The Thing Behind the Door

By Jason Funk

Claws.

The thing behind the door has tiny little claws, sharp as razors, hard and rigid. I’ve heard them scuttle down the roof like dry leaves in fall, dancing across the pavement. They clickity clack across the hardwood floors and onto the banister as they ascend the stairs. Blackened dirty claws scrape away the paint, like a hungry cat that wants to be fed. Scratch, scratch.

I lay in bed listening to the rhythm of those tiny talons at work. I remember their cruelty, black as death’s robe, curved like death’s blade, sharp as death’s scythe. They scrape and scratch, desperate to come in. They reach out from the night and drag their needle point tips across the wood surface, peeling back the stain. I close my eyes, and the melodic scratching reminds me of Ellie.

Dr. Elenore Schmidt was a brilliant star in the fields of anthropology and biology. I imagine Ellie’s large brown eyes, shimmering with the delight of discovery. I want to hold the image of her smiling bright in my mind. But the sound of splintering wood drags her last moments into my imagination, Ellie’s tiny body shredded by thousands of tiny black claws. I’ve listened to the claws scraping wood for so long, I imagine it’s the sound Ellie’s body made when she was torn to pieces. Of course, I can’t say for sure what the sound was, I only heard her screams.

Eyes.

The thing behind the door has hundreds of eyes, frightful eyes, unblinking and seeking. They peer through the night, evolved in inky black, peeling away the layers of darkness to stalk their victims. I believe they see your heartbeat pumping blood through your veins. And they see fear raging inside you. These twisted irises are multicolored shades of demonic red, cold as death blue, and vile poisonous green. They slink away from its body on long thin tendrils barbed like rose stems.

One such monstrosity slunk, beneath the door. It crept along the floor, weaving through my discarded clothes, around my boots. It slithered like a poisonous snake through the tall grass. It approached my beating heart, drawn by my blood, my life essence. It lifted that slimy stalk to peer over the edge of my bed, to view the tasty morsel it found. The long shaft bumped my night table, knocking a glass of water that shattered against the floor.

I bolted upright, shocked. My eyes locked with its bloodshot gaze. The iris widened into an angry violet. The shaft swayed gently, hypnotically. I felt drawn into that purplish, blue void. The stalk’s motion intensified, and my mind started to slip into a dream. I understood I was being hypnotized, the way a cobra might. On another level, I wanted to be drawn into that abyss, to finally end this horrible cat and mouse, and be consumed.

And on a third level, I wanted to live. My hand reached down, independent from my brain, and snatched up my boot. I smashed the heal hard into the bulbous eye. A sound so terrifying, so deep with rage and hunger, erupted from beyond the door. I thought my heart would stop. Leathery membranes slammed shut over the violet orb as the stalk retreated. I leapt from my bed in pursuit, slamming the heal of my boot down. I was a mad man obsessed, smashing again and again. Each time, my boot crashed to the floor, barely missing the eye.

Just before the eye escaped beneath the door, I caught the stalk with my left hand. It squirmed and wiggled in my grasp, like a large earthworm writhing on a fishhook. The stalk was warm, wet, and slippery. It took all my strength to hold it, all my nerves not to vomit. I tightened my grip and its thorns slashed deep into my flesh, lathering the stalk with my fresh blood. I only had seconds, the slimy stalk becoming harder to hold as my blood lubricated it.

I brought the boot down hard, the heel connecting directly with the eye. There was a buoyancy and the boot recoiled. The thing howled again. I could hear its heavy breathing just beyond the door. I brought the boot down again, the heel smashing and recoiling. I was elated by each tormented howl. Finally, the buoyancy gave way.

A quiet plop followed. The eyeball popped free and slid across the floor. A yellow slime oozed from the end of the stalk. It reminded me of infected mucus, veined with tendrils of blood. A maddening roar pierced through the door, so loud, I felt my head splitting from the inside out. The eyeless stalk drew back violently, shredding my hand as it escaped.

It was several minutes before I came to my senses. The universe stood completely still and quiet. I heard a wet flopping sound. The eye wriggled and spun in a pool of ooze, like a flopping fish out of water. The violet iris expanded and contracted, as if examining me and shocked by me at the same time.

I quietly stood up and slipped the boot onto my foot. I hobbled to the eye, like a man with a limp, the one boot echoing off the wooden floor. I placed the bootheel onto the plump eyeball. A tail of tendons, veins, and slimy guts strung out from one side, resembling a large squirming tadpole. The tail flipped and flopped, slapping the floor with a quiet wet splat. I squished the eyeball. It exploded like a water balloon popping, yellow slime gushing out. The smell that followed was so terrible, I vomited.

