The Unassuming Door

There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

It was a rule that she had struggled with as a child, always curious about what she couldn’t see. In recent years, though, Zoe had come to understand it. Everyone deserves their secrets, and so did her mother, Helena.

Until now, I guess, thought Zoe. It’d been five months since Helena’s funeral, and Zoe had barely stepped foot into the aging two-story, full of memories. Her father was gone years ago, so Zoe was alone in this intense undertaking. She couldn’t outrun her emotions much longer, so here she was standing stock still searching for an excuse not to go in. None came.

Pacing the hallway in front of the unassuming door, Zoe felt like a trespasser when she eventually entered the infamous room. Streams of sunlight peeked through the ancient curtains, but they couldn’t save Zoe from the overwhelming sight that lay at the edge of her now blurring vision.

Breaths regulating and heartbeat slowing, Zoe takes in hundreds of newspaper clippings on the walls, all centered around one, disturbing topic: Whispering Wilson, a sadistic serial killer, who tormented his victims by whispering grisly tales through the phone in the days before their murders.

Her mother’s obsession led Zoe to two possible explanations: either her father was a victim of Whispering Wilson, or he was the psychotic serial killer.

After days of searching the room, the truth finally revealed itself to Zoe in the form of a heavily-worn journal.

Zoe recognizes what she has come to know as her father’s scrawling handwriting as she reads the title page: My Days as Whispering Wilson.

Confusion, denial, and horror sweep over Zoe, though, as she reads and rereads each journal entry.

Every gruesome account ends the same way:

Whisperings and wanderings,

Helena