Episode 25 - The Door To Hell
In this episode, we delve into the unsettling narrative of Emma, a young graphic designer who, in her quest for affordable housing, unwittingly leases an apartment steeped in mystery and dread. As her initial relief gives way to a harrowing experience, she confronts a series of inexplicable phenomena that culminate in her desperate struggle for survival. The oppressive atmosphere of her surroundings distorts her perception, leading to a disconcerting realization that the very structure of her home is changing before her eyes. The tension escalates as Emma grapples with both the supernatural and the psychological, forcing her to confront the darkness that lurks beyond the confines of her apartment. This episode serves as a poignant exploration of fear and isolation, inviting listeners to ponder the boundaries of reality and the unknown.
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Transcript
Imagine a world teetering on the edge of the familiar, a place where the fabric of the everyday begins to unravel, revealing glimpses of the extraordinary lurking beneath.
Speaker A:You're about to embark on a journey into the enigmatic, where the peculiar and the perplexing intertwine, where every tale twists the mind and tugs at the spirit.
Speaker A:It's a descent into the strange, the mysterious, and the unexplained.
Speaker A:This is when reality frays.
Speaker A:New episodes are published every Monday and Thursday, and when Reality Phrase is available everywhere, fine podcasts are found.
Speaker A:Before we move on, please hit that Follow or Subscribe button and turn on all reminders so you're alerted when new episodes are released.
Speaker A:Today's episode contains one story entitled the Door Emma's new apartment, a third floor walk up in a rundown brick building, was a financial lifeline.
Speaker A:At 27, her graphic design gigs barely covered rent, and this place, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors, was suspiciously cheap.
Speaker A:But after weeks of searching for a place while she slept on a friend's couch, it was her only option.
Speaker A:The landlord, a jittery man who had bought the property only a few short weeks ago, knew nothing about its history.
Speaker A:During the tour, as she measured each room to ensure her furniture would fit, she questioned the presence of a heavy oak door in the apartment's hallway.
Speaker A:His eyes slid to the side, and he muttered something about storage.
Speaker A:Emma grasped the tarnished brass knob, but it was locked.
Speaker A:The landlord promised he'd have a locksmith come out.
Speaker A:She nodded, hesitating for a moment with a sense of something not quite right.
Speaker A:But after weeks of searching, she knew the price couldn't be beat and signed the lease.
Speaker A:The first night in the new apartment, sleep eluded her.
Speaker A:The city's beat, horns, shouts, sirens, and a couple of pops she was certain had been gunshots were muted to an unnatural hush within the apartment's thick walls.
Speaker A:At 2am a faint scratching sounded.
Speaker A:It wasn't the skitter of rats, but a deliberate dragon, like nails etching wood.
Speaker A:Emma woke from a light slumber, her heart pounding and body rigid beneath the blankets.
Speaker A:The sound stopped abruptly, replaced by a silence so dense all she could hear was her own racing pulse pounding in her ears.
Speaker A:She rose barefoot, the floor chilly against her soles, and crept to the bedroom door for a look down the hall.
Speaker A:The front door was still locked, an iron security bar at an angle from the knob to the steel plate in the floor.
Speaker A:She breathed a small sigh of relief and padded down the hall to ensure the door was as secure as it looked as she passed the oak door, she trailed her hand across its surface and pulled away in surprise.
Speaker A:The door was cold, far colder than the hardwood she was walking on.
Speaker A:With a frown, she reached for the knob.
Speaker A:Even though she knew it was locked, it was even colder than the door.
Speaker A:She rattled it a couple of times, then leapt back with a startled shout when the scratching sound that had awakened her came from the far side of the door.
Speaker A:She rushed back to the bedroom, slamming the door and dragging a dresser across it before climbing under the covers.
Speaker A:Morning sunlight streaming through the high windows dulled the night's fear, but Emma wasn't one to let things slide.
Speaker A:After dressing, she examined the door.
Speaker A:Its surface was almost black from decades of use.
Speaker A:The edges fit so tightly into its frame it was difficult to slide even a single sheet of paper into the gap.
