The Door Part II
It was the husband of the couple from check in that came walking through the door.
He seemed to come bumbling, head down the same way that I had come through the door. I came to say something, but a chill went through the room that rendered me speechless.
He closed the door, and looked up at the three of us in the room. “Oh, man, my bad, I must’ve had the wrong room,” he said. He paused, recognizing me, and offered his hand. “You were in the lobby with us.
Sorry for not introducing ourselves back there. My name’s Steve, and my wife was Meredith.”
“John,” I replied, shaking his hand.
“Good to meet you,” he said. He looked at the two children. “I didn’t realize you had kids. Didn’t you come alone?”
I shook my head. “I thought this was the bathroom and came in here by mistake. The door was stuck when I tried to make my way back out.”
“It seemed to work fine for me,” Steve said. He eyed the two children and back at me, where he stuck up his eyebrows. I made introductions for him to the children, but I gave Steve an expression on my face that said “Mmmmhmmm.”
“Are you children here by yourselves?” Steve asked.
“We are waiting for Papa,” said Charles. Steve asked a few more of the same questions I had, rehashing the conversation that had just taken place. I shifted uncomfortably in place as I listened.
“Well then, it was nice to meet you, but I think that I’m going to get back to my wife,” Steve said, waving to the three of us. He went to open the doorknob, and I was about to say something.
But the door easily swung open, as if there were nothing wrong with the doorknob.
“Are you staying till their Papa gets back?” asked Steve. My eyebrows raised, I immediately made my way to the door.
A sound made me look back. Victoria had fallen off the bed, and was holding her knee and beginning to cry. Though I shouldn’t have, I turned around to see the injured girl. I looked over at Charles, who moved not a finger, even though his sibling was clearly hurt.
A voice inside me told me no. Screamed for me to turn the other way and run back to my room. Brushing my teeth suddenly seemed so insignificant anymore.
But that voice was silenced, muffled by something I could not explain. Against all
better judgement, I went to help the girl. It was
as if I were a puppet on strings I went to attend
to Victoria. I felt myself walk over and help her
up, but I don’t remember making the choice to
help her.
“Are you ok?” I asked her as I rolled her upright. She sobbed slightly, as children do, and I helped her up on the bed again. She nodded, and I rubbed her knee, assuring her that it was all right.
Why did I do that? I thought in the back of my mind. I had no connection to this girl, quite the opposite, but I had gone to her like she were my own daughter. What had happened to me?
I looked up when I knew she was all right, looking towards the doorway. I was certain Steve had left the door open— there had been no sound of it clicking shut on the frame— but the door had somehow closed on his way out. I looked at the door somewhere between horrified and tears.
“Victoria,” I told her. My awareness was suddenly back, and I needed to act on it. I had to make up some believable lie that would maybe, just maybe, grant me an exit out of this creepy room. “How about I go get an ice pack or something from the front desk or the kitchen for your knee? You look like you need me to get something for you.” The girl nodded, looking brightly at me. Her sobs had quieted.
I began to walk toward the door, a glimmer of hope in my chest. There was a confidence in me that this would work, and I would be on my way out, to “help” the girl….
I twisted the handle, and it responded. But the door did not open.
“Is it not opening?” Charles asked, licking his finger as he flipped the page. The words carried not a hint of concern.
“Why won’t this door open!” I exclaimed, pulling as hard as I could. I knocked on the door. Steve couldn’t have gotten that far, surely he would hear me…. “Steve! Are you there? You need to open the door for me!”
Silence. There was nothing, no response, no sounds, not even footsteps coming from either side of the hallway.
My fist slid down the door, utterly confused and aggravated and defeated all at the same time. I was trapped in here, with these creepy children that I did not know, in a room that made me extremely uncomfortable.
“Papa will be back soon,” Victoria said, in a voice so smooth that gave no indication she had been crying only a moment before. “He will open the door.”
I didn’t want to know what would happen when Papa got back. I did not want to know. I began to pound on the door again.
“Somebody! Open the door!” I pleaded, sobbing as I knocked hard. I could hear people walking through the hallway again, but none of the footsteps seemed to stop despite my cries. “Let me out! Please, someone open the door, just please, let— me—out!”
The doorknob twisted, and the door was suddenly wide open before me. My cries immediately stopped. It was the man at the front desk, still in his crisp outfit and sporting wire-framed glasses. His blue suit jacket hung across his shoulders, his white shirt and bow tie underneath. I had not seen from my side of the check in, but the man’s tan khakis seemed very well pressed.
The face though terrified me. Something was not right. This was the check-in clerk, but despite the wide smile, there was a shadow across his face. It seemed as if this were a dark caricature of that man who checked me in. There was a friendly smile upon his face, but there was something in his eyes that made me want to scream.
This was Papa.
“Victoria, honey, what did I tell you about making noise in your room?” the man said as he leaned toward the girl. His voice was warm and smooth, as if he had heard none of my knocking.
“I know, Papa, and I am sorry,” she said. “But please, I just want to be let out of my room. I’m sorry for what I did, I will be good from now on, I promise.”
“You know I can’t let you out,” the man said with a tsk tsk. “You were bad; You didn’t clean up after yourself. Kids who don’t listen to their papas have to be punished. You have to stay in your room.”
“But Papa,” she said. “I’ve been here forever. I’ve been good in here, just like you asked. I’ll do anything, please anything you say if you let me out of the room.”
“She’s even been good for Mama while you were gone,” Charles said, not looking up from the page in his book.
I froze. The way Charles had just said that… it was as if Mama had been in the room with us the whole time.
“You promise, Victoria darling?” the man named Papa asked. “You promise you were good for Mama, and that you will clean up after yourself from now on?” The girl nodded.
“Anything you ask, Papa,” she nodded, wiping her eyes. Her gaze then connected with mine, and a sense of dread suddenly filled me.
“He can stay in the room for me.”
Papa suddenly looked at me, and dread turned to screaming fear.
“Him?” Papa asked as he looked me over as I stood next to the wall by the doorway. I could not move a
muscle. “Hmm, yes, maybe he will do. Very well then. If he stays in the room, you may leave, darling.”
Papa passed me, humming happily as he walked out of the room. I rushed for the doorway. My hand grabbed the edge of the doorway, and then something from inside the room grabbed me.
It was not the hands of a little girl, or those of a late teen boy. Slender fingers wrapped around my
shoulder, fingers that were definitely not human. At the same time, another hand wrapped around my
midsection. A third and fourth hand joined them, until my whole torso was being pulled back. I fought, trying to run, but more of the same fingers wrapped themselves around my legs.
I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my lips. Nevertheless, I kept yelling, screaming, hoping anyone in the hall would hear me and come rushing in. Whatever was pulling me sat me down on the bed, running its fingers along my body. I felt an invisible finger put itself up to my lips, as if to shush me, and
then suddenly I could not mouth a word. I listened, wide eyed and quiet, to Victoria as she hummed happily, just like Papa. She hopped off the bed and walked around, before skipping out the door.
The door closed behind her, and suddenly the room was quiet.
Charles sat at the desk, and turned another page in his book.