The Tunnel Door

By DaVonne R. Armstrong

The air in Sullivan University Library was stagnant. The thin layer of dust that hung suspended in the atmosphere was disturbed only by the occasional shift of a student making their way to the loo or, if they were lucky, leaving for the night. The simple sign on the doors of the building warned students to study at their own risk, air conditioning broken. On the second floor of the four-story building, the graduate seminar hall was packed to the hilt with students. Each one encased in glass study rooms, wrapped in floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Minimalistic and modern is what the University Bulletin called it: The only thing old world about it was the cherry wood study carrels littered along the perimeter of the space. Singles. Outfitted with shelving, personal lights, and modern office chairs with lumbar support. All of them occupied, some by two or more students. Every one of them pushing their brain's edge, testing their capacity to memorize figures and forms. Anatomical models and building schematics. It felt like the heat was rising with each thought. 

Carey Wilhelm couldn’t read another word. He had already taken several mental health breaks, scrolling through social media. Checking out the feeds of his roommates. Nearly done with their exams, they were hanging out at Good Dog in Center City, sending him wish you were here photos and nonchalant selfies with his crush in the background. 

“She’s here, dude! You should just leave.” One text said. “That paper will be waiting for you tomorrow. Still unfinished and still poorly written.” 

Carey smirked slightly at the loving dig on his writing. They all knew he was the best writer. The psychology major with an English literature background. He was not modest about it, and no one expected him to be. All the same, he knew he needed to stick to his plan. Put his head down, push out ten more pages of this dissertation, then he would be home free. But first, snacks. 

“The damn thing keeps going in and out. I don’t know what to do about it.” An older gentleman was waving his hands in exasperation as he relayed this news to a younger, taller, lean woman. Her hands crossed along her lavender silk button-up, ticked into her slate grey pencil skirt. Her hair pinned on one side accentuated the earrings cascading down her left ear. Her short, textured curly locs framed her round face, adding drama to her sharp gaze and brown skin. 

“The students can’t study like this, Stan. You have to do something about it.” She raised an arm to gesture toward the students. Carey caught her eyes as he passed by them. She paused to watch him go, his athletic frame shifting from side to side in a rhythmic cadence. He towered over the other students as he passed through the doorway out of sight. Returning her hands to her hips, she looked at Stan with an expression of defeat. 

“I’ll make a call to O’Reily HVAC and see what we can do.” 

“Thank you! The students thank you.” Her gaze found Casey again as he turned the corner toward the library vending machines. A vision shifted into her sight and out again almost instantly. She took a deep breath, squinted, and turned to head back to her office. There was nothing she could do. He was halfway there, and the room was summoning him. She just hoped he had the good sense not to open the door. 

Casey rubbed his right palm across his face, squeezing it tight as he held his breath. The light in the vending room was harsh. Fluorescent but the kind you see in old community center bathrooms. His eyelids shadowed his emerald eyes, barely open, as he punched the numbers on the machine keypad.  It works if you work it.  He couldn’t help but remember the phrase. The lights took him back to his last meeting. Involuntary grins and gratuitous head nods as his fellow group mates congratulated him on 180 days sober. None of his friends could ever imagine him drinking, let alone believe he was in a twelve-step mentorship. 

Grant me the strength. He thought. The strength not to go ape shit on this slow-ass coffee machine. Tasty cake in hand, all he needed was that bitter dark elixir to get him through the next ten pages. 

BOOM!

He turned his head slowly in the direction of the sound. Nothing but dead air. Maybe the outline of heat rising from the floor. Eighty degrees outside. Eight-five inside. One of the hottest days in Philadelphia this fall. At first glance, it looked like the decal of the Sullivan Snake was sweating off the wall. The school's mascot decked out in a forest green, black, and white basketball jersey, the number zero on his check, muscle-toned arms and legs, snarling at whoever would look. It always bothered Casey that they called the mascot a snake when it could very simply be a lizard. He rolled his eyes and stared weary at the slow stream of coffee. 

Boom! Creek!

This time, he arched his neck to look further. There was a corner out of sight. He walked over slowly, making sure to keep an eye on his coffee. These PhDs were not above swiping someone else's coffee. Turning his head back toward the dim corner, he noticed a shining silver circle about midway down the wall. It looked like a door handle. Yet, there was no door he could he could see. He rubbed his hand on the wall in the shape of a vertical rectangle. No seams. No hinges. Just the wall and a door nob sticking out of it. 

Strange. He thought. As he turned to return to the vending area, he heard the creek again. And a slight cool breeze washed over his sweat-moistened neck. He paused. Chills ran along his spine. He put his hand to the back of his neck. Slowly, he turned around and confirmed what his skin experienced. An opening in the wall that was not there previously. A doorway, ajar where the handle was sitting. Plain as day, as if it had been there the whole time. 

Casey glanced back at the vending machine as he contemplated whether to investigate the mysterious door. His friends always teased him about this exact moment. 

“You know damn well if you were presented with the opportunity to follow the mysterious noise through the dark and damp tunnel to discover something weird, you would take it. Don’t even play.” 

