She shouldn’t be doing this. Bright Life consultants haven’t done door-to-door sales since the early 2010s. Social media has made building a network so much easier than it was when Michelle’s mother started selling in the 90s. The company advises against door-to-door sales. It isn’t safe. Especially for a thirty-three-year-old woman with no family at home to know she didn’t come back. But what choice does she have?
If she doesn’t meet her quota for the month, she could lose everything. She’s maxed out on her credit cards and her mortgage and car loans are behind. She can’t move back in with her mother. That would be admitting she failed, and she isn’t ready to do that.
She glances around her. The house is in disrepair. Paint is peeling from the once yellow, now grayish brown cedar siding. It’s a cape cod style, like her own house down the street, but looks as if it hasn’t been tended to since the neighborhood was built in the 50s. The concrete porch has chunks chipped out and filled with water from last night’s rainstorm. Wooden pillars holding up the porch roof look like one good wind would take them out.
The yard behind her is overgrown, with a path worn from the street to the door, left by the mailman on his daily rounds. A small garden between the porch and the garage is so full of weeds, Michelle can’t tell what’s supposed to be planted there and what needs pulled up.
She takes a deep breath. It’s the last house on the street. Her last chance to make a sale before the deadline tomorrow. She’ll offer to clean up their yard, paint their house, do whatever she has to do to get them to purchase something, anything from them. She doesn’t let herself think about the fact that it doesn’t matter if they buy something. The foreclosure notice was on her door this morning. It will take a miracle to dig herself out of the hold she’s in, and miracles don’t come from run down 1950s cape cod houses and their anti-social owners.
Before she can convince herself to turn around, go home, and apply to every job available, she lifts her fist, knocking three times. At first, she thinks no one is home. Fifteen seconds go by and the house is silent. Thirty. Then the door flies open. She jumps and gasps despite herself.
Michelle expected an elderly couple. The records on-line told her the house hadn’t changed hands since its original purchase in 1954. A newlywed couple in their early twenties then would be in their nineties now, yet the woman before her looked no older than her sixties.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Margaret Ryan,” Michelle says. This must be her daughter.
“That’s me,” the woman says.
“Oh,” Michelle tries to hide her shock. “My name is Michelle Grant. I work for Bright Life and would like to offer you the opportunity for a free facial for a bit of your time today.”
“That’s sounds lovely! Come on in dear.” Mrs. Ryan steps to the side, pulling the door wide enough for Michelle to step through.
Stepping into the home feels like stepping into a time capsule. The carpet is plush and fresh, as if it had been placed the day before. The wallpaper lining the living room walls reminds her of her grandmother’s living room. A brown paisley couch faces a large box television. The far wall houses a curio cabinet filled with pictures and knickknacks. The kind that would take ages to dust and so no-one buys anymore because who has time for that?
Michelle turns around and just sees the outside street and overgrown lawn before Mrs. Ryan closes the door. Mrs. Ryan herself is dressed in a beige skirt that falls just below her knees. Her cream-colored button up blouse is covered with a beige wool cardigan matching the skirt. The blouse and skirt have nary a wrinkle, suggesting a recent ironing. Her dark brown hair is curled in the Marylin Monroe style and Michelle makes a mental note to ask how she keeps the fly aways tamed.
“Have a seat on the couch, dear. I’ll get us some refreshments.” Michelle does as she’s told as Mrs. Ryan disappears around the corner. She can hear glass clinking and water being poured from the sink faucet. She can’t believe her luck, and uses the time to set up her supplies on the coffee table in front of her.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Ryan returns with a tray of tea and cookies. Michelle makes enough room on the table for the tray while Mrs. Ryan sits on the plush recliner opposite Michelle. “My, look at all of these goodies.”
Michelle smiles, all fear of the house and her ill advised sales strategy gone. They probably keep the house unkempt on the outside to deter burglars, she tells herself. Mrs. Ryan smiles, picking up her tea, and Michelle launches into her sales pitch. It’s a long one, she admits, but she finds it necessary to explain the importance of a proper skin care regimen and how every product works.
