That Door at the End of the Hall

I've love my house! It’s nice and roomy with a ginormous backyard. The kitchen appliances were all brand new and name-brand when my girlfriend (her name is Sandra) and I moved in. We've been living here for about 3 months now (we had just finished unpacking everything last month) and we've haven’t had a single problem with anything yet. The family room is one of my favorite features. It’s almost the size of a mini-cinema. Sandra loves to host parties and that family room is big enough to fit 2 3-piece couch sets, a 64-inch flat-screen T.V, and a mini-bar. However, there’s one thing that tips the iceberg on this house. At the end of the hall where my office is, there’s a door that’s locked. When we bought this house, the owner Mike, told us that the last family had lost the key to that door before they moved out, and they hadn't bothered to call a locksmith. Sandra and I simply shrugged as the owner told us that behind the door was a little room that had supposed to be removed from the house, but she didn't have enough money after all of the top-brand appliances and other things to do that.

Every now and then, while I walk passed that door or when I’m in my office (unrelated: I’m a stay-at-home accountant), I can hear a small scratching or tapping sound. I pass this off as the wind making the blinds hit the windows. It hasn't really bothered me that much, but sometimes I wonder. Just what was the room behind that door?

A couple weeks later, after hearing that tapping sound, I called a locksmith. The locksmith came a week later, and to Sandra’s and my surprise, when the locksmith tried to open the door, it actually opened! He looked at us as if we made a prank out of the locked door. We told him we were dumbfounded, and that anytime we tried to open that door, it wouldn't budge. Well, the locksmith just sighed and went to his truck to get some supplies so he could make us a new key for this room. The door being opened made Sandra and me curious. We went inside the now not-locked door. The room was tiny; the wallpaper was starting to wither away, and there was mold at the corner of the room. I thought this room was creepy as it gave me an ominous feeling, but Sandra loved it, to my surprise. She said it was the perfect size for my office (she had recently been trying to make me move my office somewhere else, because where my office is, is where she wanted to put a piano) I said no, but she kept on nagging me. I still denied her.

Before the locksmith had left, he told us to pick up the key he’s made for that door in a couple weeks because he was going out of town and the shop would be closed. We simply agreed and he drove off. As soon as the locksmith’s truck was out of sight, Sandra starting nagging me about my office again. I just ignored her, and after a while, she gave up. For the rest of the day, when I tried to talk to her, she just turned and ignored me. She rarely talked to me for the next two days until the point that I didn't care anymore. I told her that I’d move my office into that small ugly room if we fixed it up. She hugged me happily and gave me a petite kiss on my check.

Within a week, my office was now in that creepy room. I still got that ominous feeling whenever I would walk in what was now my “new office”, but it felt much stronger now. I couldn't help but feel I was in danger if I stayed in here. I told Sandra that I was moving my office again, but she just turned away like she was going to stop talking to me. I told her fine in an almost-angry tone, and she hugged me again.

One day, I had just waked up, and I remembered that I had to finish a big document today, so I rushed to get to my office. However, when I got to the room, the room was open. I thought this was strange, because I always shut the door whenever I was done with my work, and Sandra never goes in there. I told myself that I must have forgotten to close the door last night.

An hour into my work, Sandra walked in and told me that today was the day that I had to go get the key from the locksmith. I had completely forgotten! I asked her if she would go get it because I had some work to catch up on. She sighed and told me yes in an annoyed voice, but I have to do something for her later. She closed the door as she left.

A little while later, I started wondering what was taking Sandra so long to get back. I just thought that she stopped at the local Wal-Mart to get some food. I was tired of doing work so I turned on the T.V that I had in this room (if there was one good feature about this room, it was the fact that it had enough room for me to fit a T.V in). I flipped through the local channels until a breaking news announcement came on. The reporter was reporting a car crash. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets. The reporter said that a young woman named Sandra Humphrey was greatly injured in the crash. Just as the reporter said that, I got a call from the town’s hospital.

I rushed in the hospital, worried about Sandra, almost slipping until I made it to the room that Sandra was in. I opened the door and what I saw was almost unpleasant to my stomach. Sandra was lying down on the hospital bed, one of her arms broken, and a really bad scrape on her face, strangely in the shape of a claw. She looked terrible. I sat next to her and she opened her eyes and I almost cried. I told her how worried I was and she said it was OK, and that it doesn't hurt that much. The doctor then walked in and told me to leave because they had to do some surgery on her. The doctor told me that she was lucky to only be that beaten up compared to the crash that she was in. As much as I wanted to wait for her, I had to finish that document by tonight, or else I might get fired.

It was around 7:30 when I got home (I had stopped to get some dinner) I rushed up to my office in that tiny room that I hated so much. I quickly jumped on the computer and got to work as fast as I could. I was so distracted with my work that I almost didn't notice the T.V mysteriously turn off. It was one of those older T.Vs that was made in the 1980’s, so I just shunned it and got back to work. As I just started to type again, I heard a sudden click that I would hear only when a door would close; I passed it off as the sound of the computer keys being typed.

Suddenly, the light started to dim, now illuminating the room in an eerie kind of way. OK, now I was starting to get nervous. I could feel that ominous feeling again. I told myself that I should just go get some fresh air. I walked out of the office and as I opened the front door of the house, all of the lights went out. Suddenly, I felt myself being kicked and tugged and even stabbed. I tried to struggle to get away, but the force that was doing this wouldn't give up. Instead, “it” started punching me in the face. I felt myself being tugged into a room that smelled like mold. The lights turned on and I was shocked at where I was at. It was my office, but it wasn't my office. It was the same room, but it looked the same way as it was when Sandra and I first saw it. I staggered when I stood up. When I got a full view of the room, I noticed that there was no door anymore. I started slamming my hand furiously into the walls until I fumbled and crashed into the floor.

The lights turned off again, and I was blinded by darkness again. Suddenly I heard what sounded like a woodpecker slamming it beak into a tree branch. Then, something thin, but sharp slid across my face. Suddenly, I heard a cackle from somebody or something in the room. “You did this to me!” an angry voice said as I was slashed by what felt like a claw. The being kept on repeating the same words louder and louder as the slashes became faster and faster. Finally, the slashed stopped, and the being said, “I wish it was you! I wish it was you!”

I told myself this is the end, and as I was about to give myself up to death, the lights started to flicker back on. What I saw was horrifying. I saw an arm that was distorted. It was black with what looked like serious burns all over. The place where there would be fingers, there was five, long, black claws. The lights started to illuminate the room more, and right before I was dead, I saw the criminal, and I said, “I thought … you loved Me.”, before I died. The killer was a demonic silhouette of somebody I loved that was cursed by this room.

It was Sandra.