Let Me In

There was only one rule: don’t open the door. Every night I would hear my mother cry out to me from behind the door. She would say, “Let me in." Other times it was, "Please, they’re hurting me," followed by this inhuman gurgling sound, and then it would be over. 

My father told me that I’m hearing her soul being tortured in Hell; he says I can’t save her and that it’s too late. And if I open the door, I too will be sent down there.

He would sit beside my bed at night and smile as he spoke of the horrors behind the door. “Your mother was a whore,” he would say at the end of it. “It’s what she deserves," then he would softly kiss my forehead and close my bedroom door.

She’s been dead for 5 years; I woke up one day and stopped seeing her. That’s when my father told me the rule. I was 6 years old at the time; I didn’t know what dead meant. Every time I ask about her, he would say, “The whore is dead." He would also add that she never loved me. She never loved us. It’s what she deserved.

But tonight, by the door. I hear something...different. It’s barely above a whisper. 

“Kill him,” my mother repeats.

My father is fast asleep on the couch, the smell of cigarettes and booze seeping from his mouth. I sneak up the stairs, into his room, into his closet, into his drawer. Inside, a metal handle glints back at me. I wrap my finger around the cold trigger, then rush downstairs.

“Let me in, please.”

"Please, they’re hurting me." My father cries out.

There’s only one rule: don’t open the door.