Speaker A:And the unyielding knob?
Speaker A:No keyhole, no lock, just a solid brass ball that refused to turn as if welded shut.
Speaker A:She gripped it and tugged hard.
Speaker A:Not so much as a wiggle rewarded her effort.
Speaker A:Frustrated, she called the landlord, but he didn't answer, and she had to leave a voicemail.
Speaker A:His response came hours later in a text called the locksmith.
Speaker A:But three days passed and no one came.
Speaker A:The scratching returned that night at 2am Growing sharper and more rhythmic.
Speaker A:Trembling, she had climbed out of bed and approached the hall with a newly purchased crowbar in her hands.
Speaker A:As before, the front door was secure, and taking a deep breath for courage, she crept toward the oak door.
Speaker A:The scratching stopped before she reached it, and she hesitated.
Speaker A:It had to be an animal, fear becoming anger.
Speaker A:She tried to pry the door open, but the tight gap between it and the frame resisted all her efforts.
Speaker A:Not caring that it was the middle of the night, she called her landlord again, but he didn't pick up.
Speaker A:Moments later, her phone dinged with an incoming text from him.
Speaker A:Called the locksmith.
Speaker A:The same message he had sent three days ago.
Speaker A:Emma banged out a colorfully worded reply, but the man didn't respond.
Speaker A:Emma's fear blossomed into anger, and she started down the hall, but froze when the scratching sound returned louder, as if whatever was doing it was digging deep into the wood on the far side of the door.
Speaker A:She stood in her bedroom doorway, her gaze locked on the door as she listened.
Speaker A:The scratching continued for several minutes, anger ward with fear in Emma's chest, eventually winning out.
Speaker A:She dashed forward, crowbar raised, and pounded on the door while screaming, stop it.
Speaker A:She struck the door several times before the sound stopped, then stared in surprise.
Speaker A:The iron crowbar swung with all her strength hadn't so much as marred the door's surface.
Speaker A:Renewed fear pulsed through her and she slowly backed away, surprised when she bumped the hall's opposite wall.
Speaker A:She looked around, then each direction, and finally up.
Speaker A:Her eyes narrowed and she shivered when she noticed something odd.
Speaker A:The hallway was smaller than it should be.
Speaker A:Shaking her head and blaming exhaustion induced hallucinations, she went back to her bedroom and barricaded the door.
Speaker A:She curled into a ball beneath the covers, crowbar tightly gripped in her hands, and with a vow that she was moving out.
Speaker A:The Next Day Emma woke the next morning still exhausted.
Speaker A:Real or imagined.
Speaker A:There had been constant sounds in the apartment since she'd gone back to bed.
Speaker A:Nothing she could put her finger on.
Speaker A:Each noise had been just long and just loud enough to disturb her sleep.
Speaker A:It felt like an assault, an intentional plan to prevent her from resting.
Speaker A:Sitting up, she checked her phone, but there were no missed calls and no text from her landlord.
Speaker A:Heaving a sigh, she dialed his number, but the call never connected, not even a ring.
Speaker A:She tapped out a scathing text, but before she pressed send, she noticed the phone was showing no service.
Speaker A:Irritation nearly caused her to fling it across the room, but she breathed deeply and recited a calming mantra her aunt had taught her when she was a child.
Speaker A:It helped, and she threw the covers aside and got out of bed.
Speaker A:She moved the dresser a few inches away from the door and cracked it open for a peek down the hall.
Speaker A:The oak door was tightly closed, but that wasn't what drew her attention.
Speaker A:The hallway, what she had thought she had noticed in the wee hours of the morning, was even more pronounced.
Speaker A:The hall was smaller, she was sure of it.
Speaker A:Emma sat on the dresser, eyes constantly roaming, surveying the hall as her mind churned.
Speaker A:What was wrong with her?
Speaker A:Was she having some kind of psychotic break?
Speaker A:It was impossible for a room's dimensions to change, right?
Speaker A:She was energized when a thought flashed through her head.
