The Door at the End of the Hall

My best friend, Mara, had a dream that I was in. The way she told it made my skin crawl, because she insisted it was more than a dream. I was at her house when it happened, if that makes any difference. We’d been up late watching old horror movies, and she’d fallen asleep on the couch while I read a book. When she woke up screaming, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

She was shaking, her eyes wide, and she grabbed my arm with a grip that hurt. ‘You were in my dream, but you weren’t you,’ she said. ‘We were walking through the house, just like we always do, but you started changing. Your hair turned gray and frizzy, your teeth yellow, your face pale and sick, and your eyes rolled back, completely black.’ She sobbed, ‘It was so real, I could feel the cold air from your breath.’

I told her it was just a nightmare, but she insisted it was more. ‘I saw the door to the attic open in the dream,’ she said, ‘and I knew something was in there. I woke up and the door to my bedroom was open. I never leave it open.’ Sure enough, the door was ajar, though I’d closed it before we fell asleep. I tried to calm her, saying it was just her imagination, but I felt a chill run down my spine.

The next morning, I couldn’t shake the unease. Mara called me later that day, her voice trembling. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I found something in the attic.’ She’d gone up to see what was there, and in the corner, she found an old photograph. It showed two women, one with gray frizzy hair and black eyes, the other looking exactly like Mara. The photograph was dated 1902, and on the back was written: ‘The Visitor.’

I went over to see it. The photo looked ancient, and the woman with the black eyes seemed to stare right through the camera. We were both terrified. That night, I stayed over at her place because we were both scared. We locked the front door and the attic door, but when we fell asleep, I had the same dream. I was walking through her house, but I wasn’t myself. I saw my reflection in a mirror, and my eyes were black. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I woke up to Mara shaking me, her face pale. She said I was whispering in my sleep: ‘She’s coming through the door.’

We decided to leave the house and stay at a hotel. As we were packing, the cellar door, which we thought was locked, swung open by itself. A cold draft blew up from below, and we heard footsteps on the wooden stairs, slow and deliberate. We ran out of the house, not daring to look back.

At the hotel, we tried to rationalize it. But that night, Mara screamed. She pointed to the corner of the room, and there it was: a figure, half-formed, with gray hair and black eyes, watching us. It vanished when I turned on the light.

We didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, we called a historian. He looked at the photograph and the story we told. He said that the woman in the photo was a local legend, a witch who was burned in 1902. She was said to curse the house, that anyone who saw her in their dreams would be haunted until they opened the door for her. He gave us a charm to hang on the door, made of dried herbs and a cross. We hung it on the hotel room door, but when I touched it, it burnt my fingers. The charm crumbled to ash.

That night, I had the dream again. This time, I was in the hotel room, and I saw the door slowly opening. A woman with gray hair stepped through. She had black eyes, and she smiled at me with yellow teeth. She said, ‘You’ve been expecting me.’ I woke up with my hands around my own neck, gasping for air. Mara was awake, screaming.

We’ve been moving from place to place for three weeks now, but the dream follows us. Every time we try to sleep, I see her in the doorway. Mara says she sees her in the corner of her eye. We’re running out of options. The last thing the historian told us was to find the witch’s grave and destroy it. But the grave is in the old cemetery behind the house, and the house is now abandoned. We’re going there tomorrow, at midnight, because that’s when the door between worlds is thinnest. I just hope we make it before she opens the final door.