“This is all lovely,” Mrs. Ryan says when Michelle has finished her lecture. She nods at the tea. “Have a drink. You must be parched from walking all day.”
Michelle hesitates. How did she know she had been walking? She blinks. She likely saw her out the window. Isn’t that what older people do? Watch their neighbors. She picks up the tea. It’s a dark brown color with a sweet, yet minty scent. She doesn’t recognize it, but she’s more of a coffee drinker, anyway.
If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that, while Mrs. Ryan held her tea through the entire pitch, she didn’t take a drink. She would have seen this as a sign. If she had looked around more thoroughly, she would have realized that, though the room is has a television and electric lights, the only light came through the windows.
She doesn’t notice any of these things, and so, trusting her newly acquainted neighbor, she takes a large sip of her tea. A smile lights up Mrs. Ryan’s face. The last thing she remembers is Mrs. Ryan grabbing the cup as Michelle’s body slumps into the couch.
When Michelle wakes up, she isn’t sure where she is. The room is dark, and the floor is hard beneath her back. It takes a few minutes for her eyes to adjust. The walls are made of gray cinder blocks. There are no windows, the only light coming from the barred opening in the door. A small metal drain is in the corner of the room.
Footsteps approach, creaking and getting louder at every step. Stairs. Is she in a basement? She remembers the events of the morning. The rundown outside of the house, yet the immaculately kept, if dated, interior. The woman had been so kind, offering tea and cookies.
As the footsteps grow closer, Michelle tries to sit up, but is pushed back down by a pounding headache. The tea. Whatever Mrs. Ryan had put in the tea had worked fast. She should have followed the rules. Should have heeded the warnings of women before her. Knocking on doors is how women get killed.
Mrs. Ryan’s face appears behind the bars in the door, smiling just the same as she was when she opened the front door. When she gave Michelle the tea. Michelle thought it was a friendly smile. An old woman who was happy to meet a neighbor. She realizes now it’s the smile of a predator sizing up her prey.
“Why are you doing this?” It’s a stupid question victims always ask in crime shows, yet Michelle can’t help but hope for an explanation before she dies. Not that it would do her any good.
As expected, Mrs. Ryan doesn’t explain. Instead, she holds up a small box Michelle recognizes as one of her supplements.
“I tried your little potion,” Mrs. Ryan says. “It was tasty, but it will not keep you young.”
“I don’t,” Michelle stammers.
“If you want to stay young, you have to be willing to make sacrifices. Youth for youth, beauty for beauty. It’s an ugly task. I just wish I had discovered it before the wrinkles had settled.”
The sound of a switch flipping is followed by the blinding light of a florescent bulb above Michelle’s head. Her vision goes spotty as he adjusts to the change. When it clears, she lets out a scream.
The walls of her cell are covered in symbols painted in red. Michelle hopes its paint, but her gut tells her it’s something else. The edges of the room are littered with bones, pushed aside to keep the large circle clear of debris.
Michelle lay in the middle of the circle. Her headache is forgotten as she lets out scream after scream. A hiss in the corner of the room draws her attention. Smoke floats out of the drain.
“Don’t worry dear, you won’t feel a thing.” The smile doesn’t leave Mrs. Ryan’s face.
She snaps a small cap over the bars and shuts off the overhead light. Michelle is plunged back into darkness as the room fills with smoke. She can’t smell or taste anything, but can feel her lungs filling with a heavy gas.
Desperate, she feels around herself, trying to find a pocket without the smoke. Her hand closes on a long, cold, hollow object, gripping it as she fights for consciousness. She throws it at the door, a last act of defiance at no one, not even Michelle, can see. Finally, her head hits the floor.
Once the smoke has had time to clear the cell, Margaret Ryan opens the door. It’s been harder and harder to find decent sacrifices in the recent couple of decades. The healthy ones are too cautious to knock on a stranger’s door. The more reckless ones have filled their bodies with junk.
She looks down at Michelle. This one will do.
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Alicia Coast 