Horror/Mystery

Horror On the Other Side of the Door

None Know What Happens There

The little town of Oglebink is set back from the banks of the Ogletree River. However, curious dangers dwelled within those waters, and the people moved their houses to the edge of the Haunted Forest.

If, dear reader, you have ever visited Oglebink, you will wonder how the forest earned its name. No one has ever seen or heard a spirit. It was a name that the first explorers decided to call it. The explorers are all dead now. No one knows why they all died.

An old diary was left in the farmhouse once owned by Barney Bildebrook, one of the first Oglebink residents. I would tell you what this diary by Barney Bildebrook says, but you will have your doubts. You might even think me a fool.

No matter, I will tell you the story of those most calamitous events surrounding Oglebink Town, the River, and the Forest. I expect you to laugh as I begin, but I doubt you will laugh by the end. No. Not by the end.

In 1746, the first ones, the explorers, built the town of Oglebink on the banks of the roaring river. Over the years, babies were born, wheat and corn were planted, and animals thrived. All was well as the first ones tilled the soil, slaughtered the calves, and made love in the night. Life was good. Yes. Life was good indeed. It was the finest place in the world.

I am a historian of sorts. I plunder tombs and devour tomes. Libraries are few, graveyards are not. There is always a need for a sharp shovel and a keen eye. I will read and not lie or make up what I have learned. I am a student of the written word and an agent of truth.

I will now endeavor to occupy the reader’s time with the words of Messieur Bildebrook, a skilled trapper and early explorer. I do not suggest one might read what he has written to the little ones. It is not for their tender brains. In point of fact, it may not be even for those more stout of heart. So, that is a fair warning. Read on if you dare:

The Diary of Barney Bildebrook

I toiled in the upper corner until Mother rode out on Militish, our 3-legged mule, to announce there was no meat for the table. Had I been remiss? Were there no creatures in my traps? Were there animals who could grace our tables, rotting away because of my lazy manner?

I was clear in thought to my dear Mother. I had checked the traps just the day before yesterday. I agreed to run the line when I finished collecting the hay. After all, I retorted, the farm animals also have to eat.

Mother snorted at my words, spun Militish the mule on her hind legs, and trotted back to the farmhouse. No doubt, her faith in me had not been restored. With Mother, faith would be in counting foot and claw as they fell into the soup pot.

The hay was loaded up and soon to be pitched. This usually marked the end of the farmer's day, but not for the mayor of Oglebink. He had to walk the trap line.

I started at the crook in the Ogle, beyond the huge oaks. The first trap was sprung; blood and what was left of the beaver were everywhere. Its parts were strewn about, with some even hanging in the trees. What in the bleeding barkers could it have been? Wolves? No. Wolves don’t kill like this. Wolves eat what they kill.

I walked on, puzzled. The second beaver build was also empty. Same scene, blood and body parts everywhere. This time, there were tracks in the sand, not wolves, no, not wolves. Bigger, much, much bigger. These tracks were 10 times my palm. Bigger even than those of a bear.

I continued to walk the line, checking the next 11 traps: all empty, all the same as the others. I knew what I had to do and turned back to the farm—stopping on the way to talk with Barbo, Limbo, and Palboda. All three brothers needed to know so they could lock safe their animals. Whatever this was might be a danger.

We sent Palboda, the youngest brother, to the other farms. All knew the days ahead would be rare ones indeed. None were safe on the banks of the Ogletree. The town of Oglebink would have to be moved to the Haunted Forest. There was nothing for it.

Barbo and I walked up to the big house. It was where the Lord of the Manor lived, and he is the one who fills our bellies when all else fails. As we mounted the steps, we noticed a heavy, aged brass knocker, its surface tarnished and dulled by time. It is in the shape of a grotesque, demonic visage, with hollow eyes that seem to follow you as you move.

Its mouth is agape in a silent scream, and its features are twisted in a mixture of pain and malice. This knocker seems to not only serve as a means of announcing one’s presence but also as a warning of the dark secrets that lie beyond the threshold.

The sound of it striking the copper plate causes us to jump. It rippled like an echo throughout the big house. We waited on the stoop for what seemed like an extraordinary time when the door opened.

On the other side stood a tiny little man, hardly bigger than a man’s middle finger. I heard Barbo whisper, “What in the goose’s breakfast?” I resisted the urge to laugh, thinking it might be disrespectful of this servant of the lord of the manor.

The sound of scratching could be heard approaching the door. They were extraordinarily curious, more like a sound a dog makes when walking on wood. Was it just the echo bouncing off the walls of the cavernous house? We waited, watchful, looking for that first glimpse of the Lord of the Manor.

