Max had a hard time remembering what her grandfather’s house even looked like, despite being called back there by the new owners over some sort of issue with the house’s layout. She wasn’t even sure what that was supposed to mean, if they wanted to remove a wall or something they could just call a contractor. Max didn’t have any sort of contact information either, it was her mother that they had called, the only one of her grandfathers’ children that had kept into contact with him. Max’s mother was on the other side of the country for a work trip, so dealing with whatever issue the new owners where running into fell to her. Her mother said it was a young couple, around their thirties that wanted a quiet life in a small town. Ironically, anyone who had lived in a small town knew that there was always double the drama when you knew the private lives of everyone in a ten mile radius. Max remembered how the townsfolk would gossip, every visit she had to the town as a child was surrounded in rumor. The whole town knew her business, how her mother was raising her by her self, and how she only stayed with her grandfather because nannies were too expensive.
Max could remember only the most random selections of information about her visits to her grandfather’s house. He was very strict at first, watching over Max’s every action like a hawk, telling her not to do this, or not to do that, but with time his presence seemed to fade. Suddenly, the tense surveillance that Max had been under became isolation. Max remembered walking around eating out of a box of cereal looking for her Grandfather, opening every door in the house and never finding him whenever she seemed to need him the most. The last time that she ever stayed over at his house was when when he freaked out over her imaginary friend. It was kind of weird that she had an imaginary friend at that age, but Max figured that it was normal for her situation, being alone for so long couldn’t of been good for a child. She remembered roaming around the house playing with whatever random object entertained her child mind when her imaginary friend appeared.
Max didn’t remember creating an imaginary friend, one just sort of appeared. Max knew that it was an imaginary friend, and not a “real” friend because there where no other kids in the neighborhood, and her grandfather kept the house locked at all times. Plus, he looked exactly like the main character of her favorite picture book, a drab little tale about a young boy who picked berries in the woods to make jam or something. Max’s imaginary friend didn’t have a name, and wasn’t really even that interesting, just a face she created to fill the void. Max’s friend was honestly kind of creepy, from an adult’s perspective, but was perfectly fine for her. He didn’t really talk much, which was nice, and just kind of followed her around curiously. While Max’s imagination was pretty lack luster when it came to her friend, but the adventures that they had where amazing. The previously claustrophobic house had morphed into an endless maze of shifting rooms that always supplied whatever Max wanted. There were rooms of brand-new toys, tables covered in cakes and freshly popped popcorn, giant pools of sparkling water, and giant movie theaters that were always playing her favorite movies. Max remembered that she had just finished a trampoline filled adventure when her grandfather found her in the basement, with a panicked look in his eyes. Max’s grandfather had grabbed her, and started looking around the room as if there was something else there. He asked Max where she had been, told her that he thought she had gone missing. Max was irritated, why did he suddenly care about where she was now, after several days of ignoring her existence? Max told him that she was hanging out with her imaginary friend, off having adventures, and he became furious, and called her mother on the landline phone, demanding that she take Max home, and that he would send money for a nanny, just so that Max wouldn’t stay in his house anymore.
When Max’s mother drove her home for the last time, Max had asked what she had done wrong. Max’s mother told her that she hadn’t done anything wrong, and that grandpa was just getting old, and sometimes old people think things are there that really aren’t, and on top of that, he hadn’t had an easy life in the slightest. Apparently, Max’s grandfather had a brother who had gone missing in the very same house in the seventies. This sibling had just returned from serving overseas, and when he went missing, it hit the family hard. Max’s grandfather took the whole thing the worst, began isolating himself from his wife and kids, quit his long term job, and moved back into the very same house that had taken his brother away from him, waiting everyday for his brother to return.
After driving down winding canyon roads, and through mountain passes that seemed special designed to kill inexperienced drivers, Max arrived at a small cluster of businesses and houses that somehow classified as a town. Max’s car shook as it drove across poorly maintained roads, and rolled into the driveway of the house that had preciously belonged to her grandfather. There was freshly laid sod in the front yard, and the previously vacant porch was now adorned with various flowers and an ornate metal bench.
