"Tell me a story," the man said greedily. "It doesn't have to be your story, or even a good story, as long as it is true."
Sam paused in the doorway, more than a little nervous now. He glanced toward the front door of the apartment and licked his lips, seriously considering just making a run for it. The apartment had already given him the creeper vibes from the time he had entered, and the emaciated figure of the old man sitting in the poorly lit corridor wasn't helping things. There was a flickering blue light from behind the old man as if from a swinging lightbulb on a chain, but not entirely; it was just the only explanation that Sam's mind jumped to that seemed to make sense.
Sam dragged his eyes back to the old man and tried on a smile that didn't feel quite right.
"How would you know?" he asked, trying to be jovial, but his humour seemed to fall flat in the apartment. "If I lied, how would you know?"
The old man turned his head to look at Sam for the first time and his grin was humourless as Sam's failed joke.
"I'd know," he said. A spasm seemed to cross his face, his muscles twitching uncontrollably before the contraction worked its way down his body in the space of a second. It caused the old man to shake his head uncontrollably and roll his shoulders before he regained full control. It was enough to set Sam's heart racing as he wondered exactly what kind of madman he was facing.
Sam took a step towards the front door, deciding that it simply wasn't worth it.
"Don't you want to see the door?" The man asked then as if sensing that he was losing his customer. "Don't you want to see another world?"
Sam froze with his hand on the door handle, his eyes still on the old man to make sure he stayed exactly where he was. You could never tell with crazy people.
"Mister, I don't even know what I'm doing here," Sam admitted. He gestured at the dark apartment, only lit by a single orange light in the doorway, and of course that flickering blue light down the corridor. "But I can tell you that if anybody has a magic door that goes to another universe, it's definitely not going to be you."
The apartment itself was a hoarder's wet dream, stacks of decades-old newspapers, telephone books and old magazines covering ever surface, and in some cases going all the way to the ceiling. There was a funk to the apartment, an accumulation of dust, grease, sweat and despair that clung to everything. If any daylight had been allowed to enter the apartment, it might have helped, but only a little; it might have only revealed stacked boxes of broken treasures that the old man had been loath to get rid of due to whatever mental illness he was dealing with. It might also have revealed the odd thing that Sam had noticed even as the old man had spoken to him for the first time: the boxes and stacks of hoarded junk stopped at some invisible line in the living room. The corridor was empty except for the chair on which the old man sat.
The old man shrugged and slumped back onto the chair.
"I'm not here to hurt anybody," he said then with laboured breathing. "I'm just an old man." Wheeze. "If anything, I should be the one who's scared that one of you," wheeze, "is going to come in here and kill me." Wheeze, wheeze. "It's going to happen eventually, you know. That's how my story is going to end." Wheeze. He looked at Sam, almost slyly. "But you're not here for my story, are you?"
Perhaps it was the wheezing that finally convinced Sam. Anybody who was having that much difficulty breathing wasn't going to be a threat to him. The old man was all skin and bones, and Sam was confident that his own six feet of height and 200lbs of muscles was enough to overpower one crazy old man.
"No, I guess not," Sam agreed.
"Did you bring your key?"
Sam found his hand opening and there it was, the key to his old apartment that he and Rebecca had shared until a year ago. Now it was just a key to nowhere since the new tenants had changed the locks. They tend to do that when not all of the keys had been returned. It was a key without a door, just like the ad in the back of the paper had said.
He held out the key, and the old man nodded.
"Then if you have your key, you must have your story," he said, and there was that edge of greed in his voice again. "Tell me your story."
"How does it all work, though?"
The old man was almost exasperated.
"It's a magic door, son. You tell me your story, you take your key, and you open the door. Everybody brings a key and every key opens to a different place."
"You said a different world," Sam insisted. "In the ad, you said it goes to a different world."
The old man shrugged. "Sometimes," he admitted. "I don't always look. I'm just the doorkeeper. I don't even care why you want to see another world. Or even why you'd want to escape this one. I just want to hear your story. That is my price, a little something to make the job worthwhile."
"So you don't actually need to hear my story at all."
