The Room with the Green Door

Mr. Winthrop had a quite serpent-like appearance. He had an impossibly pointed chin which, in conjunction with his broad forehead and exceedingly thinning hair, rather gave his head the aesthetic of an upside-down cone. His nose was miniscule and flat, and at its point curved upward; it was so indiscernible from the rest of him that it presented itself as two thin, black ovals in the middle of his face. His left hand had been cut off at the wrist, and the wound had not properly healed, so the residual limb was misshapen and black from infection. His skin was yellowish and freckled, which as a little girl I found to be strange, but I now recognize as typical, after learning of the sun and its pigmentation of the skin. It was our complexion—pale to the point of near transparency, with a sort of pinkish tint and thin blue lines running throughout—which was the oddity. We usually saw Mr. Winthrop exclusively in passing; only on every ninetieth day, when the time came for us to be weighed and measured, would he spend longer than a minute or two in our wing of the Quarters.

A couldn’t have been older than twelve at the time of my first memory, yet she was tasked with caring for us and administering our studies. She was like a mother to all of the twenty-odd children who lived in the Quarters, and despite being disturbingly mistreated by Mr. Winthrop, she managed us with nothing but patience and love. In return, Mr. Winthrop would bring her new clothes, makeup and wigs each time he travelled to the Surface for food and materials he needed for his research. She usually wore a plain skirt which nearly covered her knees, a completely buttoned blouse, and a curly blonde hairpiece (we all feigned naiveté of the blood which often leaked from beneath her wig). Her voice was warm and soothing, and her glossy red lipstick augmented her bright smile and pasty skin.

As A recorded our height and weight, Mr. Winthrop would stand in the back corner of our classroom, just out of reach of the fluorescent light which hung from the limestone ceiling. He rarely spoke, but waited silently as A shuffled us on and off of the scale, his arms crossed in front of his pristine white lab coat, smiling enthusiastically. The sight of that smile is my first memory, and one I would do anything to forget; it was the look of a supernaturally vile creature, a malevolent energy so sinister that it must have been formulated lightyears from this world. H used to say that Mr. Winthrop was an ancient reptilian creature, with the capability of morphing into any shape it wished, which had arrived on earth billions of years ago and had dug these caves to use as its lair. E would always refute this theory, though, saying that if it were true, he would be able to grow his hand back.

Once the weight and height of each child had been recorded, A would instruct us to return to our proper seats at our assigned desks. Then she would walk the list to the back of the white-walled room and hand it to Mr. Winthrop. As Mr. Winthrop examined the progress of each child, nodding and smiling deviously as he fingered down the list, A would wait silently for his verdict, her back facing us and her head hung to the floor. Usually, Mr. Winthrop would simply hand the list back to A, bid us good day, and leave to continue his work; some days, though, he would whisper in A’s ear, pointing at one of us, and she would calmly stride over to the student whom Mr. Winthrop had indicated. She would take the child by the hand, smiling timidly, and walk them over to the door of the classroom, where they would be turned over to Mr. Winthrop. Some children screamed desperately to stay with A; others simply left the room silently with Mr. Winthrop, too terrified to object. Once Mr. Winthrop and the selected child had left down the cold hallway, A would resume teaching what remained of her students, her wide blue eyes polished with tears.

Sometimes, the child selected appeared to be on the brink of death, having been bitten by a snake or infected with a parasite; in other instances, an older child who had recently experienced a burst of growth would be taken. But each time, shortly after they were led from the classroom, I could hear the child’s agonized screams faintly echoing throughout the vast cave. Each time, the child would not return. None of the other children seemed to notice the screams, but that did not dissipate their fear of being sent with Mr. Winthrop. There were rumors that A was the first child ever taken, and the only one who had ever come back; the older kids said that she had gorgeous hair when she left, but returned bald, and has ever since concealed her scalp with some type of hat or wig. When asked, A would dismiss this as a silly story and assure us that the children taken were sent to live happily with a family on the Surface. As for the wigs, she simply categorized them as gracious tokens of gratitude from our caring guardian. Indeed, it was quite evident that A was keeping a secret for Mr. Winthrop.

“Never mind them, little ones,” she would say, speaking of the children who had been taken. “I can assure you that they are well looked after, as long as they follow the rules: Obey Mr. Winthrop;” she would say, pointing to the three rules written on the chalkboard which we had memorized hundreds of times over; “Don’t leave the classroom without permission; and the most important rule?”

“Stay away from the room with the green door,” we’d all answer in unison.

One day, when I must have been around the age of eight, my curiosity overpowered my instinct of self-preservation and I decided to follow Mr. Winthrop out of the classroom. After Mr. Winthrop had examined the most recent recordings of our stature and decided not to take any of us, he left us with a smile. A was preoccupied with V, one of the infants and the newest child to enter the class, who was wailing in her crib. I slipped into the hallway and silently eased the door closed.

