Horror Bites #9 - The Door

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Horror Bites Challenge #9

From the Office Mango website:

Well I’m a wee bit late this week, sorry blame it on the sunshine and the fact I’m still on my holidays from work. 

So this week I thought I’d post a picture that is sure to get your horror genes working. Enjoy, can’t wait to read the tales.

1:  Tales can be posted on your blogs & then just add to the wee linky tool, or add as a comment if you don’t have a blog.

2:  A word count of 200-350.

3:  Try to scare me, or at the very least create a little bit of darkness.

4:  This will be a fortnightly (two weeks) challenge from when the post goes live, so you’ve got plenty thinking time.

So come on what are you waiting for, go find your inner demons and get your scare on!

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You know what they say about curiosity...

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The Door

    In the house where I grew up there is a door at the top of the stairs that leads to the attic. My mother told me never to go up those stairs, that I had no business there. It was a dark, dusty room, full of old boxes and protruding nails, therefore a dangerous place for a young boy's entertainment. So I played downstairs or in the yard, afraid to so much as look up at the small window below the peak of the roof when outside.
    When I grew older, there was school, sports, and girls, of course, and those childhood fears faded away, buried and mostly forgotten beneath the activities of a young man's life.
    After only two years into college, however, my parents died in a tragic accident—or so the story goes. While stopping by the house to obtain proper clothing for their viewing, I remembered that door, and those old warnings freshened within my memory. I dispersed these thoughts with a laugh as I climbed the creaking steps, embarrassed at my youthful terrors.
    As I stood before the door, a noise came from within, not unlike the scratching of a mouse, perhaps, making a nest in the relative comfort of the old wooden beams. The knob was free to turn, but the door, locked with a deadbolt and no key present, was impassable.
    If, somehow, a key might be in the other side of the lock, I could eject it, retrieve the key from under the door, and thus gain entry. I knelt down to look in the keyhole, but no key was visible—only another eye looking directly back at mine. For better or worse, that is all I remember.
    In any event, I am quite happy where I reside now. My evening meal shall soon arrive and my hands freed from their restraints. Company will be wanting, however. They only allow staff in the room while my arms are untethered. Then, once they leave, and the door bolted again, I shall have peace. It's better for everyone that way.

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Makes you wonder which side of the door he was really on...

(346 words without the title - I almost took it to the limit!)

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Previous Horror Bites challenges: 

Wrapped in a Mystery (#8)
If The Shoe Fits (#7)
You Won't Feel A Thing (#6)
The Wings of Death (#5)

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