Empty Rooms and Locked Doors

"Some doors should never be opened — not because you won't find what you're looking for, but because you absolutely will."

Enough light to navigate by was coming through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall to my left — that large sliding door I'd observed from outside, through which I'd witnessed the impossible flash of light through half-drawn Venetian blinds.

From my position in the doorway, I had a clear view of the entire room in front of me. The moonlight streaming through the glass illuminated the space with surprising clarity, rendering everything in shades of silver and shadow, turning the ordinary into something theatrical and strange.

The downstairs area was a large, single room — open plan, probably meant to serve as a second living space or an entertainment room.

And it was completely empty.

No couch positioned to face where a television might be. No chairs or shelves or decorative elements. Nothing. The space was stripped of furniture, of personal effects, of any indication that someone actually lived here rather than just occasionally occupied the structure.

And most critically: there was no man.

The emptiness should have been reassuring — fewer places for someone to hide, fewer obstacles to navigate, clear sightlines that made surprise impossible. But instead it felt ominous, like a stage set waiting for actors, like a space deliberately cleared for purposes I couldn't begin to guess at.

It appeared the only exit was through the glass sliding door through which I'd seen the technicolour lights earlier that evening. The door seemed closed from where I stood.

The realisation that I was alone in a bloodstained, empty room sent chills down my spine. Every detective instinct screamed that something was very wrong with this picture, that the evidence didn't align with any coherent narrative I could construct.

Where had the man gone? Could he have left through the sliding door?

If the door was unlocked — or if he'd unlocked it before leaving — he could have exited into the backyard and disappeared into the surrounding bush before I'd even made it inside the house.

But that didn't explain the blood. Didn't explain how someone bleeding enough to saturate carpet could have walked away, could have had the presence of mind and physical capability to open a door and escape into the night.

Unless Karl had helped him. Unless they'd worked together somehow, the violence upstairs being something other than what I'd assumed.

No. That doesn't make sense either.

My head was spinning, trying to construct scenarios that fit the available evidence, coming up with theories that immediately collapsed under the weight of their own implausibility.

Turning my attention back to the large sliding door with renewed focus, I attempted to push aside the spiralling confusion and concentrate on immediate, practical concerns. The door represented both a potential exit route for whoever I'd seen and a possible escape route for myself, should I need it.

I walked over to the door with steps that tried for confidence but probably broadcast uncertainty. My boots left sticky impressions in the carpet where blood had soaked through, creating an evidence trail that I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to properly worry about.

The glass was cold when my fingers touched it, that particular chill of night air that had cooled the surface over hours of darkness. Through the transparent barrier I could see the backyard — trimmed grass rendered colourless by moonlight, the dark mass of the fence, the deeper shadows of trees beyond.

Reaching for the door handle I gave a heavy tug, fully expecting it to slide open smoothly and admit the cool night air.

The door didn't move.

I pulled harder, adjusting my grip, putting my weight into it. The door remained firmly closed.

My heart sank as my hand slid helplessly from the door handle, comprehension dawning with horrible clarity.

It's locked from the inside.

The implications hit with force that made my knees weak. If the door was locked from the inside — if whoever had been in this room couldn't have exited through this apparent escape route — then there were only two possibilities.

Either I'd been wrong about someone being here at all, my brain conjuring figures that didn't exist.

Or he was still in the house with me.

The thought sent ice through my veins, made my hands start trembling again, made the room feel suddenly smaller and more dangerous despite its empty expanse.

But where?

I was certain — as certain as my unreliable observations allowed — that I'd been thorough when checking every room upstairs. Had looked in bathrooms and bedrooms and closets. Had found nothing except a possum and empty spaces.

Doubt crept in, insidious and undermining. Had I missed something? Was there a hiding place I hadn't seen?

Memory played back in fragments: the master bedroom with its minimal furniture, the unfurnished bedroom, the bathroom with its few contents?

You weren't thorough enough, the internal voice accused. You were scared and exhausted and you wanted to get out, so you didn't search properly. And now he's still here. Somewhere.

My mind raced as I considered options, as I tried to calculate the best course of action from a position of profound disadvantage. The locked door meant that whoever I was looking for — whoever had bled on this carpet, whoever Karl had confronted — might still be lurking somewhere within the house.

