The padlock wasn’t a bad idea, but if the groundskeeper really wanted to keep curious people out, he certainly wouldn’t have left four screws exposed in the hasp. It was clear to Holden that either the groundskeeper possessed a false sense of security about the padlock protecting what was behind the gray metal door, or he was indifferent that his efforts could be undone by any inquisitive person able to make use of a screwdriver.
The gray door was two stories down in the damp, musty basement of a basement, underneath an 8-story tall stone apartment building at least a century old. Not many people cared to come down this way. After all, there wasn’t much in the way of lighting and the uneven brick floor held several pools of stagnant water; difficult to notice until you felt the splash and felt the cold water seep into your socks.
Certainly some people had been here before, though, and at least a few must have been curious about what was behind the gray door. The long-term apartment dwellers always tended to grow interested in exploring the bowels of their building, and their efforts were never met with much resistance, although it always seemed like the groundskeeper looked at them differently once they returned. Most tenants knew about the boiler room in the first basement, and the laundry room that was abandoned at least a few decades ago. Some had heard rumors of a fallout shelter, but unless it was the basement itself, no one who went looking for it ever found it.
Not as many people knew about the sub-basement. The only way to reach it was either to use the freight elevator, which serviced the two basements and the first two floors, or to climb through the hatch in the ceiling of the elevator and climb down the emergency ladder on the wall of the shaft. The ladder was the preferred route for the handful of explorers who, motivated by an even mix of extreme curiosity and boredom, needed to know what was in the basement’s basement. Since the sub-basement was technically off-limits, people would explore at night when the groundskeeper was hopefully sleeping in his first-floor apartment. Operating the freight elevator was loud enough to be out of the question, but climbing through the hatch and climbing down the ladder could be performed with the utmost amount of caution and stealth, at least usually. Once someone was caught climbing through the hatch and tried to plead curiosity, but the groundskeeper was annoyed enough to scold the man beyond belief in hopes that he wouldn’t try again. Liability and insurance issues and all that.
Of course he returned, like any true explorer; like anyone who can’t fight his curiosity.
Holden stood by the gray door fumbling clumsily, trying to control a screwdriver, hold a flashlight, and keep track of the screws he’d already removed. Next time, he thought, he should bring one of those lights with an elastic band for his head, like spelunkers use. The real explorers. Still, even in the darkness, the first three screws were easy enough to take out. Although Holden had a problem with the last screw: the person before must have used a power drill and gracelessly stripped the head. After some struggle turning the screw with a pliers, the head finally breaks off entirely, allowing the hasp to come free from the frame of the door.
The door creaked loudly as it opened, its hinges rusted from years in the dampness. Holden wanted to proceed with care; this is no-man’s land. He had never heard anything about the gray door or the room behind it in his two years living in the apartment building. The main part of the sub-basement itself was fairly interesting to explore, but mainly empty, and locked doors often have something more intruiging to hide. The possibilities were so intriguing that Holden had returned with tools the same night.
Dirt crunched under Holden’s feet as he stepped into the forbidden room. He tried to gently close the door behind him to mask his presence; although it wasn’t likely anyone else would find him here, and if they did his presence was obvious anyway due to the missing screws. He figured, though, that the creaking door opening again would at least provide evidence of someone else coming, maybe provide enough forewarning for him to hide somewhere.
After entering, the first observation Holden made was that the previously barred room was lit even less well than the rest of the sub-basement. There was a single visible bulb hanging from the ceiling, possibly having been burning continuously since the building was first wired for electricity. He found the thought interesting, and wanted to believe that he is entering a place that has been sealed off for much longer than it actually has been; he had already forgotten another curious soul stripped out one of the screws perhaps only a few hours earlier.
The thought of being the original explorer became more captivating but even less realistic after his eyes started to adjust. The wall parallel to the door was less than fifteen feet away, and was lined with ugly, forgotten furniture, some plaid, some with discolored floral designs, the rest very faded. This must be where the groundskeeper brings the furniture people leave behind, Holden thought; probably much cheaper than taking it to the dump–hell, this is the dump, at least for ugly old furniture. Trying to keep his bearings, Holden began walking one way along the row of furniture. The beam of his flashlight just barely hit the wall ahead of him; it seemed like it could have easily be hundreds of feet away. It was severely disorienting, and he began to worry that his flashlight would fail; that the batteries would die or that he’d drop it and the bulb would break. At least he had the antique lightbulb behind him in the distance to guide him back to the main door.
