“The door was never meant to be opened.” Those words echoed in the mind of Cole Fox, the new janitor at Ashtrail University. A single door at the end of a dark hallway. No key was given for it, but one hung on a rusty nail by the door frame, an old key, as rusted as the door itself, the key an ancient skeleton that contrasted the digital clocks and card-operated pathways in the technological marvel of a building. Did the key even open the door, or any door for that matter? Cole didn't know, nor did anyone else. It stood, a poisonous fruit upon a rusted tree, as forbidden as the door itself. A man in his 20s of relaxed nature, Cole had to, at least, poke about the issue to satisfy his curiosity.
“What could be behind that door?” he asked one of his fellow, senior janitors. “A box of goblins? A shamed, failed magician dying to show his last trick?” The older gentleman, who appeared seventy, debilitated as a frail crow with the hair of a wicked Einstein, failed to share his humor. He quickly turned around, one of his eyes fogged as a deep abyss plumed with thick smoke. Those eyes made maggots crawl under his skin, the dichotomy and graveness of the expression tore his soul in twain, between heaven and hell, and the young man could no longer meet that gaze.
“Youth should bite their tongues, and open those holes on the sides of their heads. Reach beyond your years, boy, and you'll bite off that tongue until you choke on your own blood.” With that the old man left the new custodian to himself. Cole's mind wanted to wave the warning, but his body knew better, the old man's deportment abetting the young man's instincts. He decided he'd listen to his warning at least to keep him from his face. The old crow's breath stank, smelled like a decaying furnace, or an open grave.
His hand dared not touch the door, even graze the knob, yet his mind failed to let the matter rest, images of the rusty door turning as gears in a machine, a machine overclocked and overheated, its circuitry set to crack from the pressure. Every opportunity that arose, away from the watchful, baneful eyes of the older custodian, of course, he inquired about the door. Its origin, its creator, its history, its looks, its weight, its composition, its zodiac, its type, its years, its contents, anything to satisfy his curiosity, to grant him the knowledge to say, “How boring it is; such a stupid door.” He received nothing. Nothing about the door. All he got were the looks one would give to a crazed person, the looks granted to a madman for running through streets with the mental compulsion of an infant, shouting “Pickled Penis” while letting his manhood flap on the day's breeze. How did he deserve such treatment, when he only asked about a stupid, broken door, probably just a forgotten janitor's closet, older than Methuselah. His eyes widened.
“That's it!” he said aloud, by two sexy college girls, both giving him that damn, mad-retard look he received all day, before they scurried away. Fuck'em; he had the answer! It was all a game, a silly joke crafted to torture the new custodian about a mysterious room that was actually a janitor's closet. He half laughed within himself, laughed the rest in an inaudible chuckle. His mind at ease, he settled to leave the matter of the door alone, to begin making his new shop for customers in the shadow of the science building that night.
The sun lay buried beneath the blackness. He carried a few samples in his pocket, the best samples to chum the lake for the big catch, and proceeded out the science building, when he heard a knock. The rapping could have been made by a child's first, yet the dead hallways made it echo like a hammer. Cole looked around, stared at the large windows. Saw no one; saw no sign of anyone. The knock echoed again. He knew all the doors, checked each room thoroughly before he locked each door. All except one. The knock again. He headed to it, drawn, his legs propelled for some hint of truth, just a taste to rest his mind from the mystery. He reached it, when he heard it again. A knock so small, so tantalizing, a bullet in the distance, a whisper in the ear. He reached his arm forward, to touch the knob, when his finger tips to his elbow froze. He felt nothing above his elbow, as if someone dipped his forearm in liquid nitrogen, or severed it. His composure crumbled, palms soaked in sweat, icy nails erupting from his skin, air heavier than a ton, but his mind didn't, couldn't. He had to know, needed to satisfy his itch, even a little. He moved his head with the grace of a mason lifting a heavy brick. Placed a sweaty ear before the frame, stopped the annoying breathing that impeded his auditory. He expected the knock of a hammer, hand, knife, tentacle, lip, foot; he knew not what. He heard the word, “Open.”
He rushed home that night, driving like a maniac, or as a little child frightened of the boogeyman under the bed or the monster in his closet. He laughed at himself, wondering how something as simple as a door and a word could drive him to such terrors. The more he thought, the funnier it seemed.
