Story Nine

I gotta tell you, I’m having a lot more fun with this Nano than I expected to. I’ve been keeping up with my story a day pledge, and to my surprise, most of them have been over 2,000 words. For the first time since I started NaNo (in 2006), I’ve been steadily ahead on words. (*knock on wood*, don’t want to jinx anything). So far I’ve been using prompts from Writer’s Digest. In case you haven’t guessed, this was story #9, and yes, I did edit it a bit.

Prompt: After a grueling day at work you go home. The sweet allure of your couch and captain crunch is over powering! You arrive at the door, stick in the key, yank it open and … see a writhing horde of Minotaur chanting in the night and then one notices you and charges. You slam the door, wait a minute and try again. This time it’s a mountain with climbers clambering up the towering heights. One waves at you. What do you do? What’s going on with this door of yours? Do you go in?

Work was insane today. It was one order after another, the boss was on a tear, and Jen, my cubical partner, went for lunch and never came back. She’d always been a little flakey, but this was totally unacceptable. And the worst part was, this wasn’t the first time she’d pulled this shit on me and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last.

Finally, quitting time. I finished filling my last order and logged off, shutting my system down for the weekend. I met up with my friend Terry at the exit.

“I saw Jen slink back in,” she said. “I guess Boris is getting an early start to his weekend.”

I snorted. “At least somebody’s getting lucky.”

“Another dateless weekend?” Terry asked sympathetically. “Me and Lauren and some of the other girls are headed for the bar, why don’t you join us?”

“To be honest, I’m too beat to do anything but flake out on the couch tonight. It’s been a hell of a week. I’m going to eat a box of Captain Crunch cereal and binge watch something on Netflix.”

Terry made a face. “I don’t know how you can stand living in that creepy building. I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink, no matter how tired I was.”

There’d been a lot of odd rumors about the building, everything from it being a refuge for witches during the Salem witch trials to fairies from the old country possessing it, but I’d been desperate enough for a place to live that I ignored them. It was rather nondescript, not any more remarkable than the other small apartment buildings on the block, but there was something about it, something odd.

There were stories, of course, several stories, to account for the oddness, and several mysterious deaths. There was the blond actress who’d been found in her locked apartment. She was laying peacefully on the satin coverlet on her bed, dressed in an evening gown, fully made up, and not a mark on her. Then there was the musician who appeared to have choked to death, but there was nothing in his throat and no marks on the outside of it.

There were also several stories about mysterious disappearances but none of them were enough to offset the insanely low rent.

“The bar is doing a karaoke thing tonight,” Terry said in a wheedling voice.

I suppressed a shudder, an even better reason to go straight home. “No thanks.”

“You know where we’ll be if you change your mind.”

“Thanks, Terry. Say hi to the girls for me, and have a good time.”

We separated outside of the building and I headed two blocks to the subway. Of course it was running behind, and it was as busy as my week had been. And of course it was continuing good luck that the train stopped dead in one of the tunnels because there was something on the tracks. It took over an hour before the tracks were cleared again – I was starting to wish I’d taken Terry up on her offer.

Finally, we were moving again. I made it to my stop and dragged myself up the stairs to the street. Two blocks later I was outside of my building.

“Please,” I muttered, ascending the steps. “Let the elevator be working.”

For a change it was, although it creaked and protested all the way to the third floor. By the time I put my key in the lock I was really dragging. I opened the door and blinked in surprise.

Through the door, where my apartment should be, was a scene out of a fantasy, or a nightmare. It was dark, and the cool air held a hint of salt. There was a ring of stones and writhing and dancing around the stones was a herd, or maybe that should be a hoard, of Minotaur. It looked to be some kind of ritual or ceremony, and they were pretty intense, stomping and bellowing. Then one of them looked right at me, gave a ginormous bellow and charged.

I slammed the door shut and then pressed my back against it, expecting any second for him to burst through the door and send me flying. But seconds passed and nothing happened. I shook my head and gave a laugh. I must be more tired than I realized, I was starting to see things.

Another couple of seconds passed and then I took a deep breath and opened the door again. This time it opened on a vast space, giving me a sense of vertigo. There were mountains in front of me, and several yards across the span were a couple of mountain climbers working their way up its side. One of them glanced my way and lifted a hand to wave hello. I gave a half hearted wave back and then shut the door, quietly this time.

They had to be some kind of projections. But who was doing this, and why? I slid down and sat on the floor beside my door, too tired to stand there any longer. I had to think this through.

The Minotaur, straight out of mythology except the setting was all wrong. Weren’t they native, if they’d been real, that is, to the Mediterranean? The setting looked more Celtic, with the smell of the sea, nice touch by the way, and the standing stones. Someone had mixed up their myths. But they did a real nice job on the Minotaurs, they were very realistic looking.

And the mountains… The sense of space was amazing, and it was so real that I’d felt myself swaying, as though standing on a precipice. But again, who was doing this? And more importantly why would anyone go to such trouble. If they were trying to freak me out, it was working.

This was ridiculous. I was tired. All I wanted to do was relax and I wasn’t going to do that sitting in the hall.

“Okay,” I said out loud as I clambered to my feet. “You’ve had your fun, now cut it out and let me get some rest.”

I opened the door one more time and stared around in wonder. There was a beautiful glade, I could hear water and imagined a waterfall just beyond the trees. The ground was covered in a thick carpet of moss and there were flowers everywhere. Although I couldn’t see them, I could hear birds singing. It was idyllic, the escape I’d always dreamed of.

This time, I stepped through the door.