Nobody ever opened the door.
We’d been frequenting the old Mapleburg diner for years, my neighbors and I, and we’d never seen that door open. It was made of the same dingy wood as the rest of the place. It wasn’t padlocked or anything, it simply had been touched. No staff person has ever once used it. It didn’t have the legal markings of an exit. It was just a door, with hinges that had probably rusted shut and a handle that had never been turned by greasy fingers.
When we first visited Mapleburg, we used to sit in a table in the far corner, staying out of view. As kids, we went there to be left alone while we ate the diner’s famous blueberry muffins by the basket. But as the years went on, we drifted closer and closer to the door – not the front door, the door – until our weekly Sunday morning brunch was held permanently at the table nearest it. I never saw the waitresses sit anyone else there. Either they saved that table for us round-the-clock, or they avoided it intentionally.
The brunch after Hayden Williams’ party started out like any other. Conversation was light and almost superfluous. We’d grown up together, three girls against the world, and went to brunch more out of habit than actual desire. My mind was free to wander.
It didn’t wander far.
Where did that damn door go?
Food came out of the kitchen like clockwork; I ate mechanically, chiming into the conversation where appropriate. The other two were talking mindlessly about the party. I toyed with the idea of asking a waitress about the door. Was I imagining the wayward glances they cast its way? Could I really smell blueberry muffins from the other side, or was I just going crazy?
My body moved without my mind deciding to. Before I could blink I was standing at the door, my hand wrapped around the wooden handle, ready to tug it open.
Or not ready. Definitely not ready.
Cassie asked, casually, what I was doing; Lara asked, just as casually, what that door was for. As if they’d never even noticed it before.
But I couldn’t respond. Like whatever force had magnetically pulled me toward the door had suddenly lost its power. My arm couldn’t pull, but my hand wouldn’t let go.
Cassie, always the bravest of us, got up and stood next to me. She inspected the door for a second before I pried my fingers off and she grabbed at it. She tugged and tugged, but the door never came open. Must be locked, she said.
Locked. After all this time
I sat down again, ashamed of myself. Locked. Of course it was locked. I couldn’t focus on my food, no matter how hard I tried. Eggs and pancakes, usually my ultimate motivator and weakness, held no appeal. It was more than a full minute before I could take my eyes off the door and return them to my place. Locked. I’d been obsessed about a locked employee door. They clearly just kept things in there that dummies like me ought not be touching. The wait staff must’ve thought I was being a total idiot…
But at the end of the morning, as I was ready to pay for my barely-touched meal and apologize for acting so strangely, the door came open. A waitress screamed, and another dropped a plate. One scaly, green foot, with blue-black toenails the size of unsharpened pencils, broke the threshold and planted itself in the diner floor with such force that it splintered the wood.
Locked to keep something in, then, not out.
The monster held out to me, on a silver platter, blueberry muffins.
Short Stories
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Great writing! You might have a future in spinning tales! Look forward to reading another one…?
This was amazing!
Very good, great ending!