She Peers in Through a Keyhole
by Richard Gavin

As Cavette stepped out of her car and stared at the emaciated house that slumped at the end of the gravel driveway. She had memories of this house, some blissful, others dreary, but the shock of seeing her childhood home in such a state of decay was a bitter experience for Cavette. How many years had it been since she’d driven to this rustic sanctuary that remained obscured from the unstable world that surrounded it, twenty? Twenty-five? She had almost managed to purge herself of any childhood memories whatsoever.

If only she hadn’t picked up the receiver last week when her office phone rang.

It took Cavette a few moments to attach a face to the voice that identified himself as Father Penrose. Once she did, Cavette felt her past gushing over her, pressing her sensible head below its surface, drowning her.

"Your father has passed on, dear. I think it best that you come home."

Cavette kept the funeral arrangements cursory; making sure that Hunt Saunder’s body was cremated according to his Will. Cavette knew that she had to tend to all the other details of her father’s last requests if she was ever to restore some semblance of order to her life back in the city. He’d left the house to her. One last present, one that others would view as a blessing, but she would be forced to lug like a millstone. Cavette couldn’t help but think that this was daddy’s way of lashing out at her from beyond the grave.

She tipped the car door shut and made her way up the driveway, listening to the fine gravel crunch beneath her heels. Many of the house’s windows were obscured by splintery planks, which were slapped over the windows in a crooked, slovenly fashion. The overgrown grass was sprinkled with trash and discarded auto parts. Mother’s once prize-winning garden was now as lifeless as its gardener. While Cavette had been assuming the role of an overconfident, almost snide, real-estate agent in the city, her past had been reveling in its own gradual destruction.

Moving around to the back of the house, Cavette descended the crumbling masonry of the stairwell and inserted the key she had been given by the Father Penrose into the doorknob.

Stepping from midday illumination into the musty, unlit confines of the house was a shock to Cavette’s senses. Her head weighed heavily from the sudden influx of blood. Coloured shapes splattered against the endless darkness of the foyer. After a few seconds the blackness began to angle itself into the hazy outlines of the house’s interior.

The layout had not been altered in the slightest, which was somewhat comforting to Cavette was feeling somewhat ill at ease inside the dim and silent hall.

It was while she was reveling in the memory of past years spent inside the house that Cavette suddenly noticed the face staring at her from the end of the hall.

It glared at her with eyes both wide and mad. The pale apparition hung in the darkness like a mask, studying her coldly until a scream tore from Cavette’s chest.

The horrible face repeated in scream, mimicking Cavette’s terrified expression like a mirror. Yes, a mirror. The antique mirror that her mother had purchased at a flea market so many summers ago. Though the surface was streaked with dirt, the hanging glass still cast dim reflections to the gazer before it. Cavette received a smile from the mirror in exchange for her own.

She reached over and flicked on the hall light, hoping that its golden petals would purge any specters that may be lurking in some darkened nook. Stepping into the living room, Cavette noticed that the furniture was shrouded in soiled linens. It was clear that Hunt had allowed the house to wither away long before his cancer rendered him immobile.

As she strolled into the kitchen, snapping on any lights she passed by, Cavette allowed herself a cathartic shudder. Seeing her home as a silent museum was chilling, disturbing somehow. She took one of the wooden chairs from the tabletop and righted it. Seating herself at the table, Cavette placed her face in her hands and sighed. It was all too much: the house, her father’s death and the task of now sorting through these unwanted heirlooms in order to prepare the house for the real estate market.

How would she ever get this ruin gain appeal with potential buyers?

She would start with something manageable. Cleaning the rooms, for instance.

Cavette rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, collecting trash bags, cleaning liquids, a mop and pail. She began with the living room, dusting, polishing removing waste. She did her best to prohibit any emotion from stalling her. This wasn’t the most pleasant job, but the revenue from the house would enable pay off her bank loan, buy a new car, and perhaps even take a trip somewhere. This glimmer of hope inspired Cavette to double her cleaning efforts.

After several hours of labor, the main floor was actually presentable. Seeing the results of her work, Cavette felt renewed. She denied herself rest, moving straight to the upper floor of the house.

By the time she finished the master bedroom the sun had begun to descend in the sky and the house was now dappled with the murky glow of dusk. Noticing that the ceiling light in the hall was without a bulb, Cavette fled downstairs to retrieve the standing lamp from the hall.

As she ran past her childhood bedroom, Cavette noticed something flicker past the corner of her eye. She retraced her steps to stare into the shuttered room where a thin band of light shone along the bare wood floor. The light was not silver like that of the rising moon outside; it was a golden yellow and seemed to be emanating from inside the room.

Setting the lamp down in the hall, Cavette entered the bedroom, choking on its stale, dust-laden air. She crouched to touch the glowing thread, tracing it with her eyes.

The light was coming from the closet.

Recalling that there had been no closet light when she’d lived here, Cavette moved to toward the closet door and peered into the keyhole.

Perhaps it was her expectation to see nothing more than wire hangers and cardboard boxes that made the vision that much more startling. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of mystery that prevented her from crying out.

