I Found a Strange Door in My Son's Bedroom
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Until recently, my two-year-old son Carter was what the doctors called a normal toddler. Like any other kid his age, he sometimes had tantrums or splattered his food all over the wall. Occasionally, he caught a fever from eating God knows what or refused to go to sleep until after midnight. What comforted my wife Annabelle and me was the knowledge that all of that was normal. By and large, our son was healthy, happy, and growing more every day.

until he woke up screaming four nights ago. At first, I thought it had to do with the move. We had recently transitioned from a cramped apartment in the city to a two-story house in the suburbs. The whole neighborhood had been built in the 1950s, and it showed. Every one of the homes was eerily similar to each other, and all of them needed repairs. Still, the bones of the structure were solid. So what if there were a few leaks in the basement?

So what if the lights didn't work in the upstairs hallway? The important thing was that our little family finally had a place we could call our own. Or so I thought. The truth was, Annabelle and I were both expecting that Carter would have trouble adjusting to our new home. We had read books about children whose personalities changed or even suffered trauma as a result of being suddenly uprooted from a familiar environment. But Carter was thrilled by the change.

He zoomed through the house, yelling excitedly into every closet and cupboard. To us, the worn-old house felt small. But for our son, it must have seemed like the biggest playground ever. He slept 12 hours that night, and Annabelle and I finally got some time alone. Carter was just as enchanted by the house on the second day, while Annabelle and I unpacked. He built forts with cardboard boxes, or climbed around inside the kitchen cabinets.

We let Carter pick his bedroom, and he chose the smaller room on the left. When I asked him why, he just grinned. "Funny doors!" Carter laughed, then ran away without any further explanation. I was left scratching my head. My son's room had only one door, the one that led to the hallway and to the bedroom I would be sharing with Annabelle. Why had Carter said doors? I figured it was just toddler logic and forgot all about it.

My wife traveled a lot for work, but she had taken a week off to help with the move. Since Carter showed every sign of being well-adjusted, she left for her first business trip last Monday. And that's where the trouble started. It had been a perfectly ordinary night. Beef stew for dinner, bath time, pajamas, story time, and sleep.

while Carter dozed. I wrapped up in the cozy plaid bathrobe that Annabelle had bought me last Father's Day and read an old Raymond Chandler novel until I fell sleepy enough to turn out the light. A piercing shriek woke me. "Carter!" The digital alarm clock beside my bed read 1:44 AM. I stumbled out of bed and down the lightless hallway to my son's room. I found him standing in his crib, pointing at the wall and screaming.

This wasn't teething pain, hunger, or a stomach ache. This was pure, unfiltered terror. "What's the matter, buddy?" I asked as I picked him up. "Does something hurt? Did you have a nightmare?" "Darren." Carter mumbled over and over. "Bama. Darren." My son could usually speak complete words without a problem, but he was too agitated that night.

It took 10 minutes of rocking just to stop the screaming, and even then, I still couldn't make out what he was trying to say through the tears. I offered water, a snack, and even told him that he could stay with me in the big bed if he wanted, but Carter just shook his head. There didn't seem to be any option except to lay him back in his crib. My son grabbed his favorite stuffed animal, a fat purple gecko, and rolled over, staring at the wall like his life depended on it.

After a few minutes, his eyes closed, his breathing regulated, and I could finally get back to sleep. Although Annabelle wasn't around to witness the weird event, I mentioned it during our video call the next evening. Her advice was simple: give it one more night. If something else happened, I could move Carter's crib into our bedroom or set up the baby cam that we had quit using several months before.

That second night was the first time that Carter had ever seemed nervous about going to bed. Even while I was giving him his bath, he kept craning his neck to look behind me, as though he were afraid some monster was going to come creeping in from the hallway. Even after I shut the bathroom door, his tiny fingers kept a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the tub, like he was waiting for something terrible to happen.

