[CLICK]
[SOUND OF PEN SCRATCHING AGAINST PAPER IN SHARP, FRUSTRATED MOVEMENTS]
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Helen Richardson, regarding, uh… how would you describe it?
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES]
ARCHIVIST
…Miss Richardson?
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES]
HELEN
– uh, what?
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES]
ARCHIVIST
Your experience, how would you summarize it?
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES]
HELEN
Um, well, I’ve been, I’ve been trying to draw you a map, but, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work.
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES; HELEN CAN NOW BE HEARD BREATHING HARD AS THE ARCHIVIST SPEAKS]
ARCHIVIST
– Right. Statement of Helen Richardson, regarding a new door in the house she was selling. Statement recorded direct from subject, 2nd October, 2016. Statement begins.
[PEN SCRATCHING CONTINUES]
ARCHIVIST
…
Miss Richardson?
[PEN SCRATCHING STOPS]
HELEN
There’s no left turns. Look, [paper rustles] look, none, it just, it just turns right, it doesn’t make any sense [paper rustles] no, it wasn’t a spiral because you could, you could always go forward, I mean, I –
ARCHIVIST
[overlapping] [sigh]
HELEN
– I, I did mostly, just forward, and the paths never got shorter, like you were coming to a center, they just – kept going – it doesn’t, doesn’t make any sense! [paper rustles] Look at it –
ARCHIVIST
Ah, Miss Richardson –
[PAPER RUSTLES]
HELEN
Look at it!
ARCHIVIST
…You’re right. This map doesn’t make any sense –
HELEN
[overlapping] After a few turns –
ARCHIVIST
[overlapping] – it becomes a mess of impossible lines, yes. But it will be very useful for our investigation if you could start at the beginning, give us some context.
Tell me how it got started.
HELEN
What do you want to know? There wasn’t a door. And then there was.
HELEN (STATEMENT)
I worked for Wolverton Kendrick. I still do, I suppose, I haven’t officially quit, but I haven’t been back there since this happened. We mostly sell properties around the Wimbledon area, sometimes as far as Collier’s Wood. We specialize in well-appointed family homes for successful professionals looking to move further out of London. We’ve had a lot of success, and these days usually have anything up to two hundred properties on the market, most of them detached family homes or big well-appointed flats.
I’ve been with the agency for about eight years now, and I’ve done thousands of viewings for them, so believe me when I say there was nothing unusual about that house on Saint Albans Avenue. I mean – maybe the fact the owner was selling it for less than two million? Even then, it still wasn’t suspiciously cheap, it was just a lovely house in a good area, like every other house I sell.
But I think back to driving there, the trees seem darker than they should have been. The other houses sit there, sinister, behind their tall gates and empty driveways. But I think, oh, that’s just my memory changing to fit what I know now. At the time, I don’t think I felt anything except annoyance that I was going to be two minutes late to the viewing.
You know, what’s funny, even after everything that happened, I actually have trouble picturing the house in my mind. It was so much like all the others. So… unremarkable.
And it’s not like I’ve been back.
For most of the morning viewings, it was business as usual. I had the usual stream of bankers and executives asking the standard questions, occasionally livened up by a private dentist or a barrister. I walked around that house for the better part of five hours, and by the end I’d been in every room, and opened every cupboard, dozens of times. And I promise you, I swear to you: that door was not there.
He… came… at the end of the viewings. It was the last appointment, and although he didn’t give his name, I am absolutely sure he was not Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Lombardi.
He was tall, maybe six and a half feet? And he had long, straw-coloured hair that fell onto his shoulders in loose ringlets. His face was round and unthreatening, although he stood so still when I answered the door that it did rather unnerve me.
I asked him if he was Mr. Lombardi, and he said no, but that Mr. Lombardi wouldn’t be coming, so he was here instead. It’s not unheard of for some of our clients to send their people to viewings in their place, so it didn’t seem like an unreasonable statement, even if it would normally, you know, be arranged ahead of time. I just, I just thought I’d missed an email.
I held up my arm for a handshake, but he just looked at it, and laughed, keeping his hands firmly by his side. That was when I first started to think that something might be wrong, because his laugh didn’t… sound right? I, I don’t know how to describe it, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t a human laugh.
I should have stopped there, and left, or called the police, but he’d already walked past me and into the house, and I started to give him the sales pitch, almost as a reflex. I decided that, since he didn’t seem to be actively threatening, I’d just give him a quick rundown of the house and get out of there as soon as possible. He was strange, but I felt that if he did work for the Lombardis, then I didn’t want to be rude, and have to deal with a complaint later? So I took him ‘round the place.
He followed me. His, his eyes were always looking where I pointed, but he never seemed to take anything in, and he didn’t ask any questions at all. At least, not ‘till we reached the second floor.
We’d just climbed up the stairs to the top of the house. I went into the first bedroom, and I started talking about its potential as a child’s room or a study. The ceiling was quite low, and I thought I’d better warn him to be careful – but when I looked back, he wasn’t there. I stepped back out onto the landing to find him looking at a new door. He asked me what was behind it, and I just stood there, staring.
