The Children of the Red Door

Chapter 1: The House on Blackwood Lane

The realtor had called it a fixer-upper with character. To Daniel Mercer, it was a tomb. The Victorian house loomed over Blackwood Lane, its sagging porch and boarded-up windows like a face frozen in a silent scream. But with the divorce finalized and his savings drained, it was all he could afford.

The movers refused to step inside. They left his boxes on the porch, muttering about the wrong kind of cold that seeped from the threshold. Daniel laughed it off—until he crossed it himself. The air was thick, sour with the scent of wet earth and something sweetly rotten, like forgotten fruit.

Then he saw the red door.

Tucked at the end of the first-floor hallway, it didn’t match the rest of the house. While the other doors were chipped white, this one was a glossy, arterial red, as if freshly painted. No handle, no keyhole—just smooth, unbroken wood.

And the handprints. Small, smudged in something dark, trailing from the base of the doorframe up to the center panel.

Daniel wiped at one with his thumb. It was sticky.

Chapter 2: The First Knock

That night, the scratching began.

Daniel jolted awake at 3:17 AM to the sound of fingernails dragging down wood. Not from the front door. Not from the windows.

From inside the red door.

He stood frozen in the hallway, bathrobe clinging to his sweat. The scratching stopped. Then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three soft raps. A child’s rhythm.

“H-Hello?” His voice cracked.

Silence. Then, from the other side, a whisper:

“Let us in.”

Not one voice. Many.

Daniel stumbled back, crashing into the wall. The whispers erupted into giggles—high-pitched, giddy, hungry. He fled to his room, locked the door, and drank until sunrise.

Chapter 3: The Research

The town archives confirmed his dread.

In 1893, the house belonged to the Voss family. Elias Voss, a widower, was accused of “corrupting children” in sermons. The town’s fury grew until, one winter night, a mob broke in. They found Elias in the basement, surrounded by seven small graves.

But the children’s bodies were never identified.

The newspaper clipping included a faded sketch of the house. Daniel’s blood turned to ice.

There was no red door in the drawing.

Chapter 4: The Offering

The knocks came nightly now. Sometimes pleading, sometimes furious. Daniel stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. He tried to seal the door—nails bent like butter, paint bled through plaster.

Then, on the seventh night, he woke to a weight on his chest.

A child crouched over him, its skin gray and split like old paper. Empty sockets stared down.

“You didn’t answer,” it hissed. Behind it, the red door stood open, darkness pulsing like a throat.

Daniel screamed—but no sound came out. The thing smiled, revealing needle teeth.

“Now we come in anyway.”

Hands burst from the doorway—dozens of them, skeletal and grasping. They seized his arms, his legs, his hair. The child leaned close, its breath reeking of turned soil.

“We always need more playmates.”

Chapter 5: The New Owner

The realtor sighed as she hung the FOR SALE sign. Another buyer lost. At least this one left the furniture.

Inside, she paused at the hallway. Funny—she didn’t remember a red door being here before.

From behind it, a giggle echoed. Then a knock.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Her hand hovered over the smooth, wet wood.

"Hellloo".