As we first pulled up to the house, Monica let out a long sigh.
“Fuuuck, I don’t want to do this.”
Reaching over, I patted her leg. “I know, baby. But we’ve put it off for over a year, right? And the sooner we get it done, the quicker we can get it on the market.”
She shot me a dark look as she nodded begrudgingly. “I know, I know. It’s stupid to let the house sit here and rot, especially when it can pay for us finally getting a house instead.” Glancing down the street at the closest neighbor, she turned back with a grimace. “Though who we’ll find that will willingly move to Empire is beyond me.”
I laughed and shrugged. “I mean, you haven’t shown me much of it yet, but it seems alright. Better than the South Carolina backwater my grandparents live in.”
Monica was looking at the house again, her expression strange and unreadable. “Yeah, maybe. I…I just have a lot of memories here, you know? And not coming back in the last three years…it’s just a lot, I guess.” She gave me a small smile. “But it’s easier having you with me. Thank you for coming along.”
Giving her leg a squeeze, I nodded. “You’re very welcome, sweetie. Look, we’ll go in and check things out. If you decide it’s too weird to stay here, we can always get a room in town somewhere.”
“Yeah, yeah sure. Maybe it won’t take too long and we can get it all knocked out today. I will happily volunteer to drive us back tonight if we can push through it all.”
I’d gotten the impression from her before that there was more that needed doing at the house than we could easily knock out in a few hours, but I left it alone for the time being. Stepping out of the car, I was struck by the size of the place. At first glance, it just looked like your average two-story house. But when you looked closer, you could see that it stretched back and widened behind the trees that flanked the front. It wasn’t a mansion, but it wasn’t that far off either.
“This place is really nice, Mon.”
She shrugged as she locked the car. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I know it is. When I first came to live with them, it was like I was moving into a fairy castle or something. It didn’t feel quite real to me.”
I grinned at her. “You were seven, right?”
She nodded, not meeting my eyes. “Yeah. Seven.” Puffing out a breath, she started slowly climbing the steps to the front porch. “I…well, it was hard, of course. Losing both of my parents like I did, and then coming to live here…fairy castle or not, it really fucking sucked at first.” She glanced back, her expression brightening slightly. “Not that they sucked. My grandparents were always awesome. And I had a really good childhood here overall. It’s just…I don’t know. Enough emotional diarrhea, yeah? Let’s get this fucker open.”
Smiling, I joined her on the porch as she dug out the key ring she’d brought along for the occasion. It only had five keys on it, and she found the right one after the second try. Glancing at me with a nervous smile, she reached for the knob.
“Well, here we go.”
I don’t know what I’d expected from the inside of Monica’s childhood home. Something very fancy or strange maybe. She didn’t talk much about her grandparents very often, and I got the feeling that while she had loved them, they were somehow a sensitive subject too.
Still, over the last four years I’d gotten to know her very well. Well enough to know that letting me come here, letting me help, was a very big deal for her. So whatever I saw inside, I’d already decided I wasn’t going to make any jokes or ask a lot of questions. I was there just to help, and that was it.
But the house wasn’t overly lavish or bizarre. It was a nice, comfortable, and very mundane home. Aside from some dust covering the furniture and various knickknacks, it was neat and tidy—apparently Monica’s grandfather had been a good housekeeper even after his wife’s death. We’d made it into what had to be the back of the house on the first floor—a room that seemed to have served as an office of sorts—when Monica suddenly froze as she sucked in a breath.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t look at me, but I could see well-enough from the semi-light coming in through the window blinds that her eyes had gone wide as she stared at a closed door set in the far wall of the room. Monica glanced around in confusion, almost as though she was suddenly lost and unsure which way to go. She glanced at the door again and shook her head.
“That…that door shouldn’t be there.”
I frowned, more from her troubled tone than what she had said. “What? You mean like they changed the door since you were here?”
Turning to stare at me, she shook her head again. “No. I mean, like, that door wasn’t here before. There’s never been a door there.”
I gave Monica an uneasy smile. “Well, maybe you just don’t remember it. Or maybe they remodeled at some point.”
She pointed at the door. “No. I was here after his funeral, okay? I was the only one allowed in here then or since. And I’m telling you, there was no fucking room there.” She gestured to the hallway to the right of the door. “And how would there be space for anything there, anyway? That hallway is right there, and on the left you have the dining room, which runs behind that wall.”
Nodding, I studied the door more closely before answering. It looked the same as other doors in the house—it was in the same style and made of the same heavy wood as far as I could tell, and it looked like it had always been there. Picking my words carefully, I met her eyes.
“Maybe it’s a closet? Either something you just don’t remember or that they really did add later on. I know you were here after your grandfather had died, but you were also upset and busy, right? I remember you telling me about all the stuff you had to arrange and people you had to deal with. Maybe you just overlooked it at the time.”
She was already shaking her head again before I was done. “No. I know this house. And I’m telling you, there wasn’t a door there before. And there really isn’t room for…wait, what are you doing?”
