A Collection of Short Stories

Have You Locked the Door?

At nine pm, everyone began to arrive. A total of seven thirteen year old girls entered the house, each carrying an overnight bag, sleeping bag, and a present, giggling with giddy expressions on their youthful faces. A table filled with sugary snack greeted them, along with an already tired looking mother, who shook the hands of the arriving girl's moms and took the presents from their hands. A young girl with a splash of freckles across her heart shaped face came skipping into the front room, and was swarmed by the arriving tweens. They erupted into squeals, hugging and dropping their bags everywhere. The freckled girl's mother stepped outside with the other adults, eventually waving them goodbye as they got into their cars and she walked back in through the front door. The woman told her daughter, Emma, to take the girls downstairs, and that she and Emma's father would be leaving in twenty minutes. Emma nodded excitedly and lead the stampede of youths down into the party-ready basement. The girls ran down the carpeted stairs and stopped at the bottom.

"Put your sleeping bags here, that's where we're sleeping," Emma instructed the swarm of kids. They quickly set up their beds for the night, and all sat down, Emma sitting on her own pink sleeping bag in front of them all.

"Do you have the movies?" a young brunette with wide brown eyes asked. Emma nodded in response, a devious smile working it's way onto her freckled features. The others looked excitedly at each other. Tonight would be the night that they watched their first horror movie.

All eight girls then made their way back upstairs, ready to devour the snacks. On the table lay a variety of party foods, cheetos, popcorn, cupcakes, chips, and more, were arranged across a pink and white table cloth. The kids instantly began to dive in, stuffing chocolate cupcakes, chocolate dipped strawberries, and fistfuls of chips into their mouths. Icing and cheeto dust was plastering their faces within minutes, and the floor surrounding the table was already littered with crumbs. When Emma's mother and father emerged from their bedroom a minute later, they could only shake their heads and smile at the mess their clean kitchen had been turned into.

"Emma," the woman called, causing all fourteen faces to turn and stare at her. "We're leaving. We'll be back very late, and I expect you all to be asleep by the time we are back. Remember to lock the door behind us, and don't forget to lock the back door as well." With that she planted a kiss on her daughters now orange cheek and walked behind her husband out the door. When they were gone the girls looked at each other, grins spreading across each of their faces. They squealed and jumped down from their chairs, grabbing a bowl of some snacks, making a beeline for the basement.

"Don't forget to lock the door!" a chubbier brunette named Mona said as she ran downstairs with an armload of chocolate cupcakes. Emma, who had already started towards the open basement door, quickly dashed back to the front door and turned the lock. She then grabbed a giant bottle of sprite and followed behind the others.

"Put on the movie!" The chant was started by a skinny blonde by the name of Lizzy, and then picked up by the rest of them. Emma dropped her bottle of pop in front of the TV, her smile widening, and went over to the giant display case of DVDs. She ran her fingers along the backs of the movies, walking slowly along the display case.

"Hmm which one should we watch?" she asked in a mock deep voice. She stopped walking and slowly pulled out one of the many movies. All the girls leaned forward in anticipation. Emma turned toward them, the movie displayed in her little hands, a wicked grin on her lips."Alien."

The girls cheered, even though there wasn't a single one of them who knew anything about the movie other than what the title implied. They followed behind Emma as she made her way to the TV, the movie held out in front of her like it was sacred.

Once the movie had been put on, the girls huddled in front of the TV, pillows and stuffed animals clutched in their arms, and in the case of Mona, a bowl of cheetos held tightly to her chest. A silence fell over the room, besides the crunching coming from mouths full of chips, as everyone watched the TV screen intently.

As the movie played, the girls began to move closer and closer until they had their arms wrapped around each other and their heads buried in each other's shoulders. Emma had her hands over her eyes and was watching through the slits in her fingers. The late seventies horror was obviously getting under their skin. Each cheesy jump scare would cause all eight girls to shriek, and once it caused a bowl of popcorn to go sailing through the air.

Nearly two hours later the credits were rolling and the girls were all looking at each other with a mixture of fear and excitement. Emma decided one horror movie was enough for tonight, everyone nodding their heads vigorously in agreement, and went back to the DVD case to grab a happier movie. One of the other girls, Lucy, stood up and announced she needed to use the bathroom, then proceeded to dash up the stairs.

A scream rung out from the upper level. Seven pairs of eyes all met, the smiles melting off their lips. They heard light footsteps running towards the basement stairs, and then heard the descending footsteps. A spike of fear went through the veins of every girl inside the house, as Lucy tumbled down the stairs and ran, tears streaking her cheeks, into the arms of Emma.

"I saw something outside!" she sobbed into Emma's arms. Emma's eyes had gone wide as she looked at the faces of the other girls. She held on lightly to her crying friend, unsure of what to do.

"It...It was probably your imagination. You know, after watching a scary movie and all," Emma tried to come up with a logical explanation.

"No, no, I saw it! It...it wasn't a human. It was a monster," Lucy's cries got louder once she finished this sentence. All the other girls were getting more and more frightened by the minute.

"Come on, let's all go upstairs and take a look," Emma suggested, trying to be the brave one. Warily, the girls all followed Emma up the stairs. When they reached the top of the stairs they entered a short hallway that lead to the kitchen, which they slowly walked, single file, down. They entered the kitchen, still clutching on to each other, and stopped. Emma spends a few moments scanning the room, checking every corner, and eventually braving a look outside each window.

"Nothing," she finally reports. Every set of shoulders relax, and sighs of relief are released in unison. Emma walks over to a seat at the table, sits down heavily, and drops her head on the table.

"Jeez Luce, you scared us so bad. Don't say things like that." Lucy, however, was not calmed by Emma's assurance that she didn't see anything. Her tears had slowed, but they still had not stopped.

"I swear I saw something, Emma! It was tall and grey and it didn't have eyes!" she exclaims, her cheeks bright pink. Emma sits up and turns towards Lucy, throwing her arms in the air.

"Lucy, I told you. There's nothing-" but as she turns to point at the front door, she realizes, there is something there. The front door has a large, glass window in the middle of it, and through that she can see the figure. Lucy had been right, this was no human. It was tall, and had a humanoid body, but with grey, wrinkled skin. It was not wearing any clothes, and had a hand with unnaturally long fingers pressed against the window. Emma's gaze traveled further up the figure, until she was looking at its face. The skin on its face was sallow and colourless, sagging slightly near its cheeks. The other thing Lucy had been right about, the creature did not appear to have any eyes. Instead, there appeared to be blackened holes as eyes sockets. Perhaps this was a trick of the light, but a coherent thought like this would never have crossed any of the girl's minds at this moment. Instead they all screamed, so loud it filled the entire house, and dashed back to the basement.

They somehow managed to get down the stairs without falling down them, and all jumped under their sleeping bags, hiding their heads and sobbing. After about ten minutes of crying, one of the girls, Mallory, poked her head out from the sleeping bag.

"Sh-should we call the police?" she asked in between hiccups. Slowly other heads began emerging from sleeping bags, until all eight girls were sitting up snd looking around. Emma nodded at Mallory, and started to walk over to the phone in the basement.

"But, we should be okay, because you locked the doors, right Emma?" Mona was looking hopefully at Emma, with wide, terrified eyes. Emma pondered this for a moment. She had locked the doors, she was sure of it. She remembered locking the front door before coming downstairs, and the back door-

Just as the realization hit her, the girls heard a door opening.