Story Profile: “Death’s Door”

 Story Profile: “Death’s Door”

 

I have always been intrigued by locked room mysteries.  A crime is committed in an area where there is seemingly no easy entrance or exit.  At first glance, no one could have done it.  And yet, someone must have committed the crime.  Sometimes there’s a hidden key, a secret passage, a not-so-solid wall, the killer’s still hiding in the room, the injuries were inflicted before the victim staggered into the room and locked the door… there are countless solutions, some easily guessed, some unique and brilliant.

 

Death’s Door” is a reference to a locale at the northern tip of Door County, Wisconsin, given that name because of the many ships that sank in the waters around it.  In this story, a retired police officer and his quirky grandson are summoned by the local authorities, as the father of the grandson’s best friend has been murdered.  While the victim was cross-country skiing, a large quantity of snow fell off a tree and covered him completely.  All this happened in the sight of several witnesses.  When his friends brushed the snow off of him, they soon found that he had been fatally stabbed.  How was this murder possible?  How could he have been stabbed while being covered with dozens of pounds of snow?  And what happened to the weapon?

 

“Death’s Door” was part of a short story competition looking for tales connected to the search for vengeance, and the negative consequences that can rebound from the quest for revenge.  Sponsored by OnlineBookClub.org, the contest received almost a thousand entries.  Mine was one of the ten stories selected for the anthology.

 

Notably, I wrote “Death’s Door” as a 15,000 word story for another writing contest a year earlier.  It didn’t win, but when I heard about OnlineBookClub.org’s contest, I realized that it fit the theme perfectly.  The only problem was that the word limit was 10,000 words, so I carefully cut 5,000 words from the story, slashing character backstory, erasing unnecessary descriptions and dialogue, and condensing verbose passages.

 

“Death’s Door” was published in the anthology Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self Destruction, edited by Scott Hughes.  It is available in both paperback and Kindle editions. 

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” was released on August 27^th from MX Publishing, and is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.