What greeted us next sent Barbo into a fearful state. I had to stop him from running away. Our feet, however, were rooted to the spot. A grotesque figure stood there. Could this horror be the Lord of the Manor?

Then the creature spoke, “What brings you to this place?”

At first, we were at a loss for words. Then, Barbo, much bolder than me, said,

“There are monsters in the river. They are taking our children.”

I glanced at him, wondering why he was lying. To my knowledge, no children had been taken.

The demon or whatever it was stood quiet. It was a frightening specter, with teeth extending beyond its chin and its feet being paws, except not. Like the teeth, the nails were about one-quarter meter and presented an extraordinary sight. From the top of its head, horns grew. It was mindful of the devil spoken of in the children’s section of the Book of the Ages.

“Come, Oglebinkers. The master will see you in less time it takes a dragon to exhale,” he said. His features prevented us from determining whether he was smiling.

The two men followed the demon creature and the tiny man down a long hallway. The walls were lined with paintings of more demons. All manner of monstrosities were displayed in all manner of positions and states of nature. I had to pull Barbo away so he didn’t fall down the stairs. His mouth was open, and his tongue extended. These are sights he had never before seen.

The demon led us down a long hallway, stopping and pointing to an open door. We assumed he wanted us to walk on in, so I led the way, with Barbo close behind.

Just in front of us lay an architecture the likes of which I had yet to see heretofore. Then again, being a simple farmer, such knowledge would not be expected. In the center of the room lay a massive desk, behind which sat a man dressed all in white. He wore a nametag that said, “Man in White.”

How curious, I thought. Given the somewhat curiously threatening decor, I would have expected the master to be dressed in black and most certainly not wearing a nametag.

Barbo had not uttered a word. I turned to see if he was alright, but he was gone. Barbo had been right behind me. I swiveled back to the man in white, and before I could speak, he spoke.

“Your friend is dead. We have killed him, but have no fear you will soon join him.”

A rush of surprise co-opted my ability to speak. I noticed the Man in White had black eyes contrasting his strange outfit. Upon his head was a curious device resembling a sharpened hay rake. Was I dreaming? Barbo dead?

The surprise had ebbed, replaced with a focus few lived to see. The Man In White sensed a ripple in the deviltry around him and called for his servant. I didn’t wait for the demon to arrive. I pulled my blade and threw it directly into the Man in White’s left eye. Instead of his head falling to the desk, he just sat there as if expecting to end up with a dagger in his eye.

I could hear the demon now scratching along the hallway. Before he made his appearance, however, the tiny man came running in. He stopped short at seeing his master with a dagger sticking out of his eye.

He looked at me next and then said, in a surprisingly dynamic voice for such a tiny creature, quietly rhymed:

“You have done a great thing. You have set us free and killed the beast. We are grateful, to say the least. Now we feed, but not upon you, as you will never have a need.”

The demon was now in the room. It had been extraordinarily quiet, and I had not heard him enter. Such careless mistakes can cost me my life. My speculations were interrupted. by its words:

“You have done a great thing. You have set us free and killed the beast.”

I didn’t understand. Who was the Man in White? Why was there no blood? How did he kill Barbo? Why did he kill Barbo?

The demon creature finished his sentence by saying,

“He is not killed, your friend. He is upstairs, in the dining place, gobbling into his face.”

I understood none of this. Why did the Man in White tell me had killed Barbo? How have I set the demon and the tiny man free?

I heard the creaking sound before I saw the cause of it. There was a door behind the headless man in white, and it was opening.

What happened next caused me great consternation. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny men came rushing through the door. At the same time, another door opened on the other side of the room. The shouting was preceded by what seemed like an earthquake.

From that door, hundreds of demons came rushing in. The tiny men ran over and began climbing on them, perching on their horns.

“We are free! We are free!” They yelled, clapping their hands together.

It was past time for an explanation. I clapped my hands and shouted, as loud as I could, “Please, stop, and tell me what is happening here.”

None spoke, although the shouts and clapping had ceased. The first demon, distinguishable from the others by an extra horn, gestured for me to follow him. I wasted no time in doing so, assuming someone would finally tell me what was happening.

I was almost to the top when I heard Barbo scream. He was begging someone or something not to hurt him,

“Please. No. Don’t hurt me,” he was saying.

I began to run but was stopped by another demon. He held out his hands and told me to stop. I was tired of all this insanity, and my friend Barbo needed me.

Before I could do anything, the demon looked at me and pointed to something outside the huge picture window:

What I saw filled me with a horror I had never seen. The townspeople of Oglebink were outside, all lined up, wearing nothing. Not a stitch. Men, women and children. They had their hands extended and were smiling.