Speaker A:She had measured the apartment the day she leased it, concerned some of her larger pieces of furniture wouldn't fit.
Speaker A:Leaping down from the dresser, she frantically threw on some clothes, then yanked the dresser clear.
Speaker A:She dashed down the hall, pressing against the opposite wall as she passed the oak door.
Speaker A:Her tape measure was in a cabinet in the kitchen, and she grabbed it and went to work.
Speaker A:She measured the hallway, the tape trembling as she worked.
Speaker A:When she finished, she stood in the living room, trying to reconcile the results.
Speaker A:The hall was a foot shorter than when she moved in.
Speaker A:The walls were 14 inches closer, and the ceiling was almost 2ft lower.
Speaker A:If she was Remembering her measurements correctly, Emma had reached her limit.
Speaker A:It was time to leave.
Speaker A:Dropping a tape measure, she ran to the front door.
Speaker A:But the security bar wouldn't come free no matter how hard she tugged on it.
Speaker A:And the door wasn't moving with it in place.
Speaker A:It was a simple mechanism that clicked into a recessed lock, and she could feel it release when she pushed the button.
Speaker A:But that didn't seem to matter.
Speaker A:A dash to the bedroom to retrieve the crowbar, and she set to work.
Speaker A:She tried prying the bar loose, and when that didn't work, resorted to hammering on it.
Speaker A:But it wouldn't so much as budge a millimeter.
Speaker A:Looking wildly about, Emma ran to the set of living room windows.
Speaker A:She was on the third floor, and there was no balcony, but she could break a window and scream for help.
Speaker A:Eventually, someone would call the police and they'd get her out.
Speaker A:Closing her eyes to protect them from flying glass, Emma took a swipe at the window.
Speaker A:The crowbar bounced off harmlessly, the pane remaining intact.
Speaker A:Squinting, she swung the crowbar with both hands like a baseball bat.
Speaker A:She felt the impact in her shoulders, but the glass held.
Speaker A:Panic surging, she tried other pains.
Speaker A:When they wouldn't break, she screamed in frustration and swung at a vase on the kitchen counter.
Speaker A:It exploded into a thousand shards that scattered across the floor, glittering in the morning sun like a field of diamonds.
Speaker A:Emma screamed in frustration, throwing the crowbar, which bounced off a wall and into the hallway.
Speaker A:Breathing heavily for several long moments, she finally calmed, lowered herself to a seat on the sofa, and stared at her phone.
Speaker A:She power cycled it, hoping a reboot would solve the issue, but when it completed startup, there was no service.
Speaker A:She tried the WI fi, hoping to use a neighbor's Internet, but the phone failed to find any signal.
Speaker A:Emma was out of ideas.
Speaker A:Her phone was her only lifeline, the only way to communicate with anyone outside the apartment that had become her prison.
Speaker A:She had ordered her own Internet service, but it wasn't scheduled to be installed until the following week.
Speaker A:She wasn't expected at work because she had taken a few days off to move and get settled.
Speaker A:No one was going to come looking for her for at least a week, but probably more likely 2.
Speaker A:Emma pounded on every wall in the apartment, screaming for help, but it seemed she was playing to an empty house.
Speaker A:No one pounded back or shouted for her to keep the noise down.
Speaker A:The police never came.
Speaker A:There was only silence.
Speaker A:Emma spent the rest of the day measuring and documenting everything in the apartment.
Speaker A:She was alarmed to discover that the hall was 10% smaller than when she had measured it that morning.
Speaker A:Passing through the kitchen, she paused in thought when a pack of matches caught her eye.
Speaker A:Rushing back to the living room, she looked up and spotted a smoke detector.
Speaker A:She knew it was legally required that an apartment smoke detector be wired into the entire building's alarm system.
Speaker A:If she could trigger it, that would set off sirens in every apartment and bring the police and fire departments.
Speaker A:Emma snatched up the matches.
Speaker A:Her lease for the apartment was printed on a thin stack of papers, and she grabbed that, too.
Speaker A:Looking back at the smoke detector, she whirled about in search of some way to reach it.
