The Plastered Door

At 4 AM, the house on Cinder Lane was a frozen cathedral of creaks and sighs. I lived on the top floor, a converted loft with sloped ceilings and a bathroom that felt like a coffin. The room was long and narrow, with the sink, toilet, and shower crammed at the far end, huddled together as if for warmth. To the right of the door, the wall was solid, but a hairline crack in the plaster traced the ghost of a doorway, sealed shut decades ago. I always avoided looking at it, especially in the half-dark of early morning.

My routine was the same: stumble in, flick the switch, and squint against the harsh light. But that morning, as I reached for the switch, I noticed the crack had grown. It now ran from floor to ceiling, a jagged black river. I blinked, and it was just a crack again. I dismissed it as sleep, but when I stood at the toilet, I felt a draft on my ankles, cold as the grave, seeping from that sealed door.

I finished, washed my hands, and as I dried them, I saw something in the mirror. Not my reflection, but behind me, on the plastered wall, the outline of the door was glowing, a faint sickly green, like old radium watch paint. I spun around, but the glow vanished, leaving only the crack. I told myself it was a trick of the light, a flicker from the faulty bulb. I left the bathroom, but the image stayed with me.

The next morning, I brought a flashlight. At 4 AM, the house was silent, but as I entered the bathroom, I heard a soft scrape from behind me. I flicked on the light, and the scraping stopped. The crack was wider now, a thin slit of darkness. I put my hand against it, expecting cold plaster, but instead I felt something like a wooden frame, and a faint vibration, as if a train were passing far below. That’s impossible, I thought. The nearest subway was miles away.

I went to work, but I couldn’t shake it. I began to research the house’s history. An old woman, a recluse, had lived here in the 1940s. She had never left her room, and when she died, they found her in a small bathroom, door locked from the inside. The house had been renovated, and the bathroom wall had been sealed, but no one ever knew what she was hiding. I had to know.

One morning, I decided to examine the crack more closely. I brought a crowbar, thinking to pry open the plaster. As I touched the crack, the entire wall shuddered, and the outline of the door became a clear, solid seam. I pried, and the plaster crumbled like old pastry. Behind it was a wooden door, stained dark with age, with a round ceramic knob that turned easily. It swung open into darkness, revealing a space that should not have existed—no larger than a closet, but lined with shelves of dusty glass jars.

I stepped in, and the door swung shut behind me with a muffled click. I panicked, fumbling for the knob, but it turned freely. I pushed, and the door opened back into the bathroom, which was unchanged. But I noticed the jars were not empty. They held shriveled, desiccated organs, each suspended in a murky fluid that had long evaporated, leaving a dark sludge. A label on one jar read: ‘1993.’ On another: ‘2011.’ The most recent: ‘2023.’ That was the year I moved in.

I stumbled out, my heart hammering. I slammed the door shut and grabbed my tools, intending to seal it permanently. But as I raised the hammer to replace the boards, I heard a voice from behind me, a woman’s, raspy and dry: ‘You shouldn’t have come in.’ I turned, but the bathroom was empty. The voice seemed to come from the wall. I ran out of the apartment and didn’t return until later that day.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. At 4 AM, I found myself in the bathroom again, compelled. The door was ajar, and the jars seemed to pulse with a faint light. I counted them: there were twelve, all with years. The last one, ‘2023,’ was empty. I understood then: the woman had been a collector, preserving parts of those who had entered her room. The door was not to keep people out, but to keep them in—their souls, their life force, siphoned into the jars.

I tried to leave, but my legs were rooted. The woman appeared in the doorway, a gaunt figure in a tattered nightgown, her eyes like black holes. ‘You’ve taken my last space,’ she said, ‘but I will make more.’ She pointed to the ceiling, where the plaster began to flake, revealing a crack forming above the shower. ‘You will be my new home.’

I grabbed the nearest jar and hurled it at her. It shattered, releasing a puff of dust, and she hissed, recoiling. I ran from the bathroom, through the apartment, and out into the street. I never went back. I live in a hotel now, but the memory haunts me. Sometimes, I wake at 4 AM, and I see the crack—a thin line on my hotel room wall, growing wider. I know she’s still collecting. And I know she will find me again, because there is always a space for one more.