With each step that takes you closer to the door, you wonder if this is a good idea or not. While you were hopeful that the odd placement can offer some shelter, it seems less likely by the second.
Lighting flashes through the treeline and then a deep rumble cracks through the air. It sounds as though the world is being torn in half. Four seconds again. Maybe this is as bad as it would get.
Just as you first thought, the door is the sole constructed object out here, outside of the thick frame that contains it. Now only a dozen feet away from you, there isn’t the ruined brickwork to the sides you had been expecting. Nor a roof clearly attached to the top that might signal it went to something underground.
Yet, the red paintwork is aged and flaky like it has been here for decades. Muddied slightly, with the nearby vegetation growing around it, creeping vines and small weeds staking a claim in any crack and crevice that they were able to. The rounded knob is a tarnished brass, which matches the studs in the woodwork that you can now see since you are closer.
Too far gone for regrets now, you still curse yourself under your breath. Now you are just mad, as if the door is personally slighting you for being out of place. The desire to have an explanation overcomes the notion of turning back, if only so that you can be content that you aren’t a dumbass for stomping your way across the wet grass in a storm just to gawk at a discarded door. Some of the bored teens probably propped it up or something recently, you try to tell yourself.
And now you stand before it. It is… underwhelming. It is a wonder it is still standing with the constant gusts of wind. The design of it is simple enough that if it wasn’t standing on its own in the middle of the woods, then it wouldn’t look out-of-place anywhere else in the town.
You shiver and grit your teeth as the trees flanking the doorway shake and pelt you with thicker drops of condensed rain that had been gathering on the leaves. The flash of lightning lights up some of the gloom from further beyond the closest trees. It isn't impossible that you can still arc around through the door and find the path again.
Your hand grabs at the door handle. It’s cold, but that isn’t unexpected. As the boom of thunder shatters the sky, you turn the handle and push against the aged wood.
There is some resistance, as caked mud and rough parts of the wood grinds on the fittings, but after brief hesitation, it relents to your advances and swings open.
A sinking feeling weighs on your stomach. It’s just more woodland ahead of you.
“Motherfucker,” you whisper under your breath. Mostly aimed at yourself. At least there is nobody around to watch your foolishness in action.
You take a step across the threshold, and immediately fall to one knee.
“Shit,” you repeat, “shit.” The rainwater has pooled just behind the door, creating a puddle a good six inches deep. Now your whole sneaker is thick with slick mud. You grumble and try to push yourself up, but the earth is soft beneath the soaked grass, almost like it wants you to stay.
You have better things to do, like not wallow in the mud chasing after stupid curiosities. So, you right yourself, leaning back to grip onto the door frame to pull yourself out and away from the bog-like ground.
With wet and muddied trousers sticking to your legs, you step back from the wooden ledge, just as a pain pricks at your hand. You gasp and glare at the door as the wind blows it close to closing.
A fucking splinter. Lightning blinds you as you hold your left hand up to try to spot the offending shard of wood. An impossible task with the rain assaulting your vision. It’s just beneath your index finger by your palm, but other than the aching uncomfortable feeling, you can’t really see it. It’s certainly not large enough to pluck it out with your fingers right at this moment.
You flip the door off as you slosh your way back to the path, fully aware this was all a problem of your own making. You placate yourself with the knowledge that even with the fruitless detour, you will still get home quicker than the road route. Just muddier instead of wetter.
Not that travel is any more pleasant now. With your right leg and shoe thick with mud and the rain soaking everything but your shirt, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your eyes on the swaying woodland. The wind is speeding up, and if you don’t know any better, you may assume it had changed direction to spite you specifically. Half closed, your eyes focus only on the path right before you, the sheets of intense precipitation obscuring your vision if you try to look any further ahead than that.
You will have to thank Chloe when the storm has moved on. Sure, you are in the shit now, but if she hadn’t promoted you to leave when she had, then you’d be in ever worse trouble. Silver linings, you think, dryly.
After what feels like hours, the path starts to widen out. Counting still, the time between flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder has dropped to three seconds—the last being only just over two. The frequency has increased, which for the most part is just causing your head to ache. The rainfall hasn’t increased, and the wind is constant. It is getting darker, however. Although not close to nightfall, if you don't make it out of the woods before then, you will start to panic a little.