“Knock Knock
Who's there?
The door
The Door who?
The Door says to open it.”
His laugh infected into reality, into hysteria, until his eyes met himself in the rearview mirror. Was he becoming the lunatic the cute students saw? Was he choking on his own tongue?
“Nonsense,” he said to himself. “Fuck'em. I've heard it speak. I'll forget about it tonight.” A chuckle escaped his lips. The absurdity of it all! Then his eyes widened. “Damn.” He forgot to establish his shop behind the school. Then he saw the speedometer, and slowed down. He was going 70 in a 35.
He got no sleep that night, his eyes pools of red and veins as if he sampled his own product. Why couldn't he stop thinking about that damn door? Something so small occupied his mind, something so miniscule drove his thoughts on an endless wheel, and he didn't know why! Video games, porn, calling the girl with the huge tits he flirted with, reading his English Anthology of 18th Century Literature, stupid late-night shows, nothing stopped this seed from overgrowing his thoughts. A stupid, ancient, stinky-ass door that strangely reminded him of the old crone whom first informed him of it. Speak of the devil...
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. Forgot to comb your hair this morning?” He touched his head; so he had. Damn door. “Careful, boy. So a man thinks, so he is.”
“Listen, I mean no disrespect, but I don't want anyone talking to me like they know me, especially when I just met them a few days ago. Let's keep our relationship strictly professional.” The old man laughed so hard, Cole thought one of the few teeth he had left would fall out.
“Fine, you fool. But everything's connected. Money, business, family, sex, death. EVERTHING!” The rage startled Cole's skin and soul. That needless rage. This guy's insane.
“Y...you're not my supervisor, man.”
“And you ain't my son, man. This new generation; I just don't get...” And yadda-yadda he went, talking to himself like all crazies do. All walking tombs talked like that, like they knew everything, but a failure who quit his life to clean toilets knew nothing of a poor, young man's dream. His dream. But that had as much to do with anything as a triangle in a square shop. He needed to pay rent, to sell some bags tonight, and to forget about that door.
He rushed through his work, half cleaning everything, his thoughts a brick of ice, a rusted door at its center. Three hours before quitting time, he sat in a bathroom, rocking back and forth, his mind snared in a Rubik's Cube of insanity. The door, the door, THE DOOR! What did it keep? Incomprehensible terror seized him when he last faced it, yet his mind remained as tangled as a thief in barbed wire, grasping for something he knew he should refuse, yet can't help but acquire. An evil spirit must be there, or demon, ready to torture whatever fool wandered within, for eternity. Or maybe someone was trapped? A victim chained and beaten daily by the faculty for pure amusement, a victim who remained as such because everyone lacked the courage to open a door. Or perhaps a monster? An unspeakable horror with claws, drooling fangs, and an appetite for the flesh of idiots.
Knock
He jumped when he heard it, even though he heard the echo of an echo on the other side of the building. No! It contained gold! Mountains of gold bars hidden by the custodians using this horror show shit.
Knock
He stood, wiped the tears building in his eyes, tears blooming from his own disappointment in himself. “This shit is stupid. I've had it.” His arm smashed against the bathroom door, slamming the handle against the wall.
KNOCK
He walked down the hallway, his legs pumped with lava, his chest heaving, arms wrecking balls.
KNOCK
It was so loud now. So loud. Curiosity became fear, fear became anger...
KNOCK
Anger became hate. He'd knock back at that door all right, knock the fucker down. This door was nothing, absolutely nothing. A speck of grass, a dumb baby, a rotten twig, so he was going to chop the fucker down, make this nothing bleed.
KNOCK
He faced the Door. It was still as rusted and as old as before. The fluorescent lights above dimmed, the only warmth he felt remained in his heart, yet he gave no notice.
“Knock, knock knock!” he screamed. His voice echoed though dead hallways, like the knocks.
“Open.”
“Who's there, motherfucker?”
“Open.”
“Who's there, motherfucker?!”
He hated it, hated it with everything. He kicked the metal door several times until he heard something crack. Was it the door, or his foot? Who cared? It must come down, or open. He snatched the key from the rusty nail, breaking the ring, cutting his hand. Red filled the white meat, flooded down his arm as the key entered the hole, turned, and clicked. One final kick. Then he saw it. Dear God. He heard nothing but silence, felt nothing but nothing. No breathing, no heartbeat, no more warmth, no more hope. A room blacker than the deepest trench, with... that staring at him. His care for the world, for all his little dreams, left. He just wanted to run. To intimidate it. To scream for his life. Or to pray. But he couldn't. It was absolutely nothing, and absolutely everything. Go figure.
