A Melancholic Black Series (Book 1): The Red Door (2 page)

Tragedy, death, and disappointments they’ve both experienced in their short lives created them. They’re two sides of the same coin, all they needed was chance.

Unfortunately, when you’re bred in such adversity and pessimism, it’s bound to follow you until the end of your days. Like a demonic shade shadowing you, waiting to sink in its fangs.

III

November 5th.

7:10PM.

The front door to the Gray’s home opens as the brisk fall air rushes in, as Nell and Rodney heavily step inside. It’s not too late, but the drained emotions make it hard for Nell and Rodney to stay awake. They’re dressed in their Sunday best, but it’s a Thursday.

Nell saddened, eyes glued to the floor in a trance, her pale complexion pouring off grief. A sense of definitive dread that is rarely seen, and if you ever catch a glance of it, pray that it hasn’t befallen on to you. Unsurpassed agony; abysmal dejection. Her body language is screaming “
Help me!
” all the while saying, whispering, “…
leave me alone
.”

She sits on the couch with the love of her life, Rodney, caressing her back. Consoling her. Trying to, anyway. Not even once wondering if she’d be willing to console him as well. The pain and grief she is feeling, he feels, too. But
he
has to be stronger. After all, men have to console their women during tragedies. To be the rock. The pillar of strength. He swore he’d do anything for Nell. For as long as they both shall live, is how it goes, and that’s what he plans on doing. For as long as he can, or as long as he’s alive. Whichever comes first.

“Would you like anything to eat?” he asks Nell, who does nothing but stare at the living room wall. “Honey, you
need
to eat. Something. Anything. Please?” But still, she just stares off into oblivion.

Food is the last thing on her mind. Rodney kisses her head and walks away. As she sits on the couch, a single tear falls from her reddened eyes. Any sadness that she has left has all been used up… except that one, final drop of liquid rue.

She misses her daughter.

November 6th.

Midnight.

“
Help me!
” a little girl’s voice rings out through the darkened bedroom. Nell jolts awake, breathing hard, sweating. She looks all around the room, unable to tell if the scream was a dream, or reality. If so, who is in the house? Is… someone in their bedroom? Hard to tell in the dark.

Rodney’s no help, he’s sound asleep. As with Nell, he’s been through a lot, he deserves the rest, just as much as she does. She knows this. Hopefully it’s a peaceful slumber.

Nell surveys the room, trying her best to see in the dark. Her worst fear now is she really doesn’t want to find someone else in the room.

But she
does
.

A silhouette in the shape of a person stands against the wall. It doesn’t move, or make a sound. Nell, practically frozen in fear and disbelief, can’t help but to call out.

“H-H-Hello?”

No answer. The silhouette now visibly breathing heavily. Potentially angered.

“Hello?” she asks again, but still… no answer.

She slowly reaches over to her nightstand for her light, hoping the illumination will wash away her fears. But instead of the lamp, she feels
hair
. Cold, wet, dirty hair. Nell begins shaking as she slowly turns to see a little girl, her face rotting. Nell gasps. “
Amberly?!
”

The little girl rises and climbs atop of Nell’s chest. Snuggling, like a kitten, looking for warmth; looking to cuddle. “Amberly!” Nell says again, her voice breaking. The little girl soothes Nell by rubbing her cheek, though her right hand is covered in thick blood.

Nell curiously asks, “Are you okay, sweetie?” as she looks down to see the little girl’s right hand dug inside of her chest, smiling before violently ripping Nell to pieces; fingers clawing into Nell’s neck, tearing apart the skin.

As Nell screams, the blood pours over her face, drowning her. She violently gets shaken back and forth as a distant voice calls out, “Nell! Babe! Wake up!”

The voice fades to Rodney shaking her, trying to wake her. It was just a dream. A very real and horrific dream. “Nell, wake up,” Rodney says again, doing his best to convince her that it really was “just a dream.”

But she knows. It was a nightmare.

The bedroom door cracks open as Nell walks out, trying her best at convincing herself that none of the nightmare was real. She wraps her robe around her soft shoulders as she walks to the kitchen. It might be late, but it’s time to finally eat something. She’s not really hungry, but it’s better than falling back to sleep.

It was so
real
.

So lucid. She could smell the decayed flesh. She felt the cold air breezing throughout the bedroom. The icy grip of the little girl’s touch upon her neck. Her own skin being tugged and pulled before hearing the slice of still-warm flesh as it was being ripped open. The tepid crimson that slowly started to crawl down her chest and neck then gushing on to her face; covering her eyes and filling her nose. Cascading over the wrinkles on her cheeks.

Never before in her life has she ever experienced a dream so lifelike. Perhaps it’s a bad omen. Truth is, now that she has dealt with the greatness of the nightmare, she relaxes. After all, it wasn’t real.

She’s too old to be frightened of bugaboos that would awe only small children. Adults have more important shit to deal with. A
small
thing called life. Which, right now, is kicking Nell straight in the gut.

She reaches in to the refrigerator for a container of leftover lasagna when a sudden, creeping breeze lifts up her robe. An almost perverted circumstance. She gasps as she turns around to find nothing but leaves rustling over the kitchen floor. With a perturbed look, she walks towards the living room to see the front door is wide open, with nothing but the moonlight, leaves, and cold November night air casually inviting themselves in. She stands frozen in fear.
How long has it been opened?
she asks herself.
Has something come in? Someone?