The thought of being trapped inside with a potential threat was terrifying, made worse by my lack of weapon, my injuries, my exhaustion, my general state of being utterly unprepared for confrontation of any kind.

Looking around fearfully, my head swinging from side to side in a frantic search for any signs of danger, I suddenly spotted something that made my breath catch in my throat.

There, in the far corner of the room — almost lost in the shadows where moonlight didn't quite reach — was a door.

How had I missed it?

The door appeared to be a standard door, positioned in a way that suggested it led to another room beneath the stairs.

My mind began to race again. My gut instinct screamed at me to run, to get out of the house immediately, to flee back through that broken window and keep running until I reached somewhere safe and well-lit and far from whatever waited behind that door.

Yet my curiosity — that relentless, sometimes self-destructive drive that made me a detective in the first place — instructed my trembling legs to walk toward the door. To investigate. To know, even if knowing brought consequences I didn't want.

What secrets did it hold? Was the unknown man hiding there?

The questions pulled at me with force stronger than fear, stronger than exhaustion, stronger than any rational consideration of self-preservation.

The silver door handle gleamed in the moonlight that streamed through the glass wall. It was just a simple lever mechanism, ordinary and unremarkable, the kind of handle you'd find on a thousand doors throughout Hobart.

But in this moment, with everything that had happened, it seemed to call to me. To beckon. To promise answers even while threatening consequences.

Just open it, something whispered in my mind. Just touch it. Open it and know.

With every fibre of my being on high alert — pulse racing, muscles tensed, breath coming too fast — I slowly reached for the handle. It felt cold and unwelcoming as I wrapped my fingers lightly around it, metal chilled by the night air that had seeped into the house.

Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves — an attempt that failed spectacularly, my inhalation shaky and inadequate — I prepared myself for whatever lay behind the door.

This is it, I thought with strange clarity. This is the moment everything either makes sense or falls completely apart.

With a single, swift movement — before I could second-guess the decision, before fear could paralyse me completely — I threw the door open.

My scream tore through the silent room as the man launched himself at me.

Or appeared to launch himself — perspective and panic making it impossible to accurately assess what was actually happening. In that split second of pure terror, the world reduced to pure reaction: threat incoming, body moving backwards, rational thought completely overridden by survival instinct.

I stumbled backwards, feet tangling with each other in fear, and sent myself crashing down onto the carpet with a hard thump that drove the air from my lungs. Pain exploded through my already abused body — knee screaming, hand throbbing, head spinning from the impact.

Panic surged through me with overwhelming force. I pressed my hands firmly into the soft, grey carpet, fingers digging into fibres, and scrambled backwards until my back found the wall behind me. The solid surface stopped my retreat, trapped me, left me with nowhere else to go.

My breath came in ragged gasps, heart hammering so violently I thought I might actually die from cardiac arrest brought on by sheer terror. If anything else surprised me tonight — if there was one more shock, one more impossible thing — blood might literally start to squirt from my eyeballs from sheer accumulated stress.

The thought was absurd and hysterical but felt entirely plausible in the moment.

The man, however, didn't follow.

Didn't lunge after me. Didn't attack. Didn't move at all.

I stared at the tall, built figure that lay half inside the space beneath the stairs, his upper body sprawled out onto the carpet, staring up at me blankly. His position was awkward, unnatural — torso extended forward whilst his legs remained in the darkened space, creating angles that living bodies didn't achieve voluntarily.

He didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe.

The realisation came gradually, horror building in layers as my panicked brain caught up with what my eyes were seeing.

He's dead.

Not injured. Not unconscious. Dead.

A wave of unexpected emotion washed over me — grief and shock and horrible understanding all tangled together. A warm tear rolled down my cheek as I stared into his blank, lifeless eyes. Those eyes that had once seen and thought and felt, that had looked at the world with whatever hopes and fears and dreams animated them, now rendered empty by death's absolute finality.

The reality of the situation hit me hard. This was no longer theoretical. No longer speculation about what might have happened. This was a body. A person who had been alive minutes ago and now wasn't. Someone who would never move again, never speak again, never have another thought or feeling or moment of existence.

And Karl had done this.

