Hands

 It all started with the fact that my light bulb burned out. As usual, I was working at night, staring at my computer monitor with reddened eyes and finishing my fourth cup of coffee, when the light bulb flashed on with a loud crack and went out. At the time, I didn't pay any attention to it, since there were five of them in the chandelier. One more, one less— it doesn't matter. At least that's what I thought at the time.

When the second one burned out about half an hour later, I was a little tense — I wouldn't want to be in total darkness. The fact is that I've had a phobia since childhood — I'm afraid of the dark. No, it's not even like that — she makes me panic, hysterical, in a state close to fainting. I do not know where it came from. For as long as I can remember, I've always had to sleep with a night light. That's why now I went to bed in the early morning, because work allowed.

The third light bulb didn't just burn out, it exploded, as if the mains voltage had jumped fifty volts. However, the computer was working as if nothing had happened. Cursing briefly but colorfully, I took a flashlight out of my desk drawer just in case and went to the kitchen for a broom to remove the shards that littered the floor of the only room in my apartment with a predatory carpet. Then I heard something strange.

The sound came from the front door. Light slaps. It was like someone was tapping the metal with his palm. Armed only with a flashlight and a broom, which I held in my hand like a sword, I followed the sound.

I flipped the light switch in the hallway as usual and peered through the peephole. No one. Only darkness. The very idea of opening the door, and even more so going out there into the pitch darkness of the night entrance, terrified me, so I thought, "Well, no, you won't!" Turned around and headed back when I heard another sound that made a trickle of cold sweat slide down my spine. The distinctive creak of the front door opening. Needless to say, a couple of seconds ago, when I looked through the peephole, it was securely locked with two locks?

The following events occurred almost simultaneously. I turned toward the slowly opening door, shining the flashlight beam through the crack, when the light bulb above my head flashed on and off. I was left in total darkness, which was painfully dispersed in half only by a narrow beam of a flashlight. There was a rustle from somewhere in the darkness of the entrance, and I saw a pale child's hand feeling my door.

Children? At night? In the entrance? I let out a hysterical laugh, almost a sob. One handle was soon joined by the other, slapping the lintel with her palm. Then a third, a fourth… I think I started to lose consciousness when I noticed that all the hands seemed to belong to one creature, and it was looking for something to grab, to pull itself up, to drag its body inside.

Then, already in a daze, I remembered where my phobia came from. I've seen this creature before. A long time ago, in my early childhood, it came to me to play. I remember that at that time, for some reason, I was not at all frightened by these children's hands feeling the pantry door. He had such an insinuating, pleasant voice. A low male baritone voice. I remembered that, being an unintelligent child, even I was happy to help him open the door. And then I think I saw him and almost went crazy. Here, my memory throws me only the blurred outlines of something disgusting in the darkness of the pantry.

It all took a split second as I stood there, shining my useless flashlight somewhere in the darkness. At this point, the coherent memories come to an end. The last thing I remember is falling to the floor with a sharp pain in my chest, crawling to the phone and dialing an ambulance.

I woke up in the hospital. As it turned out — cardiac arrest. I was dead for a little over a minute. I'm lucky I didn't become a vegetable. I would probably have thought that I was imagining everything, but when I asked a reasonable question about how the doctors entered my apartment, I received the answer that the door was wide open.

It found me. After all these years, it finally found my door.

Of course, I didn't tell anyone about it. The last thing I wanted to do was end up in a mental hospital. There are so many doors... and absolutely nowhere to hide.

As soon as I got out of the hospital, I packed my things and ran. I was confusing my tracks like a hare running away from a fox. From city to city, never staying anywhere for more than a day. Finally, I thought I had confused him enough and calmed down.

Now I live far, very far from my hometown and it won't find me here. Isn't that right? Wasn't I finally able to hide? I hope so.