The Devil’s Door

    As she and Dave pulled up outside the Old Rectory, Karen began to regret suggesting the game of ‘Truth or Dare’ at last nights dinner party.

      The rectory was surrounded by seven-foot fence of wrought iron bars, each bar tipped with a lethal point to keep intruders out or to keep potential victims in.  There had once been a gate but now, well over a century on, it lay propped up against the fence and overwhelmed by years and years of undisturbed ivy. 

       In contrast to the lush green of the wooded hills and the vibrant yellow of the corn fields surrounding the fence, the Old Rectory grounds appeared flat and dreary, even the grass seemed to be having a hard time growing.  Steeling her attention, Karen found herself lured by a dead tree, it’s trunk split and scorched down the centre by lightening.  Lifeless branches pointing like long arthritic fingers to a small wrought iron gate that led through to the churchyard and church ruins.  No fresh flowers adorned the graves in this churchyard and the tombstones seemed drunk, leaning at strange angles, as if struggling to keep their balance.

       Dave pulled up next to the path that led to the front door of the rectory.  Despite it being a bright and warm summer’s day, Karen felt herself shiver as she got out of her car and collected her sleeping bag and overnight gear from the boot. 

      “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?”  Dave asked, concerned.

      “No, the dare was to spend a night on my own and that’s just what I’ll do.”

      “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”  Dave said, waving out the car window as he drove down the drive and out the gate.  Dave was an old friend and on her request he’d escorted her to Henry and Sarah’s dinner party.  He had tried to talk her out of going through with the dare but Karen, being Karen, had stuck to her guns.  The dare was to spend the whole night in The Old Rectory famous for it’s tales of curses and ghosts.  But Karen didn’t believe in ghost and ghoulies, and anyway it was the summertime, which meant the nights were shorter and ghosts didn’t come out in the daytime.

       Karen walked up the long forgotten path to the front door.  Weeds had settled in its cracks a long time back and it was now their domain.  The Rectory was a spectacularly ugly rambling red brick building.  Built in the 1860’s, it was typically Victorian, box-shaped with equally sized and evenly spaced windows and a large solid oak door made up of square panels fashioned to a pyramid with cast iron tips at the top of each one.  Three small attic windows looked out from three gables along the steeply slanting roof.  Some of the tiles were missing presumably the pieces of broken slate that lay scattered on the floor around the outside of the building.

       “All I’ve got to do now is get in.”  Karen looked around for a large stone to break one of the windows with and after finding nothing but broken slate she said, “Well, It’s a long shot but I guess I could just try the door.”

      Turning back to the front door, something glinted in the sunlight and caught her eye.  It was a doorknocker made of brass, in places going green from age and shaped just like a little devil.  As she looked more closely Karen could see his body was intricately engraved to look like thick fur and he had one of his legs crossed over the other.  Both his feet were hoofed and his hands, which rested on top of his knee, were finished with claws.  His face was quite human apart from the horns and to finish it all off he had a sly, somewhat, impish grin on his face.

      “A rather strange sort of knocker for a rectory.”  She said to herself.  Karen grabbed the little devil’s foot, laughing, and knocked three times.  It had a strange knock, almost a ringing.  On the third knock the door slowly swung open with a rusty creak.  Karen jumped back, “Whoa!  How freaky is that?”  Then feeling stupid she looked around and then said to herself, “It must have been open all along and I just didn’t notice.”

       Karen grabbed her gear and slowly walked in, cautiously looking around.  A thick layer of dust covered everything in the hallway and it smelled very musty, reminding her of her late grandma’s house.  The odd bit of furniture still present led her to believe that no one had been back since the unpleasant incident back in 1906.  Karen remembered what Henry had told her at the dinner party. 

       The rectory had been built by Reverend Joseph Johnson in the 1860’s and on moving in his wife had died in childbirth and he died a few years later, driven mad by her supposed ghostly screams.  The church and rectory were then taken over by Reverend John Bull, who eventually went mad, murdered his wife and children and then set fire to the church, killing himself inside.

    Henry said that you can still here the ghostly screams of women and children on certain nights of the year.  To which Karen replied, “That’s just hocus pocus,” and laughed.

       Leaving the front door open, Karen went into the first room on the left and dropped her stuff.  It was a spacious living room with a leather-winged armchair by the fire and a piano in the corner by the window.  Karen was finding it hard to believe that no one had taken any of the furniture.  She walked over to the piano and struck one of the keys.  It sent out a resounding and unbelievably harmonious dong. 

       Walking over to the curtains, Karen pulled them apart and let the summer sunlight flood through into the room.  The velvet drapes were full of dust and net curtains were yellow with rotting holes all over.  There, the room looks less menacing already, she thought.  She set up her sleeping bag on the small sofa, it looked very uncomfortable but it would be better than the floor.

      Karen decided to look around the house to pass the time.  As she walked back out into the hallway she decided she’d better put something across the front door to stop it from closing just in case she needed to leave in a hurry, not that she would of course.  She dragged an old dusty sideboard across the floor and put it in front of the door.  “There, that’s taken care of the fresh air situation.”  She said aloud to save face, just in case Henry had decided to pop by and keep an eye on her.

    Karen couldn’t believe the rest of the house, it was just like the story of the Mary Celeste.  There was furniture in every room, pictures hung on the walls and there were even dishes set up on the dining room table.  The rooms felt quite welcoming downstairs, if you ignored the dust but upstairs was a different story.  It felt as cold as a snowy winters night, especially in the children’s room.  Books were neatly on their shelves, toys in boxes made for that purpose.  In the adult bedroom there was even perfume and brushes on the dressing table.

       It was just turning dark when Karen finally settled down in her sleeping bag for the night.  She had been right the small sofa was uncomfortable but sofa didn’t have anything to do with her waking up.  It had more to do with the loud banging coming from upstairs.  She got up off the sofa, stretching and trying to pull the crick out of her neck.  “Henry.  Charlotte .  I know it’s you up there.”  She shouted as she calmly walked upstairs to investigate. 

       She could still hear the noise as she arrived at the top of the stairs.  Karen was sure it coming from the children’s room.  As she walked to the door she could hear childish giggles.  Karen walked to the door and grabbed the door handle with shaking, sweaty palmed hands and nervously shouted, “I hope you’re having fun playing with all the toys in there, Henry?”

       As Karen swung the door open the noises stopped dead.  She had walked into what looked like World War 3.  There were toys and books everywhere, sheets had been thrown across the floor but worst of all, there was no one to be seen.  Karen suddenly got a horrible feeling that someone was watching her.  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled up and as she turned to leave the room she felt a pair of hands starting to squeeze around her neck.

       The next morning Dave pulled up outside the rectory but Karen wasn’t waiting outside like she said she’d be.  She must have overslept, he thought as he got out of the car and headed up the path towards the front door.  On inspection Dave found the front door and back door locked and the windows appeared to be nailed from the inside.  He peered inside a couple of the downstairs windows but the rooms were empty, just dusting floorboards and peeling walls.  How had Karen managed to get in?  Maybe if he knocked loud enough she’d wake up.  He walked up to the front door once and spying a very strange knocker, he used it to knock loudly on the door three times.  To his surprise, the door swung open with a rusty creak…….