The knowledge settled in my gut like lead, heavy and sickening and impossible to dislodge. My partner — my lover — had killed someone. Had engaged in violence that had ended a human life. Had broken one of the most fundamental prohibitions that existed, had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

And now I was here, staring at the aftermath, my own blood mixing with the victim's on the carpet, my presence at the scene binding me to it in ways I was only beginning to comprehend.

This was no longer just a case. This had become a life-and-death situation where I was on the wrong side of the law I'd sworn to uphold, where every choice I'd made tonight had led me deeper into catastrophe.

What the fuck have I done? What has Karl done?

The questions screamed through my mind with equal parts horror and helplessness.

Riding a wave of panic-induced adrenaline that made my body feel simultaneously numb and hypersensitive, I unsteadily got to my feet. My legs shook with the effort, muscles trembling from exhaustion and shock, barely able to support my weight.

My gaze remained fixated on the body, unable to look away despite desperately wanting to. Some morbid compulsion kept my eyes locked on the corpse, cataloguing details my detective brain registered automatically even as my emotional self recoiled in horror.

I knew I shouldn't—

The thought formed even as I acted against it. Against every bit of better judgment, against explicit training about crime scene contamination, against the voice screaming that I should leave immediately and call this in and let other professionals handle it.

But I was already moving, already reaching down, already committing to a course of action that would make everything so much worse.

I grabbed the man's shoulders with hands that were sticky with my own blood, fingers finding purchase on fabric that was damp with his. The body was still warm — that horrible, diminishing warmth that meant death was recent, that the chemical processes of living had only just begun their irreversible transition to decay.

With effort born from adrenaline rather than actual strength, I pushed the torso until the body sat more upright. The head drooped at a freakishly abnormal angle, the snapped neck unable to support its weight, the skull lolling to one side in ways that made my stomach lurch.

Those lifeless eyes stared sideways at me, blank and accusatory, asking questions I couldn't answer: Why didn't you stop this? Why are you here? What are you going to do now?

Instant regret flooded through my mind as I noticed the man's right shoulder becoming damp from my own blood, seeping through the light covering on my injured hand. Fresh red mixing with congealed brown, my DNA mingling with his, creating evidence that would definitively place me here, that would make any future claim of non-involvement impossible.

You've contaminated the crime scene, the professional voice observed with detached horror. You've left blood evidence. Fingerprints. Fibres from your clothing. You've touched the body. You've moved it. You've made yourself complicit.

But there was no turning back now. The damage was done. I could only make it worse or... or what? Try to minimise it? Try to hide it?

The implications spiralled outward faster than I could process them.

Realising there was no way to un-touch the body, no way to remove my blood from his clothing, I gave the corpse several strong shoves, trying to push it back into the space under the stairs.

The man's heavy frame slipped in my grip, deadweight that was impossibly difficult to manoeuvre. Bodies were heavy in ways living people never were, all the strength and muscle tone that allowed humans to move themselves replaced by pure mass that obeyed only gravity.

He almost fell on me again — his torso sliding forward as I tried to push, threatening to pin me beneath his weight. I jerked backwards instinctively, terror flooding through me at the thought of being trapped under a corpse, and just barely managed to catch his shoulders before he collapsed completely.

The physical effort of moving the body, combined with the emotional toll of what I was doing, was overwhelming. Sweat broke out across my forehead despite the cold. My arms shook with exertion. My injured knee screamed in protest at the awkward position I'd contorted myself into.

As I grabbed the man's jacket to give another push — trying to find better leverage, better grip on the slippery fabric — a small USB device fell from an interior pocket.

The object hit the carpet with a soft thud, bouncing slightly before settling near my foot. It was unremarkable — just a standard flash drive, probably containing documents or photos or whatever mundane digital files people carried around.

But in this context, in this moment, it felt significant. Evidence. Information. Something that might explain what had happened here, who this man was, why Karl had killed him.

I ignored it for the moment, focusing on the immediate problem of concealing the body. The USB could wait. First I needed to finish what I'd started, needed to get this corpse back into the cupboard where it wouldn't be immediately visible to anyone who entered the house.

With all my remaining strength — drawing on reserves I didn't know I had, fuelled by panic and desperation — I gave the body one last forceful shove into the under-stairs storage space.