Being able to follow the path in darkness won’t be impossible, but it is a thought that sounds pretty abysmal. The only thing that could make this storm worse would be if it happened a few months later in the year. Then you will have frozen to death by now.
Your footsteps slow as you try to maintain your stability on the slick mud devoid of any grass or vegetation. The familiar shape of a picnic table to your left comforts you. You are on the right track—close, even. A few of the town's events were held in this small clearing throughout the year. They seemed to have a celebration for all manner of minor achievements. It gave your eyes a good workout with all the rolling. Ever the stick in the mud, your parents would say. There was something ironic about the state of your leg and that statement, but you were too busy scowling through the wall of rain to hold on to the thought.
A couple of other tables loom through the curtain of rain. Another dozen or so steps and you will- yes, there is the sidewalk. Your feet strike solid ground, and you scuff your sneakers back and forth briefly to get off as much excess mud as possible. Then, reasonably confident you won't slip over, you start to run. More of a casual jog, given that you don’t want to be blown into one of the nearby buildings—or even the road, despite it being completely dead. A twisted ankle or concussion would not be nice.
Stolen story; please report.
Briefly blinding you, a streetlamp flickers into life, struggling to illuminate much of value with how thick the rainfall is. You narrow your eyes further down the street to see the other lights blink alternatively before remaining lit. It must be dark enough for the automated sensors to tell them to turn on. All that did was give the stark contrast to the rest of the surroundings.
This street has shops on both sides for a while—the edge of the town center—before it split off back into more residential buildings. It is no surprise that they are closed, but there are no lights coming from them at all. Not even the upper rooms where the shop owners often lived or rented out to others. Rather than filling your thoughts with conspiracy, you remember that the librarian had mentioned possible power outages along with the cell and communication stuff.
Perhaps the grid is briefly down, but the streetlamps are on a backup or a separate generator for emergencies. That sounded plausible enough.
The familiar dip in the sidewalk let you know that you are exiting the area, and you turn to the right as soon as the option presents itself. Rather than terraced buildings, the first detached house comes into view on the right. A flash of lightning illuminates the second, and as the thunder rumbles through the atmosphere two seconds later, you see it—your house.
Any notions about it not feeling like your home washes away with the heavy rain. It was safety from the storm. Familiar shelter.
Your feet hit the row of shallow steps as you go up the slight hill to the door.
It isn’t very visible in the current conditions, but your parent’s house is what they describe as delightfully rustic. Which mostly means they haven’t been bothered to update any of the decor or structure since the 60s. There used to be a thriving community built up around a lumber mill back then, but it had closed down long before your parents had moved in.
With dark wooden walls and faded white trim around the windows and doors, it looks more like the scene of a horror movie. Somewhere a killer would stalk a group of clueless teens. Thankfully, it isn’t quite that secluded, and other than the occasional lost deer, the town was relatively peaceful, even from the reaches of nature.
Your hand pats around your pocket for your keys. The ache of the splinter rises with all the movement, but you endure it for now, as getting inside is more important. Briefly, you panic, thinking that you have dropped them in the woods when you had slipped, but no. They have just moved to the side of your pocket.
A click, and the key turns and unlocks the door. You push it open and stumble into the darkness. Feeling like you have been holding your breath all this time, you gasp as you inhale easily once more. Leaning against the door, it clicks back closed. The sound of the storm is muted through the brown wood, but still present. The bright white of lightning illuminates the dark house, putting shapes and shadows into your brain briefly, before it fades away just as quick as it arrived.
You let out a long groan, fully accepting how soaking wet you are. Standing up straight again, you release your backpack to the floor. Getting rainwater all over the hardwood floors will be a bad idea. You decide it will be best to keep containment in this small lobby. At least then you can throw towels in this eight-foot square space rather than trail destruction throughout the house.
Rain jacket gets put on the hooks on the left beside the others. You push your sneakers off with your feet alternatingly, leaving them on the rough welcome mat rather than dirty up the shoe rack on the right beneath the side table. Now that you have acclimatized, you can see the small light flashing on the answering machine. Who even leaves messages these days, you wonder.
