Behind Doors | Teen Ink

Behind Doors

September 21, 2016
By KWolfgang BRONZE, Colorado Springs, Colorado
KWolfgang BRONZE, Colorado Springs, Colorado
1 article 0 photos 2 comments

Paul Kelsey is a good man. Everything He does is what he truly believes is right. Charlie Von Cramer, the guy he lives with, is the opposite. Paul can't get rid of Charlie until he makes an amazing dicovery about himself.

Chapter 1: Charles

The doors closed. I heard the night guard lock them. My heart sunk with those sounds. It was so dark that I could’ve sworn I had gone blind. After panicking and beginning to shut down, I heard him.
“Locked up like a prison-b****, are ya?” He asked. It was Charles Von Cramer, the guy who lived with me.
“You are too,” I said. After that I told him to just shut up, and that there’s nothing we can do but wait till the morning and explain that we had been left in the store. Right?
“You can’t just lolly-gag your way out of things, Paulie! You done screwed up!” Charles sounded angry. He was always angry. “I once killed a man by strangling him with his own tie, but I did my time.”
He was right. Although I hadn’t intended on being locked up in a super center, it was exhilarating. Before closing, part of me wanted to hide until I was the last one left in the store, while the other knew that I shouldn’t have. It felt all so wrong, to be there. I was a good man. I went to church every Sunday (I followed everything that the good book told me, of course). I helped old Ms. Millie Coughman get her mail. I showed up to work early every day and did my job as good as a beaver building in a dam. It wasn’t like me to sneak around like I was then. Not one bit.
“I know you, Charlie. You’re only tryin’ to scare me.” I said. Charlie laughed like a demon. He was mocking me like he always did. Sometimes it hurt, but this time I wanted to hurt him. I could never intentionally harm another human being, but Charlie made my stomach churn and my face get hot.
“You know we both are goan to jail, right?” He said. I kept my head up, and swallowed my anger.
Suddenly I felt Charlie pulling on my arms and bringing me somewhere in the building. I didn’t resist, there was no use. What Charlie wanted was to bring me along to some place, and that’s what would happen. Charlie always got what he wanted. No use arguing.
When I asked where we were going, he told me to be quiet and wait. I sighed, and did as he commanded.
When we stopped running, Charlie lifted a flashlight and shined it at something I couldn’t quite make out at first (being in the dark for a while had impaired my vision quite a lot). When my eyes focused on the object of interest, I gasped. I felt utterly disgusted. It was astounding how Charlie was playfully chuckling like a child running through sprinklers. It was all fun and games to him. I looked down to see a puddle of blood running down toward my shoes. Charlie didn’t shine at the body’s face, only at the suit the man was wearing.
“How on God’s Earth could you do this?” I yelled at him. I knew he had talked of killing people before, and I hadn’t paid much attention to it. Seeing what he had done—seeing the body that was once a person with a family, a job… A life…
“Don’t act surprised, you horse’s ass.” Charlie told me calmer than ever. I had nothing to say to that. My jaw just hung open.
“Pick it up.” He said abruptly.
“Are you kidding me?”
“You’re going to help me hide it. We can’t leave until we know no one will find it.” Still eerily calm.
I only looked at him.
He got real close up in my face: “Do I need to waste you too?”
  Charlie picked up the body and I followed him. I couldn’t remember where we hid it. I knew I helped him find a hiding place for the body, but I swear on the good Lord that I didn’t touch it. I couldn’t have my fingerprints left behind.
It was a week or two later. Charlie had been missing. I hadn’t seen him in days. I was lying on my couch, after a long day at work. It wasn’t the best of days. The image of the puddling blood wouldn’t leave my mind. I felt like I could’ve stopped Charlie. I could have called the cops, gotten him in jail, and forgotten about his bad aura. Interrupting my train of thought, was the doorbell. Who could it have been? Family was out of state, I had no friends around. The only person I could think of was Charlie. I was about to give him hell.
When I opened the door I saw several men in blue uniforms and I began to feel lightheaded. The man in front said something that I was barely able to hear due to the adrenaline coursing through my veins: “Paul Kelsey, you are under arrest for the murder of—” and I blacked out. Charlie would be coming back soon. Oh, these poor, poor police men. When he did come back, I was already halfway to the holding facility. I was trapped in my own body when Charlie took over. He screamed and spat and hit the car from the inside. I begged him to stop but all I heard was, Locked up like a prison-b****, are ya? in his laughing, mocking voice.


The author's comments:

I've written novels and other short stories, but this is less than a page and I wanted to test myself to be able to put a story into one page.


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This article has 4 comments.


on Sep. 26 2016 at 12:56 pm
KWolfgang BRONZE, Colorado Springs, Colorado
1 article 0 photos 2 comments
Thanks! Hopefully you understood the plot twist at the end, I didn't make it to be apparent. Paul Kelsey is actually a schizophrenic. Charlie is just in his mind. :)

on Sep. 26 2016 at 12:54 pm
KWolfgang BRONZE, Colorado Springs, Colorado
1 article 0 photos 2 comments
Thanks, much appreciated!

on Sep. 25 2016 at 12:13 pm
alexanha SILVER, Colorado Springs, Colorado
8 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion... But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." - Robin Williams, Dead Poet's Society

Awesome story. Also, you live in a pretty cool city.

on Sep. 24 2016 at 6:56 pm
NimWallace PLATINUM, North Smithfield, Rhode Island
38 articles 0 photos 41 comments

Favorite Quote:
A writer is a world trapped inside a person

I really like this, I like the plot and the idea, and I find Charlie's character really interesting. Keep going! :)