Part I - Part II

Yesterday morning, I stepped out of my bedroom to find a perturbing door at the far end of my upstairs landing. The festering woodwork, coated in a layer of peeling purple paint, did not horrify me. What horrified me was that I had lived at the property for five years — there had never previously been a door at the end of the corridor.

Even from a distance, I could tell that the ghastly gateway was more than a propped-up plank of wood. It was flush against the outer wall of the house. I strolled outside my property and skirted around to the side-alley. The right-hand wall of my home was still flat. There were no extensions to the original brickwork. The purple doorway couldn’t be leading to anything. Behind it, I knew there couldn’t be anything but the plaster of my wall.

But I’m a firm believer in not fucking with the unknown. I’ve watched enough horror films to know that I should listen to my preservation instinct rather than my curiosity. That was why I rang my wife — well, ex-wife.

“What do you want, Ethan?” Hannah asked, sighing.

“Something weird just happened at the house. There’s a door,” I said.

“What is this really about, Ethan? I told you that you couldn’t keep doing this.”

“Sorry, let me explain,” I pleaded. “There’s a door at the end of my hallway that wasn’t there last night. I’ve never seen it before.”

“Are you drunk again?” Hannah asked. “It’s ten in the morning.”

“I’m not drunk!” I insisted. “I haven’t had a drink in weeks. I just-”

“- I really care about you, Ethan,” Hannah interrupted. “You know I do. And I’ll always love you. It was never about that. I just couldn’t watch you slowly kill yourself.”

There was a muffled voice at the other end of the line, and that was when I realised my daughter, Kate, must be at her mother’s house. I could vaguely hear the two of them bickering, and then my daughter snatched the phone from Hannah.

“Hey, Dad,” She cheerfully said.

“Hi,” I replied. “Sorry to interrupt. I didn’t realise you were visiting Mum.”

“I booked some time off work. I needed to get away from Ry— from… London. Plus, I missed you guys. I was going to come and surprise you tomorrow, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” She chuckled.

I smiled, ignoring the real reason she needed to get away. “That’s sweet of you. Worried about your frail, elderly parents?”

“Elderly? You’re fifty-four,” She snorted. “That’s the new… forty-four, I guess? Anyway, what were you and Mum arguing about? What’s happened at the house?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled. “It’s nothing… I promise.”

“You sounded agitated,” Kate pressed. “I could hear your voice from the other room.”

“You’re going to think I’ve gone senile,” I sighed. “Even though, like you said, I’m not an old man yet.”

“Go on,” Kate said.

I cleared my throat. “Well, something weird happened this morning. I’m standing on the landing right now, facing a purple door that never used to be there.”

Kate paused. “And you’ve not been… you know-”

“- I’ve not been drinking,” I assured her.

“I’m going to come over early, Dad,” Kate said. “I’m worried about you now.”

When my daughter arrived, she seemed utterly perplexed by the rotten, purple door at the end of my upstairs landing. I think she’d expected to turn up and prove that it had simply been a drunken delusion. But I was no inebriated fool — Kate saw the door there, as plainly as day.

“I mean… Obviously, I’ve never lived here, and I don’t visit as often as I should… But I’m certain I’ve never seen that door before,” She gulped. “You’re not teasing me, right? That would be really mean.”

“I’m not teasing you,” I insisted.

“Good,” Kate huffed. “I’ve not had a fun week, Dad.”

“Yeah, I know you were really just running away from Ryan. Want me to rough him up?” I asked.

Kate smiled at me, knowing full well that I was incapable of ‘roughing up’ anyone. She shook her head, and then she did the darnedest thing — without a word, as if she had no survival instincts whatsoever, she walked towards the door. Of course, Kate didn’t believe in the supernatural.

But she would.

“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Kate scoffed. “We’re not going to get any answers until we open it.”

“Please don’t…” I said.

I lunged after her, but my daughter was far too nimble. She had already reached the door and twisted its loose, squeaky, brass handle. As the purple gateway opened, I trembled. The door didn’t lead to my wall. There was a room back there. A room I didn’t recognise.