I ignored her as I closed the last few feet and grabbed the knob to the mystery door. There had to be an explanation, and us debating it instead of just checking was dumb. Maybe if I just showed her it was a stupid closet or something, we could get back to looking over the house. I half-expected the door to be locked, but when I twisted the heavy brass knob, it turned easily.
“Wait, don’t op—”
I gave the door a slight push and it swung wide. Looking in, I felt my head swim slightly. That wasn’t right, was it? How could it be?
The room was huge—long, grey planks of wood stretched out and up, forming an arched ceiling where the sides met and illuminated by periodic hanging lightbulbs that gave out a sickly yellow light that couldn’t penetrate the gloom enough to even show what lay at the far end of the room. The floor was much the same, except the wood there had been painted a vibrant red that seemed to practically burn with color.
I started to stagger, my stomach roiling as a wave of nausea hit me hard. Retching, I looked back at Monica. She was looking past me, staring into that room.
“Stay…stay back. I think something in that room made me sick.”
She looked down at me then, her face coming alive with concern. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head as I stifled another retch. “Bathroom. Need to puke.” I was already moving back the way we came, and I heard her call after me that it was the second door on the left. Shoving the door open, I was still reaching for the toilet lid when I started to vomit. A hot, tan stream burned my throat before hitting the opening lid and spraying everywhere. The stench of it made me vomit harder, and it was nearly five minutes before I was done, my sides aching and my legs weak as I stood to wash my face and arms off as best I could.
I found towels folded neatly in the bathroom linen closet, and taking two of them I did a passable job of wiping up the vomit that hadn’t made it into the bowl. Trying not to gag, I tossed the towels in the bathtub and washed up again. It was so fucking gross, but at least Monica hadn’t seen the worst of…
Wait, where was she?
I’d been puking my guts out for awhile, and yet she’d never followed me in there or checked on me. That wasn’t like her, and with how the room had affected me, I started worrying it might have made her sick too, despite my warning. But when I got back to the office, she was still standing there, staring into that room thoughtfully. Glancing in my direction as I drew near, she gave me a look of concern.
“Are you okay?”
Swallowing, I nodded. “Um, yeah. It’s just…well, it was real weird. I think that room made me sick somehow.”
Monica frowned at me. “Yeah? How would it do that?”
I shrugged weakly. “I don’t know. Some kind of chemical in there? Or maybe the lights and the colors in there made me have some kind of reaction?”
She reached out to feel my forehead. “Or maybe you’re just coming down with something and it’s just a coincidence that you were looking in the room when it happened. You don’t feel hot, but that doesn’t mean much.”
Giving her a smile I didn’t feel, I went on. “I don’t think so. It was more…well, I got heatstroke when I was a kid. It felt more like that.” Feeling a growing sense of unease, I glanced in the direction of the room. The nausea didn’t return, at least not yet, but the sense of anxious fear continued to grow. Rubbing my mouth, I caught her gaze as I lowered my voice to just above a whisper. “I think you’re right. I…I don’t how that room can be there. I don’t know how it fits there, as big as it is.” When she just looked at me wordlessly, I went on. “How about we get out of here for now, huh? Go get a room and come back fresh in the morning?”
Monica’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Leave? Why would we leave?”
I looked at her with disbelief. “Because that room is weird? Because I got sick? And I don’t know about you, but I think I’d sleep better somewhere else. Look, you were the one that was just freaked out about the room, remember? And I’m sure there’s some logical explanation, but I don’t know what it is, at least not right now.”
She was looking toward the room again, a lost look growing across her face that I didn’t like. “I understand.” Turning back to me, she smiled. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.” Striding across to the door, she reached in and grabbed the knob to pull it closed. “Let’s go get some rest and we can start fresh tomorrow.”
I nodded silently, not wanting to disturb whatever momentum she’d developed toward leaving the house. So I didn’t say anything about what I’d seen—what I’d thought I’d seen—as she moved to close the door. Not as we journeyed back up the shadowy halls to the front of the house, not when we pulled out of the driveway, and not even hours later when we were eating dinner at a restaurant near our hotel.
Every time I went to, I had a small voice muttering all the reasons I shouldn’t. She would think I was making fun of her. Or that I was a fool. Or a coward. I was getting scared like a kid in her grandparents’ old house, or I’d decided I didn’t really want to help and this was my way of trying to get out of it. I couldn’t find any benefit in mentioning it, particularly when it had to be my imagination.
When I woke up past midnight in a cold sweat, my first panicked thought was that we were somehow back in that house. Looking around in the soft glow of the television we’d left playing, I let out a relieved sigh at seeing the shadowy shapes of the shabby hotel room. I thought again about telling her, waking her up even. Instead, I got up and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.
Looking into the mirror, I could see the tension and worry in my face. I needed to either tell her or let it go. But what would I even say? Meeting my reflection’s eyes, I decided to tell him and see how it sounded.
“Monica…I know this will probably sound silly but…when you were closing the door on that weird room? Well, at the far end…I know it’s not well-lit or anything…but at that far end?”
“I thought I saw something move.”
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Credits
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