With both hands, I pushed the door closed and leaned my back against it, using my body weight to keep it from swinging back open under the weight of the body pressing against it from the other side.

My breathing was harsh and ragged, coming in gasps that felt inadequate to my body's demands. Sweat and tears mixed on my face, running in tracks that probably streaked through the dust and grime I'd accumulated during this nightmare.

The situation felt surreal — dreamlike in its horror, impossible in its implications. Here I was, a police detective, using my body to keep a cupboard door closed against a corpse I'd just moved, standing in a pool of blood that contained evidence of my presence, contemplating how to hide a murder committed by my partner.

This is not who you are, the internal voice whispered. This is not who you wanted to become.

But contradicting that voice was the undeniable reality: this WAS who I'd become. Through choices and compromises and the slow erosion of principles I'd thought were unshakeable, I'd arrived at this moment where I was complicit in something unforgivable.

After a few moments of silence — just my harsh breathing and the pounding of my heart and the rustle of my clothing against the door — a heavy jolt shuddered through me as the man's body slid down inside the cupboard.

The corpse shifted under gravity's inexorable pull, settling into a new configuration that sent a dull thump reverberating through the door at my back.

Breathing heavily, I slid down to the floor, my back still pressing firmly against the cupboard door. The movement was less controlled descent and more collapse, my legs finally giving out after being asked to do too much for too long on too little rest and too many injuries.

The carpet was damp beneath me — blood that had soaked through creating a cold, wet sensation that seeped through my trousers. The physical discomfort barely registered against everything else, just another data point in the overwhelming catalogue of awfulness that this night had become.

The shock of the situation was overwhelming, rendering thought difficult and coherent action nearly impossible. My mind felt fractured, splintered into competing voices that all screamed different things: Run. Hide the evidence. Call for help. Protect Karl. Turn yourself in. Flee the country. Wake up because this has to be a nightmare.

Another tear trickled down my cheek — one of many, joining the tracks already carved through dust and grime, adding salt to the mixture of sweat and fear and exhaustion that coated my face.

What the fuck have I done?

The question echoed through my skull with percussion that matched my heartbeat. Each repetition brought a fresh wave of horror, fresh understanding of exactly how catastrophically I'd derailed my life in the span of a few hours.

What has Karl done?

That question carried different weight — not self-recrimination but betrayal, anger, the sick understanding that someone I'd trusted and loved had put me in this position. Had killed someone and left me to discover the aftermath. Had turned me into an accomplice through my own desperate attempts to protect him.

The implications were too much to bear, and yet I had no choice but to bear them. There was no escape from this room, from this moment, from the choices I'd already made that couldn't be unmade.

With effort that felt monumental, I pushed myself away from the door, bracing myself internally for the possibility that it might swing open again, that the body might tumble back out, that I'd have to repeat the horrible process of shoving a corpse back into its hiding place.

But the door remained shut. The body stayed contained. The storage space held its gruesome secret with the same indifferent silence that characterised the entire house.

I stood there for a moment — maybe seconds, maybe minutes, time having lost all reliable meaning — trying to decide on the next action when my gaze fell on the small USB device that had fallen from the dead man's pocket.

Evidence, my detective brain supplied helpfully, even as the more practical part of my consciousness screamed that taking it from a crime scene was yet another criminal act to add to the growing list.

But I'd already crossed so many lines tonight. Already moved well beyond the boundaries of legal behaviour. What was one more transgression when weighed against everything else?

Without looking at it in any detail — without even properly registering what I was doing beyond the automatic movements — I reached down and picked up the USB device.

I hastily slid it into my jacket pocket, feeling it settle, a small hard lump against my ribs. Out of sight. Secured. Evidence stolen from a crime scene and concealed on my person.

You're destroying your career, the internal voice observed with clinical detachment. You're committing multiple felonies. You're throwing away everything you've worked for.

But what choice did I have? Leave the USB here for whoever found the body?

As I made my way towards the stairs, my every step was cautious yet decisive. I was keenly aware of the need to leave quickly but also the potential danger that could still lurk within the house — though I was increasingly certain I was alone with just the corpse.

My boots left tacky impressions in the bloodstained carpet as I moved. Each step created visible evidence of my passage, bloody footprints that would tell investigators exactly where I'd walked, how I'd moved through the space, where I'd stood while contemplating my choices.

