Behind The Door - A Short Story

Sharing a Short Story I wrote a couple of years back... enjoy :)  


                                                         "Behind The Door"
                                                  By: Tracey Criswell Wilson


The frosty wind bit mercilessly into the old man's paper-thin, pallid skin. Shuddering uncontrollably, Dan trudged back toward the weather-beaten, colorless front door. “I'm gonna kill me some damn kids, if'n I ever catch 'em,” Dan mumbled to himself.

         That was the third time this week that they knocked on the front door and called his name. By the time he got off of his bed -- the couch -- and made it to the front door, there was never anyone in sight. 

         “You damn kids. You think you're fooling an old man, but you ain't foolin' nobody. I taught you'un once, and I'll teach you'un again,” Dan screamed while struggling to get the front door closed against the savage wind.

         Shuffling his feet back toward his only afforded luxury; he stretched out on his over-stuffed, overly large, pillow couch. The couch seemed to be the only place he found any solace, except tonight. Losing himself in the cushions, he closed his eyes, and fell into a fitful, distressful sleep.

********************************************************************************************************

         Bam, Bam, S.. C..R..A..T..C..H, BAM. Dan's eyes flew open. Reluctantly, he looked toward that hellish room; his bedroom. The same bedroom he shared with Sarah, his wife, before she went away. The bedroom Dan would never dare sleep in alone, ever again. 

         “Who's there? Answer me!”

         Laughter echoed like a rubber ball off the time-beaten walls and throughout the sparsely furnished, old home. It wasn't the bubbly laughter of children at play. No, it was a dark, evil laughter. One that made the old man's hair stand on end.

         Not wanting to let his fear show through, Dan flipped the heavy quilt off of his shriveled body. Trying to step over the creaking, aged boards, he made his way toward the bedroom . . . toward the injurious laughter.

         The air grew thick. It reminded him of how the air felt after he and his buddies in World War II took control of an island off of Guadalcanal. The stench of ironclad blood mixed with gunpowder filled his nostrils. The laughter stopped abruptly. It was then that Dan noticed somehow he was on the other side of the bedroom door. Turning quickly to make his exit, the door slammed shut. The temperature dropped traumatically, making it feel as frigid inside as it was outside. The sinful laughter enveloped him. “Stop!” he cried, throwing his arms over his head and crunching his body as far down to the floor as he could.

         “Dan? Dan?” The soft, recognizable voice called. 

         “Sarah, is that you?” His voice cracked. Turning and looking slowly behind him, Sarah stood as beautiful as the last time he saw her.

         With tears streaming down his wrinkled face, he backed into the now closed bedroom door. “But how? How can it be you, Sarah?” 

         Sarah looked at him, her head tilted slightly. “Oh Dan, don't fear me. What do you have to fear from me? Come now, Dan. Come into my arms.”

         There she stood, with her arms held opened wide. She was so alluring and accessible. Like the broken man he was, he flung himself into her arms sobbing like the day he had to go away. The day after Sarah and the kids left. The day he...

         Suddenly, he jumped back, as recognition of that fateful day hit him like fire on a sunburn. 

         “No! You're dead!” When he glanced back up, he was alone in an empty room. There was no laughter, no sound at the door, no Sarah. I'm going crazier than I already am, he thought. It's all a figment of my fevered brain. That's what it is. 

         Hastily he opened the bedroom door and walked into a well-lit living room. Halting where he stood, his mouth fell ajar. How? This isn't possible. What's going on around here? It couldn't have been no later than midnight when I went into the bedroom. Glancing up at the clock, the time read straight up 12:00. Twelve o’clock in the afternoon?Running as fast as his weary legs would carry him, he flung open the front door; as he rubbed his eyes trying to make them see a different scene in front of him, his mouth fell open. There was Sarah in plain sight. Looking the way she did before she died. And that wasn't all; Diane and Billy were in the front yard with her. The same age they were thirty years ago. Wearing the same clothes they were all wearing on the last day he seen them all. That was the last time when they were laughing together, just as they were now. The last time they were all still alive.

         “Hey Honey. Won't you come join us?” Sarah called from the yard. Dan gazed at Diane and Billy, wanting to go to them, but afraid. Suddenly, Diane called out, “What's wrong, Daddy? You look like you've seen a ghost.” Slowly all their heads turned toward the shadow of the old man at the front door, and from somewhere far in the distance, the laughter begun. As if he was stuck in a puddle of molasses, Dan couldn't move. He felt sluggish, like he was being suffocated by an invisible darkness. His heart was pounding for escape. Helplessly he flung his arms trying to hold onto anything that might help him. His family was coming nearer. Their faces were melting like a chocolate bar left on a hot dashboard of a car. Their mouths stretched opened, long and wide, with eyes sunken deep within sooty, dismal sockets. Arms outstretched, they called in a grating voice, “Come now. What do you have to be afraid of? Come to me. Come Dan, come with us.”

         Screaming, at the top of his lungs, Dan's feet finally came free. Jerking himself clear, he slammed the front door and locked it. Then the stark living room went gloomy and foreboding once more. The view outside was obscured. It was midnight once again. The immoral laughter was now deafening. Falling, he slid down the wall until he was limp on the floor. Curled into a fetal position, he wailed, “I'm sorry. Oh Lordy, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to kill ya'll. Don't you'un see? I had to. The devil had you all, just as he has you'un now.”