It was a small, unremarkable door, painted dark yellow, with a matte-black handle. And it wasn’t there before.
I had been up on that landing dozens of times already, and I definitely did not remember it being there. It wasn’t, wasn’t just that I hadn’t noticed it, you have to understand that, it wasn’t there. It couldn’t have been there, I checked the floor plan I had with me, and obviously [anxious laugh] there was no door shown on it, it was an exterior wall on the second floor, there can’t have been anything beyond it but empty air [anxious laugh] and a significant drop, except that I had made several circuits of the outside while showing off the garden, [tearful] and there was absolutely no door visible there, it was just a dark yellow door that couldn’t be there.
The man asked me again what was inside, and I just stood there, staring at it with my mouth hanging open in shock. I honestly don’t know how long I stood there looking at it. My strange client said nothing, and I’d almost forgotten he was there by the time I finally made up my mind.
I reached out and gripped the handle. It was warm. I turned it, and as soon as I did so the door swung open. I didn’t need to pull it at all. It opened slowly, but deliberately, like… it was keen for me to go inside. And beyond that threshold, where there should have been empty air over the garden, there was a long, windowless corridor.
It was lit by electric lamps attached to the walls every ten feet or so, and the walls were papered over in a swirling green pattern. Running down the middle of the faded yellow carpet was a rug, black and thick, that disappeared off as the path very gradually curved to the left.
On the walls were what at first looked like mirrors, but I, I soon realized that, while a few of them were mirrors, most of them were paintings or photographs of that same corridor from various odd angles.
Here’s the thing: I don’t remember going through that door. I remember standing there, looking down it with this… feeling of dread. And then I remember feeling a surge of terror as I heard the door close behind me with a click. I spun ‘round, but there was no handle on this side, just a huge, smooth mirror. I saw myself stood in that strange corridor, and it looked like I’d been crying for hours. I hammered, shouted, I threw myself against the uncaring face of that mirror, and nothing happened. It didn’t even crack.
I took out my phone. My mind was muddy, but… I don’t know exactly what I was hoping to do, call the police, maybe? My colleagues? I, I think I might have wanted just to check the time. I had no idea how long I’d been in there.
When I opened the phone, all that was on the screen was another picture of the corridor, just like the paintings on the walls.
So I started walking down the corridor. Like… I mean, there was, there was nothing else I could do. It dragged on and on, bending almost imperceptibly to the left. Well, every once in a while there would be another corridor turning off to the right at a sharp angle. At first, I, I avoided these branching paths, thinking if I walked along the corridor far enough, it would have to lead somewhere. But after what felt like miles, I finally decided that taking one of the turns… it, it couldn’t make things worse.
The branching corridors were identical. Mirrors, and paintings that mirrored them, were everywhere, and when I turned back, I think I must have gotten turned around? Because the left turn, that would have led back towards the door, wasn’t, it wasn’t there anymore. It was another long corridor, with paths off to the right.
The wallpaper was a different colour, though, I think. It definitely changed, but I never noticed it switching, I’d simply realize that it hadn’t been red when I’d been walking – or, blue, or purple, whatever colour it was at the time. All the colours seemed to shift in that place. Even the yellow of the carpet, the black of the rug, it… felt like I couldn’t trust my eyes.
Based… on the date of my appointment, and the newspaper I found later, I think I was in there for three days. It was, it was impossible to tell from inside, though I don’t remember sleeping, or even feeling tired? I did spend a lot of time just… slumped in despair, though, so maybe I slept then. I had no food or water, I got very delirious by the end. It didn’t help it was so warm in there, although it often seemed like I couldn’t stop shivering, like I was cold.
I was almost passed out from misery when I saw it. It was stood way off in the distance, a long way down the corridor. It seemed almost human, from a distance, but as it got closer, I saw that it was anything but.
Its body was thin and limp, and when it moved, it shifted, like I was watching it through rippling water. Its hands were swollen, and bits of them jutted out at annoying angles. It was, it was moving towards me fast, and as I looked I saw that all the pictures on the wall now showed this thing – although each distorted it differently, like a selection of funhouse mirrors – but all of them, all of them showed the hands as bulbous and sharp.
I looked around in desperation, trying to find any hope of escape. The thing was getting closer and closer, and I could hear that weird laugh again. And then I saw it. A mirrored frame that did not contain the creature.
I had no reason to think it would help, but I could see no other choice but waiting for death. So I threw myself at this empty mirror.
And just like that, I was out. I felt the cold night air on my face and, and wet tarmac under my hands and knees. It was raining. I turned up in Dulwich, of all places. I screamed for about five minutes before someone came to help me.
I don’t really know what else to tell you. I was hospitalized for a short while, until they were satisfied my dehydration wasn’t going to cause any complications. And I spent a long time at home. Not opening any doors.
Finally, [suppressing tears] after the latest bout of nightmares, I decided to come to you and tell you my story. Maybe you can make some sense of this.
ARCHIVIST
…Perhaps. Leave it with us. We’ll… do some digging and see what we can find.
HELEN
[tearful] You believe me, then?
ARCHIVIST
I… yes. Yes, I think I do.