It was a room, one that was twice as large as the bedroom that Cavette spied from. The golden light was pouring from an antique oil lamp that burned atop a small wooden table. A soiled mattress had been tossed against one of the stone walls; tufts of yellow stuffing bulged out from the seams like sickly clouds. No other furniture was visible.

‘This was a closet,’ Cavette told herself. ‘There were no other rooms’.

Yet the room was here, in objective reality. The room was far too detailed and anomalous to be one of Cavette’s daydreams.

Her hand coiled around the doorknob and turned it both ways. The door was immovable. She re-adjusted her grip and tried again in vain to pry the closet door open. She decided to search for her father’s tool chest and remove the door from its hinges. Her heart racing, Cavette swiftly made her way to the cluttered basement and began sifting through the mechanical debris her father had accumulated over his lifetime.

Cavette did not hear the scream, she felt it. Felt it churn her stomach, and rustle the hackles of her neck. She froze, scouring the house with her ears.

‘Let it be my imagination,’ she prayed.

When the scream rose a second time, Cavette shuddered at its youthful pitch. It resembled the hysterical cry of a lost child. And it was coming from inside the house.

Cavette tore up the basement stairs. Down the main hall. Up toward her bedroom where the shrieking persisted. It became terrifyingly clear to Cavette that the mysterious cries were also coming from beyond the closet door.

"HELP ME! I WANNA GO HOME! PLEASE LET ME GO, I PROMISE I WON’T TELL ANYONE!"

The shrill voice was fragmented by sobs. Cavette pressed her eye against the keyhole.

The girl that was chained to the wall could have been no older than twelve. Her sandy-blonde hair had fermented into a clump of filthy tangles that obscured her impish, tear-streaked face. Her naked form was emaciated, caked with dirt and pocked with various wounds both fresh and old. The girl’s spindly arms hung limply from the cuffs that tethered her to the stone wall.

"I KNOW THERE’S SOMEONE THERE. PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!"

Cavette closed a trembling hand over her mouth.

"PLEASE!" the girl pleaded.

"Hello?" Cavette said softly, shyly.

"Who are you?" The girl’s voice had softened, though her tone was no less fearful.

"My name is Cavette. I live here. Lived here," she corrected herself.

"Please help me, Cavette. You have to get me out of here. Before he comes back."

The manner in which the girl uttered the word ‘he’ turned Cavette’s blood to ice water.

"Before who comes back?"

"The man who brought me here. Please hurry and open the door."

"How did you get here?" Cavette asked in bewilderment.

"He took me. Brought me to this house. Please, you have to help me before…"

The girl’s mouth continued to frame the words, but the voice had vacated her throat. Cavette could see the lamplight of the room being devoured by a massive shadow. The girl turned her head and her eyes welled up with tears of dread.

Intuitively Cavette realized the he had come back.

The shape that stepped before the keyhole was more a caricature than a man. Rolls of cellulite were piled beneath his wide, flabby arms. His massive back and exposed buttocks were littered with pockmarks and splashes of crimson birthmarks. He towered over his prisoner. A brown leather bundle was clutched firmly in one hand.

The girl kicked and screamed, pounding the back of her skull against the stone wall as though she could somehow press herself through the cold barrier. Her captor was clearly immune to such struggles, for he went about his task coolly. He placed the bundle on the wooden table and peeled back the leather swatch to reveal a variety of silver objects that glistened in the lamplight. The man ran a hamhock hand over his bald head as though he was laboring over some decision. Cavette saw his chapped lips peel back to reveal a twisted grin. Taking up one of the shimmering tools, the man advanced on the girl.

Before the child could brace herself, before Cavette could look away, the man dragged the sheen of the straight razor across the girl’s thigh. Thick, dark blood welled up from the wound, spilling over to mesh with the other stains on the mattress. The girl shrieked, staring in disbelief at her gushing leg.

The man leaned forward slowly, pushing a gray, slug-like tongue out from between the rows of rotted teeth. He dragged the quivering muscle over the length of the girl’s leg, slathering his chin with her fresh blood.

"CAVETTE, HELP ME!"

Dread gushed over Cavette who scrambled back from the door as though it was burning her. Scrambling to her feet, Cavette stormed out of the room and down the stairs toward the back exit. She did her best to ignore the girl’s frenzied pleas.

She frantically salvaged the car keys from her pant’s pocket. As her car tore backward along the gravel driveway, Cavette began to feel a mild sense of relief.

She drove through the town, each street putting her at a safer distance from the nightmarish room. Yet no matter how fast she drove, Cavette could not erase the horrible images that had seared her consciousness. This sense of guilt and terror led Cavette to Charlestead Road, where the local sheriff’s office still stood.

Whipping into the vacant lot, Cavette leapt from her car and through the swinging doors of the station.

The man slouched behind the desk was startled by her abrupt entrance, nearly choking on the turkey sandwich he was eating.

"Are you the sheriff?" she asked breathlessly.

"No, ma’am. I’m Deputy Anderson. Can I help you?"

"Yes, Deputy. I need someone to go to 28 Seafront right away."

"Oh yeah, I know that place; big house down by the water. Nice place, or anyway it used to be."

