TONFA
The Original Naruto Fanfic Archive

Main Categories

Het Romance [1092]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around different sex couples.
Alternate Universe & Crossovers [651]
Where cast of the Naruto Universe are inserted into an alternate universe.
Essays & Tutorials [17]
An area to submit intelligent essays debating topics about the Naruto Universe and writing tutorial submissions.
 
General Fiction [1739]
Any Naruto fanfiction focused without romantic orientation, on a canon character in the current Naruto Universe.
OC-centric [865]
Any Naruto fanfic that has the major inclusion of a fan-made character.
Non-Naruto Fiction [291]
Self-evident
 
Shonen-ai/Yaoi Romance [1575]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around male same sex couples.
MadFic [194]
Any fic with no real plot and humor based. Doesn't require correct spelling, paragraphing or punctuation but it's a very good idea.
 
Shojo-ai/Yuri Romance [106]
Any Naruto fanfiction with the main plot orientating around female same sex couples.
Fan Ninja Bingo Book [125]
An area to store fanfic information, such as bios, maps, political histories. No stories.
 
 

Site Info

Members: 11985
Series: 261
Stories: 5884
Chapters: 25418
Word count: 47689150
Authors: 2162
Reviews: 40828
Reviewers: 1750
Newest Member: Redxkenny
Challenges: 255
Challengers: 193
 


The Doors (Additions IV) by shadesmaclean

[Reviews - 0]   Printer Chapter or Story
Table of Contents

- Text Size +
Chapter notes: the battle continues
The desert sun baked everything to a sweltering shimmer, the highway easily hot enough to fry eggs on, as the bus ground to stop in the middle of nowhere.

The passengers, a mix of tourists just passing through, couldn’t help but stare at the man who stood just outside the door. Bleached denim jacket, pants with multiple pockets, and a wide-brim hat to keep the sun out of his face, shrouding his sunglasses in shadow almost as deep as his stubble. Shrugging a tall camping backpack, rack stacked with all sorts of odds and ends, including a long, tightly-wrapped shape strapped to one side.

Though the thing most eyes lingered on was the bright red gas can he carried with him.

“Sir,” the bus driver, an ageing, balding fellow with a droopy, hang-dog face told him, “you know we’re not allowed to pick up hitchhikers.”

“Sorry,” the stranger told the driver, finally lowering his thumb and reaching his free hand into his jacket pocket, producing a twenty dollar bill. “My car broke down farther up the way, and it’s taken me all day to fetch this can. I’m willing to pay full fare, if that’s what it takes.”

The driver sat there for a long moment, weighing company policy, but unable to ignore the pounding heat pouring on him through the door like an open blast furnace, finally shrugging and accepting the bill as the man stepped aboard, the door closing off the bake oven.

The man, for his part, quietly thanked the driver, then ambled back to the first empty seat he could find, desert heat still radiating off him after his indeterminate march under the sun.

As the bus rolled back into motion, the man kept to himself, offering no introduction, and both the weary, yet determined, set of his face warded off any questions. For the remainder of his passage, he remained silent, even as a pair of kids several seats back held a whispered argument about whether or not the object strapped to his backpack was really a sword, but neither of them found the nerve to ask him.

About fifty or sixty miles down the road, the man stood up and called out for the driver to stop, the bus driver giving him an odd, annoyed look as they rolled to a stop in front of an old dirt road.

“My car’s out there,” the man said as he stepped back out into the golden late afternoon blaze. “Thanks for the lift. Keep the change.”

Driver and passengers alike watched in perplexed silence as he strode out into the desert with only a pair of faded tire-tracks to guide him, all heads turning to follow even as the bus started up again.

It was late afternoon by the time the man reached the end of that obscure track, arriving at a dilapidated circle of trailers, the light fading into orange near the horizon as he took a canteen off his pack and swallowed several swigs of water before putting it back and slowly approaching the trailers.

Furtive, hesitant eyes watched him as he scanned the trailers one by one, finally spotting one at the far end, that elicited a faint gasp from the others as he walked right up to it.

Door boarded up, windows broken, crosses and occult symbols spray-painted all over it, along with a chicken-scratching of Spanish graffiti, most of it religious-sounding. Only one word stood out to the man as he walked up to the front door: maldito. Sprayed in large red letters next to the door.

To what he now knew would be an empty trailer, abandoned just along enough to start to acquire the look, even without this fearful vandalism.

Those same secretive eyes watched in silence as he shrugged off his pack, removing the wrapped object to reveal it as a katana, which he now sheathed at his side, then opened his pack and produced a crowbar. The workmanship barring the door was frantic, panicked, as if the person who did it couldn’t stand to be there any longer than they had to, so the man took little effort removing the hasty barrier. With one last glance over his shoulder, confirming that no one would challenge him, he pulled the door open and crossed the threshold.

Trading the crowbar for a flashlight, which he clipped to his jacket, he stepped into the stifling darkness, both the day’s unchecked heat, and a familiar whiff of decay that always seemed to accompany these shunned places, wrinkled the man’s nose in spite of his stoic expression, which never wavered as he searched the derelict trailer.

Finally, at the far end, in what looked like the stripped-down remains of a small child’s room, a little girl, judging from the décor, he saw what he was looking for.

The closet door had a big white cross painted on it, and a curling poster of Jesus tacked up next to it, the door visibly nailed shut.

“Still not good enough…” the man muttered as he stepped past a minefield of mostly tipped-over glass candleholders littering the floor as he crossed the room. Whipping out the crowbar again, he set to work on the door, muttering, “I’m sorry, niña, I learn of these places too late, but you will at least be avenged…”

So many hoaxes, so many attention-seekers, combined with the rarity of the real thing, that even the internet made for slow hunting.

Unlike the front door, the closet had been nailed down with great vigor— great anger and grief— thus it took a lot more work to tear this door down. Even so, he worked with deliberation, certain that if anyone had the nerve to hinder him in here, they would have shown themselves by now. Of all the places he had done, nothing had ever attacked him from within, still he found the occasional need to intimidate some people on this side of the doors to keep their distance while he took care of business.

Finally, he wrenched the door aside, to find confirmation.

His flashlight’s stark beam playing out over the trappings of a closet too deep to fit in this trailer, already knowing full well the outside wall was flat as the rest of the structure.

“You know the deal,” he said quietly, uncapping the gas can and pouring it on the floor in front of the closet. “We refuse to be your prey…”

He then worked his way back out to the front door, dumping gas all along the way. Back out front, he tossed the can into the trailer, then fetched out a box of matches, lighting one and tossing it into the flames. Still feeling eyes on him, and a growing sense of panic from the other trailers, he bowed his head and crossed himself, as it was all he could think of to do for an encore with this audience.

Wondering vaguely how this tale might go with subsequent tellings he didn’t plan to stick around for. This was his first time doing a trailer, and it only took one backward glance to see why firefighters hated the things. His usual precautions paying triple as the whole thing seemed to go up unnaturally fast.

His work finished here, he shouldered his pack and walked out into the desert sunset, each gust of wind erasing his footprints behind him.
Chapter end notes: -February 15–6, 2002
-new epilogue: June 17, 2015

A continuation of "The House"— what originally ended up being a four-part series with the cheesy titles "Additions", "Division", "Multiplication" and "Subtraction". Each part got weaker and weaker, much like horror movie sequels. As such, it’s rare for me to ever go beyond the second story— quit while you’re ahead, and all that jazz— but since there has been a recent demand for "the rest of the story" I've decided to give it a shot, and my readers decide for themselves.
I've also added a new epilogue, based on an idea from my notes after I wrote the original. :)
You must login (register) to review.