The demon began to laugh. Behind me, I saw the tiny men, followed by other demons. They, too, were laughing as they charged through the door. The first victim was the first man in line, Billy Bodycreek. Before the tiny men swarmed him, he waved. He waved at me. Then, in a blink, Billy Bodycreek was standing there without arms. They had been torn from his body.

His wife, Mabelmakingbread, was next. They tore off her legs before moving on to their little boy, Tosslehead Martin. They removed his head.

I couldn’t grasp what was happening. I had killed the Man in White because I thought he was dangerous, having confessed to murdering Barbo and promising I would be next.

The first demon spoke, this time in a soft voice. His strange accent was not one I could place. He was not from this world, as I knew all the dialects.

“We come from a land not known to you. From our time and place, the one you made dead was our overseer. He was in place to stop us from killing.

He continued, measuring my reaction,

“Now you have made him dead; we will kill everyone before we return to our place.”

I fell to the floor, my head in my arms. The demon said nothing, only watching as he towered over me. Did I mention they were grotesquely tall?

What could I do to stop the mayhem? How could I return the world to its former happy state?

I looked up and asked the monster if he had come from the river. But he said they had not. He said their world is the Forest. They do not visit the place we call ‘river.’ He said it was a place of death.

I didn’t understand this remark, so I asked him if he and his kind hadn’t been stealing and killing from my animal traps. He watched me carefully as I asked that question. He then answered with a question of all his own.

“Why do you say these things? We are death, and you only just set us free.”

I sensed the demon had become unsettled, and the mayhem in the Oglebinker line of horror had paused. I then told the demon and those listening about the beavers that had been eaten and the giant tracks in the sandbar.

He looked terrified, at least for a demon, and screamed. The monsters paused in the slaughter and ran toward the manor, fear clearly etched on their faces.

To their respective doors, they scattered. Within a few moments, I heard all slam shut. I followed them and was puzzled to see the Man in White sitting behind the big desk.

“But I killed you,” I said.

He laughed, “Ha. You killed me for a dragon’s breath, and now I am recovered. You should return to your world before you get caught up in more of this deviltry.”

It was then the shaking began. Huge chandeliers could be heard crashing to the floor and glassware breaking.

From some distant corner came a shout. A familiar shout. It was Barbo, running down the long hall toward me, gesturing for me to hurry. I followed him through the front door.

The next thing I knew, my friend Barbo and I stood at the manor door. A brass knocker shaped like a dog hung from the huge old door. Before we could pull back the knocker, the door opened, and a man stood there—a perfectly normal man with normal teeth and shoes on his normal feet. There were no tiny men.

“Come in, sir, please,” asked the butler, taking our hats and coats.

He then directed us to a large room. Behind the desk sat a man in a dark suit wearing a wide smile.

“Ah. mayor and friend Barbo. How can I help you?”

There is nothing more to be said of that strange day, and Barbo and I never spoke of it. We had a normal conversation with the Lord of the Manor. He provided food to the townspeople for many years, at least to those who had survived what was known as ‘The Horror.’

The three suns were now setting. Life was entering its 300th year. No more animals were killed for any reason in Oglebink. There was no sickness or death, and the town once again sat on the banks of the Ogletree. All was well.

It is time, now, for me to eat my supper. Mother has prepared a nice vegetable stew. I am sure it will be delightful. Even if it is not, I dare not say.

“Look,” said Mother, and she nodded at the window.

I followed her gaze and saw it was snowing; at least a solitary snowflake tumbled from the sky. I’m not sure that qualifies as snowing.

There are no more pages. That’s the story, as told by Barney Bildebrook. I never learned what or who the demon, tiny men, or the Man in White actually were. I also never learned what had happened to Barney. Did he die of natural causes? A foul deed? Where had he gone? Why had his diary ended so abruptly?

I put the diary back where I had found it— in the cubby behind the fireplace, protected from the flames by large bricks. There was no reason for the world to know what had happened in this beautiful town by the river. The curiosity seekers alone would be more than the townspeople, now in their 301st year, could handle.

Epilogue

The first river creature crawled onto the land and began murdering the little town's population. The people were once again forced to move to the edge of the Haunted Forest.

Desperate, the mayor and his friend Donno visited the manor on the hill to see if the baron could help them. The heavy, aged brass knocker put them off, its surface tarnished and dulled by time. It was in the shape of a grotesque, demonic visage, with hollow eyes that seemed to follow you as you moved. Its mouth is agape in a silent scream, and its features are twisted in a mixture of pain and malice.

—Professor Mike

About the Author: Professor Mike is a writer and editor at Medium and other platforms. He has never learned why the monster was laughing. That makes him sad.

Jonathon Sawyer, this is for your consideration.