Right Door, Wrong Time
By Nicole J. LeBoeuf
Every year at the World Horror Convention, Twilight Tales sponsors a flash fiction contest where entrants have ten minutes to read a story before judges and an audience. Here is one of the winners from San Francisco’s 2006 show.
“Would you? I’d take him, but his mom would totally freak. Too dangerous back there.”"Yeah,” I said. “All those splinters. The horror.”"Look, will you watch him for me or not?”"How long?”
“Just ten minutes. Thanks, Howie. I owe you one.” Mara was halfway to the lumberyard by the last sentence, yelling it back across the aisles. The kid barely seemed to register the change in babysitter. He just stood beside the service desk and stared up at all the doors on display.
Finally he approached one of them, a deep mahogany closet door with a tiny, old-fashioned keyhole. Slowly, solemnly, like it was the first gift of Christmas, he raised his hand to the doorknob and turned.
The heavy panel swung outward and nearly knocked him over. He skipped back a step or two, Keds squeaking sharply. Two ovals of light shone down, one above the other, where the warehouse fluorescents glared through a couple of toilet seats hanging in the next aisle over. I saw the boy’s shoulders sag.
“It is the right door, though,” I said. The kid spun to stare at me, face stuck between hope and embarrassment. “Just not the right time, is all.”
He held onto the top of the department counter and stood on tiptoe to whisper, “When is the right time?”
“Let’s see. Moon’s almost full, today’s a Tuesday - couple minutes past midnight, I’d say, but you’ll want to get here by eleven forty-five just to be sure.”The light through the door flickered as a customer passed by, shopping for bathroom fixtures. “How will I get in?”
“I’ll be here.” I pulled an overloaded key ring out of my pocket and showed him the key to the main entrance. His eyes widened in the kind of terror that has nothing to do with what might happen and everything to do with what might not. “No way Mom’ll bring me -”"So walk.” I waved at the door. “You think there’s a car waiting for you over there?”
“But -”
“Look, kid.” I dropped the keys onto the counter and bent down until my eyes were two inches from his. “You want this or not?”
Mara’s platform boots clack-clacked into earshot along the back aisle. I straightened up and turned just in time to see her come into view, the backs of her fingernails rattling over the pleats of a vinyl accordion door as she turned the corner. “All done! How was the squirt?”
I glanced at the boy. He was tracing the edges of a tiny, old-fashioned key that had bounced into view when the ring hit the counter. “Well-behaved. You know. Boring.”
Mara leaned over the counter to peck my cheek. “Thanks, amigo.”
“Anytime.” I poked at a fresh black-and-blue mark where her shoulder met her neck. “Whoopsie. Looks like one of those dangerous lumberyard splinters got you there.”
She snorted and began buttoning up her collar. “Just can’t keep ‘em off me,” she sighed. “OK. Come on, Bobby, time to head home.”
I leaned back against the counter and sighed. Damn. Yet another useless all-nighter. That one wouldn’t be back. I wondered how many of these the guy before me had suffered through before the real thing came along.
At least I’d given the kid a relatively early time. Half past midnight and I’d be out of here. I imagined him showing up just as I was on my way out, his face flushed with daring and exhaustion, feet blistered from a journey that had only just begun. Asking, Am I too late? Like there was any such thing. Like I couldn’t have turned that key for him just now, while Mara was off necking with the guy in the lumberyard. But I have to know first if the kid really means it, if he’s willing to risk everything, ’cause once you go through that door, you don’t come back.
“Right Door, Wrong Time” is copyright © 2006 Nicole J. LeBoeuf and appears here for the first time with the author’s permission.
Originally from New Orleans, Nicole currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and their two cats. Her other hobbies include knitting socks, drinking tea, and flying Cessnas. She can be reached online at http://www.nicolejleboeuf.com.