"There’s something going on there and you have to get out there."

"What’s going on out there?" He seemed more interested in inspecting his fingernails than in Cavette’s story.

"There’s a girl. A young girl, and she’s being held hostage by a…thing."

"A thing?" he laughed. "What kind of thing?"

"A man. But he’s horrible, mutated. And he’s torturing her."

"Ma’am there hasn’t been anyone at that house since old man Saunder’s died last week, and before that he lived like a hermit. So…"

"I’m telling you, I saw him there." Cavette’s words cut the deputy’s off mid-sentence. "They’re in some kind of secret room, that’s why no one saw them there. Believe me, I lived there once, so I know how well-hidden that room is."

The deputy’s gaze turned from cynical to clinical. He leaned back in his chair. Cavette did not realize just how mad the situation sounded until she heard herself relaying it. She sighed.

"I know how this sounds, but won’t you at least come with me to the house?"

"What were you doing out at the house?"

"My father left it to me. I was cleaning it up, getting it ready to be sold. This is getting us nowhere. Are you going to help me or not?"

Her short, panicky tone caused Deputy Anderson to raise his eyebrows.

"Alright, alright. Let’s go see your bogeyman."

* * *

The house was black as pitch when the two cars cast their headlights upon it. Deputy Anderson stepped from his cruiser. Although he was armed with a pistol, only his flashlight was drawn as he followed Cavette to the back entrance.

Cavette led the officer up two flights of stairs and, hesitantly, into the now dim and silent bedroom.

"This was the room here, you say?" the deputy asked as he shone his flashlight on the doorknob. Cavette bit her lip. The officer twisted the knob. It gave. The closet door was opening.

Deputy snapped off his flashlight once it had scanned the empty closet beyond the door.

"Nothing, just like I said."

"Nothing?"

He re-closed the door and gave Cavette a look of almost paternal disapproval.

"Get yourself some sleep, ma’am. I’m going to let this one go because I think you’ve been under a lot of stress with your father’s death. But I want you to see a doctor in the morning."

He brushed past her and descended the stairs. Cavette remained in the room, drinking in the dreamy calmness.

A vision, some dark reverie. This is all it must have been. She went down to the see the deputy off.

"Why don’t you get a motel room for the night. I don’t think it’s a good idea you staying here alone all night."

"Thanks, officer. I will. I’m really very sorry about all this."

"Good night, ma’am."

"Good night."

Seconds later Cavette heard the cruiser driving off into the night.

Standing there, alone in the tenebrous stairwell, Cavette began to wish the sights she’d seen inside the keyhole had been real. Perhaps knowing that the unspeakable acts she had witnessed were indeed more than just shadow play would have made the situation comprehendible. For now the entire ordeal spun out of control in her mind, a thousand loose threads with no truth to bind them.

The screaming erupted once more. Cavette could hear it searing the air as she scrambled back up to the bedroom.

The golden light was once again pouring out from the keyhole, though it now flickered with chaotic, shadowy movements.

Sliding to the closet door, Cavette pressed her face against the cold brass knob.

The girl was lashing about the bloodied mattress. Her nails scraped thin white lines into the stone wall. The obese man was mauling her. It was a dizzying whirl of flesh and sweat and silver and crimson.

The girl’s eyes were fixated on the door, searching the dark world beyond, praying for salvation.

Cavette felt a burning nausea churning her insides. She had to bring this to an end. Hallucination or reality, the sight was too grim to bear any longer. Instinctually, Cavette hammered her fists against the closet door, screaming at the top of her lungs.

The man inside the room froze. He slowly turned his misshapen face toward the door.

Grinning, he slowly rose from his victim and lurched toward the door.

"CAVETTE RUN!"

Cavette stole a brief glance into the room, enough to see the lumbering, naked form reaching toward her, the enormous hand blacking out the keyhole.

"DON’T YOU HURT HER! CAVETTE RUN!"

But the girl’s screams could not lift the raw dread that weighted Cavette to the floor. She could not run. She could only stare in a mute, helpless terror as the doorknob twisted, slowly twisted.

Soon the closet door was open…

"CAVETTE, RUN NOW!"

The girl continued to cry out, continued to warn whatever phantoms she imagined were lurking inside that empty closet. Her conviction that the woman named Cavette would rescue her remained unbroken, even after her demented keeper had proved to her that her hopeful escape route was as much a prison as the stone chamber where the girl remained chained.

Staring vacantly from the corner of her cell, the girl began to wish the sights she’d seen inside the keyhole had been real. It was comforting to think of this prison as once being someone’s home, someone who was strong and free. But there would be no imaginary woman running to retrieve the non-existent policeman.

The keyhole looked to nothing. The girl knew that her destiny stood before her. Stood in the form of the demented fiend that now advanced upon her with gleaming blade drawn.

© Richard Gavin

Richard Gavin is  a member of the Horror Writers Association and his writings have appeared in dozens of publications including "Darkness Within", "Deadbolt", "Tales of Lovecraftian Horror", "Enigmatic Tales", "MindMares", "Welcome to Nod", "Black Petals", "Electric Wine", "The Inflated Graveworm" and "Gathering Darkness".