Population: 1
Mrs Jackson lived on the other side of the road. It was a different post code but she still called me her neighbour. She called everyone neighbour to be honest. Everyone on that side had a front garden to themselves so they were quite liberal with whom they granted neighbourship. My mum tried to get me to help Mrs Jackson with her chores and call her aunty but I tactfully avoided having to do that. Mrs Jackson had the type of arms that looked about as strong as the thinner-than-thin shopping bags she tried to carry. One item too heavy and her arms would be gone. You just knew she relied on her husband for everything. I first saw the inside of Mrs Jackson’s house when my mum dragged me over to have dinner there. Mum said it was because Mrs Jackson was going to teach her how to cook some rice dish but this was just after Mrs Jackson’s husband went “missing” along with a suitcase of his freshest fits.
That night, the two women were in the kitchen enjoying themselves while I stayed hostage in the living room watching an old film. Even with the film though, being there was just dead. My mate texted a plan though. As soon as I got myself out of the house, we’d link up and he’d have something urgent I needed to help him with. I shuffled from the couch to the kitchen.
“I’m gonna run home real quick.” I said. “I need to use the toilet.”
“Mike, why don’t you ask Aunty if she has a toilet you can use?” My mum knew my intentions instantly.
“It’s a number two though.”
“That’s alright.” Mrs Jackson laughed. “Just fleet the place and open the window once you’re done.”
“Naah-”
“Michael.” My mum said plainly.
Plan aborted. Why’d she have to say it like that? “My-Kell”.
“Can I use your toilet please?” I meant to grumble but, with my mum glaring at me, I ended up sounded pleasant.
“Of course you can, it’s upstairs, first door on the left. I can show you-”
“Nah, it’s okay. I got it.”
Mrs Jackson’s house was actually alright. She didn’t like us wearing shoes inside but she had these old unworn slippers that were meant for visitors. She was pretty excited to ask us to use them. The stairs were covered with super fluffy carpet, so I didn’t feel it would be right to wear the slippers when I went up. I flicked the footwear off and hiked the stairs. The feel of my socks soaking into the thick carpet felt pretty nice. It was quite weird that the carpet felt so comforting while the bannister I slid my hand up was old, coarse wood.
When I first got into the house there was a definite old woman’s home smell, but I’d gotten used to it. As I climbed the stairs a new smell came through. It was like a mix of cider and mint. It would have been a welcome aroma if not for the way it drifted into my nostrils on cold air, mixing with the old woman scent I’d thought I’d forgotten. The house wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. There were only three rooms upstairs and one of them was the bathroom. All three doors were shut but I could imagine that the two plain white slabs that weren’t the “first door on the left” led to bedrooms.
All the lights at the top of the stairs were off. I didn’t really need to use the toilet so I wasn’t in a rush to get there. I took my phone out of my pocket and texted my mate. I’d just have to sit in the toilet for a while to pass time. As I was putting my phone away, I noticed a light coming from the room at the end of the upstairs hall. I’m generally not a nosy person, but the light coming from the crack under the door caught my attention. It was dark at this time, and the light seemed to be flickering so I was wondering what it was. I approached the door thinking that Mrs Jackson could have left a candle lit. It’d be safe if I just blew it out.
The door was pretty stiff when I opened it, but it was unlocked. Mrs Jackson probably wasn’t expecting a visitor to go through her things. When I got the door open, I noticed the light source immediately. It was this weird LED sort of art display depicting an overhanging view of some random town’s sunrise. I never pegged Mrs Jackson as an art buff. Not even in her earlier years. I thought there might be something special about the display. Maybe it was made by a family member or something. I could feel a draft playing at my ears so I closed the bedroom door behind me and edged closer to see if the private exhibit had a signature somewhere.
Two steps and I realised that it wasn’t an LED art display. I couldn’t control how my jaw chose to hang after that. The view of the town was real. It was where the draft was coming from. I pretty much silently stomped to the window and stuck my hand through. It blurred as if it was moving ten times faster than the rest of my body. On close inspection, I could see the sun quickly rising into the sky. The lights I saw from under the door must have been the early morning sunrise. I couldn’t contain myself. A portal? I jumped through and suddenly I was breathing the air of another country. The view of the town was from a rock-floored mountain forest clearing. In front of me was a whole different country… or a different world. I had no idea. And looking behind me, there was a doorway back to an old woman’s bedroom. How she could sleep at night with that breeze, I would never know.
The early morning sun of whatever country I’d just entered had yet to warm the slate rock I was standing on. I could feel a biting chill seeping through my socks and beginning to numb my toes. The wind didn’t really help things either. I made a note of where I was and decided to explore a bit. The sun wasn’t rising so fast anymore. The walk down the mountain was steep but easy. I figured it would be just as easy to climb back up — just another workout for the calves. My socks soaked up a little bit of the dew when the ground went from slate to grass so I took them off and pocketed them. I leaned on a tree doing so and felt the cold, coarse bark itch my palm. I dusted off my hands and kept walking until I found a path to follow down the mountain.