"Just holler if you need anything, okay buddy?" I reminded him, before ruffling his hair and turning out the light. "Sleep tight." When I got back to my bedroom, I couldn't help but look back over my shoulder. Carter was just a black lump in the crib on the far wall. He looked so small and fragile, clinging to his purple gecko plushie like his life depended on it. I wanted to stay by his side, but I knew that I couldn't be there every night, and that some battles he would have to learn to fight alone.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling fan, too restless to sleep. I was waiting, I realized, for my son to scream. After 1:45 AM passed without a sound from Carter's room, I finally relaxed. Maybe it had just been a nightmare after all. At some point, I must have dozed off, because when my eyes opened, it was to the sound of my son's piercing cry.

Just like before, I ran to Carter, but what I saw in the hallway stopped me in my tracks. It was... me. Standing in the dimly lit doorway of my son's room. This version of me had wild hair, bloodshot eyes, and an enraged expression on its face. "Hey!" I shouted, sprinting forward. My other self moved too. And only then did I realize that I was looking at a mirror. There was a full-length mirror on the back of Carter's bedroom door.

I had never noticed it before, but then again, we had moved in so recently. A cheap mirror on the back of a door would have been an easy thing for the old owners to forget. And since Annabelle and I rarely opened Carter's door all the way, we might have simply overlooked it. Maybe that had been the problem. My son was waking up in the middle of the night and getting scared by his own reflection. As much as I wanted to believe it, I couldn't help but wonder what had opened the door.

Something else was bothering me too. Carter's stuffed purple gecko was gone. Sometimes he threw it out of the crib, where it usually bounced under the mattress or got lost in the laundry. But that night, the plushie was nowhere to be found. "Bam!" Carter was rambling again. "Duh rum!" He wasn't making any more sense than he had the day before, but at least he calmed down faster.

He reached out for his crib like he couldn't wait to get back inside of it, and hid beneath the covers. Anything else I offered him only made that horrible wailing start up again. Although I didn't like the way he lay there, the sheet half covering his face like a murder victim in a mortuary, it seemed to be the only thing keeping him calm and relaxed. He was hiding, I realized with a shiver, hoping that whatever had scared him so badly wouldn't find him before the morning.

The dark hallway connecting our rooms was also colder than I remembered. I put on the striped bathrobe that Annabelle had bought me last Father's Day and lay down on my bed to read. I wanted to get lost in those dusty yellowed pages, but I just couldn't focus. For one thing, my bookmark wasn't where I remembered leaving it. I had to go back almost 10 pages just to remember what was going on.

For another, I would have sworn that my bathrobe had been plaid, not striped. No matter how many times I paced the bedroom or peeked out the door to make sure that Carter was safe, I couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness that had burrowed deep into my gut. During my video call with Annabelle the next day, I was almost afraid to mention the whole episode. She still had a full day left in her business trip, and I didn't want her to think that I was losing my grip on things back home.

I asked about the mirror, but she said she couldn't remember seeing one in Carter's room. Later, when I mentioned the bathrobe, an odd expression crossed her face.

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The truth is, I couldn't decide. I had narrowed it down to those two patterns. But I was running late, so I just closed my eyes and picked one at random.

It turned out to be stripes, but it could just as easily have been plaid." Annabelle hesitated. "About Carter, why don't you just set up the baby monitor? That way you'll know for sure what's going on in there." We still hadn't fully unpacked, and it took me a while to locate the tiny camera that we had used to watch Carter when he was a newborn. I set it up on a chair facing his crib, and while I was at it, I also took down the mirror. I couldn't explain why, but the damn thing gave me a bad vibe.

Like it wasn't supposed to be there. Like it didn't really belong in our house. Just like the night before, Carter became unusually quiet after sunset. He kept his eyes glued to the clock, nervously counting down the minutes until nightfall. I tried to distract him with his favorite game. I didn't seek, but he didn't want to leave my side. I could understand why. Without Annabelle around, the house felt too quiet.

