Spookyness

It Isn't Satan. It Isn't Monsters. It isn't The Government.

Doorbells are not inherently scary. The doorbell rings; the door is answered. Of course, what's on the other side of the door can change the interaction significantly.

I'm a house painter by trade. Generally, I work by myself or with Joe, a middle-aged, silent type. He's a nice guy, a talented painter, and a devout Christian. It's funny to think his faith actually has little to do with what happened that day.

It was a Wednesday afternoon. The entire day was spent hanging drywall, completely covering the ceilings of two bedrooms. If you've ever covered a ceiling in drywall, we can swap stories of shoulder pain and screw shards in our fingers later.

Two women lived in the house, with its cracking walls, dusty everything, and strange ability to cast shadows in a room facing direct sunlight. Somewhat elderly women. Sisters, I think; I wasn't too sure. Kind women, but they had a tendency to walk completely in sync with one another. It was like, if you've ever seen the movie Don't Look Now, it reminded me of the old women in that. Man, that was a pretty good movie; it used suspense effectively, but after a while the lack of anything happening became a bit mundane.

Oh, sorry, I'm rambling. I daydream when I work, so documenting the day brings out the talker in me. But, anyway, the women had left for several hours. No idea where they went, but judging by the empty Lorezapam bottles and compulsive conversations about death on the news, I'd say nowhere important. Just getting away from the loneliness and depression that is the Philadelphia suburbs for a while.

So, it was myself, Joe, and a dying radio set to the oldies. The radio would turn to static whenever I walked by. Only me, which I found odd. I joked in my head about possibly being a demon. These are the things one thinks about while screwgunning a 400th spiral into gypsum. Spiral Into Gypsum would actually be a decent band name, honestly. There I go, rambling again. I may not be a writer, but the stories never stop on this train of interesting...

The doorbell rang.

Joe called from the other room, “Hey, Dave, mind grabbing that? My hands are full.”

“Should we really be answering the door with the homeowners gone?”

“Well...no, I suppose whoever it is can always come back.” Silence. “Come help me dry fit this.”

I sigh, knowing soon I'll be holding my arms above my head for a lot longer than I'd want.

One hour passes, and the women haven't come home. We've exhausted our drywall surplus upstairs, so Joe charges me to run downstairs to grab another sheet myself. Maneuvering a cumbersome piece of Sheetrock is not something I'm excited about, but the sooner we finish, the sooner I can kill all the ice cream in my freezer. Since I'm basically a child. Fuckin' sue me.

Charging down the stairs, I stop. The front door is covered by a thin curtain, obscuring the window in it somewhat, but the sunlight pouring through outlines a silhouette on the other side of the door. I cock an eyebrow, as if anybody can see my confusion. Whoever happened to be standing there was completely still, so I decided to assume it was one of the women on their porch admiring the bland street corner. It's funny how we instantly rationalize what we don't understand. It isn't so much that we make sense of the world, but we invent our own reality where nothing bad can happen.

My hand gripped the tarnished handle and turned, pulling the door and revealing a man in a black suit. He was wearing a bowler hat and looked vaguely similar to an elderly Sinatra. His voice, however, was not from The Chairman: deep and giving the sensation of a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Hello friend, I started to think you would never answer the door.”

It was at this point I should've closed the door in his face, but frankly I don't think it would've changed the events of the day that followed.