The Latchkey – Part I
You ever notice how your front door sometimes… moves on its own? Like you’re certain you shut it tight, but when you pass by again it’s cracked open just an inch? “Rusted hinges,” you say. “It might be a ghost,” your visitors joke. But there are those who know better.
They say there’s something called the Latchkey.
The Latchkey doesn’t kick doors down, or smash windows or scream. It doesn’t need to. It just waits until you’re alone—until the house is silent enough that you notice every creak. Then you’ll hear it: the slow turn of a lock. The faint rattle of keys that don’t belong to you.
If you go looking right away, you’ll find nothing. A shadow at the edge of the hall, maybe. A door you know you closed now ajar. That’s how it starts. No crashing into your life for the Latchkey—it moves in quietly.
People describe it as a small figure, child-sized but stiff, with a porcelain mask for a face. Painted-on: a tiny smile. The kind of smile that never changes, even when the mask cracks. Behind the mask, if you’re unlucky enough to look closely, there’s something glowing inside. Like a candle flickering in a skull.
The hands are the worst. Long, flat, twitching fingers. They leave black smudges on doors and walls. And if you wake up and see those prints around your bedroom door, don’t open it. Just… don’t.
Because when you let the Latchkey in, it never leaves.
That’s the trick. The Latchkey doesn’t want to steal you. It wants your home. It wants to settle into the cracks, to sit in your chair and to wander the hall while you’re asleep. It wants you to notice it less and less until the Latchkey is the one that belongs there, and you’re just a guest.
People who live with the Latchkey don’t last long. A neighbour will notice how the curtains never open anymore. Or how the lights are always on, day and night. When the police finally go inside, they’ll find the body—sitting upright, smiling wide. The door bolted from the inside.
Like the house swallowed them whole.
So next time you’re home alone and hear your lock turning… don’t just laugh it off. Check the door. Check it quickly.
Check it now.
And if it’s open, even just an inch — don’t look through the crack.
Because by then, it’s already inside.
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