         The temperature in the room was scorching, like the furnace was on full blast in the middle of summer. Dan felt as if he was being roasted alive. He heard footsteps in the room with him. 

         “Who's there? Leave me alone! Go away and leave me be!” 

         With a loud clamor, all the doors in the house shut at once. All that is, but the one door which was closed to begin with. The bedroom door swung opened so fast and furiously that it now hung only by a single door hinge. Through the distortion of the heat waves, Dan saw before him his family standing in the same bedroom where he took his rifle and blew his wife and kid's away. 

         “Come Dan. Come Daddy.” They called. 

         He found it impossible to look away from their contorted faces, which stared through him with an impenetrable glare. 

         As if having no will of his own, Dan trudged to his unearthly end. 

Today I Cried, Once More

Just when I thought all my tears have dried - today I cried once more. I cried for the time together we have lost, and for the time we'll never have. The tears came quite unexpectedly. I awoke today feeling no different than yesterday. Nothing to make me feel more nostalgic ... I thought. Perhaps, the holidays have spoken to me. Quietly deep within - perhaps my mind carried on an internal dialog so secret, even my conscious self wasn't aware. I cried once more for the parents I had lost; and as I write this, tears threaten to fall again. Why would tears for lost parents be so foreign? You see, I didn't lose my parents just last month, or even last year. My parents have been gone for many years. I'm a middle age woman in my late forties. I lost my mom in 1997, and my dad I lost at the tender age of thirteen. Oh, how I still miss them. I think sometimes I miss them more now, then I did in recent years. I yearn for the guidance which only parents can provide. For comfort one can only find within a parent's words or arms. I understand now that it doesn't matter what had happened in the past. During the years of my youth, my parents were still growing up in so many ways - more ways than I could have ever realized, until I started growing older.

I watch others, especially those my age or older, interacting with their parents. I wonder, Do they truly know how fortunate they are to still have their parents? They can still go to them when they need to talk, call them when they need a word of reassurance, and gaze into their eyes to feel the security and comfort of one who can truly understand them. One who yearns to help them achieve to be the best person they can be - without judgement.

I don't envy those who still have their parents. I just ache for the years I have not had mine. I ache for the times when I long to speak to them. The times when I know that it's the only two people in the world, who could understand what I'm going through, what I'm feeling deep within. The only two who could help comfort me at those certain times. At other times, I have the thought, If you could have just hung on a little longer, Mom, we could have helped each other so much. I would have taken you into my home, and you would have never had to work for another thing! You could of finally had rest and peace. As for my father, it is who I received my writing ability and creativity. He was an artist and a poet.

He wrote this poem to comfort me, when I was hospitalized and hallucinating from a severe illness: 

Come lite on my hand, my little butterfly
And I will build you a nest of sticks, stones,
Sunshine and happiness.

Now Spread your wings, my dainty one,
And fly without fright, For my army of love,
Will protect you through the days and nights.

He wrote many beautiful poems and had a book in hardcover, ready to be published, before he had a major heart-attack. He never regained enough strength to finish quite a few things he had in the works, before the heart-attack would lead to his death, a year later. A few years after he died, the preventative cure which would have kept him alive was released to the public. So once again, I find myself saying, If you could have just hung on a little longer...

But God was ready for them, He opened His arms and welcomed them home, into a home of rest. Into a home where they no longer feel pain, physically or emotionally.

So this morning when tears came for the first time in a few years, it caught me by surprise. I didn't have just a few single tears, no; I cried once more for my mom and dad. And as I cried, I yearned for the comfort of their arms. "God, please wrap your arms around me and bring me comfort and peace."

And as I felt a warm embrace, tears fell once more. I wrapped my arms around my body, and with a smile I spoke aloud, "Thank you, Lord for being my Heavenly Father and when I need it most, my Earthly Daddy." 

Get Paid For Tweeting

You can get paid for tweeting- it does work! After you sign up, with the link below, make sure you go into your account and change the money requested for each tweet to around .25 -.35 cents. It will probably be at .50 - 1.50 suggested price. You will make much more money, if you make it lower than suggested price. You probably won't get hardly any offers, if you keep it at the suggested rate. Once you get more followers or become pretty successful at sending out tweets which do result in clicks, you can try to start raising the amount, a small bit at a time. Also, make sure you put in the category keywords in which you are interested in sending to your followers. Play around with these keywords to find the ones which will send you the offers you are searching for. Keywords, along with the suggested amount per tweet are the two things which will determine how many offers you are sent - as you go along, the more you send out, with people clicking on them, the more offers you will start to receive. If you're not getting any offers after a couple of days, or not enough- pay attention to the subject of the offers you are receiving- if you like the offers you're receiving, keep the keyword in which you believe those offers are coming from and play around with inserting new keywords- pretty soon, you will have plenty of offers coming in, with the subject content you are comfortable sending your followers. Whatever you do, be sure not to flood your followers- no one likes to be spamed, but no one minds getting great offers!

If you sign up through my link, contact me if you don't start receiving offers, or if you have any problems and I'll try to help you all I can :)

Click Here to Start Making a Few Bucks :) 

Wishing you lots of Success. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

IFCJ: This Week with Rabbi Eckstein

Israel is on Fire! Please help now- prayers are so needed and appreciated!

Read about here:

IFCJ: This Week with Rabbi Eckstein