The door.

The Door

Danny found the video on youtube. He wasn't sure quite how he'd stumbled over it, he was actually looking for a music video by his favourite band; a local punk band that was currently calling itself Asylum Escapee. He didn't find the song he was looking for but the links on the sidebar suggested a lot of other videos all featuring abandoned asylums.

Of course, he'd heard of urban exploration, and he'd even heard of some of the asylums featured. Hellingly, High Royds and Cane Hill. These names rang bells somewhere in the back of his mind. He idly clicked through the links, which mainly showed a lot of shaky camera work in very dark places, lots of nervous laughter and not a little illegal trespassing. But some of the videos were glorious; excellent shots of nature taking root in these lost and forgotten places.

And then he found the video. That video.

It had been uploaded a couple of years ago by someone called Notcrazy. The view count was dismal, barely a hundred people had seen it, there were no votes on it. Nor any comments. The video itself was called 'two weeks later'.  It was barely two minutes long.

He almost didn't play it, but the thumbnail shot looked interesting. Well, not interesting as such. It was just a door in a  wall, but it had such an air of familiarity about it. he was pretty sure he knew that door. So he clicked on it, if only to garner a few more clues as to it's location.

The video started with the same shot as he'd seen in the thumbnail. A door in a wall. The door was brown, weathered and had no discernible features. No window, no numbers no letterbox, and, strangely, no handle. The wall was built of grey discoloured stone. There was something scrawled to the far right of the shot, almost out of sight. It was undecipherable.

At twenty seconds in the camera wavered and a voice whispered "here it is."

The voice was male, breathless. Anonymous behind the camera.

It panned around a little, showed more of the wall. It seemed to go on for twenty feet or more in each direction. No windows, just that endless unbroken stone. It panned upwards and eventually the wall ended, seemingly showing a clump of grass.

"See that?" the cameraman said. "There's nothing above it but housing., they closed it all off and built over it, but that's just a ..." The sound of several cars passing drowned out his next words. "... I know different."

"We found the key," the anonymous voice said. "I didn't go in. John did."

A strangled sound. A muffled cough and a sniff.

"The door slammed. I couldn't get it open." He sniffed again. "So I went to get help, but it was dark, and I didn't see the car."

A hand entered the shot. A boy's hand, slender with bitten nails. It is encased in a grubby off-white plaster pot. The fingers protruding from the cast are scabbed, almost healed. The unseen narrator placed his hand flat on the door.

"When I woke up, I asked if they'd found him." A pause. "They told me John had gone away."

Another stifled sob.

"I told them about the door, and how he'd gone in, they didn't believe me."

The hand made a fist. Knocked on the door. One, two, three.

And then. Moments later. An answering knock. Just one.

Over the next few days Danny couldn't get the video out of his head. He knew the door was familiar. He knew he'd seen it somewhere about, as if it was somewhere he walked past every day without actually noticing it. He began searching the news archives online, looking for articles on a missing teenager called John. He didn't find anything.

Two weeks later, he found it.

It was completely by chance. He'd gone to one cashpoint and, finding it out of service, decided to go to another one down the hill, taking a shortcut past the cemetery.  He was listening to his iPod, oblivious to his surroundings. Until he tripped over his shoelace, and as he bent to tie it, he glanced over the road and there was the door.

He turned the iPod off. Walked across the road.

It was definitely the same door.

He stood for a moment. He still could not see a handle, but there was a keyhole. It was small, and filled in with dirt. At first glance it could pass for a knot in the wood. Danny raised a fist to the door. Knocked loudly.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Nothing.

He laughed to himself. What did he expect? The video was a year old. It was probably a joke. What the hell did he think he was doing? He laughed, took another step and tripped over his lace again.

And as he bent to the floor he heard it.

A single answering knock.

********

By the way, this door exists. I know where it is.

And what it is.