"Maybe. And maybe I just like to hear stories. Indulge an old man, why don't you?"
Sam looked at the old man and shook his head incredulously, still amazed at himself for even having come to this place at all. What had he been thinking? The advert had read like some morbid joke, in between the other ads for penis enlargement pills, call girl services, and sex-phone lines, but it had been effective and gotten his attention.
There had been a photo of a Blue Door and below that the text that read simply:
I WILL TAKE YOU TO ANOTHER WORLD.
Bring a key that doesn't have a lock.
Tell me Your Story. Call 416-555-0867
It had been the photo that had haunted his dreams for days afterward, that seemingly innocent Blue Door searing itself into his imagination. The door was old, ancient even, the wood giving off a sense of weight and thickness even under the peeling coat of blue paint. It was a door that belonged on the exterior of a house and looked as if it had been through some serious extreme weather. The heavy bronze handle was a sharp contrast against the blue paint and looked just like the one on is grandmother's house. Almost exactly like it.
He had gone looking for the key even before he knew he was looking for it, ending up unpacking his entire closet and then all of the boxes which still held his stuff from the move, even after a year. He had slept like a baby after that and had dreamed of the door that night, and this time it had opened for him...
Now here he was, and he knew that the flickering blue light could only be one thing... so why was he fighting it so much? What was the big deal about telling this weak old man his story, if it was the price he had to pay to see the door in person and to open it?
"When I got back to the apartment, I knew something was wrong," Sam said. He had meant to tell the old man to fuck off, and then he was going to force his way down the corridor to the door, but instead, he found himself talking. Telling his story.
The old man leaned his head back, a broad smile spreading on his face. Drinking the words in.
He continued: "I knew she had been cheating on me for months, you know? Suspected really, but I could tell that things had changed between us. I just didn't want to know for sure because then I'd have to face it, and then it would be real, and I wasn't ready for that. I didn't want it to be over. So I ignored it, and I accepted it and waited for her to come back to me. I just knew that if I held on long enough and showed her how much I loved her that she'd remember why she loved me, that she loved me and that she had chosen me. She'd remember. So when I got back that day, and she was sitting on the couch waiting for me, I knew something was wrong." Sam looked away.
"She told me everything, and told me it was over, and you know what I did? I could lie like I did to all my friends and say that I told that bitch off and walked right out of there, but that's not true. I don't even think my friends believe me, but they let me have that lie, they let me believe that they believe me, but I can tell from the way they look at me. I begged her for a second chance. I begged her, and I cried, and none of it worked. It killed me inside, but I needed her more than she needed me and she knew it. I cried like a fucking baby and she looked at me like I was the lowest thing on earth. I disgusted her. So I left. I couldn't stand her looking at me like that, so I ran away and she got what she wanted."
There was silence for a moment.
"When I saw her two weeks ago with her new boyfriend, I almost didn't recognize her. She didn't see me, but she looked so goddamn happy. So goddamn happy.
"I killed her you know," Sam admitted. "I had no other choice." He giggled then and smiled. "Oh damn, that feels good to say out loud. Does that make me a terrible person?"
"Killing your girlfriend or talking about it?"
"Either. Both. I dunno." Sam looked appraisingly at the old man. "You have my story. I should kill you now."
The old man only smiled and closed his eyes.
"Perhaps," he said simply. "But you know how it is with magic doors. It might not work if you kill the doorkeeper. That's me, by the way."
"Or it might work without you," Sam said and gripped the key in his fist. He supposed he could find a weapon in the apartment somewhere, but it would take some searching. Worst case scenario, he could always kill the old man with one of the hardcover books in one of the nearby stacks of what looked like encyclopedias.
"You could always kill me after," the old man said, and opened one eye to look at Sam. "I am an old man after all. These days I can't move very quickly." Wheeze, wheeze.
Sam looked at the key in his hand and shook his head, intending only to give the old man a sense of false security. He could feel the pull of the door from down the corridor, could almost hear it calling to him, a light buzzing in his head that had only gotten stronger as he had told his story.
"I'm not going to kill you," he murmured, and the old man smiled.
