Eyes on the Door
Midnight Gravity | Episode 22: Foot in the Door
Companion Piece by Jonas Tintenseher
In an unassuming building in Ravenna, on the fifth of seven stories, in the geometric center of apartment 513’s seven hundred square feet of floorspace, attached to a carbon frame, was a freestanding wooden door.
The door was made of oak wood, with pewter hinges. The frame rose from a circular carbon plate that had been bolted to the floor, which was plugged into the wall via an uninterruptible power supply. Concealed within the carbon plate, an intricate series of interlocking runes and lines encircled the door and even rose up through the interior of the hollow frame.
Three monitoring stations on telescoping tripods formed a perfect equilateral triangle around the door assembly, each comprised of a spotlight, a diffuser umbrella, and a digital camera recording on a 64-minute buffer. Each camera was hooked up to its own laptop for the sake of redundancy. There were no other furnishings in the room, save for a plump leather couch directly facing the central door, and a limestone bust of a Bulgarian noblewoman near the actual entrance to the apartment.
The room’s sole occupant was sitting on the couch, idly scrolling OkSo videos on her phone. Steph had come to the apartment in a thick peacoat and a ruddy beanie that covered most of her cinnamon-brown hair. She sipped the last dregs of her iced coffee through a metal straw, keeping the door in her peripheral vision.
It was a pretty boring gig, but for a hundred bucks a day, Steph couldn’t really turn it down. Plus, all it took was four hours of guaranteed downtime and minimal responsibility. She could study, doomscroll, catch up on shows, or even get in a little shuteye, as long as she fulfilled her sole task of opening the door every hour on the hour.
The rationale behind this assignment had not been explained. Whatever experiment was being conducted in apartment 513, it didn’t seem shady — what kind of dubious enterprise could possibly involve the repeated operation of a freestanding door? Steph had been doing this for weeks and hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible criminal interest in a random door, even with the help of her roommate, a legal undergrad. Her leading theory was that the cameras pointed to it being some kind of obscure fetish thing, but she was the one who had set up the laptops in the first place — they weren’t keeping or streaming any of the ongoing footage. They were basically just backups for the buffer. If there were other, hidden cameras in the apartment, they had to be practically invisible, since there were next to no furniture pieces or wall hangings to hide them in.
Her second guess was that it was an avant-garde art installation, but the question of its intended audience remained. Theory #3 involved a scientific study, but there weren’t any instruments in the room to record data with. What could they be studying, anyway? Airflow? Hinge speed? Her?
Steph juggled these thoughts every day when she arrived, and she mostly forgot about them when she went back to her dorm. She was happy with the money, and wasn’t anywhere near nervous enough to ask questions. But curiosity is a fickle thing.
The apartment’s doorbell buzzed. The students weren’t supposed to have visitors during a door shift, but her forensic sciences professor had yet to chastise her for ordering food or inviting a friend to hang out and smoke. Steph set her phone down and sauntered over to the buzzer, slightly reaching around the Bulgarian noblewoman to hit it.
“It’s Maddie,” crackled the speaker.
“What’s the password?” asked Steph.
A pause. “I brought sushi?”
“Correct,” said Steph, and buzzed her in.
The Bulgarian noblewoman glared at her in stony displeasure. Steph stuck out her tongue at the bust. The bust did not respond.
Maybe there were cameras in the statue? Steph had seen a heist movie like that once. Or a spy movie. Or a...spy-heist movie. She couldn’t remember. She leaned in close to the noblewoman’s face, searching for any sign of hidden electronics or miniature surveillance cameras, but found only impassive, flat stone.
Moments later, a knock sounded at the door, and she pulled it open to greet her friend. Steph let Maddie step inside before squeezing her in a quick hug, then heading back to the couch. Maddie shifted her bag of takeout to her left hand, closed and locked the door, and joined her there, cracking open the plastic boxes one at a time on the cushion between them.
“I got, um, the maki roll combo box...some garlic edamame...” Maddie removed her fluffy purple coat and handmade blue scarf. Her rebellious hair refused to lay down flat, but Steph thought it made her look cute in a just-woke-up kind of way.
“Are those crab wontons I smell?” Steph picked up the box and held it under her nose, savoring the anticipation.