Our voices echoed strangely in the half-empty rooms, and I think we were both relieved when it was finally time for bed. Carter rolled over to look at the wall as soon as I laid him in his crib. I had the unsettling thought that he was just pretending to sleep, but I was too exhausted from the day to do anything about it. I skipped my nightly routine, instead taking a shot of bourbon to calm my nerves and sitting down in front of the computer monitor.

From there, I could watch the night vision footage from the room at the end of the hall. At first, there was nothing to see but Carter tossing and turning in his sleep, his hands grasping unconsciously for his missing toy. I poured myself another shot. When I looked back at the screen, my son's eyes were wide open. In the dark, they looked like two black, empty pits. His jaw dropped in terror at the sight of something behind the camera, something that I couldn't see.

The camera fell to the floor with a crash. My son disappeared from view. I fumbled uselessly for a weapon and, finding none, ran down the hallway empty-handed. What I found on the other side of the tightly closed door was the last thing I expected. My son was sleeping peacefully. Only the camera had been disturbed. It lay on its side, its wiry plastic guts scattered across the hardwood.

Beside it was Carter's stuffed purple gecko. Was it possible that my son had found his stuffed animal? Hurled it across the room to destroy our nanny cam? Then fallen back asleep immediately? Maybe. It was even the most logical explanation, but I couldn't bring myself to believe it. The more I tried to convince myself, the more certain I was that there was an intruder in my son's room. Almost unwillingly, I turned my head from side to side, searching.

My eyes fixed on the wall beside me. The one Carter had been looking at in the video. There was a second doorway there. I blinked. To my right was the hallway I had come from. I could see the soft yellow light of my bedside lamp glowing beneath the door. To my left was another hallway, one that I was sure hadn't been there a few hours ago. It looked as lightless and empty as the void of space. Was that what my son had been trying to say? Da rum? Dark room?

If so, what did "Bah-Mah" mean? I was curious, because now that I thought about it, Carter's words had sounded an awful lot like "bad man." "Dark room." "Bad man." I shuddered. Before I could decide what to do about the impossible doorway, I heard footsteps approaching from the other side. I glanced down at my son, sleeping soundly, whatever was out there. The most important thing was protecting Carter.

I scooped him up from his crib and rushed back to my own bedroom, while Carter squirmed and asked what was going on. I barred the door with a chair, pressed my eye to the keyhole, and listened. A man-sized figure stood in the doorway of Carter's room. It hesitated for a moment, then charged. Between its speed and the darkness, I couldn't make out any of its features, but whatever it was, it was strong.

It shook the door handle so hard that I thought it would rip it clear out of the wood. When that didn't work, it started slamming its bulk furiously against the door. The first impact made the door rattle on its hinges. The second splintered the wood. I doubted the door would survive a third. I had already dialed the police. I left the phone on speaker mode while I grabbed Carter, covered his mouth with my hand, and crawled beneath the bed.

It was a silly, obvious place to hide, but it was all I could think of to do. I begged my son. We hid in silence as "911, what's your emergency?" became "Remain on the line and the nearest available officer will respond to your call." The lock held, for a little while at least.

A final blow sent the chair I had braced it with flying across the room. I could hear ragged, panting breaths in the darkness. The floorboards groaned beneath heavy footsteps. I held Carter close and prepared for the worst. Sirens! My eyes snapped open. Flashing red and blue lights poured in through the windows. The intruder froze, muttered something in disbelief, then fled back down the hallway.

From the first floor, I heard urgent knocking, shouts of "POLICE!" and "Open up!" reverberated through the house. I hurried downstairs with Carter before they could kick in the door. The officers cleared the whole house, but there was no sign of any intruder or the strange doorway. I didn't mention Carter's darkroom in the report I filed. I didn't want to risk being deemed mentally incompetent or a danger to my son.