“I told you everything's connected. I told you,” said that old janitor's voice from behind. He wanted to reflect, but lost the ability. His thoughts ceased.
A new day awoke at Ashtrail University. The eighth bell of the day rang in the science building. The old janitor sat in the office where all the custodians congregated, alone, scanning a newspaper with his legs crossed, the headline reading, “New Drug Circulated Around High Schools And Universities. Police Chief Armando Addresses Concerns.” Another custodian in a green jumpsuit, slightly younger than his coworker, entered.
“Anything new, Aker?” said the man standing. Aker folded his paper.
“Some new, some not. That kid who came in this week's gone.”
“Gone? Where'd he go?”
“Where all those other young-guns we hired go: to the Door.”
“Why does this damn generation think they got nine lives like a cat? They all turn eighteen and still wunna play cowboys and Indians with the world. But you know it wasn't all his fault, Aker; someone needs to get in there and get that evil thing outta that room. I've been saying for years-”
“Aw, shut up, Mike. No one in their right mind's taking that mirror out of there. Not since that crazy-ass teacher killed his class before killing himself. Some say his ghost still haunts that mirror, will drag your soul to hell before its time. Others say the only thing hauntin' that mirror is coincidences of crazy. Either one's fine with me, 'cause I ain't never clean that room, and ain't never gunna.”
He slams himself in a seat. “Well next time the police come snoopin' around here, I'm gunna tell 'em your black-ass did it.”
“You ain't gunna say shit.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey, what do you think they see in it anyway?”
“Now don't you start, Mike. Don't you go looking in that damn thing. Leave that 'poking-your-hands-in-the-cookie-jar' shit to the young and dumb.” He resumed reading the paper. Mike stood.
“Well, I guess I'll go tell Bernard. We'll need someone new to replace that kid sooner or later, and with the work we'll have to do without him, I'd prefer someone sooner.”
“Tell him to hire someone with some sense this time. Kids these days...” If Mike had stayed a moment longer, he might have heard a young man's scream from behind the newspaper, and if he dared to look over it, seen Cole's twisted face cringing behind the old janitor's misty eye.
Copyright © 2020 MAYJOR Johnson
“What could be behind that door?” he asked one of his fellow, senior janitors. “A box of goblins? A shamed, failed magician dying to show his last trick?” The older gentleman, who appeared seventy, debilitated as a frail crow with the hair of a wicked Einstein, failed to share his humor. He quickly turned around, one of his eyes fogged as a deep abyss plumed with thick smoke. Those eyes made maggots crawl under his skin, the dichotomy and graveness of the expression tore his soul in twain, between heaven and hell, and the young man could no longer meet that gaze.
“Youth should bite their tongues, and open those holes on the sides of their heads. Reach beyond your years, boy, and you'll bite off that tongue until you choke on your own blood.” With that the old man left the new custodian to himself. Cole's mind wanted to wave the warning, but his body knew better, the old man's deportment abetting the young man's instincts. He decided he'd listen to his warning at least to keep him from his face. The old crow's breath stank, smelled like a decaying furnace, or an open grave.
His hand dared not touch the door, even graze the knob, yet his mind failed to let the matter rest, images of the rusty door turning as gears in a machine, a machine overclocked and overheated, its circuitry set to crack from the pressure. Every opportunity that arose, away from the watchful, baneful eyes of the older custodian, of course, he inquired about the door. Its origin, its creator, its history, its looks, its weight, its composition, its zodiac, its type, its years, its contents, anything to satisfy his curiosity, to grant him the knowledge to say, “How boring it is; such a stupid door.” He received nothing. Nothing about the door. All he got were the looks one would give to a crazed person, the looks granted to a madman for running through streets with the mental compulsion of an infant, shouting “Pickled Penis” while letting his manhood flap on the day's breeze. How did he deserve such treatment, when he only asked about a stupid, broken door, probably just a forgotten janitor's closet, older than Methuselah. His eyes widened.