I followed Mr. Winthrop throughout the winding tunnels to a corner of the caves which I had never seen. The hall was bitterly dingy; the only light came from candles hung sporadically on the walls. As we approached the end of the furthermost tunnel, I saw for the first time the room with the green door. Mr. Winthrop slid a rusted metal bar out from the handles of the door, opened it, and entered the room. As I peeked through the cracked door, I saw Mr. Winthrop standing over a sickly-looking woman who was tied to the white brick wall behind the yellow-stained bed on which she sat. She appeared to be near death.

“You should know by now that starving yourself will get you nowhere” he said callously. “I’ll just sedate you again and reconnect the IV.”

“Please kill me” she muttered softly, staring down at the putrid medical gown she wore, her black hair covering the entirety of her face. I had magnificent hearing as a child, but even I could barely make out her words as her teeth and tongue seemed to fall out of her mouth when she spoke. She sounded as if her larynx had been crushed completely and looked to be in excruciating pain with each breath she took.

“You still have one more male to produce, since the last one was female and you killed the previous one before I could get it out of you,” he said, picking up a plate of maggot-infested rice from the table next to her bed. “Provide me with one more boy and I will kill you, you have my word.”

“Last time...Y—you said you n—needed a girl,” she said, holding her stomach in pain and heaving to utter each word.

He dropped the plate from his good hand, picked up the metal chair which faced the table, and brought it down swiftly on her kneecaps; she screamed in incredible agony.

“I need what I need!” He spat; “You will die when I have what I need!”

The woman looked up from the bed and her eyes found me watching through the barely-ajar door. As her entire face was revealed to me, I discovered that her lips had been removed; only a small, rosewood scar outlined her teeth, and her mouth appeared to be stuck in an ‘O’ position. Her teeth were completely rotten, possibly due to their constant exposure; she seemed unable to completely close her mouth.

“Baby? Is that one of my baby girls?” She said, crying hysterically and yanking at the restraints to get closer to me. “Oh, how big she’s gotten! Please! Please just let me touch her—”

“Do not look at her!” Mr. Winthrop snarled, shoving her into the wall behind the bed.

As soon as I saw him turn and direct his piercing gaze at me, I retreated in terror.

“I fucking told you children never to come near this room!” I heard him shout as I sprinted away.

The next thing I remember is waking up in my room to Mr. Winthrop standing over me, smiling.

“There she is!” He said excitedly, “I was wondering when you’d come-to! Welcome back, Q!”

His words sounded as if they came from behind a wall of glass; my mind swam with lethargy. Suddenly I felt an extreme soreness on the sides of my head, and I touched my fingers to my ears to find bandages covering them.

“Ope, don’t take those off just yet!” Mr. Winthrop said, still in a jubilant tone, as he sat down in the chair next to my bed. “Don’t want to get an infection!”

Petrified and debilitated from whatever drugs he had given me, I obeyed him. “Why did the whore say that I was her baby?”

None of us had ever learned the name of the woman—the woman whom we heard every night screaming for help—Mr. Winthrop only referred to her as “the whore.” It was not until years after her death that the others and I discovered this to be a derogatory term. From then on when we remembered her amongst ourselves, we called her “the Bearer.”

“Never mind her.” Mr. Winthrop replied. “I brought her here years ago in hopes that she could be a mother to you children. But she has been a miserable disappointment.”

“Why doesn’t she have lips?” I inquired.

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” He said, smiling and sliding the chair closer to my bed to rest his rancid stump on my knee. From his back pocket, he produced a small, black, leatherbound notebook. Its leather binding was glossy and serene, without a single blemish, as if crafted by God Himself. It had no title or inscription. As Mr. Winthrop flipped through its feathery pages, I saw that there were small photos glued inside.

“You know, Q, I used to be a magnificent sculptor. My hands created countless renowned works of art,” he said, presenting various pictures of his artwork. “But at the height of my career, a jealous artist hired a team of mercenaries to kill me and steal my work, to pass off as his own. They attacked me in my sleep, tied me to my bedpost, and stole nearly my entire collection of work—the most remarkable group of sculptures the world has ever seen. But, before they could kill me, I escaped with one of my most famous masterpieces. It was worth over $20,000. I trust you’ve learned about currency in your studies?”

I nodded.

“Of course, you have—A is a marvelous teacher.”

“But—”

“But how did I escape?” He interrupted, smiling. He raised the gruesome stump to my face.

“A small price to pay,” he said.

“After the attack, I sold the sculpture and retreated to these caves to build these quarters. Now, I am working to build my finest masterpiece of all—a living, breathing beauty. And in order for that to happen, I need everyone to sacrifice the most extraordinary part of their body.”

His grin enlarged as he held a mirror to my face and slowly pulled back the bandages. In the mirror I saw him lift my black curtain of hair to expose the sides of my head. Two small, black holes overlaid with crusted blood were revealed where my ears had been previously. I pushed the mirror away, shoved my face into the pillow, and sobbed. He chuckled softly, as if I were throwing a typical childish tantrum.

“That woman had beautiful lips, Q; and you had the most gifted little ears.”