Short Stories

Behind the Mahogany Door

The job was done. The small, engraved chest has been secured and there was no sight of a witness. I glance out of the window, the curtains are flowing in the moonlight. Due to my slender stature and silent footing, the difficulty of these operations is far from overwhelming. My success in the domain of stealth has me quite a name in the underworld, but I don't do it for the notoriety - anything to sustain my solitary existence and freedom from monotonous employment, I will gladly take (with no concern for legality). Stealing an object while the homeowner is out is needlessly easy, and I fail to see why my client is paying me so handsomely for this task, but I am not complaining. I am not required to deliver the item before tomorrow afternoon and there doesn't seem to be any homeowners about, so I might as well have a brief look around... 

This guy is well-off, as I sneak around, I notice tokens of his wealth: a fine wooden desk centred in the room that seems strangely bare, no photographs of family or messy stacks of paperwork, just a couple of open books that I'm not so compelled to investigate. Squatting in an alcove is a large fireplace with some rather fancy ornaments atop the mantelpiece that I contemplated taking but I figured it may take the owner a shorter length of time to notice those are gone than the little box I was hired to pilfer. To the rear of the room I distinguish a large door crafted from a dark wood. It stood there with its grand carvings and I could not fight the overwhelming urge to open it and take a glimpse at what could possibly lie therein. It permeated an aura that was oh-so enticing.  As I advance towards the door I sense a low reverberation, possibly music or a radio. But as I slowly open the heavy wood my ears are graced with clarity, it was not music, but chanting. A single shiver twitches down my spine as I stand before the strangely lit steps twisting downwards like the body of a malevolent stone snake.

I step forward. Of course I do. My curiosity has never before been so intense. Every damp step that my shoe makes contact with I feel a presence getting ever greater. I cautiously turn a corner and my expectations are met with terrifying accuracy. I stand frozen there, as a ring of robed figures chant in unison guttural words of which my ears do not recognise. In the candlelight, their incantations pause as they avert their gaze from a rectangular altar to me. I try to run but I am fixated in place by the many masks angled in my direction. They issue me with a final monotone screech, paired with a flash brighter than any light I had ever set my eyes on.

I awake suddenly in the soft, sweat-soaked sheets of my own bed. As I lay there an astronomical sense of relief flows over me - I have not had a dream that intense in a months. I sit up to greet an excruciating pain swirling around in my head. When my agony had somewhat subsided I stand up and check my watch. It was only 1 o'clock. After a quick survey of my room I notice a strange box on my desk, similar to that in my dream. And then it clicked. All of that actually happened, the door, the masked strangers, the flash. I decided to creep back to my bed and get some rest. But my attempt to accept the velvety embrace of unconsciousness was fruitless, inescapable images of that door and its contents flashed in my head abruptly throughout the night, jostling my body every time they decided to appear. The images increased in frequency until it was impossible to close my eyes. Through my thunderous heartbeat I began to observe a multitude of whispers: "open the chest" they gently chant in a sinister tone. Quiet yet deafening was their speech, like the silence of a thousand years. As I move towards my desk the voices shake free their benevolence and replace it with ferocity, the screams of hundreds align within my fatigued brain just as I felt my eyes were going to burst into gelatinous confetti. It was then I opened the lid.

The noises stopped, the absence of them scared me, the silence felt like it was going to betray me. I pusillanimously inspect the contents of the 'chest'. A single slip of paper is situated there, taunting me. The words 'JOIN HER' were printed simply in pencil. There was one person who immediately sprung to mind - my sister. She had been involved with the occult in the past but I stopped her from engaging with that kind of people before I left. I ran away a year before her motorcycle accident, at least that's what the papers said it was... I told my parents not to search for me, I just wanted to be alone. I feel now that it was not a motorcycle that had ended her life something a little more... Organised. I also felt that I had to return to that accursed place. I did not know what for, but a deep sensation informed me, it was what had to be done.

I arrived at the front of the house and walked straight in. I did not feel as though I was in full control of my movements, as if I were a puppet enslaved under the control of a powerful dominatrix. The mahogany door felt to be far less heavy than the first time I had opened it, the steps greatly less ominous. I greeted the ring of masked figures as if I knew them personally, and I felt I did. I was not alarmed when they told me to lay upon the altar. I knew what was happening was wrong but at the same time it was right, it was my purpose. Did that flash the first time I was here have a deeper impact than simple headaches? I was a confused yet relaxed upon the cold stone. The hollow gazes of the men and women were spitefully warm. One of the members procured a dagger, waved like the tail of a deadly lizard. As I saw it I was scared, no, I was glad, as if my life were to achieve a greater meaning, a transcendence. And in my final moments, as the searing blade severed between my ribs and dark liquid began to pool within it's newly created cavity. I swear, for a split second, I saw my sister.