There was a whole town at the bottom of the mountain but it seemed like nobody was awake yet. To be fair, it was early morning here. I was quite excited to meet the locals but was also hoping they wouldn’t judge me for being some random guy with no shoes walking around the mountain. I thought it might be some village in Russia or China — definitely somewhere foreign. I kept walking until I’d left the mountain forest behind me and could see the houses unobstructed by trees. The village looked strange up close, the roads were paved with cobblestone and the houses were all made in the same style, with faintly coloured wooden beams and straw roofs. The wind had a subtle scent of the sea, and carried the sound of creaking houses and the mountain trees’ rustling leaves. But that was it. No birds’ morning songs and no vehicles in the distance.
I perambulated into the village like I could afford it all, my bare feet slapping lightly on the paved street with the pastel painted houses on either side of me. The sun had managed to warm the road up a little bit but my toes were still numb enough to be susceptible to any loose small stones. I think I was lucky that the cobblestone road was nice and smooth. The curtain of orange light that hung over the village had now slowly lifted to allow some streaks of pink and blue to glaze the windows. I expected to see some early morning dog walkers or people exercising or something but the village was quiet. I continued walking, admiring the view as if I was in a painting.
The longer I stayed there, the more it bothered me that was nobody around. I’d glanced in a couple of the windows but for all the houses in the small village, it was completely empty. I really did just walked into a painting. I called out a “Yo!” only to hear my voice echo back to me. “Echo!” I’d only ever seen that happen once before in a movie so it was a fun five-second experience. Feeling pretty delighted with myself that I was in a completely new world, I planned to call out a few more words to test out the mountain’s acoustics. I opened my mouth again but the words stopped at my throat when I caught a glimpse of some figure exiting one of the houses. I forgave myself for the way I almost jumped out of my skin.
The humanoid figure stood at the door of the house, a harsh black silhouette against the lightly coloured imagery I’d been absorbing that foreign morning. My mouth went dry. The creature’s chest was rising and falling quite dramatically, like it was pumping itself up. The fact that I could see that from the distance I was at made my knees loosen. I wasn’t getting the impression that I’d just been a disturbance to the neighbourhood. I felt like I’d woken something up… some creature that had been waiting for someone like me. I would have said it was human but nothing about it radiated what I’d grown up to recognise as humanity. Whatever it was, it started running towards me.
I dipped. I dipped quick. Ten toes out of there like my life depended on it. And I’m not ashamed to say that because my life did depend on it. I hadn’t realised how far I walked down the village road until I turned around to run back the way I’d come. Of course, by this time I’d looked through the windows of most of the houses so I was fairly confident that there wouldn’t be anything else coming out of the other homes. I weaved in between the houses that were semi-detached in an attempt to lose the thing that was chasing me. That didn’t work though. Obviously, I had to breathe so that I could keep blood and oxygen pumping around my muscles. The sound of that puffing wasn’t as subtle as I would have liked. Maybe it was the fear.
I made it back to the mountain forest. But I couldn’t stop there. The creature was still coming for me. As long as I was running, I could hear its feet hitting the cobblestone and then the grass behind me. I heard it growling too. Growling or grunting. I didn’t like the way I was starting to feel like food. I ran back up the mountain, using my calves to peak performance. This thing that was chasing me must have been a whole demon because never in my life had my heart been made to beat like this. I could hear it in my ears. The creature was getting closer too. I was going to get ready to fight it. I turned my head around for the first time in the chase, thinking I wasn’t going to go out like prey. All I saw was a hulking black figure still. I had to get out of there.
I turned my head back, looking straight ahead in the direction where the portal was supposed to be. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t whimper a bit when I saw the portal further up the mountain than I expected. The tears in my eyes were only from the wind but it must have given off some sort of scent because the creature chasing me seemed to chuckle out another growl when I wiped them away to clear my vision. Unluckily for me, I must have stepped on a small but sharp stone. I let out a yell but made sure to turn it into a growl of my own just in case it deterred the creature a bit. It didn’t. The growl that came back from a few feet behind me was the perversion of an echo and it made my skin crawl.
The sound of the creature’s footsteps was way too close for my liking now but I was close enough to see Mrs Jackson’s bedroom through the portal. I knew I was going to make it. But I was also aware that the thing would be able to follow me back into the world I came from. My plan was to get back into Mrs Jackson’s bedroom, then into her hallway, and lock the creature in her room from the outside. After that I’d call Mrs Jackson to deal with whatever demon she was keeping as a pet in her painting. At least that was what I thought would happen.
The creature caught up with me at the last moment. It kicked my legs from underneath me and I went flying. Fatefully, I was close enough to fall halfway through the portal. The creature grabbed my leg but I sent a foot straight into its nose, knocking it back and freeing my leg. The top half of my body was in Mrs Jackson’s bedroom but the other half was still in the hell I’d just escaped from. The creature was already coming back for me. I scrambled to fully get into Mrs Jacksons room. I would have crawled into the hallway too if I didn’t notice the sound of dull pounding behind me. I looked back to see the creature banging his fists on the portal. He couldn’t get through. Shouts came from the other side of the portal but they were dulled by whatever barrier was keeping him from getting out. Breathless and sweating like mad, I watched Mr Jackson roar from his prison, my foot bleeding on the carpet.
