The Second Ring

My doorbell rang in the middle of the night.

Half-asleep, I couldn’t tell if it was real. I lay still, ears straining, hoping it wouldn’t ring again. My wife slept beside me, undisturbed. Odd, since she was the lighter sleeper. The room was quiet, the only light a sliver of moon slicing through the curtains, pooling like milk across the floorboards. No voices, no street noise. No reason for someone to be at the door.

Maybe a neighbour in trouble? Police? Drama I didn’t want to deal with? I was warm, drowsy. Surely it was only a dream. No nightmare, no bathroom trip, no clear reason to be awake. Maybe foxes outside, screaming like murdered babies, as they do sometimes. I turned over and drifted back to sleep.

The doorbell rang again.

I got up. Eyes dry and scratchy. I pulled on my dressing gown, tightened the belt. Quiet steps on creaky stairs. I didn’t want to wake the kids. Through the glass panel, I saw nothing. No person. No lights. No sound.

I switched on the hallway light, opened the door.

No one there.

Had I dreamed it twice?

It was a still night, dark and cold. The streetlights were off, clouds had swallowed the moon.

I stepped outside to look around. Maybe someone had walked off, giving up on me. Maybe—

A shadow slipped behind me into the house.

My stomach dropped, weightless and wrong, like falling off the edge of sleep into something deeper. Colder.

A bottomless pit of dread.

I turned. Slowly.

The front door was closing.

A man was inside, looking at me as he shut it.

He had my face. A mocking smile. Cruel eyes.

I lunged for the door, desperate arms reaching, but I couldn’t see my hands. I couldn’t move my feet.

“My family!”

No sound. Silence swallowed it.

The door closed. The hallway light clicked off.

I looked down and saw nothing.

I wasn’t cold anymore.

I wasn’t there.