The officers were already suspicious of the bourbon on my breath. The only thing to support my story was my bedroom door, which hung from its splintered hinges like a drunk clinging to a lamp post. And of course, I could have done that myself. More than anything, I missed Annabelle. Fortunately, I would be picking her up from the airport in just a few hours. As the sun came up, I fed Carter his oatmeal and booked us a bland, boring hotel room for the next two days.

There was no way in hell I was going to risk my son's life by spending another night in that house. I packed as quickly as I could, sure that I had forgotten at least half the things that my son needed for two days out of the house. I kept getting distracted. What if I glanced up from the suitcase and found that Carter, or the closet door, had disappeared? What if, when we tried to leave, the house didn't let us? I gripped Carter's wrist and kept my eyes straight ahead as we marched out of the house.

If some awful grinning face was watching us from the upstairs window, I didn't want to know about it. After the engine started, I could breathe again. We were going to make it. It was raining when we picked Annabelle up from the airport. A gray, misty rain that made everything that had happened in the last few days feel somehow less real. My wife looked dubiously at the half-zipped suitcases stuffed into the back seat. Then at Carter's confused, tear-streaked face,

She didn't say anything, but I could tell she wasn't convinced by my story. It hurt, but I couldn't say I blamed her. After all, which was more likely? That stress from work, a move, and caring for a toddler had caused a mental breakdown? Or that a portal to nowhere had opened up in a boring suburban home? The only question now was whether Annabelle would stay by my side in spite of her doubts or try to get as far away from me as possible.

When we entered the lobby of the hotel I'd booked, my heart was in my throat. If she asked the desk clerk to call Child Protective Services or alert the authorities, there would be nothing I could do. I would be locked away until my name was cleared, and Annabelle would be free to take Carter back to that house. I could sense her doubt as we walked up to the front desk, but all Annabelle did was smile and ask for the keys. My wife had chosen to stand by me,

So what if the air smelled like burnt coffee and cleaning supplies? So what if the ice machine's rattle went through the paper-thin walls? As far as I was concerned, the hotel room meant safety. It meant an end to sleepless nights spent running down that lightless hallway, unsure of what I might find on the far end. I could have cried for joy. I dumped the suitcases and threw myself onto one of the ugly beds.

Carter climbed up too, giggling and tickling me. For a few seconds, I could almost pretend we were a normal, happy family again. Annabelle, however, stayed silent. I whispered after we had turned on the television to distract Carter. It's just... My wife hesitated. You're different. Different? I peeked through the bathroom door at the mirror. My hair was a mess, and there were dark circles under my eyes, but none of that was news to me.

Different how? Annabelle shouted so loudly that Carter looked up from his cartoons. She brought a hand to her forehead. All this is just a lot, okay? I need time. Until that moment, I hadn't had a plan, but what I needed to do was suddenly crystal clear. I understand. That's why I'm going back to the house tonight. My wife opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head. It's better for all of us this way.

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Church's original recipe is back. You can never go wrong with original. Still tastes the same like back in the day. Right now, get two pieces of chicken starting at only $2.99 or 10 pieces starting at only $10.99. Church's. Offer valid at participating locations. Carter had turned back to the TV screen where a frightened white rabbit was running up an endless flight of stairs pursued by an axe-wielding devil wearing a jester's cap.

I had never seen the program before, and while it was probably supposed to be funny, under the circumstances, it sent a shiver up my spine. I picked up my overnight bag, gave Annabelle a kiss on the cheek, then left the hotel room. Terror seized me the moment the door closed. What if I had made an unforgivable mistake?

I was suddenly sure that if I opened the door again, I would discover that my wife and child had vanished, swallowed by whatever strangeness was pursuing our family. I had to know. I fumbled with the keycard, tugging on the door handle desperately while that damned little light flashed red again and again. When I finally crashed inside, I found Annabelle with one arm around Carter's shoulder. She was ready to protect him.

but not from any horror movie monster. She was ready to protect him from me. "Sorry," I stammered. "I just forgot something." The nearest thing at hand was a free disposable coffee cup. I grabbed it and stumbled back out into the hotel like a sleepwalker. Since Annabelle would need the car, I took a taxi home. The rain was coming down harder than ever.

but it felt like the driver spent more time checking me out in the rearview mirror than watching the road. "What?" I demanded when he finally came to a stop in my driveway. "Nothing." The man looked down at the meter. "42.75 please." I stuffed a 50 into his hand and told him to keep the change. Inside, the house felt far too quiet. The taxi driver was still idling in my driveway, almost like he was waiting for me to change my mind.