“That's it!” he said aloud, by two sexy college girls, both giving him that damn, mad-retard look he received all day, before they scurried away. Fuck'em; he had the answer! It was all a game, a silly joke crafted to torture the new custodian about a mysterious room that was actually a janitor's closet. He half laughed within himself, laughed the rest in an inaudible chuckle. His mind at ease, he settled to leave the matter of the door alone, to begin making his new shop for customers in the shadow of the science building that night.
The sun lay buried beneath the blackness. He carried a few samples in his pocket, the best samples to chum the lake for the big catch, and proceeded out the science building, when he heard a knock. The rapping could have been made by a child's first, yet the dead hallways made it echo like a hammer. Cole looked around, stared at the large windows. Saw no one; saw no sign of anyone. The knock echoed again. He knew all the doors, checked each room thoroughly before he locked each door. All except one. The knock again. He headed to it, drawn, his legs propelled for some hint of truth, just a taste to rest his mind from the mystery. He reached it, when he heard it again. A knock so small, so tantalizing, a bullet in the distance, a whisper in the ear. He reached his arm forward, to touch the knob, when his finger tips to his elbow froze. He felt nothing above his elbow, as if someone dipped his forearm in liquid nitrogen, or severed it. His composure crumbled, palms soaked in sweat, icy nails erupting from his skin, air heavier than a ton, but his mind didn't, couldn't. He had to know, needed to satisfy his itch, even a little. He moved his head with the grace of a mason lifting a heavy brick. Placed a sweaty ear before the frame, stopped the annoying breathing that impeded his auditory. He expected the knock of a hammer, hand, knife, tentacle, lip, foot; he knew not what. He heard the word, “Open.”
He rushed home that night, driving like a maniac, or as a little child frightened of the boogeyman under the bed or the monster in his closet. He laughed at himself, wondering how something as simple as a door and a word could drive him to such terrors. The more he thought, the funnier it seemed.
“Knock Knock
Who's there?
The door
The Door who?
The Door says to open it.”
His laugh infected into reality, into hysteria, until his eyes met himself in the rearview mirror. Was he becoming the lunatic the cute students saw? Was he choking on his own tongue?
“Nonsense,” he said to himself. “Fuck'em. I've heard it speak. I'll forget about it tonight.” A chuckle escaped his lips. The absurdity of it all! Then his eyes widened. “Damn.” He forgot to establish his shop behind the school. Then he saw the speedometer, and slowed down. He was going 70 in a 35.
He got no sleep that night, his eyes pools of red and veins as if he sampled his own product. Why couldn't he stop thinking about that damn door? Something so small occupied his mind, something so miniscule drove his thoughts on an endless wheel, and he didn't know why! Video games, porn, calling the girl with the huge tits he flirted with, reading his English Anthology of 18th Century Literature, stupid late-night shows, nothing stopped this seed from overgrowing his thoughts. A stupid, ancient, stinky-ass door that strangely reminded him of the old crone whom first informed him of it. Speak of the devil...
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fox. Forgot to comb your hair this morning?” He touched his head; so he had. Damn door. “Careful, boy. So a man thinks, so he is.”
“Listen, I mean no disrespect, but I don't want anyone talking to me like they know me, especially when I just met them a few days ago. Let's keep our relationship strictly professional.” The old man laughed so hard, Cole thought one of the few teeth he had left would fall out.
“Fine, you fool. But everything's connected. Money, business, family, sex, death. EVERTHING!” The rage startled Cole's skin and soul. That needless rage. This guy's insane.
“Y...you're not my supervisor, man.”
“And you ain't my son, man. This new generation; I just don't get...” And yadda-yadda he went, talking to himself like all crazies do. All walking tombs talked like that, like they knew everything, but a failure who quit his life to clean toilets knew nothing of a poor, young man's dream. His dream. But that had as much to do with anything as a triangle in a square shop. He needed to pay rent, to sell some bags tonight, and to forget about that door.
He rushed through his work, half cleaning everything, his thoughts a brick of ice, a rusted door at its center. Three hours before quitting time, he sat in a bathroom, rocking back and forth, his mind snared in a Rubik's Cube of insanity. The door, the door, THE DOOR! What did it keep? Incomprehensible terror seized him when he last faced it, yet his mind remained as tangled as a thief in barbed wire, grasping for something he knew he should refuse, yet can't help but acquire. An evil spirit must be there, or demon, ready to torture whatever fool wandered within, for eternity. Or maybe someone was trapped? A victim chained and beaten daily by the faculty for pure amusement, a victim who remained as such because everyone lacked the courage to open a door. Or perhaps a monster? An unspeakable horror with claws, drooling fangs, and an appetite for the flesh of idiots.
