CH 1

On the morning of May 23, 2015, there was a drizzle in Squirrel Town.

Jerry Cates got up early, put on a T-shirt with the LOGO of the “Deep Quest” program, and held his phone and went to the living room.

Jerry is still alone at the house. After the incident, his father went back to work, chatted with then neighbors and the police, and after confirming that everything was fine, he left with a little luggage.

His mother is still in Europe, and she often video chats with him and shows him the gifts she had brought for him in Europe. Jerry didn’t mind the busyness of his parents. Anyway, he had his father’s credit card, and the hourly worker hired by his mother would come to clean the house regularly every week.

At 9:30, the doorbell rang. Jerry’s men arrived on time, every time.

A man in his thirties stood outside the door. He was smiling, wearing a baseball cap, half-length brown hair tied back in a pigtail, wearing a camera vest with pockets everywhere,a nd carrying a backpack. A very standard TV show crew looks like. This is the man with whom Jerry was on the phone before.

Jerry looked behind him. There was only a small hatchback parked on the side of the road, and there was no one else in the car.

“What are you looking for?” the man asked Jerry.

Jerry asked, “Why are you alone? What about Alan and Shirley?”

“Alan and Shirley” are the two location hosts of “Deep Quest”, a bit like the hero and heroine of “The X-Files”.

The man said helplessly: “I explained it on the phone, and now we haven’t decided to make a show on this topic, I just came to see the situation initially.”

Jerry nodded, trying to hide his disappointment. He stayed at the door for a long time, until the other party reminded him, he didn’t remember to ask people to come in and sit down and talk.

After being seated, the guest handed over a business card: “You are familiar with our program, so let me introduce myself individually. I’m Levi Karadzer, assistant producer.”

Jerry took the business card: “You…not even the producer came?”

Levi Karadze kept a smile: “‘Deep Quest’ receives a lot of incident clues every day, some very valuable, some not so interesting… The producer is very busy and he doesn’t have time to investigate the situation himself, so usually It is up to my colleagues and I to conduct preliminary verification and finalize the topic selection.”

“In other words, you decide whether the material is good or bad?”

“Yes.”

“I see!” The boy’s expression suddenly became more enthusiastic. “By the way, what would you like to drink? I prepared coffee and apple juice…”

“Water will do, thank you.”

As the boy went to pour water in the kitchen, Levi Karadzer looked around the living room, paying particular attention to the family photo of the family.

In the photo frame on the low cabinet, there is only a group photo of the Cates couple, as well as a group photo of the three of them with Jerry. It seems that Jerry is the only child in the family.

When Jerry came back with the cup, Levi had the recorder ready: “Let’s stop talking nonsense, let’s talk about what happened that day.”

Jerry once recounted the night to the sheriff, and when he recounted it to other officers later, he was more vague. Facing Levi today, Jerry was more involved in his story than in the past. He added an appropriate tone and expression, and not only did an objective narrative, but also used appropriate rhetoric to describe the atmosphere.

It seems that the manuscript was memorized in advance… Levi frowned while listening.

After he finished speaking, Jerry also showed Levi to look at the wall.

In the early morning of April 25, a door appeared on this wall, and now it is just an ordinary wall. The wall is covered with green wallpaper and two printed oil paintings, and the inside of the wall is the bathroom on the first floor.

Jerry gestured on the wall, indicated the approximate height and width of the door, and then took out a pre-printed computer drawing: “Look! This is the door.”

Levi took over the painting: “This is not a photo, is it?”

“Of course not. I didn’t have time to take a photo. This is what I recreated from the original scene using computer painting software.”

“Isn’t the door so gorgeous?” In the picture, black iron bars with spikes are embedded on the door panel, and the bare wood is covered with a rough multi-layered layer composed of skeletons and dragon skeletons.

Jerry touched his nose: “Uh… I don’t remember some details very well. This picture is mainly… to recreate the atmosphere at that time…”

Levi folded the picture and gave it back to him.

The two sat back on the sofa, and Levi said, “You said in your email that you saw a door like this when you were a kid. Let’s talk about that door, was it similar like this too?”

“No, it’s not on that wall,” Jerry twisted and pointed to the storage closet under the stairs,

“Supposedly it’s open in the closet… I’m not talking about the closet door, but the storage space. Another door appeared on the shelf inside the room.”

“You said ‘supposedly’?” Levi asked.

Jerry said, “I was a year old. No, maybe two?”

Levi sighed: “I thought you experienced it yourself…”

“I did experience it myself! Look at this!” With that said, Jerry walked to the corner of the living room, took a picture frame from the corner cabinet, and handed it to Levi.

In the photo, Mrs Cates holds a brown poodle.

“What is this?” Levi asked.

Jerry said: “This dog is called Tangtang, it’s my mother’s dog. She adopted it before she got married. At that time, Tangtang was eleven years old and an old dog. She was very sensible. She have been guarding me in my mother’s belly, since my mother was was pregnant with me, and even more after I was born…”

Levy estimated the working time of the recorder and interrupted Jerry: “The point I want to know is, what happened to you when you were a year or two?”

“I’m about to say it,” Jerry put the frame back. “That day, Tangtang kept barking at the storage room, and Laird went to open the door of the storage room…”

Levi had to interrupt him again: “Wait, who’s ‘Laird’?”

