Cracked

Cracked

My family warned me about small towns. We’re city people, and I’ve lived in an apartment community for most of my life.

So when I decided to move to the country to get away from it all and start really focusing on my writing, my family was my biggest opponent.

“You can’t go out there,” said my mom. “They eat pretty girls like you. Haven’t you seen ‘The Hill Have Eyes’?”  

My dad, of course, concurred, and they even enlisted my little brother to beg me away from country life, but I was resolute. I packed my things and purchased a nice little cottage from a little old widow who’d just won the lottery and was going to see the world. Lucky me.

And now, here I am, staring at a hole in my brand new bedroom wall.

It started out as a spidery little crack that decided to grow under the pressure of my wallpapering. So, I decided to try to fill it with plaster, but that didn’t work. Curious minds and senses of adventure mix well. So with my powers combined, I put a hammer to the crack, which then crackled even more, and after splintering in half, became the hole that I am now peering inside.

But the hole wasn’t just a hole. There was a musty smell wafting from it, and a faint light in the distance. Hmm...a light….inside my wall. My common sense kicked in and shouted that I probably shouldn’t go further, but I figured the hammer would offer some protection. After all, what kind of killer could be lurking inside my plastered up wall for all of these years, right? Right?

After I grabbed a flashlight, because nothing says fearless like a hand torch, I hammered a little more so I could squeeze through. The musty smell was on some phantom breeze, and my hair blew back a little. I shuddered with chill and, honestly, a little fear.

The dust made me cough, but I creeped further inside, past the plumbing fixtures, and what looked like a stone wall. I was in some sort of hallway, and I could see the light growing brighter at the end. I gripped the handle tighter, just in case I had to hammer someone to death today.

As I continued to walk, a door appeared at the end of the hallway. A weird doorknob glistened from beneath the dust and cobwebs. I paused and decided to knock first.

Hey, what if this door led to my neighbor’s house or something? It would be crazy for me to just pop in unannounced. So, I knocked and a shadow passed under the light of the door.

My heart crept up my throat as the doorknob turned with a creak. The door flung open and I jumped back with the hammer raised. Standing on the other side of the door was a little girl.  I blinked at her twice, hoping that my jaw was not scrubbing the dirty ground.  The little girl was me.

The kid me looked at the grown-up me, and screamed. I guess I must have been screaming too because my dad rushed to the door. Except, he had more hair and less stomach. He grabbed my, her, shoulders and pulled the kid me back from the door, before looking at me and slamming it shut.

That was weird.

Biting my lip, I raised my hand to knock again. I saw the shadows under the door, but the doorknob didn’t turn. I gave the knob a twist and it clicked open. Taking a breath, I fully pushed. I could see the kitchen of our old apartment. No one seemed to be around, so I decided to check out the rest of the place.

Suddenly the lights went out, and I heard my dad say, “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” as everything went eerily quiet. I turned around in the darkness for my dad’s voice, dropping my flashlight. Just as I went to cry out to him, the lights popped back on and I was standing in my new bedroom, in my country cottage.

The wallpaper was evenly covering the walls. I looked around the room and everything was unpacked and organized. In fact, my room looked pretty lived in. The hammer was still in my hand, as was the flashlight. I thought about tearing through the wallpaper to see if the crack was underneath, but then I heard something from the kitchen.

I walked over to the kitchen and something was cooking in the microwave. Thing is, I hadn’t even unpacked or plugged it in yet. Weird.

I wandered through my house, past the fully furnished living room, and the painting my little brother gave to me as a going away present, now hanging proudly on the wall. Finally, I reached the room that I was going to use as my office. And there I was. The present day me. Or, I guess, the me that exists in the pretty soon future. She, I, was typing furiously on a new laptop. I didn’t want to startle her, but I was curious about what I was writing. I quietly eased behind myself (giving new meaning to the phrase ‘watch your back’) and peered at the laptop.

I held my breath so as not to alert her of my presence and read the words at the top of the page. Some beginnings start with a line.  Mine starts with a crack.

As I typed the last words, I turned around and looked at myself.  We smiled. Then turned and finished the story.