My boot still reeks of that awful smell and the floor is stained permanently where I crushed the eyeball. The flesh on my left hand is rotting and continues to fall off. The pain is excruciating, and the hand is completely useless. The thing and I are even for now, a limb for a limb. I smile wryly at this thought, a smile holding back a cacophony of mad laughter. Only an insane person could think he was one for one, a hand for an eye. Especially considering the thing has hundreds of eyes ready to replace the one I mangled.

Tentacles.

The thing behind the door has tentacles, thick leathery stalks covered in slime. They squirm and squeeze. Large slurping suckers sigh and pop along the tentacle’s length, pulling the bulky body along. What the tentacle can’t crush, it grips like a giant anaconda, and tosses aside. Poor Laki met his fate this way. Our Samoan guide was the first to encounter the thing’s wrath.

“I still think it means prison,” Ellie said, arching her eyebrow.

“My dear Elenore,” Dr. Robert Goodman said, “The concept of prison didn’t exist amongst these people. All crime was punishable by death.”

“Sure, Doctor,” She said, placing her hands on her hips. “But why would you entomb a god?”

“It’s not the tomb for a god,” Laki said, “It’s the tomb of a monster.”

As if in response to Laki’s statement, a massive tentacle shot out from the dark below and snatched the large man. A stink assaulted my nostrils, fowler than a rotting corpse baking in the afternoon sun. My guts lurched and I gagged for air. Hot tears stung my eyes. Laki screamed and spat blood as the giant black and green limb squeezed the life from him, the suckers puckering his flesh.

Goodman leapt forward, machete in hand. He was surprisingly agile for a man of his years. He hacked at the tentacle with the blade, carving out chunks of dark green flesh and splashing oozing yellow and red blood against the temple walls. The tentacle spasmed, flinging Laki’s limp body against the temple stones. If the tentacle’s crushing grasp hadn’t killed Laki, the crunching impact against the stones surely did.

“My name means luck. For your expedition, I’m thinking it will be so.” Laki had said when we first met.

Goodman only stood in disbelief, covered in the thing’s gore. Leathery tentacles, smaller and barbed with black claws, shot from the darkness and tightened around Goodman’s arms and neck. The cracking of bones mingled with the tearing of flesh as the doctor was torn apart in four directions. His blood and guts splashed across the temple stones, a bloody sacrifice to the thing we set free.

In the following chaos, I ran. I only looked back once when I heard Ellie scream. I have already described her fate, those black claws like a whirlwind against her soft flesh. I ran as hard and as fast as I could. The slurp and pop of its massive suckers confirming its pursuit. The whole time I expected those black claws to pierce my back, those leathery tentacles to scoop me up. Somehow, I made it back to the village and into my room. I slammed the door and locked it tight.

That first night I stood facing the door, listening to the screams outside. I closed my eyes and imagined the massive tentacles spreading down the village streets. I saw the probing eyes and leathery limbs searching for fresh victims, breaking through windows and doors, dragging villagers to their deaths.

The screams ended when the first light of dawn splashed across the village. My paralysis broke when someone knocked franticly at my door. They called to me in their Polynesian accents. They were abandoning the village, escaping from the thing we had unleashed on them. Perhaps it was fear, or guilt, or stupidity that prevented me from responding, from joining them and fleeing. I don’t know, I only know I stayed. Over the next few nights, the thing returned, and with it the screams. Each night, there were less screams, until finally, the village was silent.

Not once during those nights did the thing come to my door. Every night I waited expectantly, but each new dawn came, and I was alive. I believe now that it was saving me for last. The first night after the screams stopped, I heard those telltale sounds, the scratching of the claws, the slurping of the tentacles, the popping of the suckers. I’ve fought them at the door for two days now. They probe the doorknob, rattling it like dice in a cup, tempting luck. They scratch the wood and sucker the walls. The eyes gather at the window and hold a vigil, patiently watching like a jury at a trial.

I’ve not eaten in days. I can feel the strength leaving me. The rot that began in my hand is moving up my arm. I hear voices in my head. My friend’s voices. Ellie’s, Doctor Goodman’s, Laki’s. They want me to join them, to live with them, within it, the thing behind the door. It’s becoming harder to ignore their calls. I’m too tired to fight anymore, so I pull the door open.

Teeth.

The thing behind the door has teeth, massive, yellowed, razor sharp teeth, salivating and pungent. And they’re grinning at me.

End

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