What had he seen? What had he been staring at so intently in the rearview mirror? I closed the blinds and tiptoed upstairs. I wished that I'd brought something to protect myself with, even just a kitchen knife or a hammer, but it was too late now. The door to Carter's room stood wide open at the end of the hall. I didn't really expect the mysterious corridor to be there waiting for me, but I was almost disappointed to discover that my son's room was just an ordinary bedroom.

Four white walls, bare hardwood floors, big wide windows. Would it remain that way after nightfall? There was only one way to find out. I started making my preparations right away. Around dinner time, I called to check up on Annabelle and Carter. They were both fine, if a little shaken up. Carter had enjoyed exploring the hotel and splashing in the pool. They had gotten Chinese takeout for dinner. When I told my wife what I was planning,

Her reply was immediate. "I really wish you wouldn't." "Why not?" I demanded. "What do you think is going to happen?" Carter hooted excitedly in the background. "I should go," my wife whispered, then hung up. Although I knew she had to take care of Carter, it didn't feel like that was why she got off the phone. It seemed a lot more like she was trying to avoid my question. Sighing, I looked over my setup. A chair hidden behind the door. A cell phone ready to record, facing my son's crib.

a baseball bat, a pocket knife, and duct tape. You never know, I figured. I had filled the disposable cup I'd gotten from the hotel room to the brim with strong coffee, and I sipped it slowly while I watched the sun go down. The past three days had been exhausting, but I couldn't use anything that might create light or sound to keep myself awake. I didn't want to do anything that might change the pattern of the past several nights.

"I must not fall asleep," I repeated to myself. No matter what, I must not fall asleep. When my eyes snapped open, my watch read 4:17 AM. Over two hours had passed since I'd last checked. It was possible that I had missed the whole thing. Without remembering the need for silence, I sprang to my feet and scanned the room. Nothing was out of place, but there was a new, lightless hallway leading into the wall behind me.

I turned, barely daring to breathe. I could feel the cool air pouring out of the impossible space, chilling the sweat on my skin. Gripping my baseball bat, I stepped forward into the darkness. I had decided not to use any light source. I didn't want to draw attention to myself, and I could feel my way along the corridor just fine. The rough paint was familiar beneath my fingertips. This could have been the same corridor that led to my bedroom.

except that it hadn't been there just a few hours ago. I knew that there was a room at the end of the hallway, only because a light suddenly switched on behind its door. I pressed myself against the wall, waiting. There was movement inside. The door swung open. A dark figure stood backlit by a lamp. It ran a hand through its hair, shouted something, and hurried past me toward my son's bedroom. I held my breath as it passed.

But there was no need. It was too distracted to notice my presence in the dark. After the figure passed, I slipped into the well-lit room ahead. I needed to know where it had come from, what it was, and what it wanted with my son. The last thing I had expected was to find myself back in my own bedroom. The plaid bathrobe hanging from the bathroom door, the digital alarm clock, the stack of towels on the dresser. Everything was the same. Or was it?

The view out the window was unchanged, but it was covered by curtains. They looked identical to the ones that were still boxed up in the garage because I had never gotten around to hanging them. My Raymond Chandler novel was on the nightstand, but the bookmark was all the way back in the first chapter. "What the hell was happening to me?" Something in the hallway was coming toward me, muttering. Even though I was armed, I didn't want to risk a confrontation.