After a bit of walking, the passageway became wider on the righthand side and opened up into a large rectangular room with a concave brick floor. The beam of the flashlight happened upon a tall lamp, likely also something that made its way down here after someone abandoned their apartment decades ago. Shining the light down, Holden found that the lamp was plugged into a cord that stretched into the distance, beyond the reach of the flashlight. He turned the switch and the light flickered on, emitting a clearly audible buzzing sound. This bulb is probably even older than the other one, he thought. The light wasn’t enough to illuminate the entire room, but it provided enough light to see dozens of boxes of documents stacked near the middle of the room and a bare mattress near the far wall. Closer to the middle of the room, where the brick floor starts to sink, old newspapers, drawings, and typewritten manuscripts littered the floor. Bending over to investigate a sample of the papers, Holden found a newspaper from September 1967 with an odd headline: Soviet Union Bombs Great Britain; US in Upheaval. Must be something someone made as a gag. The other litter on the floor didn’t prove very interesting aside from a few creepy drawings and some heavily caligraphied essays. Most of the papers are damp and moldy, especially those closer to the bottom of the concave.
Holden’s eyes took a little while to adjust after he turned off the lamp. While he waited, he heard what must have been a mouse scampering away. It didn’t surprise him that mice, rats or even larger critters would live down here, although once he started thinking about what large critters there might actually be, his mood became a bit more uneasy. He breathed in deeply and it was apparent that the damp air was almost choking–it’s so musty that it was getting difficult to breathe. This was enough to send Holden back toward the first light, and the main door, walking along the wall of discarded furniture.
The air became a little easier to breathe after he was away from the damp papers, and after thinking for a moment, Holden decided to find out what was down the way he hadn’t gone yet. Following the furniture in the other direction, he soon found there didn’t seem to be a light anywhere in the distance ahead. The old chairs and couches were gradually replaced by end tables and coffee tables and kitchen tables for several paces, and then those were replaced by seemingly ancient console televisions. Going this way, the corridor was much longer than the way leading to the document room, and it wasn’t until after several minutes of walking that Holden realized it couldn’t even be possible that he’s still directly underneath his apartment building. He figured it must have been some weird underground railroad thing or an old utility tunnel leading to another apartment building that’s probably been torn down by now.
The wall in front of Holden appeared so suddenly that he almost got a bloody nose from running into it; instead he only stubbed his toe on it. The wall seemed to absorb all light, giving the illusion that the wide, dark corridor continues on much longer. The dull red bricks of the wall to the right, the wall with all the furniture lining it, was still visibile until where it intersects the dark wall. Looking left down along the dark wall, Holden noticed part of the wall wasn’t quite as dark as the rest. Sidestepping to investigate, he found a large entryway lined with brick that shined bright red under the flashlight. The entryway was topped with a brick arch, and above that was a rectangle of dull gray concrete. Imprinted in the concrete were the words GATEWAY NOCTURNAL, JUNE 1906.
Although his feeling of unease had only grown, Holden still decided to continue exploring. He shined his flashlight–gradually growing dimmer–into the room beyond the entryway, but it was too difficult to make anything out. It must open up into a very large space since the light isn’t hitting any walls; or maybe the interior walls are made out of the light-absorbing material. As soon as he stepped through the entryway, an overwhelming feeling of anxiety filled Holden, and then for the longest moment he felt nothing aside from the feeling that he’s waiting for something to happen, as though he was frozen in place and time was standing still. In the distance he heard the gray metal door creak, which was enough to break the moment.
He stepped forward again and immediately felt an impulse to turn around, and in doing so was horrified to see himself standing near the doorway, not moving, with an anxious look on his face. After realizing that there was no mirror, and that it couldn’t logically be an illusion because he could touch his cold, unmoving aspect, he screamed and then passed out, his head hitting the rough stone floor.
* * *