One thing, though. You say you don’t remember the man’s name…
HELEN
I… I think he told me, but I just, I…
ARCHIVIST
– it wasn’t “Michael,” was it?
HELEN
…Yes! Michael! That was it…! [vengeful] Do you know him?
ARCHIVIST
Maybe…
We’ll make some enquiries and get back to you, Miss Richardson. Thank you for your time.
HELEN
Right, well… I’ll just leave you to it, then.
[SOUND OF DOOR OPENING SLOWLY AND SQUEAKILY, THEN CLOSING MORE-SLOWLY AND MORE-SQUEAKILY]
ARCHIVIST
…
Sasha!
[SOUND OF DOOR OPENING NOTICEABLY FASTER AND LESS-SQUEAKILY]
NOT!SASHA
Sorry, did you call?
ARCHIVIST
I, I’ve just had a statement from someone claims they met your Michael.
NOT!SASHA
Michael? The distorted Michael?
ARCHIVIST
The very same. I don’t think we re-recorded your statement on him, did we?
NOT!SASHA
Did we need to?
ARCHIVIST
It was one of the tapes that vanished during the attack.
NOT!SASHA
Oh. Well, I can give it again, if you’d like, but I haven’t seen him since.
ARCHIVIST
And you can’t think of any further insights? Nothing you forgot to mention last time?
NOT!SASHA
I don’t think so, no.
ARCHIVIST
Hmm. What are you doing at the moment?
NOT!SASHA
Reorganizing your “discredited” section. It’s a bit of a mess. If I may say so, John, I feel you’ve been a bit less conscientious about it, since you got back.
ARCHIVIST
Oh, that’s fair. Sorry, I… let me know once you’re finished, I’d very much like you on this case.
NOT!SASHA
Yes, will do.
[MICHAEL SPEAKS OVER DOOR CLOSING SQUEAKLESSLY AND RISING SQUEALING STATIC]
MICHAEL
Do you even know they’re lying to you?
ARCHIVIST
[overlapping] I, I, I’m sorry, I didn’t – can I help you? This place is off-limits.
MICHAEL
I disagree.
ARCHIVIST
Who let you in here?
MICHAEL
“Let?”
[Michael laughs. The sound is nearly-imperceptibly doubled, as if he is laughing from more than one throat, a fraction of a second out-of-sync with himself.]
MICHAEL
I’m afraid that isn’t how this works.
ARCHIVIST
You’re him.
MICHAEL
Yes.
ARCHIVIST
Michael.
MICHAEL
…
That is a real name.
ARCHIVIST
Are you here to kill me?
MICHAEL
No.
ARCHIVIST
Oh…
Why are, why are you here? Wh–
MICHAEL
I am simply collecting what is mine, Archivist. The one who entered my domain.
ARCHIVIST
…Miss Rich-ard-son? You own those hallways?
MICHAEL
What a fffascinating question. Does your hand in any way own your stomach?
ARCHIVIST
[overlapping] [muted] Ah –
MICHAEL
In any case, it doesn’t matter: the Wanderer had a brief respite, but it’s over now.
ARCHIVIST
Well, you’re too late, sh-she’s gone!
MICHAEL
[laugh] …yes… ah… did you notice which door she left through? [continues laughing quietly]
ARCHIVIST
[overlapping] Yes… wait… no, there was, there –
MICHAEL
[overlapping] There has never been a door there, Archivist, your mind plays tricks on you…
ARCHIVIST
Let her go!
MICHAEL
[laugh] No?
ARCHIVIST
Get her back here!
MICHAEL
[laugh] Are you going to attack me?
[ARCHIVIST YELLS IN PAIN AS MICHAEL CONTINUES LAUGHING QUIETLY]
ARCHIVIST
– who the hell are you!?
MICHAEL
I am not a “who,” Archivist, I am a “what.” A “who” requires a degree of identity I can’t ever retain.
ARCHIVIST
So… Michael isn’t your real name, what?
MICHAEL
There is no such thing as a real name.
ARCHIVIST
What are you talking about?
MICHAEL
I am talking about myself. It’s not something I’m used to doing, so I’m sorry if I’m not very good at it.
ARCHIVIST
You decided to appear down here and… stab me anyway!
MICHAEL
I wanted to talk to you. I intervened, to save you before. I, I’m interested in what happens now.
ARCHIVIST
Yes, well, thank you for that, I suppose… And you still haven’t told me why you “intervened” at all. [huff]
MICHAEL
I’m normally neutral, yes. But the loss of this place would have unbalanced the struggle too early. I’m keen to see how it progresses.
ARCHIVIST
You make it sound like there’s a… war.
MICHAEL
[heh] Then I will say nothing further. I wouldn’t wish to tarnish your ignorance prematurely. [giggle] Goodbye, Archivist.
ARCHIVIST
This – wait –
[SOUND OF CHAIR OR TABLE SCRAPING AGAINST FLOOR; ARCHIVIST YELLS IN PAIN AGAIN, POSSIBLY FROM MOVING TOO QUICKLY]
ARCHIVIST
Ah… owww…
M-Michael? Michael…!?
Ah. End recording.