Knock
He jumped when he heard it, even though he heard the echo of an echo on the other side of the building. No! It contained gold! Mountains of gold bars hidden by the custodians using this horror show shit.
Knock
He stood, wiped the tears building in his eyes, tears blooming from his own disappointment in himself. “This shit is stupid. I've had it.” His arm smashed against the bathroom door, slamming the handle against the wall.
KNOCK
He walked down the hallway, his legs pumped with lava, his chest heaving, arms wrecking balls.
KNOCK
It was so loud now. So loud. Curiosity became fear, fear became anger...
KNOCK
Anger became hate. He'd knock back at that door all right, knock the fucker down. This door was nothing, absolutely nothing. A speck of grass, a dumb baby, a rotten twig, so he was going to chop the fucker down, make this nothing bleed.
KNOCK
He faced the Door. It was still as rusted and as old as before. The fluorescent lights above dimmed, the only warmth he felt remained in his heart, yet he gave no notice.
“Knock, knock knock!” he screamed. His voice echoed though dead hallways, like the knocks.
“Open.”
“Who's there, motherfucker?”
“Open.”
“Who's there, motherfucker?!”
He hated it, hated it with everything. He kicked the metal door several times until he heard something crack. Was it the door, or his foot? Who cared? It must come down, or open. He snatched the key from the rusty nail, breaking the ring, cutting his hand. Red filled the white meat, flooded down his arm as the key entered the hole, turned, and clicked. One final kick. Then he saw it. Dear God. He heard nothing but silence, felt nothing but nothing. No breathing, no heartbeat, no more warmth, no more hope. A room blacker than the deepest trench, with... that staring at him. His care for the world, for all his little dreams, left. He just wanted to run. To intimidate it. To scream for his life. Or to pray. But he couldn't. It was absolutely nothing, and absolutely everything. Go figure.
“I told you everything's connected. I told you,” said that old janitor's voice from behind. He wanted to reflect, but lost the ability. His thoughts ceased.
A new day awoke at Ashtrail University. The eighth bell of the day rang in the science building. The old janitor sat in the office where all the custodians congregated, alone, scanning a newspaper with his legs crossed, the headline reading, “New Drug Circulated Around High Schools And Universities. Police Chief Armando Addresses Concerns.” Another custodian in a green jumpsuit, slightly younger than his coworker, entered.
“Anything new, Aker?” said the man standing. Aker folded his paper.
“Some new, some not. That kid who came in this week's gone.”
“Gone? Where'd he go?”
“Where all those other young-guns we hired go: to the Door.”
“Why does this damn generation think they got nine lives like a cat? They all turn eighteen and still wunna play cowboys and Indians with the world. But you know it wasn't all his fault, Aker; someone needs to get in there and get that evil thing outta that room. I've been saying for years-”
“Aw, shut up, Mike. No one in their right mind's taking that mirror out of there. Not since that crazy-ass teacher killed his class before killing himself. Some say his ghost still haunts that mirror, will drag your soul to hell before its time. Others say the only thing hauntin' that mirror is coincidences of crazy. Either one's fine with me, 'cause I ain't never clean that room, and ain't never gunna.”
He slams himself in a seat. “Well next time the police come snoopin' around here, I'm gunna tell 'em your black-ass did it.”
“You ain't gunna say shit.”
“Yeah, yeah. Hey, what do you think they see in it anyway?”
“Now don't you start, Mike. Don't you go looking in that damn thing. Leave that 'poking-your-hands-in-the-cookie-jar' shit to the young and dumb.” He resumed reading the paper. Mike stood.
“Well, I guess I'll go tell Bernard. We'll need someone new to replace that kid sooner or later, and with the work we'll have to do without him, I'd prefer someone sooner.”
“Tell him to hire someone with some sense this time. Kids these days...” If Mike had stayed a moment longer, he might have heard a young man's scream from behind the newspaper, and if he dared to look over it, seen Cole's twisted face cringing behind the old janitor's misty eye.
Copyright © 2020 MAYJOR Johnson