He touched the doorknob.
My God! he thought
For the door, unlocked, was drifting quietly open.
The house and the dark hall lay empty and waiting.
He pushed. The door drifted further in, with the merest sigh of its hinges.
The same night that had hung there like funeral-parlor curtains, still filled the coffin-narrow hall. It smelled with rains from other years, and was filled with twilights that had come to visit and never gone away....
He stepped in.
Instantly, outside, rain fell. The downpour shut off the world. The downpour drenched the porch floorboards and drowned his breathing.
He took another step into complete night.
No light burned at the far end of the hall, three steps up—
Yes! That had been the problem!
To save money, the damned bulb was never left burning!
In order to scare the Thing off, you had to run, leap up, grab the chain and yank the light on!
So, blind and battering walls, you jumped. But could never find the chain!
Don’t look up! you thought. If you see It, and it sees You! No. No!
But then your head jerked. You looked. You screamed!
For the dark Thing was lurching out on the air to slam flat down like a tomb lid on your scream!
“Anyone home...?” he called, softly.
A damp wind blew from above. A smell of cellar earths and attic dusts touched his cheeks.
“Ready or not,” he whispered. “Here I come.”
Behind him, slowly, softly, the front door drifted, hushed, and slid itself shut.
He froze. Then he forced himself to take another step and another.
And, Christ! it seemed he felt himself... shrinking. Melting an inch at a time, sinking into smallness, even as the flesh on his face diminished, and his suit and shoes became too large
What am I doing here? he thought. What do I need?
Answers. Yes. That was it. Answers.
His right shoe touched....
The bottom of the stairs.
He gasped. His foot jerked back. Then, slowly, he forced it to touch the step again.
Easy. Just don’t look up, he thought.
Fool! he thought, that’s why you’re here. The stairs. And the top of the stairs. That’s it!