Something to wait until you were in comfy, dry clothes. Your current hooded top, trousers, and socks get left on the floor, so you’re now left in just underwear and a partially damp shirt. You flex your toes out and sigh deeply—something interrupted by the storm flashing and cracking through the sky. You made it home.
The first thing on your agenda is to get to the bathroom. Bare feet padding against the hardwood boards, you step through into the corridor, ignoring the grid of nine pictures of your family on the wall—one of them missing. You had long given up on that space being replaced.
You try to flick the light switch, but nothing happens. With another sigh, you hold up your phone and turn the flashlight on. Battery was middling, but it will last long enough to find the torch and candles from the kitchen after you dealt with this bastard splinter.
No reception, either. The small screen just presents a small blinking cross.
Downstairs bathroom was the first door on the left. Your light illuminates the white tiles of the simple room. The mirror cabinet opposite reflects the beam of white and causes you to wince. If there is one thing you can’t fault your parents for, it was that they are reasonably organized. You place your phone on the side of the sink, standing it up against the pot of toothbrushes.
With a quick glance at the plain shower curtains and small bath, you open up the cabinet and squint your eyes at the contents in the dim light. Just to the right of a couple of bottles of your father’s aftershave, there is the little set that contains the tweezers.
As you pull them out and close the cabinet door, you pull a face at your reflection. You look like a drowned rat, your hair completely pasted to your head. Drops of cooling rain still covering your face. Next step after the splinter was to towel yourself down and find the warmest clothes you have.
You place the kit in the sink and pop the transparent plastic lid open, bringing out the silver metal tweezers. Lightning flashes through the small window, casting dark shadows across the room. You work your jaw as you hold your hand out in front of the phone light, angling it so that you can see it better without too much glare.
The area where the pain originates from didn’t seem to have anything wrong at first, and you frown, leaning your face closer, as you hunch over the basin.
Another tilt and then there it is—you see the dark shape of what must be the splinter. Fucker went in deep, you think as you adjust the small metal tool between two fingers. Some of your early life had been a little ‘free-range’, so dealing with splinters isn’t anything new. The nice ones you could pluck out easily with your fingers. This isn’t one of those.
You hold your breath as you push the two ends of the tweezers against your skin around the site of entrance. With your brow furrowed, you try to work it back and forth to coax the offending shard of wood out.
At first, it didn’t seem to want to budge, but as the storm flickers another burst of light through the town, a darker edge of the splinter emerges from your skin. Excellent. You move the points of the tool together slowly, trying to grip at the small object. Expecting more of a fight, you exhale and gradually pull at the splinter.
It edges out a few millimeters, and you hold your breath again, anticipating the slight sting when it releases from your hand.
But it didn’t come out.
Instead, it continues to emerge. Even as your heart rate increases, the muscles in your shoulders tensing up, you try to wave away the worry. It must have embedded pretty deep. You are lucky there isn’t any blood.
Still, you pull out more. It is now a good centimeter long. The angle of it doesn’t seem normal. Not... possible. Your heart rises into your throat as your brain tries to find a way to make sense of this.
Pain radiates from your hand as the dark brown shape continues to withdraw. Nausea grips at your stomach as your breaths become shorter, panicked.
Your hand starts to shake as the object slides another centimeter, now almost two. There is no stopping it, and your mind can only act in shocked autopilot. It needs to be out of you, and you convince yourself it has to end at some point.
It also doesn’t look like a rough splinter of wood anymore. Much smoother. The shape of it is too round. Like aged paper.
Lightning and thunder rock the house, causing you to jolt.
A burning pain bites at your hand as the foreign object exits the wound, the small round injury red and raw, but too shallow to make sense.
The object drops into the sink, and the tweezers follow suit, clattering against the ceramic.
Other sounds are muted, as only the thudding of your heartbeat and focus on the ejected material fill your mind.
With shaking hands, you reach down and pick it up. Almost two inches tall and tightly rolled, your thumb finds the open edge of what looks like rolled paper. Mouth dry, you slowly unravel it.
The storm ravages the town, another deep boom immediately following a flicker of light.
A shiver rocks through you and your blood runs cold, as harshly scratched letters form words along the aged sheet.
You found the door; it says.