It Tries The Door
It Tries The Door
by William Manning
In the daylight, the cabin was exactly what Meghan was looking for; a quiet, remote, rustic little place where she could get away from it all. It was at the end of a grass covered path just large enough for her small car to creep down. Behind it ran a narrow river that rushed and battered itself against the rocks as it squeezed through the bottom of a hill, overlooked by the cabin’s back porch. The trees were thick and tall. The neighbors were few and far away. When the sun was shining it was a tiny little paradise. At night it became something very different.
Her first day had been a whirlwind. After a four and a half hour drive, and an hour shopping for supplies for the week, all she wanted was to take a soak in the tub and go to bed. Despite its remoteness, the cabin was actually very modern. It even had wifi. It had a kitchen with shiny new appliances, heat, air conditioning, and a very inviting whirlpool bath. She had seven days in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do except read, watch Netflix on her computer, and get drunk by herself. There was no need to rush it.
She was in bed by nine-thirty, too tired even to notice how dark it got at night until she turned the last light off in the cabin. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away through the woods. There were no street lights. Clouds had rolled in, so there was no moon, no stars, and even if there had been the trees created an almost impenetrable canopy that no evening light could push through.
When Meghan flipped the switch to turn the light off in the loft where the bed was, she was shocked at how all the light drained out of the cabin. All that was left was the faint glow of numbers from the clock on the nightstand, the clock on the oven downstairs, and the clock on the small table beside a rocking chair in the main room. The bed creaked as she lay down. She stared up at the skylight above the bed, a surreal thing to look through when all there was to see was black. She wondered what would happen if the power went out, and was very glad her phone doubled as a flashlight. She made sure it was charging before dozing off.
Meghan slept; for a while anyhow.
Hours later she awoke with a start. If there was a reason for her sudden awakening, a noise or some other trigger, she missed it. She only knew that sudden quickening of her heartbeat and that light headed feeling as her eyes slid from side to side in the darkness. Her mind wanted to drift her back to sleep but she couldn’t go there, not yet. She listened and heard several pops come from somewhere far away.
Gunshots? She thought. Probably. She wasn’t in the city anymore. It was hunting country, right? People hunted at, she looked at the clock, three in the morning, right? It was rural country. Meth country. On her way in she drove by more than a few abandoned looking trailers and junkyards, all swarming with people who looked like they jumped right out of a movie that exploited the supposed dangers of desperate country lifestyles. She told herself she wasn’t being fair, that they were probably fine people. She heard another two pops, followed by total silence.
It was an eerie silence. This deep in the woods she expected to hear birds or insects or trees swaying and creaking in the wind all through the night. But it was a modern cabin, with all of the amenities, including insulated walls and weather sealed doors and windows. She’d closed them all earlier because the temperature dropped significantly as the sun went down.
She picked up her phone from the nightstand and scrolled through her tweets to pass the time. This happened way too often. Part of why she was so desperate to get away from it all was her recent insomnia. Her therapist and physician said that it was probably stress, and had heavily suggested meditation, breathing exercise, and all of the other bullshit advice that they give before they’ll give away any honest to God sleeping pills.
Her eyes were starting to get heavy again after about an hour of mindless browsing, when out of the darkness and the silence, a sound struck her ears. Click-clack-chunk–somewhere downstairs, maybe from outside. She held her phone still and listened very closely. Was it the wind? Her mind playing tricks on her?
She waited again for the sound. If it was the wind then chances are it would blow again in a similar way and rattle whatever that was. Nothing. But still something nagged at her. Had she locked the door? She had. It was an instinct. Probably not necessary for this part of the country. Even so, she had locked the door knob and the deadbolt and pulled the chain lock as well.
Click-clack-chunk. There it was again, almost five minutes later. Now it had her full attention. She held up her phone and got out of bed, frustrated at how loud the bed squeaked with every movement. She made her way to the wall and flipped the light switch. She squinted against the brightness.
At the top of the stairs, Meghan paused and listened again. She waited. An animal. That’s all. The light, or the noise of her moving, scared it off. Maybe the squeaky bed wasn’t so bad after all. She shook her head.
“Stupid,” she whispered to herself. She shut the light off, walked back into bed, and typed into her phone.
“Freaking myself out at this cabin for no reason. Welcome to the wooooooods.” She hit ‘tweet’.
She put her phone down on the nightstand and closed her eyes. She tried her meditation techniques: she took a deep breath, clenched her lower leg muscles for a few seconds, released the tension, let out the breath. She did the same with her upper leg muscles, her abdomen, her shoulders. It definitely had a calming effect. It worked to a certain degree too. There were no noises anymore, only her breathing. Sleep, she thought, just sleep.
But of course the noise returned. She knew that it would. She was half expecting it with every breath she took. Only this time it sounded different. Clickclick-clackclack-chunkchunk. Double the noise, and it sounded like it was coming from a different part of the cabin.
She got up quickly and walked to the stairs, only the screen of her phone lighting the way. She held her hand over the back of the phone and turned on the flashlight. She didn’t want to shine the light too brightly, just enough for her to see over the edge of the railing and down toward the back of the cabin. The back door was similar to the front, except it was a double door. She’d locked that too, knob, deadbolt, and chain.
Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she stared at the back door. The windows looked out onto the steps that led down toward the river, but in the dark they were completely opaque and colored in with black. It felt like a long time, sitting there staring at the door. She felt foolish, crouched and waiting for something to happen.
The sound came again. Clickclick-clackclack-chunkchunk. She was staring at the door when it happened, and she clearly saw the doorknobs moving. Meghan let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. The flashlight, now uncovered, shone down at the door and just as the light spread over the window. There was nothing there. And yet the doorknobs turned back ever so slightly, enough that she was sure what she was looking at was real.
Her fingers went numb and she dropped her phone. She wasn’t lucky enough to have it just land on the floor. It bounced twice, did a small cartwheel, and tumbled off the balcony. It landed down on the first floor with a crack, resting face down on the ground, flashlight still glowing at full brightness, illuminating a cone up into her face.
Meghan kicked her feet and scrambled back from the balcony. She clasped both hands over her face. Her breathing was loud and ragged. It was too loud. She tried to drown it out, but that only made her whimper. She thought she was being foolish. Being alone in the dark was making her crazy. It was the wind at best and an animal at worst. She didn’t see anything. It was all in her imagination, and she was convinced of it. It didn’t mean she wasn’t scared.
She decided that light would help, so she got up and walked from room to room, and flicked on every single one in the house.
Would it be stupid to call the police? She thought that yes, it probably would be. Who cares? Someone was trying to get in. What’s the worst that would happen? They come out, look around, tell her she’s spooked for no reason, and then leave.
She collected her phone from the ground and was relieved to see that it wasn’t cracked. The case had done its job. She wondered what would happen if she called 911. Where would the call go? She hadn’t noticed a police station in town. Thinking about it, she realized she didn’t even have the address of the cabin. All she had received from the listing was directions to the place.
On the kitchen counter was a notebook that read “Welcome” on the front cover. She opened it, hoping to find an emergency number. She had rented places like this before, and they always had some kind of cute orientation book that had details about the house and points of interest in the area. She was relieved when the first page showed a series of local numbers for police, fire, and emergency medical services.
She pulled out her phone and dialed the number for the police station. The line rang through, clear as a bell. While she waited for them to answer, she looked back down at the notebook and something caught her eye. A bright pink greeting card peeked out of the pocket on the inside of the notebook’s cover. She pulled it out. It read “Thanks For The Visit” in big block letters that were surrounded by glitter. Inside was printed:
Hope you enjoy the cabin. Make sure to lock up. It tries the door at night.
