The Door to Dawn
On our frequent trips to the woods the boys of the neighborhood and I would sometimes end up at the house. Their favorite game was smashing things. There wasn’t a car window that didn’t deserve a brick thrown through it or a car hood that didn’t need a good stomping. I have to admit there was a certain joy—a power that came from the destruction.
We never harmed the house, though. We were all of an age that we still believed in monsters. Dark things hid under beds or in closets. Only nightlights kept them at bay. It was a house haunted by our imaginations. None of us ever thought of stepping up on the porch, turning the doorknob and crossing the threshold between illusion and reality. Fearing that something would escape from inside, no one ever sent a rock crashing through a window.
We all had our own story, a myth that lived inside each of us. The more gruesome the better and more believable.
In one version, an old hermit lived in the house. His meals consisted of children that came too close. Even better, a man who was bitten by a rabid dog lived there. He didn’t die but grew fangs and hair all over his body. The fresh blood of children kept him alive. The best of all, a farmer went insane and chopped up his wife and kids then dumped their body parts in the well behind the house. His ghost was patiently waiting inside for his next victim. There was a well behind the house. It was just a black hole in the ground.
R. Grayson Wills is a retired film production designer who now finds the joy of the written word more powerful than the screen image. Drawing inspiration from his favorite horror and science fiction writers of his childhood, Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury, he finds that beyond the edge of a suburban backyard there is horror waiting and wanting to be discovered. Thanks to C.R.S. Grayson recommends The Whitney Plantation.