Not until I had a better idea of what was going on. The closet was half open and I ducked inside, pressing into a wall of familiar yet unfamiliar clothes. Through the cracked open closet door, I could finally get a full view of the thing that had been frightening my son. It was like looking into that mirror. Worse in a way. Because the thing in that bedroom wasn't just my reflection. It was me.

Its voice was still distorted, but now I could make out what it was saying. "Carter? Where are you buddy? This isn't funny." The thing that looked like me scratched its head and stroked its three-day growth of beard, tossing aside pillows, checking under the bed. But what I'd do when it got to the closet? It left my line of sight. I lifted the bat, my hands slick with sweat.

Seconds later it reappeared, a glowing screen in its hand. "Carter! Carter!" It yelled, jogging back out of the bedroom. It was doing exactly what I would have done, making one last sweep of the house, then calling the police. If I wanted to get out of whatever this was and back to my own reality, I realized. My time was running out. I took a deep breath and slipped back into the hallway. Somewhere in the darkness, maybe on the first floor of this eerily similar house.

I could hear my own disembodied voice shouting for my son. As I walked, those panicked cries became warped and distorted. Finally, they faded altogether. I could see my son's bedroom up ahead, his crib on the opposite wall, the purple gecko plushie, and the shattered camera on the floor beside it. I was almost there, but the corridor was longer than I remembered. It stretched out beneath my feet like some kind of nightmarish treadmill.

The distance between me and the world I knew might be as short as a few feet or longer than the distance between stars. There was no way to know. From my left, the beam of a wildly waving flashlight illuminated the ceiling. Hey, stop right there! Someone was shouting. Hey! It was coming from the first floor, from the bottom of the stairs in the middle of the hallway. In the shaking flashlight glow, my own face stared furiously up at me.

instead of a baseball bat. This version of me was armed with a butcher knife. "What did you do with my son, you bastard?" It snarled, then lunged. I realized that something about its presence had readjusted the weird space I was trapped in. Suddenly, I was making progress again. Carter's room was still dead ahead. I sprinted as hard as I could and felt the air change when I crossed over.

I didn't turn around until I was beside my son's empty crib, but even so, I knew what I would find behind me: a bare wall. Somewhere out there, beyond impossible distances of space and time, my pursuer was probably about to burst confusedly into its own version of Carter's room. From his perspective, I was the bad man who had come creeping out of a dark room. In my bedroom at the end of the hallway, I could see my phone on its charging station.

I hurried back to it, eager to tell Annabelle what I had discovered, until I remembered that my phone should have been set up to record on a chair in Carter's bedroom, wherever or whatever this place was. It wasn't the same place I had started from. There was movement downstairs, keys jangling, turning in a lock. Somebody was about to come through the front door. I grabbed my bat and crept to the top of the stairs.

A dark shape stood on the porch, backlit by the outdoor lamp. It put its keys away, sighed, then stepped inside and turned on the lights. "Annabelle?" I gasped. After so much darkness, the brightness from the first floor was blinding. My wife glared up at me, her face a mix of concern and anger. "You were supposed to pick me up at the airport four hours ago. Is everything alright? Where's Carter?" My mouth opened and closed.

But no sound came out. How could I explain that Carter was with another Annabelle, in another world where we were strangers? Even if I could have found the right words, I already knew that she wouldn't believe me. I wish I could say that this story had a happy ending. I wish I could say that when I returned to Carter's room, I found a passage back to the world where I had left him instead of four bare white walls. But that isn't what happened.

Instead, I'm going to be back in this room tonight, waiting, hoping to find a way back to my son, hoping that I won't wake up with my own enraged face staring down at me and a knife at my throat. I'd like this story to serve as a warning. Maybe one day you'll be visiting a distant relative or a new friend, or maybe even unpacking boxes in a new home of your own. You'll turn around and notice a door, a door where you were sure there wasn't one before.

You might see a familiar looking room on the other side. You might see a friend, a loved one, or even yourself. You might be tempted to take a walk down that dark corridor. If you do, just make sure that you're aware of the consequences.