Should have taken your boots off, the unhelpful voice suggested. Too late now.

The stairs loomed ahead — darkness ascending into deeper shadow, those holes in the plaster wall telling their violent story.

Making my way back upstairs, back towards the hallway that would lead me to the broken window, I was suddenly struck by a thought that halted me mid-step at the start of the hallway.

"Jamie's phone," I whispered to myself, the realisation dawning with force that made me actually stop moving.

Karl had answered Jamie's phone when I'd called it. Which meant Karl had Jamie's phone. Which meant Jamie's phone was somewhere in this house, probably upstairs where Karl had been when he answered.

And Jamie's phone would contain evidence. Call logs showing my number. Potentially fingerprints from Karl handling it. Location data placing it at this address during the time frame when a murder occurred.

The phone was a liability — for Karl, for me, for anyone connected to whatever had happened here. It needed to be found. Needed to be... dealt with. Somehow.

I turned back to face the kitchen despite the fuzziness clouding my head, despite the way my vision swam slightly when I moved too quickly.

Pulling out my own phone — fumbling with the device, fingers still trembling from adrenaline and exertion — I dialled Jamie's number again.

Almost instantly, a loud ringing filled the house.

There, on the edge of the kitchen bench, was Jamie's phone. Its screen was ablaze with blue light as it rang, illuminating the immediate area with a cold glow that created harsh shadows.

Without hesitation, moving on pure instinct and desperation, I grabbed the phone and swiftly shoved it into my jacket alongside the USB device I'd already stolen.

A plan was forming in my mind — half-formed and probably terrible, but better than no plan at all: Only hang onto it long enough to remove any trace of Karl touching it and delete the call history. And then find a way to return it to the house…or smash it to pieces entirely.

The logic was thin — questionable at best, criminally stupid at worst — but it felt like action, like control, like something I could do to mitigate the disaster even slightly.

I needed to ensure that no evidence linked Karl to this house or to the events of tonight. Needed to erase his digital fingerprints, needed to eliminate the electronic trail that would lead investigators directly to him.

And to me. Because my number was in that call log too. Multiple calls. Including the one I'd just made to locate the device.

You're in this now, I realised with sick certainty. Not just an accessory. Not just covering up after the fact. You're actively destroying evidence. Obstructing justice. You've made yourself complicit in ways that won't be forgiven or overlooked or explained away.

But the alternative — turning the phone over, admitting what had happened, letting justice take its course — felt impossible. Would mean Karl arrested for murder. Would mean my own career destroyed. Would mean Jane's heart broken by learning her beloved grandson had been killed by a police detective she'd known for years.

Luke.

The name hit me with delayed impact, reality that I'd been avoiding since I'd first seen the body.

I hadn't looked at his face. Hadn't confirmed identity. Had moved the corpse and hidden it without properly observing who it was, without conducting the basic identification that any competent investigator would have made priority.

Because I didn't want to know. Didn't want to confirm that the dead man in the cupboard was my cousin. The grandson Jane loved. The person she'd begged me to understand wasn't a monster.

For the sake of my grandmother, don't let it be Luke. Anyone but Luke.

The plea formed again, a desperate prayer to a universe that had already demonstrated it didn't care about my preferences or my family's wellbeing or anything except the inexorable unfolding of consequences from actions taken.

But I couldn't think about that now. Couldn't afford to fall apart when I was still standing in a house containing a corpse and contaminated evidence and my own blood mixed with the victim's.

I had to move. Had to get out. Had to put distance between myself and this place before my nerve broke completely or someone discovered me here or the weight of what I'd done crushed me entirely.

Turning away from the kitchen, I made my way quickly but carefully back towards the broken window through which I'd entered.

The window frame waited — jagged edges glinting in moonlight, promising fresh injuries to anyone careless enough to forget they were there. I'd entered through this opening hours ago — or was it minutes? Time had become meaningless — and now I'd exit the same way, transformed by what I'd witnessed and done.

Climbing out, I stood there for a moment in the backyard, breathing hard, looking back at the window I'd just exited. The broken glass caught moonlight, creating patterns of light and shadow that looked almost beautiful if you could forget what they represented.

You can't go back, I told myself firmly. What's done is done. Now you have to live with it.