“That’s prejudice, dude. Why you say that because I’m white?” Casey replied with a teasing smirk. 

“Have you ever seen a brotha walking toward a random ass, dark and spooky anything? NO!” Jeremy exclaimed with animation.  “And I have already seen you do this once, last Halloween during that fucked up hayride. So there’s a precedent.” 

Casey cursed lightly as he walked toward the entryway. The air was cooler and dry between its frames. The breeze was moving inward toward the library, suggesting an exit on the other side. The light on his cell phone only barely lit the ten inches in front of his face. The darkness was thick almost oily, and felt textured. Nothing hung from the ceiling, and there was nothing on the floor. The tiles were old but pristine. He had no idea how old, but he knew they were not modern like the rest of the building.

“Hello!” He shouted into the black. All he heard was his voice echoing back. Instantly, the door slammed shut behind him as if the force of his echo closed and sealed it. “Shit!” He exasperated. He quickly looks down at his cell to switch on the phone app to call the front desk.

“Fuck! No bars!” He pushed with all his strength against the wall, hoping to force it open. Not a budge. He continued forward. That was his only option. He prayed he was right about the breeze and that a door to the college green was on the other side. 

A few short steps forward, he noticed a brownish-golden light billowing ahead of him. Slowly, the shape of an arch appeared. Though he stood still, the light grew. Spreading out in all directions. He proceeded cautiously, careful to keep his weight on his back left leg in the event that he needed to swing to defend himself. As he approaches the arch, the space beyond it begins to expand into a room. He squints. Though the light is dim, by anyone’s account, to him, after shuffling through the deep dark of the tunnel, it was nearly blinding. The room opened up to reveal shelves upon shelves of books. Floor-to-ceiling cases housing thick, leather-bound tomes. 

He takes a deep breath. It’s not the college green, but maybe there's a way out in one of these corners. Maybe another doorway will magically appear and drop him back into the graduate study where he belongs. He puts his phone back in his pocket and begins to trot to each corner. Peering between the seams of each bookcase. Nothing. Each sharp edge of the space is sealed tight. No windows. No other rooms, nothing. 

He takes a seat at the long table in front of him to catch his breath and think. Books opened to various pages occupy its surface. There are some stacked next to opened journals with pens and pencils strewn about. There is even a coffee mug with the words The world's okayest librarian printed on the side. 

“What the fuck is going on?” He decides to walk back through the tunnel to where he started, but as he makes his way down the darkness, his cell phone set to flashlight, he finds himself back in the room. It’s as if he was somehow rotated and directed back into the space. He tries three more times with the same result.

“You’ve got to be kidding me?!” He yells to the ceiling. He pauses to catch his breath. Wood planks are arranged like wainscoting above him, creating perfect four-by-four squares with intricately painted scenes. Some had knights fighting dragons on horseback. Others were of naked women bathing in a natural pool. One woman, dressed in a red habit, holds her rosary in her hand as she looks at the other women swimming. Another that caught his eye and held it for longer than a moment showed a woman who looked like someone he’d seen before. A tall, lean woman with brown skin and intense eyes, dressed in a hooded cape, holding a book against her chest with one arm, her other arm bent at the elbow, in her palm a gold sphere with light streaming out of its seams. 

“Where the fuck am I?” His eyes traveled down from the ceiling and onto a bookcase, where he fixated on a book spine inlay with gold and black. He narrowed his eyes to sharpen his sight. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Slowly, he approached the case, murmuring to himself, Don’t touch the book. Hands-on his waist, he leans in to get a better look at the words on the spine, his jaw falls open right before his breath catches in his chest. He took half a step back. He pressed back toward the bookcase to confirm what he was seeing. He whispered aloud the title of the book: The Initiation of Casey Wilhelm. He reaches out for the book, pausing cautiously only for a moment before pulling it from its resting place. 

On the front, the same words are present. He opens the cover slowly; its dark green leather is still crisp and sleek. The binding has never been moved, and the pages smell of new paper. As he turns the first leaflet, the book begins to vibrate in his hands. His first reaction is to drop the book, but he cannot. The weight of it is bearing down on his palms. Moving his arms becomes impossible. The wind begins to rush about him. He realizes he cannot move his body. Stuck on the floor, he begins to panic and moan. Light begins to pour from the pages of the book. Eyes wide with terror and sweat rolling down his temples, Casey lets out a gut-wrenching wail before disappearing from the room. The book he held in his hands drops to the floor where he stood.  

She had only arrived moments before he leaned in to look closer at the words on the book’s spine. She stood over the book, hands on her hips, breathing deep and chewing gently on her bottom lip. She lets out a deep sigh and lets her head fall heavy toward her back, the tip of her nose toward the ceiling. Her gaze falls upon the image of herself only inches from the scene of her coven mates bathing in the warm forest water.

“It’s been 150 years since this room has selected anyone for initiation. Had to be when I was high priestess, didn’t it?” She spoke to no one in particular, but she knew they heard her. They always heard her. 

She places the book back on the shelf and pauses in reverence to this auspicious threshold. 

“Best of luck to you, Casey Wilhelm. May the Goddess's favor be forever with you.”