Speaker A:She knew she didn't need to physically touch it, but the closer she could hold a sheaf of burning papers, the better chance it would alert and call for help.
Speaker A:Shoving furniture aside, she dragged a heavy dining table she had inherited from her mother to the center of the room.
Speaker A:Climbing up, she stood in the center and raised the paper as high as she could.
Speaker A:It was within a few feet of the smoke detector, and she was confident that would be close enough.
Speaker A:She rolled the sheaf into a tube with a flare at one end, tore a match out of the pack, and struck it.
Speaker A:For a moment she was transfixed by the tiny flame.
Speaker A:Then she shook herself back to reality and held it to the tube of papers.
Speaker A:The printer paper caught instantly, the flames greedily attacking while putting off dense gray smoke.
Speaker A:Emma bounced in excitement as she thrust the tube over her head and held it directly beneath the detector.
Speaker A:Smoke swirled around the device.
Speaker A:Any second and it would sound, and she had leaped down and rushed the burning material into the kitchen, where she had drowned it in the sink.
Speaker A:Pieces of flaming paper came free and floated in the air, but the alarm never sounded.
Speaker A:More embers began swirling around the living room, landing on a rug and the sofa's fabric upholstery, which began to smolder.
Speaker A:Emma cursed, jumping down and dashing to the kitchen, where she threw the burning tube into the sink and slapped the faucet to on.
Speaker A:But no water came out.
Speaker A:An open flame appeared where an ember had landed on the rug.
Speaker A:Emma rushed for it, but before she could stomp it out, a spot on the sofa began to burn.
Speaker A:Tearing her shirt off, she used it to beat the spots, but the fire didn't want to die.
Speaker A:More flames flared up, and she dashed around frantically, beating them until they were all out.
Speaker A:Before she could take a breath of relief, she glanced at the kitchen, crying out in fright to see the cabinet next to the sink where she had thrown the burning tube, giving off a dense cloud of smoke.
Speaker A:It was old wood, saturated with decades of airborne cooking oils and grease, and it exploded into hungry flames that were quickly licking the ceiling.
Speaker A:She attacked with her shirt, but the fire was unaffected, and she realized that without water or a fire extinguisher, she couldn't stop it.
Speaker A:Emma raced to the hall, heading for the bathroom in hopes its water was working.
Speaker A:She came to a hard stop when she saw the oak door standing wide open.
Speaker A:There was only darkness within, and her heart pounded with fear as cold, damp air rolled over her like the room beyond the door had just exhaled.
Speaker A:Save yourself, a voice whispered, though she wasn't sure if she had heard it or it had been inside her head.
Speaker A:Fear of being burned alive nearly sent Emma rushing through the door.
Speaker A:Her mind screamed at her that she had to escape the spreading flames.
Speaker A:She glanced back at the living room, where thick smoke boiled, obscuring the ceiling.
Speaker A:It was only moments before there would be no hope of stopping the fire.
Speaker A:It's safe inside, the voice purred in her head.
Speaker A:Emma took a step closer to the door, a terrifying moment passing.
Speaker A:She looked at the bedroom door.
Speaker A:The bathroom was just on the other side, to the right.
Speaker A:She began to sidestep the oak door, ready to run past it, but a wave of vertigo struck her as the hull elongated, stretching away from her like a tunnel.
Speaker A:She leaned against the wall to keep from falling.
Speaker A:She was dizzy and disoriented.
Speaker A:The voice slithered through her mind again.
Speaker A:You have to hurry.
Speaker A:Emma looked at the dark maw of the open oak door.
Speaker A:Staring back at her was a mother with two little girls, both with pigtails tied by red ribbons.
Speaker A:Next to them, an elderly couple leaning on each other for support.
Speaker A:A man in a wheelchair beckoned for her to come to them.
Speaker A:There was a loud crack from the kitchen as something weakened by fire collapsed, and Emma whirled in fright.
Speaker A:Smoke swirled in the living room, dropping down and beginning to fill the hall.
