charlie, the oldest, told stories of napalm, rainy nights of death and "expanding your horizons with only one pill." My brother younger than Charlie but older that me was Ryan. When he came back, he didn't tell stories of the horrors of war. He never spoke to us again.

We took Ryan back to that victorian-styled house on the hill at the end of Wabash Court where my parents welcomed us with open arms. They took Ryan back in, who only hugged them very tightly and said not a word. Charlie and I stayed the night and left Ryan with our parents in the morning. We watched as my father and mother waved to us and Ryan only stood in the middle looking at us with his hands in his pocket, like a punk kid trying to show no emotion at his parents' funeral. That was the last vision of him that I remember now. Charlie and I never saw Ryan again.

I moved from sunny California and began working at a pharmaceutical company in New York City around 1973. Life in the city was just what I needed to wash the suburbia of Illinois, and the sun-bleached soul of California, off of my body. Adjusting to the city was tough at first. Twice I had my car stolen and I even was mugged a few times but I DIDN'T CARE. The feeling of being in a city where anything was possible and the sky held no limits amazed and frightened me at the same time. When I look back on it now, I guess I fell under the same disillusion that America fell under towards the 1870s. I stayed in NYC for the remainder of the 70s, through the Black Power movement, through the disco nights "boogie woogie woogie" and all that jazz. When in 1983, my world partly came screeching to a halt. My parents called me in the middle of the night, August 12, 1983 to inform me that my brother had slit his wrists and his throat in our house. Near the forbidden door. I took the next flight to Springfield and I carried my brother's casket with Charlie while my parents watched and the community of Springfield suburbia gossiped along the way.

After that, my world held no more enchantment, no more illusions of grandeur that had fueled my heart in the earlier years of my life. Only the bleak sky of existance seemed to stretch to an infinite length and my mind only numbed the pain because to open myself again would turn my brain white with insanity. I moved from the hustle and bustle of New York City, and settled in Hinterlands, North Carolina in a moderate house away from most of the town. The scent of pine trees and the sight of rolling hills, calmed the ever present storm that was churning in my heart at the time. That was when I met Jeanine. She was the Balm of Gilead to my soul, my oasis in the long desert of depression. I met her in the supermarket one day when I was stocking back up on cough syrup to get myself drunk again for the next week. She bumped into me around Aisle 8 and I immediately fell in love with her. I began courting her and in the spring of 1986, we were engaged. We moved out of the now cramped house into a bigger one on Slygan Avenue to accomodate our future family.

I now sleep in bed with my lovely fiance Jeanine when I am awakened by the telephone. Flashes of Ryan's death call ring in my mind as I blindly reach for the phone.

"Hello?" I ask in a gruff cowboy voice.

"Hey man, I hope I didn't wake you up," says a familiar voice on the other end.

I sit up in bed and rub my eyes.

"Charlie is that you!? I haven't heard from you since Ryan's funeral!"

"Yeah Anthony, I wish I didn't have to call you this late at night and disturb you, but I have some bad news."

No, don't say it. Oh God in heaven, don't say it.

"Mom and Dad were found with their wrists slit..."

No. God, stop it!

"and their throats cut open..."

Not in front of the door. NOT IN FRONT OF THAT DAMNED DOOR.

"in front of the forbidden door, Anthony. Just like Ryan," finishes Charlie and he finally crumbles and openly sobs on the phone.

"OH GOD NO," I heard myself saying as I began to cry as well.

Jeanine woke up from the noise and turned the lights on, sitting up.

"When's the funeral?" I said through sobs and tears.

Charlie composed himself and stifled a sob.

"The funeral is in a week. I want you to come and meet my wife Clara before the funeral."

"You got married Charlie!? You never told me man!?" I said smiling for the first time since he called.

"Yeah, but now we all will have to grieve over this. Anthony, it's time to do it."

"Do what?"

"It's time to open that damned door once and for all Anthony," said Charlie as the phone clicked and the signal toned on.

Jeanine grabbed me by the shoulders in the same vice-like grip of my father and I broke down once again. Whatever was the reason for my parents death, Charlie and I knew it involved the door in some way. We were going to open that forbidden door into a world of unknown possibilities and even more incomprehensible explanations. When I thought about what would have to be done, it scared me. After all, to have your brother and parents die in front of the same door in the same exact fashion made calling it the "forbidden door" seem like just a horror movie monster. In actuality, it was more like the door to Hell itself. Charlie and I were about to get a hands-on look into true evil. And you know what they say about doors. If someone's knocking at the door and ringing the bell, do them a favor and let them in. The hard part however, was knowing whether the pain we were about to witness was justice or torment for our unwillingness to accept the facts that presented themselves. I just wish to God that I could have seen my parents one last time. It would make knowing what happened to them alot easier to cope with. I turn to Jeanine and tell her what just transpired on the phone. She listened and gasped at all the right parts. When it was over, we sat in silence.

