Pocket Doors

Bill, bill, lawn ad, bill with red stamp, old fashioned letter, pizza ad, bill. Mae walked into the living room and dumped the red bill and pizza ad onto her husband, Mike’s lap. She kept the old fashioned letter and then dumped the rest into the trash.

“Red stands for blood,” Mike flipped the red stamped bill onto the coffee table. He kept the pizza ad.

“Oh, Shaqadilla. Whatcha got there, lady?”

Mae lifted the letter up so Mike could see the expensive looking envelope with an elegant calligraphic address. Something shifted in it, tinkling down to the corner of the envelope.

“Fancy that,” Mike sat up on the couch, pausing the Simpsons on TV. “Did Gandolph the White send you the one ring?”

“Whose Gandolph the White,” Mae asked like she cared. “Sounds racist.”

“He’s not racist. He’s a wizard.”

“Like a Grand Wizard?”

“No…well, “Mike frowned. “He is Grand, but not in like a hate monger way. He hangs out with elves and dwarfs and hobbitses.

“Were they white elves, dwarfs and hobartses?”

Mike opened his mouth and shut it abruptly, “You just blew my mind,” He fell back into the couch. "Whose it from?”

“Don’t know,” Mae picked up a letter opener (it was really just a dinner knife left out from the night before) and inserted it into the letter. “It’s actually not even addressed to us. I think it’s to the previous owner.”

“Then don’t open it, “Mike advised as he pushed play. “That’s illegal.”

Mae slowly slit the envelope open, staring at Mike the whole time.

“I’m warning you what you are doing is illegal.” Mae blew into the envelope and pulled out the letter. Mike threw his hands up.

“Fine, but I’m not going down with you. You are acting of your own accord.OF HER OWN ACCORD!” he shouted this last part at the Smart TV, only half joking.

“There’s something in here,” She handed the letter over to Mike, who made a big show of his reluctance to take it. Mae tipped the envelope and an ornate black key fell out into her hand. She held it up to Mike.

“Yikes. That has some real ‘I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy’ vibes to it.”

Another reference she didn’t care to get. They’d been married for 10 years, living in this house for nine and she had stopped trying to make sense of the constant nerdy nonsense. She pointed at him, “Read.”

Mike sighed and paused his show again. He cleared his throat dramatically and began.

Dearest Leah,

I have finally discovered the solution to your brother

Lucas’s tragic ending. I may have broken a few rules to get it but time is of the essence and the red tape up here is just as bad as it is down

there.

Mike looked at Mae. “Up here? Down there?”

Mae shrugged, “Maybe he’s in Canada. Keep reading.”

Inside you will find a key. Close the pocket doors between the

Foyer and the Parlor. Pay close attention to this next part. From

the Foyer side lock and unlock the pocket doors. I repeat from the

Foyer side lock and unlock the doors. I cannot stress the

importance of this enough. From the Foyer! Once you do this

open the door and I will take care of the rest. Do not be afraid.

Just believe I can set this right.

 - Benjamin

Mike folded the letter and looked a Mae, “Leia, Luke and Ben!”

“So?”

He held out his hands, palms up like come on! She mimicked the gesture with a not getting it/don’t care look. Mike shook his head. Oh, well. Moving on.

 “This is the key to the pocket doors,” Mae smiled and left the room.

“Where are you going,” it was more of an accusation than a question. Mike got up to follow.

When he got into the kitchen Mae was rummaging through his tool bag. Mike didn’t consider himself handy enough to have tool box. She came up with a pry bar, a hammer and a disconcerting grin.

“Lady, please don’t do what I think you’re going to do.”

She pushed past him, headed to the living room. When they had bought the house the real estate agent, a real sleaze that looked like Boss Hog in a knock off RL Polo, told them about the pocket doors in front of the stairs. The living room had actually been two separate rooms when the house was built one hundred and some years ago. Instead of a wall separating the two rooms, two sliding doors had been built on tracks that could be unlocked and pushed into the recesses on either side of the room. The last owner had boarded the doors off. Now Old Boss Hog didn’t know for sure what kind of condition they were in but they were still back there if one were bold enough to rip off the boards that sealed them in. Mae was all for it but Mike didn’t want to rip up their new house on the off chance the doors were in working order and not junk. Someday he said. Today was that someday Mae had been waiting for.

When he got to her she had already jammed the pry bar in between the old stained wood and the newer stained wood that marked the spot. Mike threw his hands up in a wait, wait motion but Mae drove the hammer down. CRACK! The wood splintered and she pulled off a large plank.

“Too late to stop now,” she smiled sweetly at Mike. He had to admit he was curious. He went over and helped her pull the rest of the board off, exposing a dark gap that ran 8 feet from floor to ceiling. Mike reached in slowly, feeling like Willie in the Temple of Doom. A reference he didn’t bother to tell Mae. He had some self-control, after all. To his great relief he touched a solid hidden door and not some huge insect or vampire bat. He shook it and it rolled easily on the track it hung from. Excited now, they spent the next hour unsealing the pocket doors and slid them out. The doors cut the large room into two, separating them between the fireplace and the stairs. They were in surprisingly good shape, solid paneled Oak with unbroken stained glass windows at eye level. “I told you,” Mae was beaming.

“Holy shit,” Mike laughed and picked up Mae. “You were right!” He spun her around and she laughed with joy. They finally got a win. Mike put her down and they both stood back looking at their new found treasure.

“Wanna try it?” Mae held up the key.

“Why not? Everything is coming up Millhouse for us today so far.” Truer words were never spoken.

“Which room is the Foyer?” They were standing on the staircase side.

“Well, I think Parlor is old-timey for Den and my dad used to call the TV room the den. So the room we are in now must be the Foyer.”

