There was only one rule: don't open the door. Quinn had scoffed at the absurd dictum. What the fuck kind of rule was that to have in a place like this? The old cottage was full of doors, all of which were tightly closed.
“Ye’ll ken it when ye keek it,” was the only explanation the old highland landlord gave to Quinn’s confusion.
It had appeared initially in the corner of her periphery, a shadow, perceived at a glance then vanishing upon closer investigation. Then one day, permanence; a narrow, battered door painted red. It taunted her curiosity, made her palms itch to turn the black, antique knob.
When the knocking began, Quinn’s obsession with the door only intensified. She wasted hours each day, sitting at the kitchen table, staring trancelike until she could stand it no longer.
Quinn didn’t know when she had risen from the chair to stand in front of the door, her hand moving of its own accord to grasp the cold knob. She turned and pushed in one fluid motion.
The air behind the door was thick with the stench of decay and blood and something burnt. A shadow shifted, broke the shaft of light pouring in from the kitchen. Quinn gasped as the skeletal equine flank, the sinewy limbs, the angry flayed skin emerged from the shadows to reveal an impossible creature: the Nuckelavee.
But it couldn’t be…could it? The Nuckelavee was just an old wives’ tale, a sinister demon out of highland folklore. She had only heard the stories, the terrified whispers, told in dimly lit pubs.
Yet…
There was only one rule, and Quinn had shattered it. The terrible truth punched her in the gut: the door wasn’t just a barrier; it was a prison, and she had just released a nightmare.
About the Creator
Sara Little
Writer and high school English teacher seeking to empower and inspire young creatives, especially of the LGBTQIA+ community
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Her Last Farewell
Eleanor hated funeral homes. Lonely, loathsome places, in her opinion. She hated the way those places made her feel. The way she shrank under the stern gaze of looming windows. The stale perfume of wilting roses and carnations thickening the chilly parlor air. The hollowing of her stomach every time she approached a casket, that final “good-bye” stuck in her throat like a knot of spiders. And the heavy dread that lurked in the shadowy corners of the overcrowded rooms, a sinister reminder of the inevitable. Eleanor had bid farewell to most of her family, friends, and even a few strangers in rooms not unlike the one in which she now found herself. The furniture, the wallpaper, the flowers, the murmuring crowd, all identical from one to the next. Even the corpses had begun to blur together into the same ambiguous visage. Except for this one. The body that now lay stiffly reposed in the silk-lined coffin was more familiar to her than her own reflection. She had spent sixty-seven years memorizing every angle and curve and twinkling aspect of the man that rested before her. The once brilliant smile of vitality and mischief now winced under permanently closed eyes, and the knotted hands closed over the sunken chest cavity belied their former gentle strength, now a mere gnarl of skin and bone. Her darling Theo. His was the only familiar face to her in the parlor. His, and the woman’s.
By Sara Little2 years ago in Fiction
Comments (1)
beautifully written, well done👌