“But this is the far wall of the house,” Kate whispered. “How could there be a room back there?”

She stepped inside, and I followed. To my surprise, I found myself facing a rather uninspired, banal bedroom. Cream-coloured walls, a single bed with nothing but a damp mattress, an old oak wardrobe, and a chest of drawers.

The bedroom window — a slim, wide slit that scarcely allowed any light into the dim room — looked onto my street from an oddly low level. But then again, why should I have expected anything to make sense?

“What is this place?” I wondered aloud.

Kate was already hunting for the answer to that question. As she neared the wardrobe, we both froze at a sudden creaking sound. My heart, like a caged animal, began to frantically bang against the brittle bars of my ribcage.

“Don’t do it,” I begged.

Kate ignored me and threw the doors open. She hesitated for a moment, then released a relieved laugh. I strolled over and saw that the wardrobe, much like the rest of the room, was mostly empty. All that hung there was a red leather jacket.

“I’m actually a little glad to find nothing significant in this paranormal place,” I said, untying the stubborn knot in my chest.

“Don’t you want an answer?” Kate replied.

I shrugged. “Some things in this world defy reason. You know I saw Grandma’s ghost when I was a boy.”

“You think you did, but everything has a rational explanation,” Kate said. “Even… this.”

“Let’s just go back to-” I started.

Before I could finish my sentence, a rumbling noise erupted behind us. We turned to see the door, our only exit out of the room, slowly slide into the floor — shortening with every passing moment. And then, with sinister synchronicity, a ghastly groaning sound emitted from the chest of drawers beneath the bedroom window. The top drawer started to open, and I gripped my daughter’s shoulders.

“We’re not waiting around to be trapped in here,” I said. “Get to the door — now!”

Kate’s reverted back to an innocent, vulnerable girl. She actually listened to me and sprinted for the ever-sinking doorway. My daughter commando-crawled through the minuscule opening, and I heard the horrifying sound of bending wood from the chest of drawers.

Turning to meet my doom, I shrieked at the sight of a crying contortionist. A young woman, no older than my daughter, was sitting upright in the top drawer of the chest, snapping her ghoulish limbs into shape. I’ve no idea how she confined herself to that space, but I can only assume she wasn’t alive — not anymore.

The woman, dressed in a damp, yellow, floral dress, clambered out of the drawer. Supporting herself with her hands, she landed on the carpet and twisted her legs into shape, hoisting the rest of her body out of the drawer. Her incessant sobbing transformed into frightening frothing as she laid her glazed-over eyes upon me.

Through the matted, greasy strands of her waist-length hair, I could see the woman’s hatred. The undead and unkempt apparition didn’t know me, but her face said otherwise.

“You,” She hauntingly hissed.

I wailed, almost certain that Death had come to reap my soul — penance for years of bludgeoning my body and mind with liquor — but a hand extended through the rapidly-shortening doorway.

“Take my hand!” My daughter cried.

I dropped to the floor, scrambling to squeeze my body through the doorway — which must only have been about two feet tall at that point — and started to emerge onto my familiar upstairs landing. I had almost wrenched my final leg free, but the ghoulish woman suddenly seized my ankle and unleashed a victorious growl. I screamed, striving to escape the demon and the door frame threatening to crush my leg.

“Terrence, save me!” The ghostly woman screeched.

I managed to free my leg and slide through the doorway before it fully melted into the carpet. The room vanished.

“You’ve talked about Terrence before,” Kate eventually said.

I nodded. “Terrence Brown. Your mum and I call him Brown the Clown. Always making people laugh. I often see him in the local cafe.”

“Well, I think you need to pay him a visit tomorrow,” Kate said. “But right now, I need some food and a drink.”

I agreed to phone Terrence in the morning, but part of me prayed that the horror of the appearing and disappearing room had come to a terrifying end.

No such luck. This morning, I woke to Kate’s piercing scream. Before I even stepped onto the landing, I knew the door had returned. I guess I need to talk to Terrence Brown. I’ll update you as soon as possible.

Part II

X