Scary Stories

Chapter 7 - The Night the Door Unlocked

I remember the first time I heard it.

CLICK. CLICK.

"Honey, what's that?" I asked my wife Carmen, after waking up in the middle of the night to a strange sound.

"What's what?" She replied, in a groggy state, frustrated that I had woken her so late.

But the sound had stopped.

The next night I heard it again.

CLICK. CLICK.

"What could that possibly be?" I wondered, as I woke up my wife again.

This time, she heard it.

"It sounds like the door knob."

But by the time we walked over to it, the sound had stopped.

Luckily for me, back when I lived in the city, I had always gotten into the habit of locking my bedroom door, and that tradition continued well into moving into my wife's apartment, and even our current home in the suburbs.

The following night, we didn't hear the sound. Perhaps we were both in too deep of a sleep, or maybe it didn't happen that night, but either way, we thought the strange occurrence was behind us.

Until the next night, when we heard it again.

CLICK. CLICK.

"Is that what I think it is?" Carmen asked.

"It most certainly is." I replied, a chill going down my spine, as the recurring sound was beginning to genuinely terrifying me.

This time, I tiptoed over to the door, careful not to alert whoever was turning it, and opened it quickly, only to find...my eight year old daughter, just standing there, staring at me.

"Christie?" I asked.

"Yes, dad." She replied.

"What are you doing, dear? You nearly scared me to death."

"I missed you and mommy."

It was so adorable, that I nearly forgot how creepy the sounds of the previous nights had been.

"That's all?"

But then she simply turned and walked away. "Goodnight, daddy."

I climbed back into bed and let out a sigh of relief, relieved that my daughter was the source of the sound.

But the next day, I started to think about it more. About the number of times it had happened. And how, after claiming to miss us, she simply walked away.

So when it happened again the next night, I didn't open the door. Instead, I simply tiptoed over to it and listened.

CLICK. CLICK.

I heard my daughter tugging at the door handle, twisting and turning it, in a clear attempt to pry it open... while we were sleeping. Or at least she must have assumed.

That's when the whole thing began to actually terrify me. If she was trying to open the door, and get into the bedroom, while my wife and I were asleep, what did she intend to do?

I became obsessed with that thought. To the point where I couldn't fall back asleep that night. And hatched a plan to get to the bottom of it.

So the next night, I did what any rational parent would do when their child was uncharacteristically twisting at their bedroom door knob every night, and left the door unlocked.

And so, after pretending to fall asleep, I lay in bed, waiting, passing the time on my cell phone so as to not fall asleep.

Until a few hours later, when, in the middle of the night, I heard a new sound. Not that of the door handle twisting and turning back and forth. No, this time, I simply heard the sound of the door handle turning, followed by the squeaky door opening.

CLICK. SCREECH.

I immediately turned off my cell phone and shut my eyes, just far enough so that I could see through them, and pretended to sleep.

What happened next still haunts me.

Lying there in the dark, my eyes squinting, I saw the blurred shape of my daughter open the door, close it behind her, and slowly walk over to my wife's side of the bed.

She must miss her mother, after all. I thought to myself, giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Until I carefully turned my head, just slowly enough so that my daughter didn't realize I was looking, and saw my eight year old daughter, reach behind her, and remove from her pajamas, a kitchen knife.

She held it up above her head and swung it down towards my sleeping wife.

Not before I able to reach my arm out, and catch the blade in my hand, letting out a large scream.

"Aaaaaaarghh! Christie! What are you doing?"

But she didn't reply. She simply let out a loud hiss, and seemingly slithered away, out our bedroom door, through the hallway, and back into her bedroom, where we heard her own bedroom door slam.

We locked Christie in her bedroom that night, before my wife drove me to the hospital, as I relayed the night's events, my impaled hand more than enough evidence to convince her of what had happened.

I would like to say that after we got back, my daughter returned to normal, the sound of the door handle stopped, and we went back to being a family, living out our lives happily ever after.

But when we got home early that morning, Christie had broken through her bedroom door, and escaped from the house. Never to be seen again.

Still to this day, I wonder where my daughter might be, still locking my door each night. I can only hope... that others do the same.