Cellar Door Read online

old desk with a knocked over chair in front of it. I turned back towards Carl and he was shielding his eyes. I didn’t see a body anywhere. I stepped into the room and looked around, nothing. The closet was open but it was empty as well. There was a small bathroom off to the side. Carl’s footprints didn’t make it that far and judging by the effort required to open the door Carl hadn’t tried it. I forced it open anyway. It was also empty; well, except for a toilet, a sink, and a small stand up shower. This room was as innocent as the others.

  “Carl… there’s nothing here.” I stated as clearly as I could. I heard his footsteps as he slowly ventured down the hall and into the room. He looked around speechless and astonished. He shook his head in amazement.

  “I promise you, it was here, in the corner, a skeleton, clenching the pistol, it was an old German pistol, and the skull was cracked and had a hole in it, there was a bullet hole right here in the wall.” He ran his fingers along the wall, some of the blood was returning to his face. He seemed more puzzled than scared.

  “I told you that you were seeing things, there are no ghosts.” It sounded to me like I was mocking him after I said it but I had honestly meant it as encouragement.

  “It was really here; clear as day, someone…someone moved it!” His face grew pale again.

  “Look at all the dust!” I exclaimed. “No one has been here but you and me for decades probably. Not only that, but if it was such an old skeleton why would someone go through the trouble to move it now, coincidentally the day after you saw it? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It was HERE.” He seemed a little frustrated, like someone had played a joke on him.

  “And they moved the bullet holes in the wall?” That time I did mean to mock him.

  He looked like he was about to cry. He really believed he had seen something. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Let’s go home.” I turned towards the door. He just stood there looking at the corner, tears building up in his eyes.

  “I need you to believe me. I’m not lying to you. It was really here. Right here. It was.”

  He stood there babbling, about to start sobbing and it began to really annoy me but I tried to be understanding. I put my arm around him and gently pulled him towards the door. He tried to hide the fact that he was about to cry. The look in his eyes on the ride home was not one of fear, but frustration.

  Carl wasn’t really himself after that. Sometimes he seemed angry and flustered, other times he seemed spaced out and lifeless. He was either unresponsive or easily riled up and it was miserable hanging out with him. Sometimes in the morning he would wake up with a start, his face ashen and his eyes wide with terror. I would ask him what he had been dreaming about, and sometimes it would be the skeleton chasing him down that hallway, or he would be sitting at his desk at home and hear a knock at the door, get up to answer it, and the old pistol would be floating there pointing at him. He said he always woke up right as the skeleton caught him or the gun fired. Sometimes he spoke of a feeling like he was being watched and insisted that I should not leave him home alone in our room. I would tell him it was all in his head, explain how something had created that illusion because he was traumatized, that if there really were ghosts and evil spirits they would be on the news or something. I explained to him the only killings that actually happened were by people, murders and suicides; he had nothing to worry about. He would just leave the room frustrated and slam the door, sometimes mumbling something about how I didn’t understand. It wouldn’t be long though before he would come back and lay down on his bed, not saying a word to me or even looking my way. It was affecting my attitude and I reacted by hanging out with other people and trying to spend as little time in the dorm as possible. I felt like I was losing a friend.

  After a month or so Carl finally and gradually began to act a little more like himself and I figured he was finally getting over it. I didn’t mention it though because I had missed my friend and I was glad to finally have him back. Occasionally he would still wake up with a start, but I’d just ignore it and let him go back to sleep. It began to happen so infrequently that most of the time I found I had forgotten about the house and it felt like nothing happened. By the time Halloween started to roll around again everything was just about normal.

  Halloween afternoon after my morning classes I headed back to our room to do some homework. When I turned down my hall I saw policemen coming in and out of my room. One of them stopped me so I explained I was simply returning to my room and asked him what was going on. The officer gently pulled me aside introduced himself as a detective. He asked if I knew about Carl owning any guns, and my heart began to sink in my chest. The detective took a deep breath and told me that Carl had been shot, there was no evidence of anyone leaving or entering our room which had been locked, and they suspected a suicide. My knees went weak and my stomach churned and suddenly I found myself sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and my head in my hands. The officer sat down next to me and said nothing, giving me some time to sort out my thoughts. Carl was not the type to take his own life, school had been going well, he had a good relationship with his family, and a good group of friends we both hung out with, I just couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t believe it. He had come around to almost completely normal again. I asked the officer if I could see and he said they weren’t letting anyone near the crime scene. How could this happen? Carl? There was no explanation for it and I just couldn’t believe it had happened. I felt sick.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you,” a second officer approached and knelt on one knee in front of me “but have you ever seen this gun before?”

  He held out a plastic bag and in it was an old German pistol, like those used in the First World War. The barrel and grip were all rusted, absolutely covered in corrosion, at a first glance it barely looked like the gun would work. I took the bag in my hands and inspected it closely, the action had been meticulously cleaned, and the bag also contained a single shiny new brass cartridge. I felt some of the blood rush out of my face and hoped the officer’s didn’t notice. I just couldn’t believe it, was it- no. It couldn’t be. But, how- no, there just wasn’t any way. It had to have been a suicide, maybe he was still all stressed about his hallucination, but where did he get a gun like that? I could feel my head spinning. I needed to sit down, but I was already sitting, I was about to pass out. I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths. I opened my eyes again and the gun was still there in the bag with the cartridge, in my hand.

  Slightly impatient but understanding, he repeated himself “I know this is hard, we just need to know if you have ever seen this gun before.”

  I hadn’t actually SEEN the gun before, so it wouldn’t be lying to say so. How could I tell them what I knew? It would sound so ridiculous. It was ridiculous. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself, but what else could it be? I guess I didn’t have the courage to admit the possibility of something I didn’t understand.

  “No sir, I have not.”

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