Speaker A:She turned back to the door, and breath caught in her throat when she saw the people for what they were.
Speaker A:Melted flesh dripped from charred bones, and she could smell the putrid stench of their horrible deaths.
Speaker A:The smoke continued to concentrate in the hallway, wreathing her in a malevolent embrace.
Speaker A:Her eyes watered and her lungs burned.
Speaker A:She recognized she'd be unconscious in seconds and dead soon after.
Speaker A:But would a death beyond the door be preferable?
Speaker A:Better than feeling her charred flesh falling away from her bones.
Speaker A:Hurry.
Speaker A:The elderly woman called.
Speaker A:The plea was punctuated by the man in a wheelchair rolling into the hall, pushed by unseeing hands.
Speaker A:His face was nothing more than a fire ravaged skull with shreds of burnt skin dangling from his chin.
Speaker A:Emma whirled to run, but crashed to the floor when strong hands latched onto her ankles and began dragging her toward the door.
Speaker A:The air somewhat clearer near the floor, she was able to draw a breath and scream as she kicked with all her might, but the grip was like iron.
Speaker A:She managed to flip on her back, getting her first look at her attacker.
Speaker A:It was the landlord, only not.
Speaker A:His skin was sallow, his head horribly misshapen, and his grinning mouth was filled with dagger sharp teeth.
Speaker A:It seemed his eyes were reflecting the flames.
Speaker A:Then she realized a fire was dancing in them.
Speaker A:Emma fought like never before.
Speaker A:She managed to free a leg and mercilessly stomped the demon's face, but it was impervious and with every passing second it was dragging her closer to the open door.
Speaker A:Her flailing hand fell on the crowbar she had thrown earlier.
Speaker A:She snatched it and began beating the demon's head, punishing two handed blows as she struggled to kick free of its grasp.
Speaker A:A moment before it would have dragged her across the threshold, she broke its grip.
Speaker A:With superhuman strength, Emma leapt up and back away from the door, falling into strong arms that tightly embraced her.
Speaker A:She struggled briefly before falling into unconsciousness.
Speaker A:Emma awoke sometime later.
Speaker A:A clear plastic oxygen mask was strapped to her face and nothing had ever tasted as sweet as the air she was breathing.
Speaker A:Lurching to a seat, she frantically looked around at the interior of an ambulance.
Speaker A:Across from her, a uniformed police officer was seated on a narrow bench, scribbling in a small notebook.
Speaker A:His uniform was filthy, his face streaked with sweat and soot.
Speaker A:He also was wearing an oxygen mask.
Speaker A:Startled by her abrupt return to consciousness, he gave her a smile and tucked them notebook away.
Speaker A:You're safe, he said.
Speaker A:Got you out just in time.
Speaker A:He nodded at a window in one of the rear doors, through which was a view of the apartment building fully engulfed in flames.
Speaker A:How?
Speaker A:Emma began but was struck by a coughing fit as her lungs worked to clear the smoke she had inhaled.
Speaker A:The officer opened a bottle of water and handed it to her.
Speaker A:She sipped from it as he spoke.
Speaker A:Two little girls waved me down, he said.
Speaker A:If it wasn't for them.
Speaker A:Two girls?
Speaker A:Emma croaked.
Speaker A:The officer nodded.
Speaker A:Pigtails?
Speaker A:Emma asked, her throat tight with red ribbons.
Speaker A:You know them?
Speaker A:He asked.
Speaker A:Emma returned her gaze to the burning building and slowly nodded her head.
Speaker A:That's it for this episode.
Speaker A:If you're enjoying the stories, please support the podcast by buying me a coffee.
Speaker A:The link is in the episode show notes and I would greatly appreciate your support.
Speaker A:New episodes of the When Reality Phrase podcast are released every Monday and Thursday.
Speaker A:If you're enjoying the journey into the strange, the mysterious, and the unexplained, be sure to press that Follow or Subscribe button and turn on all reminders so you're alerted whenever an episode drops.
Speaker A:Until next time, thank you for listening to When Reality Frays.