“Yeah, take ‘em. I’m not all that hungry, actually, so you go ahead and help yourself, I’ll just...” She idly picked up a pod of edamame, but didn’t bring it near her mouth. Steph showed no such hesitation, devouring two wontons and a California roll in seconds.
They enjoyed the sushi in silence — or, more accurately, Steph enjoyed the sushi, and Maddie stared at the door, trying to settle in the space.
“Anything happen yet?” she asked, when Steph had put down the box of wontons and started licking crumbs off her fingertips.
“Mm. Nope,” said Steph, savoring every last taste. “Think it’s almost time, though.” She brushed her hand off on her jeans and checked her phone. Sure enough, her next alarm was coming in one minute.
Steph vaulted to her feet and stepped onto the carbon plate, one hand on the brass doorknob. The seconds to the hour ticked down, each one stretching longer than the last. Steph’s thumb hovered over the button on her phone that would activate the cameras’ recording buffer in case something did happen — a custom app she’d been required to download as part of the job “training”.
Her hand felt suddenly clammy, as though the doorknob was sweating, or maybe she was. Maddie remained utterly silent as they waited for the chime. Both of them held their breath. There was some tingle of electricity in the air, some unusual atmosphere that made the hair on the back of Steph’s neck stand up. Was this the time? Was today the day that whatever they’d been waiting for on the other side of the door would reveal itself?
Fifty-two. Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
Steph adjusted her grip on the doorknob, flexing her fingers.
Fifty-five. Fifty-six. Fifty-seven.
Maddie raised her arm in an involuntary defensive gesture, as if to shield her eyes from a sudden light.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine.
A single bead of sweat fell from Steph’s forehead onto the carbon plate with a soft plink.
Four o’clock.
Steph twisted the handle and pulled with all her might, nearly knocking herself over off the plate —
The door swung open with a gentle creak, revealing absolutely nothing, as usual. Eyes wide, Steph drew the door fully closed — click! — and opened it again, just to be sure.
Sure enough, there was still nothing.
With an apathetic shrug, Steph shut the door again, stepped down from the plate, and flopped back onto the couch, catapulting an empty takeout box off the cushions.
“What do you think it’s supposed to do?” asked Maddie, head turned toward Steph, eyes on the door.
“I have less than no clue,” said Steph. “Which is insanely frustrating, because, like, I know I shouldn’t care, and I don’t, really, but dammit, I want to know!”
Maddie nodded, considering the possibilities and picking apart an empty edamame shell. When she didn’t say anything more, Steph tucked her hands behind her head and sank down into the cushions, stretching her legs as far as she could reach without sliding off.
”I’m pretty sure I could clock in without even coming to the building, and Prof would never know,” mumbled Steph.
Maddie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, unwilling to express her disagreement. She found their professor somewhat more intimidating. Like he thought of his students as experiments. Specimens in waiting.
But she recovered quickly enough, and piled all the trash into the takeout bag. “Hey, Steph, I, um, I just remembered, I offered to pick up a coworker’s shift, so I’d better —”
“You’re leaving?” said Steph, sitting up. “You just got here!”
“Yeah, it’s, um, I just forgot, and I do need the money, so...” Maddie shrugged, half in apology, half out of nervousness, and made for the front door. Steph’s head spun, owl-like, as she strode away.
“You’re just gonna let me sit here alone for another three hours?” she asked. “Alright, well...I mean, thanks for the sushi. I’ll hit you back next week.”
“Oh, don’t even worry about it. My treat. I wasn’t even hungry, anyway,” said Maddie. She fumbled with her keys, trying to find a hand to open the door. “I’ll, um, I’ll see you at the Double Tap tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, you got it,” said Steph. “See you tomorrow.”
Maddie finally managed to slip out into the hallway. She shut the apartment door behind her and leaned up against it, trying to control her breathing. She told herself she wasn’t actually having a panic attack, just some mild discomfort. She wasn’t sure if she believed it. Maddie liked hanging out with Steph, but she hated being in that room. Something about that door looming over her made her feel like she was a lab rat, lost in a maze. Usually, she could stomach it for at least an hour or two. But today, something had set her off.
She didn’t know, couldn’t know what it was. But a faraway voice deep in the back of Maddie’s head told her that there was something ominous about that door. And she didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it came to pass.
