It had been around three months since George had checked the
old broom closet. His vigilant watch of it had somewhat waned in recent years,
but this was not always the case. Years ago, when it first started, he tried
his best to keep an almost constant eye on that accursed thing. It was just a
door, a damned wooden door no more menacing than a cockroach. No, it was what
was behind the door that ate away at his subconscious. For years, he’d been
keeping a dark secret hidden away. Or had he? Maybe the situation had long
since resolved, maybe he had lost many nights worth of sleep over nothing. Just
maybe. George was a man of caution, however, and not on his most confident day
would he even dare contemplate opening it…. maybe. It stood, a stoic rectangle,
mocking him and his paranoia with it’s continued, unbroken silence. What
potentially lay behind the door also mocked him, he imagined, grinning with the
thought of the psychological damage it had wrought on him.
This game of constant uncertainty began sixteen years prior,
on the coldest night of the year. Then, a younger and slightly more spry George
Whittaker had only just begun to learn what it meant to run his own business,
his newly minted diner being the ‘raison d’etre’ of years of dedication and
hard work. George was running through the new routine he made himself adhere
to, gathering several bloated bags of trash to haul off to the dumpster.
Dragging them behind him with a bit of slack, he nudged the rusty back door
open with his foot and took a cautious step down into the alleyway tucked
behind the diner. He made it halfway across when a noise broke his daydreaming,
a quiet scraping that was almost rhythmic in its pace. Glancing over, his eyes
widened into saucers as the color drained from his face. Standing not fifteen
feet from him was a creature, a small and crooked little thing with a
hunchback. It’s head from the tip of its skull to the base of its chin looked
like an exposed skull but with an almost pulsing organic look, veins mapping it’s
structure like twisting vines.
The body, almost painfully contorted, twisted together like
knotted branches jutting out into long spindly limbs tapering off into even
thinner fingers adorned with rotten yet sharp looking nails, one of which was
currently dragging along the ground, producing that scraping noise. It’s head
whipped around in George’s direction, and while the dim yellow lights in the
very back of its hollow eye sockets didn’t provide any sense of thought or
emotion, George could tell between his pounding heartbeats that it was
contemplating him. Flashes of heat made waves through George’s body, a wracking
and sharp terror pulsing through every part of him in a barrage that makes his
knees want to buckle from underneath him. The thing peeled back it’s thin
cracked lips and let off a small croak that slowly rose in pitch as it advanced
on George, gaining an unnatural amount of ground in mere moments. George
released the trash and bolted for the door, colliding head on with the heavy
metal slab with a loud clang as the creature’s talons tore through the flimsy
trash bags, kicking up bits of garbage in its pursuit.
By the time George had clambered to his feet, he could feel that
ghastly monster’s twisted fingers snagging at his shirt and apron, trying
desperately to pull him towards whatever grisly fate awaited him. Just barely,
he managed to scramble inside, the air in his lungs hot and his muscles
sluggish. The monster had not yet given up its pursuit, now screeching with a
maddening and ear-splitting howl that chilled every bone in George’s body with
every scraping step towards its prey. Grabbing his broom with a newfound sense
of self-preservation George firmly planted his feet and swung around with a
hefty blow, catching the creature with a solid hit that sent it hurdling into
the broom closet. Thinking on his feet, George threw his weight against the
broom closet door and slammed it shut, wedging the nearest chair underneath the
handle. From the other side the ghoul could be heard flailing and screeching, frantically
scratching the door to find any means of escape. The attempts were futile, or
so it seemed, as George watched the door in an almost trance-like state, still
and nearly breathless. Slowly the ghoul seemed to give up, its scratching and
howling steadily dropping to the occasional croak. Once he felt confident
enough to take his eyes off the door, George locked everything he could think
of and staggered home. He didn’t sleep that night, or many nights after. He
played the situation over in his mind countless times, and each time he couldn’t
help but wonder what he should do from there. Should he tell someone? Who would
believe him? He never learned how to handle anything close to this. Hell, up
until that night he never even considered such a thing possible.
Over the coming days and weeks, George nearly had himself
convinced that the ghoul had starved to death. That was of course until he
began to hear it drag a long nail from the other side of the door, letting off its
small dry croaks. Or did he? Was he just being paranoid, or were the three
locks he installed on the door in the days following justified? Any time he thought
he heard it, he found whatever means of distraction to drown it out. Turning
the dishwasher on or cranking up the radio provided a small comfort to keep him
from thinking about it. These days, that one encounter lead to a pattern, a
habit of checking the door at every available opportunity much like the habits
he forced himself into when his diner opened that lead him to this situation,
this Hell he created for himself. Now, however, he refused to let it burrow any
further into his subconscious. This hollow pit it had created within him would
go no further, and he would put his mind at rest once and for all. His youngest
was turning seven, and she had insisted that the party be held at her
dear dad’s diner.
He wouldn’t let his long-since-passed feelings get in the
way of celebrating what he loved most, his children. It was time to put it all
to rest and move on. The day of the party, before the diner had filled with clusters
of children and parents, George stood firm in front of the broom closet door
with newfound resolve. Click, one lock was open. His heart was pounding
out of his chest. He listened intently for any sound on the other side of the
door. Click, the second lock was open. He could her the first of his
party guests begin to file in, their voices chipper but faint. Click, the
third and final lock was open, and with a deep breath he threw the door open
with one sweeping movement. George instinctively flinched, but relaxed when he found
that nothing had come out. No, he was fine. Thank God, he was fine. With cautious
steps he peered inside, and what greeted him initially put his mind at ease.
Sure, there were small mountains of trash and torn papers,
broken cleaning supplies and spilled containers, no doubt from the ghouls first
tantrum. He could hear his daughter’s voice now, from somewhere within the
diner proper, and that further put his mind at ease. He could finally stop
worrying, and George couldn’t help but laugh at himself for wasting so much
precious time and energy on this. He should have known that he had handled it
as well as he could. And then, a noise. From behind him, a noise that froze
George to the spot and made his stomach sink. A scratching, a faint scraping punctuated
by a dry croak, making its way towards the source of the chatter. In that
moment of sheer terror, George could almost picture the ghoul’s thin lips stretched
into a contorted smile.
