The Red Door
He walked about in the neighborhood with his black duffel bag bulging in all directions. It’s only been half an hour but his right arm started to shake from the weight of countless tools he packed. It was forty-two degrees but he was sweating beads from the unexpected weight of his too-well-prepared bag. A multi-purpose wrench, an extra just in case the original breaks, a modified drill without the motor drone, micro screwdrivers with sixteen different options for every industrial window bolt available in the market, a stethoscope, and a blow torch. He remembered reading about how modern safes have removed the “click” of combination locks to make them more secure, but he would never know if the house was inhabited by an old couple past their retirement with a romantic nostalgia for all things in the bygones. A blow torch though. A blow torch? Why did he ever think he would use that? One of these two-floor, three-bedroom houses can be a disguise for a multi-billionaire money vault with six inches of steel. As he tried to justify his decision to put every tool in the bag, he kept swapping his arms to hold the bag and the frequency of the switch continued to quicken. The other arm always stayed inside of his jacket, firmly gripping a .22 with his index finger on the safety. What if he accidentally breaks into a house with an imprisoned terror? He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he wasn’t going to get killed by something because he wasn’t prepared.
Her father turned off the lights after his good night kiss, turned on her favorite red-pink nightlight, and shut the door. She heard his footsteps head towards the master bedroom only for him to turn around mid-way and quietly tip-toe towards the stairs. He always ruined this charade by stepping on the loose floorboard by the stairs, she never knew when the front door was opened or closed, but she knew her father was leaving the house off of that creak. She wondered where he went during the night as she stared at the ceiling littered with shadows of her favorite animals slowly spinning while growing and shrinking in size. She got up and looked outside her window. Her room was at the back of the house so all she could see was red glimmering waves of tree branches which howled with the wind.
He walked for what seemed like hours when he saw a man rush out of the front door of his house, get in his car parked on the other side of the street, and the electric car silently hum as he drifted away. This was his chance! It only took a few seconds for him to be at the front door and another ten seconds for him to find the right tools to break the lock. While firmly gripping the handle, he slowly pushed the door to prevent any noise, but the door opened with no resistance. A dark void remained where the door was only contained by the white frames that held the door. Payday was nigh. All he had to do was go in, but he couldn’t shake off the dread of waking something unspeakable residing in the darkness ahead of him.
The shadows kept dancing with the melody of the mobile above her but she couldn’t fall asleep. She kept wondering where her father went every night. Was it because she made a fuss over what he cooked for her for dinner? Maybe because she was angry at him when she was dropped off at school fifteen minutes late because his father slept through the alarm, again. Maybe because she asked where her mother was when her father was reading her a story for bedtime, her voice was soft and smooth, and she would always go to sleep with her whispering into her ear. All she knew for sure, was that she was left behind. She didn’t even notice that she was crying until she felt the hot tears form beads and trickle down her cheek. She didn’t know why she muffled her cry, sobbing a little here and sniffing a little there. Maybe her father wouldn’t come back if he heard her crying. As long as he came back, she was going to be a good girl.
He remembered reading somewhere that he should start with the upstairs first. He could see the outlines of a stairway to his right. He already switched to his soft shoes so he hardly made a sound stepping on the wooden tiles. He was extra careful to not step over anything unexpected as he climbed up in the middle of the darkness. In a few seconds, he was at the top of the stairs. As he took the last step up the stairs, his right foot sank deeper than usual.
Is that the creak? The girl shot up from her bed as her misery quickly turned to anger. There she was, stewing in her misery, while he was on his nightly adventure. She got up from her bed with her blanket and stood by the door, waiting for him to walk past.
He noticed that the noise he heard was a woman sobbing when it stopped after the creak. In front of him was the dark corridor and a door to his right emitted a blood-red light from the bottom of the door that he had only seen in his worst nightmares. Oh god. There was now a large shadow blocking the light. It was too late to go back though, he thought. His hand shook while firmly gripping on the .22 as he walked towards the red door.