The Open Door (5 page)

Dark, twisted, and hilarious, Willie Wonka
was one of Scott’s all time favorite characters.

He had already consumed half the bowl of
popcorn when he decided to take a bathroom break.

After pausing the VHS player, the only
audible noise left was the pounding storm outside. Curiosity got
the best of Scott, so he approached the window to take a look
outside and see how many more inches had accumulated since last he
looked.

Flicking open the blinds, he was surprised to
see a woman walking along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the
street.
This lady must be crazy!
He thought, as he watched
her press against the winds, lifting each foot at least
eighteen-inches off the ground to clear the ever rising drift. Her
clothing, which was light considering the temperatures, was thickly
coated with ice, but the woman drudged on as if she didn’t feel a
thing.

He closed the blinds once again, and walked
away to use the bathroom. Once finished, Scott plopped down in
front of the fire, and pressed play on the remote. A few moments
later, he paused the movie once again, wondering how the woman
outside was fairing in her epic battle against the blizzard of
‘99.

Twisting the rod on the shades, he watched
them slowly open, unveiling a dark silhouette. Only the woman
wasn’t walking, she was standing—facing his window.

Focusing through the stirring sea of glowing
flakes, wondering if the woman needed help, Scott noticed she wore
tattered and very insufficient clothing. Her face was weathered and
dirty, and her straggly hair stuck to her head under a layer of
sleet. She stood perfectly upright, with her hands to her sides,
perfectly still and completely stiff, just staring at him with what
looked to be feelings of disgust and envy under a layer of grease,
dirt, alcohol, and whatever else had collected on her face, now
perfectly preserved thanks to a thin coat of ice.

An uncomfortable sensation came over him, so
Scott abruptly closed the blinds, and walked away.
Do I let her
in
—
let her use my phone while she gets warm? She’s creepy
and probably crazy, but she’s staring for a reason
—
she must
want in.

Back and forth Scott went while pacing the
floor. “Fine! But if I can’t find help, she leaves anyway! No way
is she staying the night!”

Scott yanked open the door, the woman was
standing only two feet away as she peered through his screen door,
staring at him without so much as a flinch or wink, even though
wind and snow smacked her in the face. Quickly, he locked the
deadbolt on the screen door.

“You okay? Do you need something?”

She just stared, piercing through his eyes as
if to get to his soul.

“I can call someone to help you, but you have
to tell me what you want . . . okay?”

Her long boney index finger pressed against
the window of the door, and slowly wrote a word: ‘Help.’ She had
written it backwards so it read perfectly from Scott’s viewpoint.
Impressive, but definitely unusual.

“Look, if I let you in, you need to sit by
the door while I call someone. Understand?”

The woman gave no response.

Hesitant, but certain he needed to help,
Scott unlocked the door and cautiously opened it.

“Come on in and get warm.”

The woman’s feet were under a foot of snow,
she inched forward, but without lifting her feet, as if she were
gliding. The snow gathered in front of her, and then she lifted one
of her feet up and placed it inside the door.

“Slippery, eh?” Scott said, assuming she slid
on ice that built under the snow.

The woman was finally in, so he closed the
door, leaving it unlocked—just in case. She stood in the entryway,
dripping until a puddle quickly formed at her feet.

Sitting by the fire, and watching the woman
from ten feet away, she still stood just inside the door, thawing
out like something from the ice age.

“Can I get you some hot tea, or cocoa
maybe?”

The woman was still unresponsive.

“How about a blanket or towel?”

She turned and looked at him, her eyes filled
with intensity, as if she harbored hate for the man that brought
her in from the harsh storm and offered her help. It made no sense.
This woman is crazy; I never should have let her in.

“I’m only trying to help. If you like, you
can stay there while I call. Okay?”

Dialing 911 on his cell phone, Scott felt
immense pressure to get help, and get her out of his home
immediately.

One call after another, all he could manage
was a busy signal or nothing at all. “I’ll try again in a few
minutes, there’s no service—probably the storm.”

