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By Root 389 0

face to join a bushel of tufts like a series of steel wool pads laced over his chin and across his mouth. Tiny things seemed to move there, or perhaps droplets of spit and old food clung like fleas. His red-veined jaundiced eyes, glossy and cataract-glazed, ran thick, milky globs when he blinked. His eyelashes were crusted with something greenish-yellow. The face sank into a webbed network of leathery skin, the eyebrows the same uniform steel-wool color. Dirt caked under and around his fingernails in black lines. His clothes and shoes blended with his overall hue as if coated by some particulate dust.

“Excuse ... me?”

The vagrant smiled; a shriveled line sliced across his face and revealed the pallor of his mouth, bluish tongue working like a fat worm in white, foamy spit, a couple of gray-green teeth wobbled in pink-white gums turning the color of the ocean on a stormy afternoon, and something under his shirt seemed to shift, an unwholesome and unnatural movement. Like something fed on his flesh without his knowledge under it.

Rose shuddered. “I-I’m sorry, I just needed to get some air, I didn’t mean to—”

“Ya found it, didn’cha? The sshhaaaft.”

He tipped his head back and bulged his eyes while he hissed the word, and it slid like a cold slug down Rose’s spine, setting her hair on end, and a shiver raced up her back.

“I-I think I’d better—”

“Best beware, misssy!” the old man lisped, like a serpent in human form, “beware the ssshhaaaafft! It’s a doorway to Hell! Old man knew it! Old man Crawford, he knew it! Tried to hide it! Tried to keep people from knowin’ about it! But I knew!”

Rose’s brow furrowed. She tried to step back but her butt pressed against her car’s fender. “I-I’m sorry, mister, really, I-I need to—”

“Crawford put a sign on it! A sssiiiign, right? Right? You seen it! The sign! ‘Do Not Enter’, it sssaaaaysss, right? Right missy? Right, missy Rose?”

Her heart slammed to a halt. “How ... how did you know—?”

“Heard the voices yet, missy? Heard ‘em screamin’? You can hear ‘em in torment! Voices from Hell screamin’ for mercy, for relief! Heard ‘em yet, Missy Rose? Heard the voiceeesss?”

“Leave me alone!” Rose turned to round the car, get in, drive away, leave, never come back. The old man moved across the cracked and pitted asphalt toward her, on his belly, his hands slithering out toward her, drawing him nearer.

“You can hear ‘em sssscreeeeamm, Missy Rose! I heard ‘em too! Me an’ Crawford heard ‘em, back in ‘63! Heard ‘em sssscreeeeaam, we did, mmooooanin’ and waaailin’ for help for their souls, Missy Rose, their very ssssoooouls!”

“Leave me alone, damn you!” Rose shrieked but couldn’t move, couldn’t make herself open the door, couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pus-crusted, yellow orbs shot through with red, couldn’t make herself shut her eyes, even, or step to the side.

“Hell’s door is in there, Miiisssss Roooossse, and you bought it! It’s your door, now! Crawford couldn’t hide it! They came for him! I heard him sscreeeeam when they took him! The door opened and they pulled him down into Hell and I heard him sssscreeeeamin’ like the others, Missy Roooose, I heard him and hear him to thiiiis day!”

Rose sank to her haunches, the blood and strength draining from her like water in an unstopped tub. She shook her head and put her hands to her cheeks, and screamed, throat shredding, ear drum rattling screams.

When her breath gave out and she looked up, there was no one there. She was alone in the parking lot, sitting against her car.

* * * * *

Rose shook. Her eyes darted across the battered pavement.

Nothing. Utter solitude.

She heard a rasping breath, and her heart spiked. She yelped and looked over her shoulder, but only the dark square of the building against the bright midday sky stared down on her. She panted and realized the rasping breath was hers.

She wiped her brow, then caught her breath again.

Her purse. She’d left it inside when she came out ... and she didn’t lock up behind her. The keys were in her purse.

And the old man? Where is he now?

Inside? Robbing her?

She reached