“My brother.”

“You still have a brother?” Levi looked around the living room just now, and there was no other child in any family photos within sight.

There is even a portrait of a poodle, but there is no other child.

Jerry said, “Oh, understood. Please continue.”

Jerry went on to tell the story of that day. Before he said it, he honestly emphasized one point:

“what he knew had been told by others, and at that time he was too young to remember so many things.”

Laird was ten years old at the time, and Jerry was probably over a year or two.

The incident happened at noon on a Saturday. The Cates were out for the event, and a nanny in her 60s looked after the two children at home. At noon, the dog Tangtang suddenly started barking at the storage room.

The babysitter was working in the kitchen, and she was not good at dealing with animals, so she asked Laird to go and appease the dog. Laird opened the storage room, and Tangtang rushed in immediately.

After a few seconds, the dog’s voice died down and Laird started screaming like crazy.

The babysitter was terrified. Before she could check Laird’s condition, little Jerry in the walker burst into tears. So the babysitter picked Jerry up and walked up to Laird, trying to figure out what was going on.

She followed Laird’s line of sight and saw a door appear on a wooden shelf in the storage room.

The wooden shelf was cut off by the door frame, and even the storage carton placed at the cutoff was cut in half, but the items in the carton did not fall, and the wooden shelf that was divided in two did not spread out. Power is supporting their original structure, the door is just superimposed on these things.

It was a dilapidated arched wooden door, as if it had been ripped from an extremely old building.

The door was half-open, and it was pitch black inside, constantly overflowing with damp, cold air.

The puppy Tangtang must be inside the door, and both the nanny and Laird heard her bark, which was extremely excited, then suddenly turned into a timid whimper, and after a few seconds, she stopped barking.

The nanny moved closer, listening carefully. She heard the dog’s panting and the clattering back of the animal’s claws. So she held the baby in one hand and stretched out the other, trying to open the door wider so Tangtang could pass through more easily.

At this time, ten-year-old Laird suddenly screamed and rushed towards her, knocking her whole body backwards and falling down.

The nanny fell out of the storage room and accidentally threw little Jerry in his arms to the ground. When she got up, she heard two doors closing, one was the strange door, and the other was Laird closing the door to the storage room.

Laird pressed his entire body against the door, gasping for breath as if he was on the verge of suffocation.

Later, according to the nanny, she had never seen a ten-year-old child show that kind of look, panic, despair, loss of words, as if forced to stare at something extremely terrifying.

The nanny went to check on little Jerry first, who had a bag on his head and was crying non-stop. After the nanny had calmed the baby, little Laird had left the door of the storage room. He tucked his knees and sat in the corner of the living room, still keeping his terrified and vigilant eyes.

The nanny went to open the storage room, and the strange ancient door was gone, as if it had never appeared.

Tangtang also disappeared, she was locked in that door, and disappeared with the door.

Later, the nanny called Mrs. Cates and took Jerry to the emergency room. Little Jerry is fine, the swelling on his head will heal soon.

That night, Mr. Cates was out for more than three hours, looking for the missing Tangtang, and Mrs. Cates was holding Jerry in one hand and the picture of Tangtang in the other, sobbing until the wee hours of the morning.

After listening to this story, Levi asked: “You were too young at the time. The only ones who really saw the ‘door’ should be your brother and the nanny… Where is the nanny now?”

“When I was a little older, she stopped working at my house,” Jerry said. “I don’t have her contact information, and we don’t have much to talk about anyway.”

“When something like this happened in your family, didn’t your parents express any opinion?”

Jerry shrugged. “Yeah. They sent Laird away. To our grandmother’s.”

Levi frowned: “I don’t understand…why did they send Laird away, but still live here with you?”

“Well, you misunderstood,” Jerry said. “My parents didn’t think the house was haunted or anything. They were sending Laird away because he was labelled as mentally unstable and needed treatment and help. Laird kept insisting that Tangtang disappeared in the house, so some professionals suspect that Laird actually hurt Tangtang. The doctor also told my dad that if Laird stays in the same room with a baby, he might endanger the baby’s safety.”

Levi was stunned by this statement. No wonder there is no trace of “Laird” in this home.

Levi asked, “Your parents think Laird is crazy?”

“Forget it,” Jerry said, “of course, my dad didn’t completely abandon him… We met afterward. When I was a little older, Laird told me about it. What I tell you basically comes from the accounts of Laird and the nanny.”

“Why do your parents still think there’s something wrong with Laird when the nanny remembers what happened that day?”

Jerry shook his head: “There are some things she said to me when I grew up, but not to my parents and the police. How could she tell the truth? Who would believe it? After she said it, she would tell that she’ll also be considered insane as Laird was also considered insane.”

Levi asked, “What about you? You don’t believe it?”

Jerry smiled: “I’m just not sure, in fact, I…believe a little. I believe that there are unknown and mysterious things in the world. The unknown does not mean fiction, and there are many areas that humans have not understood. Of course, Now I’m even more convinced… After all, I’ve seen strange doors with my own eyes…”

Before he could finish his words, a roar came from upstairs: “Jerry! You liar!”