Again, there was no response.

“What’s your name? I’m Scott.”

Her lips didn’t move, but he could hear a
grumble come from within her, almost like an animal growling.

“Excuse me, I just need to go upstairs and
grab something.”

Scott walked up the stairs while watching the
unresponsive stranger stand in his doorway—paranoid she would try
something at any moment. His compassion had overwhelmed his common
sense, and he was regretting it.
I should have never let her
inside my house!

After entering his room, Scott quickly went
for the closet where he hid his .45 ACP 1911 handgun. He popped a
fully loaded seven-round magazine in, and pulled the slide back,
placing a round in the chamber so the gun was ready to fire. He
shoved the gun in the rear of his pants, placed his shirt over the
grip to conceal it, and made his way downstairs.

“OK, I’m back! I just wanted to try the cell
phone upstairs, but it didn’t work there either.”

She didn’t believe him, he could tell by the
look in her eyes. In fact, she didn’t appear intoxicated, or high,
or even weakened by lack of nutrition or harsh weather; she had a
look of strength and eagerness, which made Scott uncomfortable.

“Apage humani.” The woman said.

“Excuse me?”

The right side of her mouth curled up,
forming a half-smile.

In a voice not proportionate to her
appearance, the woman quietly mumbled something else. “Audi
Satanas.”

“I’m not understanding you. Do you speak
English?”

Again she smiled, and then Scott realized
that he had seen the smile before. The man with the top hat that he
had seen on two other occasions had the same smile. He wondered:
why does she share the same taunting grin?

Feeling uneasy, Scott walked back another
four feet to create more distance between the foreigner and he. Her
long boney finger, with jagged yellowed nail, reached out to the
door—the grotesque nail pressed into the hard wood as if it were
made of balsa, and she began scratching it, making an agonizingly
slow scraping noise, like nails on a chalkboard.

“Please stop,” Scott begged, as she somehow
etched letters deep into the wood of his door with her
fingernail.

Quickly, and with a cracking sound, she
turned her head toward Scott while still carving on his door. A
smile grew on her face as her brow furrowed. She was done, and
scribed in his door was the word, “Mortem.”

“I don’t know who you are, but you need to
leave. Now!”

“Mortem!” She screamed in an unholy tone.

Scott drew his gun and took aim at the
woman’s chest.

“Leave, or I shoot!”

She hissed at him, like some sort of foul
serpent, and then spoke, “Peto et aheram! Peto abyssus!” Her voice
had changed again; it was so abysmal, that it couldn’t have
possibly come from a woman, or a man for that matter. It was
grossly inhuman.

Physically Scott could easily overpower a
woman, especially a woman of her stature, but there was something
horribly wrong. Instinctively he knew that a greater strength, an
evil lie inside this woman that he couldn’t contend with on a
physical level.

As he focused on her, waiting for any sudden
movement that would give him an excuse to pull the trigger,
something even more horrifying took place. The woman’s body went
completely limp while still standing, resembling a puppet hanging
from its master’s strings. From shoulder to elbow were parallel to
the ground while her forearms dangled on their hinged joints. Her
neck no longer supported the weight of her head, which was buried
in her chest.

Suddenly the woman’s body began moving around
in a circular motion while maintaining its scarecrow like pose. She
elevated off the ground with only her toes touching the hardwood
floor entry, and her toes dragged on the floor, creating a perfect
circle. After watching this for what seemed like several minutes,
she stopped and slammed against the floor with her knees in a
praying position. Still lifeless and limp, the body repeatedly and
violently stood, then dropped to its knees. Her head and arms
continued to dangle and shake from the movement—it was as if a
giant hand had hold of her lifeless body at the waist, picking her
up and slamming her to the ground. Again and again, her knees
slammed against the floor.

Scott looked at the indented floor where
blood and flesh saturated and stuck to the lacquer. The exposed
shattered bones of her knees began to break apart, and bone shards
were pounded into the wood like nails.