Mae slid the key into the lock. With a loud click she turned it to the left. They both smiled broadly and she turned it to the right.

“Nothing happened,” Mike sounded disappointed.

“Of course nothing happened, other than the fact that we discovered these beautiful doors that lock.”

Mae pushed the right door back and walked into the “Den”. Mike followed and she closed the door again to inspect this side of it.

“Does it seem darker to you?” Mike asked as Mae started wiping away the cob webs clinging to the door.

There was a blood curling scream from outside and they both rushed to the door. It was darker outside. The entire sky had gone a blood red like the sun setting on Mars. They walked out onto the porch and stopped short. The neighborhood was off. It was the same layout but the houses all looked taller and somehow crooked. They loomed over the streets like vultures. The trees were skeletal and black. The sidewalks were demolished; chunks of concrete stuck up like a churning sea of rock. Things moved just below the surface.

Another scream. They looked across the street to Stanley and Eva’s house. Usually a charming shade of lavender trimmed in white it was now a bruised purple trimmed in a somehow flowing tar like reddish brown. On the second floor, which now seemed much higher a window shattered as a man was thrown through it, landing in a heap on the wide widow’s walk that spanned the front of the house. It was a shirtless Stanley. This was not unusual. Stanley rarely wore a shirt which irritated Mike to no end. But what was unusual were the long gouges crisscrossing his back. They looked deep and infected, oozing out a disgusting greenish sludge. A long hand that ended in spike like fingers grasped the window frame from the inside. The broken glass that sliced into it did not faze the hand’s owner as it was ripped away, trailing a thick ropy blood. Eva’s face appeared out of the gloom of the house. Her hair, usually a dirty blonde was now red and orange. It twisted and whipped in the wind.

A chill went down Mae’s spine as she realized there was no wind. And that there was no hair, Eva’s head was on fire. Mike and Mae stood petrified as Eva stalked toward Stanley. She swiped at him with her claws but he was quicker. Stanley grabbed her outstretched arm and hoisted her whole body over his head. With her free hand she jabbed down at his face, shredding it but Stanley doggedly marched her to the side of the widow’s walk and tossed her over. She landed with a sickening thud.

“Jesus,” Mike gasped. Suddenly Eva’s flaming head popped up off the broken concrete and she looked directly at them.

“Hi, neighbors” she said in her usual shrill baby voice. “Mind if I come over?”

I guess somethings can’t get worse, Mike mused about Eva’s grating voice.   

“Hey buddy!” Stanley waved from the widow’s walk. The skin hung off his face in meaty strips exposing his skull. As he waved his hands vigorously his left eyeball burst.

“Jesus Christ,” Mike said in horror. There was a screech from the sky. Mae looked up and saw creatures flying around way, way up above them. Man sized but stick thin they began to spiral down. Mae could see parts of the red sky through their long tattered wings. She pointed up to show Mike but quickly clamped a hand across Mike’s mouth.

“Don’t say that name again. It seems to piss everybody off. Let’s go back in.” They turned to go in but they were closer to the street than their house. They had apparently moved toward the chaos without realizing it. A yellowed lawn choked with thorny vines and huge dandelions now stood between them and their porch. And those things moving under the ground were still there, don’t forget about them.

“Hey buddy,” Stanley yelled. His shins hit the small railing that ran across the widow’s walk and he tipped over, falling head first into the rotted begonias in front of their porch. Eva cackled, a sound that would have been creepy if it was in any way new. Stanley sat up, his head dangling between his shoulder blades. “Hey buddy. Think I could get a beer?”

The things in the sky screeched again, closer this time. All the other freaky versions of Mae and Mike’s neighbors started coming out of their homes. Mike grabbed Mae and pulled her toward the house. A tentacle burst through the ground and wrapped around his leg. He screamed but did not mention you know who this time.

A hooded man appeared at their side with a wicked looking machete and this time Mae screamed. The man swiped the blade down and severed the tentacle. He pushed them toward the house slashing at weeds and any neighbors that got too close. Finally they were back on their porch the wooden stairs crumbled after they crossed them. Soon they were inside with the front door locked.

“Give me the key,” the man said holding out his hand. Mae gave it to him while Mike pushed the couch, the coffee table, the TV (with a twisted version of Homer laughing at him on it) and anything else he could find against the door. The neighbors had torn off the screen door, yelling about trash day and the Home Owners Association.

“You didn’t do it right," the man informed them nonchalantly. “You were supposed to be on the Foyer side.”

“What the fuck is a Foyer!” Mae screamed at him.

The man twisted the key and slid open the door. He pushed them through then followed, looking back as the door crashed in. “Hey, buddy. How about that beer?”

The man pulled the door closed and turned the key. He looked at the couple, blue eyes shining at them from under the hood. He turned the key again.

“NOOOO,” Mae and Mike screamed in unison reaching for the door as the man opened it.

The other side was normal again. The lawn was a little long but all and all everything was a lot less Hellish. They all walked through and the man shut the door behind them. He put the key back into the lock.

“Come on, dude,” Mae pleaded.

The man turned the lock and opened the door to a sunny blue sky. The creatures that soared through it were the polar opposites of the ones on the other side. Beautiful and graceful. The floor had turned into pillow like clouds. Two figures stepped out from behind a particularly fluffy cumulonimbus. They opened their arms and the man ran to them. They embraced and Mae felt her heart swell. The man turned and walked back to Mae and Mike. He bowed his gratitude and closed the pocket door. They heard a soft click from the other side as the man locked and unlocked the doors. When Mike opened the doors again the clouds were gone, replaced by home’s original wooden floors.

Mike looked at his wife, “Booze?”

Mae nodded and took the key out of the door. “Lots and lots of booze.”