"So what are we going to do now honey?" asked Jeanine, wiping a bang from her face.

"Pack your things darling," I say in a stoic voice. "We're going back to Springfield."

Only we weren't going back to Springfield. We were about to descend into madness in it's purest form.

End Chapter One

[FoJaR]

as always, chromer, you need to tone down your verbage.

it's like too much salad dressing on a salad.

like a cup of ranch for a lil bowl of lettuce, gotta spoon feed it all the time being like "NO COME ON THAT'S DISGUSTING GONNA MAKE ME DIE OF PUKAGE GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

so yeah basically, you tryin too hard.

if you want, i'll edit it down for ya, no meanness, just fixes.

[Chromer]

Besides wordiness, is it an overall good read? Just wondering.

[FoJaR]

meh... there really wasnt anything that is compelling me to keep reading...

i guess it depends on what's behind the door........................... assuming you rewrite most of what you've written......... and what's behind the door isnt something stupid that cuts your wrists and throat/makes you want to cut your wrists and throat..................

i really dont think there's anything to it chromer... i'm really really trying to be nice, but i dont think there's anything worthwhile in this story.

[MalReynolds]

While there is nothing to it, I do find it much better than your other stuff.

[Chromer]

Chapter Two

The entire time on the flight to Springfield, I could only think about how I was going to face my mother and father as they lay in their eternal slumber. My tension must have affected Jeanine as well due to her twice asking me to stop squeezing her hand so hard. I really didn't want to bring Jeanine because to have her at my parents' funeral would be like a slap in their faces for not involving them in my life as much as they would've liked to have been. However, due to a few hours of arguing, an hour of crying, and two hours of passionate lovemaking, I finally decided to bring her along.

We touched down in Springfield around six that evening and proceeded to have a taxi take us to the scene of death, that house of pain and misery. As the taxi passed by the gate that led to the driveway up to the house, I felt a cold tingle go down my spine. Shock and awe or just my mind playing intricate games with my already dissassembled head? I shook the chill away and held Jeanine closely to me as the taxi finally reached the front door. We looked up to see Charle open the door with a moderately tall woman with brunette hair standing behind like a phantom shadow. I let Jeanine out and paid the cabbie what I owed him while Jeanine took our things out of the taxi's trunk. Charlie, obviously stunned from seeing Jeanine, stood motionless for four seconds before he jumped off the porch steps and asked Jeanine for the bags. She smiled and gladly handed them over while I looked up at the house.

I had forgot how cruel and sinister my house had actually looked at night. The windows that we had looked out of and the porch we had sat around on those hot summer nights and days now taunted me with a pain that could only be relieved by a total breakdown. The tears now openly flowed as I turned away from the porch and walked over to the old swinging bench that my father had installed those long years ago between two giant oak trees. I sat down and wiped the tears away, contemplating the meaning of my parents' demise.

"Need company?" came a voice from the northeast of me.

"Nah, I'm just taking a little breather man is all," I responded to Charlie sniffing away my heartache.

"If you need to let it out man, go ahead. I did all my crying the moment I called you," said Charlie as he sat down beside me making the swing move slightly.

"I cried all of my pain away early this morning too. It's just..." I said as I paused. "It's just why did this happen? There is no logical explanation for having our brother and our ****ing parents kill themselves right in front of the same damn door in the same fashion. It's a serious mind**** if you ask me," I said furiously, my anger becoming even more apparent.

"I have no words of comfort for you Anthony. What happened has already happened and cannot be taken back. All we can do now is try to figure out whyn this happen and try to move along in life," said Charlie.

I grunted and spit on the ground.

"This house can go **** itself for all I care but I'm going to ****ing open that door before it does," I said standing up.

"The forbidden door? What sense will it make in opening that Anthony? For all you know, it was probably just a closet where they hid their alcohol and other **** they didn't want us to find. However, if it will make you feel better, we can wait until Clara and?"

"Jeanine," I answered.

"Clara and Jeanine can fall asleep and then we can get to business. I don't want them to be awake lest we wake up some monster that will eat us or something," said Charlie laughing as he stood up and dusted off his pants.

"So when did you get married to Clara?" I asked as we walked back towards the house.

"We met in Cincinatti around '78 and we just knew that we would be together forever. So we moved from Cincinatti to Philadelphia in 1980 and we've lived there ever since. What about you and Jeanine?"

"We met in 1984 in a grocery store as cheesy as that sounds, and dated her for a while. We got engaged in 86' and now here we are two years later: not married and dead parents," I said bitterly.

