The Locked Door

What happens behind the locked door? There’s an easy answer: no one knows. For decades, my school has had this one specific door locked. No one knows why. The story goes like this: the original principal of the school was killing his students and locking them behind the closed door. When he died, he threw the key into the lake for no one to discover. Another story was the principal lost the key. What do I think? I think it might be a bit dangerous to go looking into it. I mean, what if it’s true? What if the man murdered his students and shoved their bodies into the room? Wouldn’t it start to stink up eventually? Someone would’ve noticed it…right? My sister disagreed. She started teaching herself how to pick locks through YouTube tutorials. I walked toward my room when I noticed her practicing on a gold lock.

“What are you doing?” I asked her as I leaned against her doorframe.

“I’m going to open that door,” she told me, not looking up at me. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious as to what’s behind that door?” I shifted a bit as I stood. Sure, I was curious, but I didn’t want to find decayed bodies.

“Aren’t you a little bit creeped out people could be dead behind that door?” I asked her.

“Aren’t you my big, bad brother who isn’t supposed to be scared of anything?” She snapped back. I scoffed.

“I’m not scared,” I told her. “I’m creeped out. You’d thing after decades, someone would open the door, you know?”

“They’re all pansies, like you.” Not that she could see, but I glared at her. She picked the lock successfully as it clicked open.

”So, you’re gonna come with me tomorrow night, right?” She asked as she looked at me. I sighed and said,

“Yeah.” She smirked. I walked off to my room and went to bed. That morning, my sister and I ate breakfast before going to school. The reason we were picking the lock tonight was because it was the 80th anniversary of when the school first opened. My sister and I went through the day as normal as we could, but everyone talked about the door.

“Maybe he murdered puppies.”

“Maybe it was his own children or wife.”

“Maybe it caught fire.”

“Maybe there’s explosives inside.” Not even our current principal knew what was inside, but my sister was determined to find out. We hid in the boiler room after school until everyone had left. We played checkers and tic-tac-toe to keep us occupied. That and homework. My sister and I approached the door. It was a normal, wooden door with silver hinges. It didn’t look rusted or decayed.

“Any last guesses?” My sister asked. I didn’t really have anything in my mind for what was behind the door.

“Maybe it’s just a normal classroom,” I told her.

“Evan,” she complained. “Get more creative. I bet, there’s almost a centuries worth of stolen treasure.” I let out a sigh and let my mind wander until I came up with something. Everyone always assumes it’s something bad.

“Maybe it’s money to upgrade the school,” I told her. She gave me a look.

“Maybe you’re a bonehead,” she told me.

“Emmie, I’m not like you. I don’t have a creative mind,” I told her. “Just pick the lock so we can go.” She got out her tools and knelt down. She sighed every once in a while. About ten attempts later, the door clicked signaling it was unlocked. Emmie looked up at me. Both of us looked at each other in horror. She stood by me.

“You open it,” she told me. I didn’t argue with my sister. Not this time. I grabbed the doorknob and turned it. I pushed it open to reveal…a normal, 1900s classroom filled to the brim with briefcases. Upon further inspection, the briefcases had police cases from all over the country, all dated ahead of their time. All cold cases. All solved. We picked up a few cases and started reading. There were some dates in the later 2000s and even the late 1900s. Cases that hadn’t even happened yet. Cases that were labeled cold, but they weren’t even fresh yet. Emmie and I exchanged a look.

“Cold cases?” She asked. “Cold cases? If he was a psychic, why didn’t he share these with the police?”

“Maybe none of them believed him,” I answered. “Think about it, Emmie. You get all of these cases in your head. I mean, there’s got to be at least 100 here. You take them all to the police and they turn you down. Maybe even threaten to send you to a psych ward. Maybe he wanted these to be found by people like us.”

“‘People like us?’” She asked. “What do you mean?”

“We haven’t figured out our futures yet. What if we were meant to find these? Maybe he had a psychic vision of us finding these because he wants us to stop and solve these.”

“Let’s keep looking.” So, Emmie and I looked all around for clues to point us in the right direction. The cases weren’t sorted at all. Not by name. Not by year. Some were on the ground. Actually, there was one on the ground that caught my eye. I knelt down and picked it up. The names on the case were Evan and Emmie Peterson. It had our ‘last seen’ description on it. I looked up at Emmie as she looked at cases. Written on the paper was the clothes we were wearing now. She had on a pink, velvet jacket with a grey beanie and shirt, blue jeans, and black combat boots. I was wearing a blue jacket, grey shirt, black jeans, and high tops. My heart pounded in my chest. Our last known location was at the school. This school.

“Emmie, I think I know why we were meant to find this,” I told her. I handed over the paper and she looked at it in horror.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. I nodded in agreement. I didn’t leave without taking a few cases in the future with me. Emmie and I had made it home safely. The paper had said our last seen date was that day, but we made it through the night. I wondered if I didn’t find the paper, if we would’ve made it home at all. So, what does happen behind the locked door? If you ask me and my sister, we’ll tell you one answer: no one knows.