Two Bit Scratch

There was only one rule: Don’t Open the Door.

Ken repeated it to himself as he took the rickety wooden steps leading into the bare bone basement. Scrawled across the back of the wall in black marker repeated: Don’t Open the Door. Underneath that was a simple door scratched white in the mildewed gray brick.

“Idiot,” Ken pulled a box off the shelving and opened it to see discarded children's toys. A broken doll’s face stared back at him.

“Kenneth,” a voice whispered.

He whirled around, but he’d left his boss, Jacqueline, at the office.

The next box was surprisingly heavy; it slammed to the floor with a thud. He froze as college textbooks clattered.

Silence. Then one firm knock.

Ken looked to the scratched door.

Another knock.

“Kenneth…” someone whined.

He was compelled to the scratched door.

“Pepaw?”

The door knocked to the tune of “Shave and a Haircut.”

Tears welled up in Ken’s eyes and he knocked twice back, “two bits.”

Jacqueline arrived home an hour later. She mumbled incoherently to herself as she stormed into the basement, “motherf… how hard is… leave me waiting with the client… like an idiot…”

She pulled a box from the top shelf and placed it on the floor, threw it open, and pulled out two green file folders.

“How hard was that, Ken?!” She grit her teeth, spun, and cursed the ceiling.

The outer stairwell door was wide open.

Jacqueline looked out the door, gripped the copper handle, and slammed it closed. The glass window rattled in the antiqued wood frame.

“I told you: Don’t open the door. That’s how you get spiders…”

Next to the door was a life-sized stick figure scratched into the brick.

“This thing doesn’t even look like you. You are so fired!”