The Well of Mimir

The cabinet door creaked back open and I froze. Some trick of physics, I guessed…I hoped. The door was crooked, the hinges broken, it was just swinging back open because the panel had not found a point of equilibrium. The door stopped, hung silent, quiet, a quarter of the way open, leaving me a good look at the back of the head…and then it moved, the disturbed body falling out of the cabinet, pushing aside the cabinet door as it slid gruesomely, limply out to sprawl on the floor at my feet.

I stopped my hasty exit, fixated by the disturbing occurrence, telling myself what had happened was another trick of physics…but the head moved! Moved like the head of a dead person should not move! It twisted around, and fixed yellowed eyes on me.

I fumbled the doorknob open, throwing myself out into the narrow hallway as the thing stiffly dragged the rest of its body from its crowded hiding place, limbs scrabbling and clawing at the old off-white linoleum that covered the floor, its broken, rotting teeth black with age and snapping hungrily. A gray, emaciated arm flailed out to grab at me as I dodged out the door, a dusty hiss rattling in the thing’s dessicated chest.

Gods, the smell!

I dodged to the right, and sprinted past stacks of junk and old records piled around the stairwell, heading for the lobby downstairs. I stumbled on the stair in my haste, nearly tripping and prematurely ending my flight, but I managed to grab the railing and used it to propel myself safely down to the first landing.

The thing was only steps behind, wiry arms reaching out, throwing itself heedlessly and fearlessly down the stair after me.

I leapt from the landing down the short flight of stairs and into the small main lobby, directly towards the exit. I only stopped for a tense, too-long second to open the entryway door, slamming it shut behind me just as the gray, hungry body smashed into it behind, shaking the full-sized glass pane.

With a mad lunge forward to grab the doorknob of the thick outer door, I swung the heavy outer door open and dived outside as glass shattered behind me, the ravenous thing smashed out the plate glass to get to me. but slammed the outer door to the building behind me, too, and grabbed for my keys to lock the door…to lock the thing in there…

I didn’t have my keys!

Shit. They were inside the building, sitting in the front pouch of the backpack I usually brought with me. Something thudded hard against the other side of the outer door, interrupting my panicked recollection, and I grabbed the doorknob and pulled to hold the door firmly shut, hoping this thing was not stronger than I was, that I could lock it in this way.

The knob started to turn.

Shit.

I held fast, breathing hard, muscles twitching nervously, but the doorknob stopped turning as it encountered my resistance.

I waited, but nothing else happened.

So I waited longer, listening to nothing.

As my panicked breathing slowed, I realized how late it actually was. The sun was already down; I stood in a dim circle of light cast by the solitary porch light above me, surrounded by the shadowy woods and the dirt driveway that served the station. A few dark clouds scarred the night sky above.

I wondered if there were more of those things out here, lurking in the dark woods or behind the corners of the building, just waiting to rush out at me. And what the hell was that thing? A living corpse? A zombie? A stupid fucking zombie from some damn Romero flick? Was I suddenly trapped in the Night of the Living Dead?

I glanced at the dark graveyard lurking across the road and hunched my shoulders, trying to forget about its unwelcome existence.

My car was a few feet away, locked and inaccessible, and I was miles from the nearest other people. I cursed the station’s relative isolation and location. I had no way to escape, and no way to call for help, unless I were to sneak back into the building to use one of the phones inside. Even my cell phone was inside, sitting on the desk in the studio.

Of course, I reasoned, I wasn’t at my post, so when the song I had started ended the station owner would be calling to find out why there was dead air. (Stupid radio terms.) But if I could hold out long enough, he would show up to find out what was wrong, even if he wasn’t listening, someone was, and they would call him and complain, and then he would drive up here.

How long? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Would that thing leave me alone for that long?

Damn, was the owner even in town tonight?

And what if he did show up? “Sorry I left my post, man, there’s an evil hungry zombie in the station that was hiding under the bathroom sink.” I laughed hysterically, but not in the good way.

Fearfully, the thought arose of that predatory thing figuring out how to use the building’s back door, and sneaking up on me as I stood here holding the door shut. I let go of the doorknob and held still a moment, seeing if it would turn, if the thing was still there waiting to test it at the most inopportune time, just like in the movies.

That thought was neither funny or amusing, I was terrified.

The doorknob turned, and I grabbed at it wildly, fingers wrapped like vices around the cold metal, holding the door shut tight, eyes locked on the traitorous hunk of metal and arms quivering with the effort.

…

My boss found me standing there, shaking, sweating, gripping the doorknob so tightly he had to pry my hands loose from it. He didn’t believe me. He went in, and I didn’t expect him to come back out…but he did. He found nothing except the broken plate glass of the inside door, the replacement cost of which came out of my paycheck. The most haunting part of the scenario became the cabinet under the sink…for it did not have a door in it.

No one believed me, but it was months before I could go back to work.

I still have nightmares of wiry gray arms and feral yellow eyes coming at me in the dark from hidden places that shouldn’t exist, and I wait in terror every night for that cabinet door to creak open again.