She grabs a rolling pin from the counter top and slowly walks to the front door, dreading every step. Her terrible dream and the opened door is
too
coincidental. Her brain begs for safety as it screams, “
Go get Rodney!
” But something supernatural is drawing her. The tiny hairs on her neck stand erect almost guiding her curiosity.

Was
there a little girl?

She gets to the door and steps out onto the front porch. They live alone, secluded, miles away from anyone. Alas, the only thing she sees is the full moon and it’s glow shining off the bare trees and frosty grass.

There’s no one.

No signs of life. Human nor animal. Perhaps a part of her wanted there to be something. Anything. She’s been longing all day for some kind of hope. The dream was no hope. Offering her a last chance to see the little girl that haunts her every waking and, now, sleeping moments.

She turns around defeated, her nerves settling back down, when she sees footprints. Small, muddy human footprints that lead towards the hallway. Child-like. Her eyes open wide. Someone
is
in the house.

The prints lead past the kitchen, down the hall, toward her and Rodney’s bedroom.

Nell looks down to see mud on her own feet. She’s walked right through it as soon as she emerged from her room and never even noticed. She calls out weakly, “…Rodney…
Rodney
…” but there’s no way he can hear her. It’s nothing but a whisper. She can barely hear herself. Even to get him, she’s gonna have to follow the prints. Though, she needs to. Rodney could get hurt and that thought upsets her. Even if she’s scared, Rodney is all she has left.

She walks along the clodded dirt, fear drips from every pore in her skin as she looks down the hallway. But the prints don’t go to their bedroom, instead, they go inside an adjacent room. In an instant, Nell goes from worried, to curious. An awesome calmness persuades her that maybe everything is okay. Even on the chance that someone else is in the house… it’s
still
okay. Almost as if they belong here, although there should be nothing in that room except for memories.

Nell reaches for the dusty door knob and twists. The dander explodes like firecrackers and the creaks echo as the door opens. It’s amazing how much dirt can cover something in only two weeks.

Nell finds herself standing, staring inside the dark room from the doorway. She takes a breath before flipping the light switch. Ready for someone to come running out from the dark and bombard her as soon as the bulb turns bright.

Even with the room lit, everything she has seen in movies and heard from stories or the news, she knows better than to just rush in somewhere after it’s been proven she’s not alone.

But, again, this feels different.

It’s not just another room. It’s a bedroom. More clearly, a little girl’s bedroom. White walls where giant, silk red curtains hang as the wind rushes in from the hallway. They sway to and fro, almost hypnotizing Nell. Her eyes swell up with tears, as she looks over the pictures hung on the wall of her and Rodney and for the little person who occupied this room, that is no longer there.

She wipes the salty-water from her eyes long enough to see the footprints leading to the red-painted closet door. Nell’s favorite color. The color of passion and love.
Nothing
represented her love for her family more than the color red.

She moves closer.

She hears whimpering; soft and guttural. Nell’s hands shake as she reaches for the door knob and slowly opens it. The stench of sickness seeps out, slamming into her nose like a knockout punch. She coughs in disgust. Under the clothes hanging in the closet she sees two small feet, one dressed in a white Ballet Flat and the other bare and dirty, cuddled up next to one another; shivering cold.

A million and one things are coursing through Nell’s mind… but they have all vanished with the sight of little feet. Child’s feet.

“Hello?” Nell asks, but only hears more whimpering.

Nell moves the clothes on the rack to the side and sees a little blonde-haired girl, her skin as pale as the dead. Her puffy, white and pink Popover dress covered in muck. The shock of this bizarre discovery is enough to send Nell backwards in mental rejection, physically tripping over her own self, and falling to the ground.

It’s the little girl from her dream.

Nell’s excited heart thumps louder and louder. For a moment she can’t even breathe. “…Amberly…
Amberly?
” Nell cries.

It
is
Amberly Gray.

Nell and Rodney’s 10-year-old daughter. Their hope. Their joy. The reason they wanted to start fresh. The reason they moved to Olave. The best thing they’ve ever done with their lives
had
been Amberly.

This should be a joyous occasion and the only reason Nell is in complete discord, is because there’s no way Amberly should be in her closet behind the red door.

In her home.

Alive
.

Amberly Gray was murdered two weeks ago.

IV

Morning.

9:00AM.

Rodney pours himself a glass of orange juice in the kitchen. His face stoic. Completely void of all emotion. His mind, vague, but if there is one thing he can feel, it has to be mysticism. He still thinks he’s asleep. How can his dead daughter…
not
be dead? To say he is skeptical of how Amberly is sitting in the living room right now, watching cartoons with Nell, would be a gross understatement.

They buried her in her pretty white dress with a stuffed animal she won at a carnival three years back. How Amberly loved that stuffed animal. It was an elephant with zebra stripes. Not overly imaginative, but just enough visceral confusion to play with your eyes. It was a mind-boggle, but compared of a resurrected child, it’s nothing.

How is she not dead? Rodney wonders if Amberly is immortal. She
has
come back from beyond the grave, so why wouldn’t she be immortal? Cursed to look young for all time. It could be worse, but given the circumstances of Amberly’s death, Rodney hates to think “how?”

For now, he appears to be happy. At least at first glance. Rodney is practical and a realist. When it comes to life, everyone has just one go-around. They never “come back.” It just doesn’t happen in real life. As shocked as he was, and truthfully, still is, Amberly should still be buried six-feet under.

How is she back?

He ponders as he swigs his O.J. and peeks his head in towards the living area to see Amberly, freshly bathed, sitting next to Nell watching television; cuddling. Her skin still pale and flaked. A good warm bath is not going to fix this.