The kneeling stopped as the body rose off the
ground; its legs together and arms outstretched in the form of a
cross.

Her head whipped back hard enough crack the
spine, and her jaw seemingly disjointed itself, hanging by only
skin and tendons.

A deep routed gurgling sound erupted as the
monstrosity roared and spewed black sledge from its mouth—all over
the floors and walls of the living room.

Some of the tar like substance managed to
spray on Scott. The smell was obscene and nearly caused him to
vomit.

Frozen in terror beyond words, he managed to
keep his gun pointed at the possessed woman, but was too petrified
to pull the trigger.

In its broken state, the demon began to laugh
as if thoroughly amused with what it had done. The laugh started as
a deep throaty bellow, and quickly changed to a pitchy nasally
chuckle.

Snapping out of his trance, Scott regained
his senses and took careful aim with the gun. His heart pounded
hard enough to hear, and his breathing became labored—it made it
impossible to stand still.

Doing the best he could to stabilize his
shaking hands, Scott squeezed the trigger.
Boom!
The .45
caliber hollow-point blew a hole in its chest the size of a fist,
causing the pale body to go completely limp and collapse to the
ground.

Watching the body intently while still
holding aim with his gun, a sense of relief came over him. The body
lay motionless—it didn’t breathe or twitch—there was no sign of
life.

Minutes went by. Scott didn’t dare move on
the chance that it would come to, but it never did.

He placed his gun back in his pants to free
his hands so he could call 911. Terrified of police involvement,
Scott nearly hung up when he received a dial tone.
What will the
cops think? A dead female that appears to have been beaten, then
shot by my gun, and is now lying inside my home.

There was hope that an autopsy of the black
sludge and internal and external damage would show that this thing
destroyed itself from the inside out, but he was being realistic;
police want an open and shut case, and they have Scott holding the
murder weapon. Case closed.

The phone stopped ringing. “Hello?” There was
nobody there. “Hello? Is this police dispatch?” Scott asked.

The line was scratchy due to the weak signal
brought by the storm

“Luc—“ The line cut out. He listened closer
trying to make out what the dispatcher was saying.

“Luci—” Someone said.

“Lucille? I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard
time hearing you.”

Taking a chance on the dispatcher hearing
him, Scott clearly stated his address and told the person that he
had shot an intruder.

Then the voice came through clear: “Lucifer
hostis humani generis!”

Startled, Scott looked at the body; it still
lay lifeless.

“Mortem ad vitam! Mortem ad vitam! Mortem ad
vitam!”

The voice kept repeating the same phrase over
and over.

Scott hung up the phone and looked at the
body, trying to think of a way to get around the evil corpse that
blocked his egress.

The body was lying face down in a crumpled
mess of a position. Its hair covered its entire face, so he
couldn’t look for eye movement.

A crackling sound exploded from the silence.
The head began to move, sliding the black matted hair across the
blood soaked floor. The head turned slowly, and continued turning
causing the vertebrae in its spine to snap loudly, as if someone
had stepped on an old dry tree branch.

The head continued to turn until it faced the
ceiling, its body still belly-down. With its jaw hanging loosely,
it let out a deafening cry using a myriad of grotesque voices.

Blood began to ooze from its eye-sockets,
ears, mouth, and nose, while the screaming continued.

Covering his ears did no good; the power
behind the voices caused the living room window to crack, and
brought Scott to his knees.

The screaming stopped. On his knees, Scott
stared at the horribly disfigured body. Then in an eerie voice he
had not yet heard, it quietly spoke one word, “Scott?” And then
like a sadistic clown, it began to chuckle.

Drained of all energy, Scott fired two more
shots into its skull, silencing the madness.

Born on Friday the thirteenth, the number
thirteen was never an unlucky number for Scott, and he never bought
into silly superstitions. Raised in a home where the address is,
1300 Cape Way, seemed destiny.