"Of course you're not."
Sam licked his lips, eyes intent on the flickering light down the corridor. Had it gotten faster as he had been talking to the old man, or was it just his imagination? He looked at the key in his hand and realized that he was already walking toward the door. The old man was in his way.
"I'd like to see the door now," Sam said.
The old man sighed and nodded. He stood up for the first time, and Sam wondered how he had thought the man was short. He was as tall as Sam himself, skinny and frail, but not as small as Sam had imagined him to be. The old man grabbed Sam's wrist as he shuffled past, and his grip was surprisingly strong. He tried to pull away and failed. Instead, he found himself looking into the old man's eyes.
"I'd like to have your name," the old man said and Sam smiled at the odd phrasing. Such a weird thing to say.
"Sam," he said.
"Sam..." the old man said as if tasting the name, trying it on for size.
Sam tried to twist away from the old man's grip, strangely uncomfortable now. He tried to make a joke again. "Now you have my name, what are you going to do with it?"
The old man smiled even though the joke seemed to have fallen like a lead ballon and Sam frowned. He had thought the man had been ancient, but he really didn't seem that old now.
"You aren't going to kill me," The old man said, and Sam found himself shaking his head and meaning it. No, he wasn't going to kill the old man after all. That would just be rude.
"That would just be rude," the old man agreed, echoing Sam's thoughts.
Sam looked back toward the door, desperate to be away from the strange only man.
"How does it work?" Sam asked, a sliver of terror sliding through his heart for the first time, terror that there was no magic door even though he could feel it calling to him and this was all some elaborate trick, after all, magic doors didn't and couldn't exit. "The door," he clarified. "How does it work?"
"Like any other door," the old man said, and released his hold on Sam's wrist. "You put in your key, and it opens, just like everybody else."
Sam wasn't looking at the old man anymore. He was staring down the corridor where the Blue Door waited for him. The light had gotten brighter after all, and he could feel the pull of the door, so strong now. It was the same pull he had felt even through that photo, but now, here in this place, he knew that magic was true, and it would take him to another world.
He took first one step down the corridor, and then another, feeling his pounding heart calming in his chest. He was dimly aware that the glow from the door now matched the beating of his heart. Sam held out his key, the key that belonged to no lock, the door his only thought.
It was a simple Blue Door, exactly like the photo, but there had been a detail the photo had failed to capture. There was an impossible light that streamed from around the edges of the door, a light that pulsed in time with his every beat of heart.
Pulse—
Thump.
Pulse—
Thump.
Pulse—
There were two other closed doors in the corridor, one leading to a bedroom and the other, no doubt to a bathroom, but the Blue Door was the only one that was special. It didn't look like it belonged there in that wall, pretending that it led to another bedroom; in fact, it didn't look like it belonged in this world.
Sam raised the key and then glanced down the corridor, sure he would see the old man rushing at him with intent to murder him or something, but there was no sign of the old man.
Sam looked back to the door and slid his key into the lock. It was a perfect fit.
Of course, it was.
After a long moment, he turned the key.
* * * * * *
When the screaming had stopped, and the door had slammed shut, the old man wandered back to his chair in the corridor. The glow had receded, and the Blue Door was back to pretending that it was just an ordinary door. Just like he was pretending to be an old man.
He shuddered then, his skin rippling and changing as the spasm crept through his body. He reached up to adjust his new much younger face and tried to smile, but he wasn't used to the young man's face yet. He grimaced, trying on the new face, the new identity.
"Sam..." he said, tasting the name again, seeing how it fit. He grimaced. "I killed her," he said then, tasting the words. "I had no other choice."
There was a knock on the front door, and he looked up warily. He hadn't been expecting his next guest so quickly, but some people liked to be early. It was the lure of the door. They just couldn't help themselves.
"Come in," he called out. "The door's open."
The young lady that entered was attractive, and brimming with the kind of energy that made him hungry to think about. He almost salivated at the thought of what secrets her mind had to share.
"Tell me a story," he said greedily. "It doesn't have to be your story, or even a good story, as long as it is true."
THE END