Charlie wrapped his arm around my shoulder. His brotherly embrace reminded me of the older brother, the monolith of steel that was our sibling foundation 30-something odd years ago. I remembered the times we played together, laughed together, and even got in trouble together. It was the times that we shared that made the bond between the last of our clan, the Hestings, grow even stronger.

We walked back up to the porch and let ourselves into the house. Clara was stoking a fire in the fireplace while Jeanine was busy setting up snacks from some groceries in the kitchen. Once the fire was nice and steady, Clara stood up and dusted off the plaid dress skirt she was wearing. The fire cast an eerie glow over her beautiful, yet strangely hypnotizing face. She stepped forward and gave me a big hug.

"I'm so sorry for your loss honey," she said in a slight southern drawl. "When Charlie told me all about it, I couldn't help but cry with him."

She released me from her embrace and we all sat down around the fire in the quite large lounge chairs my father had imported from Italy after World War II. Jeanine entered with a party tray full of cheeses and vegetables and set it on the coffee table as she took her place around the fire as well.

"So when is the wake?" I asked Charlie.

"The day after tomorrow," answered Charlie. "It would have been tomorrow but some mix-up at the funeral parlor has us scheduled on somebody else's time. Damn mortician and his necrophiliac fetish. Had he not been a good friend of Ma's, I would've punched his lights out."

As if his last statement had lit up his memory, he turned to Clara.

"Why don't you let them have some fun and show them your trick?" asked Charlie who was now as giddy as a schoolgirl.

"I don't know honey," said Clara with a disheartening look on her face. "It might freak them out."

"Freak what out?" I asked now curious.

Clara began to settle herself into her chair as Charlie explained.

"Well, ever sinmce Clara was a little girl, she was a little bit of a psychic."

"Oh bull****!" said Jeanine unexpectedly.

"You don't believe me?" asked Clara. "Ok, then let me read your husband's mind and hypnotize him. Maybe finally we'll be able to see if he's any good in bed."

I blushed and looked at Jeanine. The last statement obviously had offended her pride so my involvement in the little game was already a done deal.

"Sure what the hell," I said as I settled myself into my chair.

Clara then sat on the table in front of me while Jeanine and Charlie sat on the side of her.

"Ok Anthony. I want you to be as relaxed as possible and listen to my voice."

I scoffed.

"If your going to try this, at least give me the benefit of the doubt that you willingly tried it," said Clara in a frustrated voice.

"Ok ok," I said as I relaxed myself and looked at her in her eyes.

Clara then held up her two index fingers in front of me.

"I want you to follow the tips of my fingers with your eyes. Every time I go back and forth your eyes will get heavier and heavier."

She began to move them from side to side in a metronome motion. I felt even more at peace as she continued to move them. I began to hear chimes in my head as her fingers continued their path, side to side. I heard laughter of children and of a father and mother and I smiled. Then I heard shouting and screaming and then everything went black.

I was standing in my house, only it looked completely different. The furniture looked circa 1890 and and the the feel of the house had a slight hue of danger about it. I turned around and looked outside. It was still nighttime but instead of my '87 Cadillac, there was a horse. I stumbled backwards from shock and turned to walk into the kitchen. As I walked in, a small child sped past me and ran up the stairs. I quickly turned around to not a modern kitchen but a washtub and a small wooden stove. It looked more like a museum than a fully functional house. I turned around and I heard screaming and shouting. Then from out of nowhere, I saw a naked woman and man running from upstairs to the first floor and around the corner. Another larger man in faded blue coveralls and a large bushy beard holding a rather large butcher knife chased after them towards the hall with the forbidden door.

I chased after them and turned around the corner to see an empty hallway. The only thing in my vision were doors to the left and right of the hall, and the large mahogany door right at the end. The handle seemed to jiggle as if someone was trying to get out. I felt my blood run cold as the handle started to jiggle furiously and then stop. My heart stopped beating for a few moments until I was sure that the forbidden door had calmed down. Suddenly the door blasted open and I saw a bloody severed head on the ground. It was MY bloody severed head. My mind began to crumble. Was it my head on the ground? I raised my hands to my head to check and I could feel nothing
but air.

Oh God. What is this?

The entire hallway turned negative like a undeveloped photo and the door slammed shut. It opened back up and the heads of my mother, father, and Ryan, bloody and severed began to roll towards me like bowling balls. I felt a slight breeze near my navel and looked down to seen my intestine begin falling out like silly string in a can. I began to try to stuff them back in when I saw that maggots had began to eat their way through the walls of the intestine. I looked up again and felt something wet on my face. I looked to the ceiling and saw only one sentence:

"WE'RE WAITING TO TAKE YOU TO HELL ANTHONY."

In blood.

And my mind and vision both turned white with insanity.

End Chapter Two

[FoJaR]

horror isnt my thing.

[Chromer]

Horror themed elements doesn't neccesarily mean it's a horror short story.

;D