Decrepit Door Hinges

“There was only one rule: don’t open the door.”

Sandersen’s warning kept echoing in my brain as the locked wooden cabin door was practically coming off its hinges from all the constant banging. Someone from the outside, resembling my father, was trying to bypass the safety net of my wooden door.

Perhaps you’ve heard of them before? Skinwalkers, lurking in the shadows of rural and mostly uninhabited landscapes, are prone to take the shape of someone familiar to you…but not just through appearance. They’ll go as far as mimicking the voice…anything to fool you into believing that you’re in the presence of someone you know. We’ve been warned about them, but in true rebellious fashion, we didn’t believe the hype.

Three swift knocks and finally I hear my father’s solemn voice say, “Please, come home.”

Soothing…my eyes filled with tears because my father has been dead for 5 years. I kept my hand over my mouth trying to not make a noise. How did it know that these were his last words to me?

***

Parker Sandersen has been my neighbor for nearly a decade. I moved to Chicago as a 20 something know-it-all and he quickly taught me that I do not, in fact, know it all. Him and I go way back. He knew about my struggles with grief, how close I had been once upon a time with my late father. Eventually he became a father figure to me. I bother him whenever I need help with trying to fix anything around the house and he will occasionally pop in for a cold beer after a long day. Sandersen is retired and doesn’t have much to do, but he has traveled all over the world, including all the 50 states. Every now and then I will venture to ask for a bit of traveling advice…

“You know about Appalachia?”

I shook my head. He proceeded to lean in closer, lowering his voice almost in a whisper,

“They have eyes everywhere. Do not, under any circumstances, follow them. They will lure you into the depths of their dark and psychotic world. When we were stationed in Louisville, there was only one rule: don’t open the door…especially after dark has descended.”

He leaned back with a serious and stern expression, then took a long sip of his beer.

I sat a bit puzzled and then my expression changed to that of amusement.

“C'mon! You’re crazy, old Sandersen!”

“Appalachia is as mysterious as the 95% of the ocean that hasn’t been discovered…and if there’s any interference with the unknown, it could end badly for you,” he replied, completely stone cold serious.

“Have you come across one?”

“Oh, boy. Have I!”

Sandersen was amazed at the fact that these creatures were such quick shapeshifters…

It’s like they hijacked your brain, personal memories of people you remembered and held dear to your heart…just to trick you into a false sense of security and kill you.

I still wasn’t quite certain on what their intention was; did they kill you to feast or for you to join the ranks of all the rest?

***

“Please, come home.”

Wait…come to think of it…he was the only one that knew.

“Sandersen?!” I gasped frantically.

Silence. Then…a deafening cackle…

“Sandersen should have listened too.”

The banging of the doors intensified. I was cornered in. The hinges were hanging on by a thread…