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Max clipped her car keys onto her jeans and walked up to the front door, hoping no-one would notice her lack-luster parking job. She pressed her finger onto the white plastic doorbell, and waited for the sound of footsteps. A smiling white face opened the door, and promptly looked her up and down.
“You must be Max,” the person, not breaking their uncanny smile. It was a blond woman, her hair back tight in a ponytail, with a full face of makeup. Max smiled nervously.
“You mother told us about this place,” the woman said, ushering her inside, “Been in your family ever since it was built, right?” Max nodded, and saw the smile on the woman’s face flicker.
“I know it might be a bit weird that we called you to be here in person, but I have no doubt you will be glad once you see this,” the woman said, gesturing toward the interior of the house. The house that Max had spent her childhood in had changed, her already fading memories now covered in clean white paint, and the wood floors she used to run across had lost their color and had been turned grey. There where paint supplies and tools littered all over the floor, and large plastic Tupperware containers lined up against the walls, labeled by whatever room the contents inside belonged to.
“As you can see, we were making some much needed changes around the place,” the woman said, making her way towards the kitchen, “and we found something interesting that your mother said would be of interest.” The kitchen was suffering from the same affliction that the rest of the house was, except for the door in the back of the room that lead to the basement. The woman opened the door to the basement, and walked down the incredible steep creaky stairs. The basement was the only part of the house that had been left mostly unchanged, aside form a place where it looked like some wall had been knocked down. When they arrived on ground level Max was able to peek over the woman’s shoulder and the reason for the wall’s destruction. Where Max had always seen sold basement was was now a hole, behind which layer a door. Something about that door felt viscerally wrong, like a gaping wound had been opened up and reinfected.
“Cool, right? We found that behind a bit of drywall, and our contractor said that it wasn’t on the original layout of the house, which is why we contacted you,” she said, “I figured that there might be something sentimental behind this door, so I contacted you family, who you know, sold us this place, and planned a little room reveal party .” The woman smiled at Max nervously.
“I don’t think we should open it,” she said The woman’s smile uncomfortably widened.
“It’s perfectly safe,” she said, putting her hand on Max’s shoulder, “I have dust masks around here somewhere if you are worried about mold or anything.” Max shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry if I seem paranoid, I just have a bad feeling about this.” Max said. The woman stopped smiling. Max looked down at her shoes, then back up at the woman.
“I heard a lot of rumors about this place around town after we purchased it,” the woman said dryly, “you’re grandfather didn’t seem like the kind to have house tours, let alone visitors. That door was probably hidden and kept secret for some kind of reason.” Max looked up at the door handle, as if the door would open on its own and reveal whatever laid within.
“My husband wanted to open as soon as he removed the wall,” the woman said. There was something sour about the tone of her voice. Max cleared her throat.
“Didn’t mean to keep you waiting, kind of hard to resist a hidden door in the house you just bought,” he said. The woman stared at Max, emotionless. Max smiled at her, and stepped towards the door, ignoring the way the hairs on her body seemed to rise at the sight of it.
“I’ll go ahead and open it for you, but I’ll let you have whatever my grandfather left in there, you guys bought the house after all,” she said, placing her hand on the knob. The cold metal of the doorknob gave her pause, and she swallowed shakily. Every part of her body was screaming at her not to open the door. There was something hidden deep within Max’s mind, a memory she had long since repressed into her own personal fairytale.
“Go on,” the woman said. The woman was standing so closely behind Max the she could feel her breath hitting the back of her neck. Max turned the door handle, and opened the door, only to be greeted by a small unlit empty room. Before Max could turn around she felt the woman’s hands slam into her back and push her head first into the room. The door slammed behind Max, the door knob rattling from the burst of sudden force. Max turned around as fast as she could and grabbed the door knob, turning back and forth with fervor. The woman was either holding the door shut, or the door had been locked, because the knob would not budge. Max screamed as loudly as she could, and banged her fists on the door until her flesh grew tender. She tried jamming her car keys into the slit between the lock and the wall, but they wouldn’t fit, and when she dropped to the ground to look through the sliver of light emanating from the gap underneath the door, she could see anything but the floor of the basement. Time seemed to slip away and the darkness started to melt into her consciousness. Max slumped against the back wall of the room, defeated.
