The Room Upstairs: A Novel Read online

“I promise.”

  Sarah shouted from the landing. “Mum! I need you!”

  Mum groaned and turned around. “What is it now, Sarah?”

  “You have to come see this. Right now. Seriously, hurry. Oh my God.”

  I sat up in bed. A bad feeling came over me, and this time it wasn’t nausea.

  6

  Sarah’s voice had sounded odd. Not worried or annoyed, just… flat. Shocked, maybe? Her room was further along the landing than mine, so I couldn’t see her or Mum as I sat alone on my bed. Something wasn’t right, and my head conjured images of a masked killer dispatching my family. I had to stop myself from getting carried away. “Mum, what is it? What does Sarah want?”

  She called back to me. “I… It’s… There’s a…”

  Something was definitely wrong.

  No longer feeling ill, and instead full of dread, I leapt out of bed and hurried across my room in my boxer shorts. I found Mum and Sarah on the landing, staring at something ahead. They presented an obstacle to my short frame, so I had to shoulder them aside to get a look at whatever had captured their attention. At first I saw nothing out of the ordinary – just the carpet and doors – but then I realised what was out of place. “I don’t understand.”

  Sarah looked at me, eyes so wide it looked like she didn’t have eyelids. “You see it, right?”

  I nodded. “A door. There’s a door there.”

  “Please tell me you kids have something to do with this,” said Mum. “Did you call Jeremy Beadle to come and play a prank on me? Where are the cameras?”

  I stared at the strange doorway on our landing – strange because it’d never been there in the ten years I’d lived there. It looked just like the others – four panels and a brass handle – but it was also completely alien. It didn’t belong here. “Mum, I swear I had nothing to do with this.”

  “Or me,” said Sarah. Her face was still coated in blood, and her horrified expression made her look like a ghoul. “I mean it. This is well weird.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly. How could a door just appear on our landing with no explanation? It made no sense.

  We shared that wall with our neighbour, Diane, but I doubted she had anything to do with this. She was an alcoholic according to Sarah, and only left the house to scrounge money off the neighbours to buy sherry. Diane was always nice to me, though, and Mum had known her for years. She didn’t strike me as someone who could secretly build a doorway between our landings.

  I stepped a little closer to Mum, my surprise giving way to fear. “I don’t like this, Mum. How did it get here?”

  “I have no idea, Martin. I think… I think maybe there’s been a gas leak and we’re hallucinating. We should get out of here.”

  It was the same thing I’d thought earlier when I’d found the spoiled food. Gas made you all light-headed and crazy, right? I’d seen it on an episode of Casualty. Sarah was shaking her head though. “If we’re hallucinating,” she said, “how can we all be seeing the same thing? How is that possible?”

  Mum was silent for a moment, then clapped her hands together. “Okay, kids, we’re getting out of here.”

  Sarah started laughing. It was a crazy laugh like a villain in a cartoon. It was a sound I’d never heard her make before. “I wish Courtney was still here. This would blow his mind.”

  Mum put a hand on each of our shoulders and pushed us towards the stairs. My body was buzzing, tiny bugs racing through my veins. Terror and confusion. I was also strangely amused by the ridiculousness of it all.

  Why am I afraid of a door? I asked myself. Because it shouldn’t be there, was my simple answer.

  We made it downstairs and hurried for the front door. Mum grabbed her keys off the side table and turned them in the lock, but when she opened the door she leapt back and screamed. Sarah and I screamed too.

  Courtney flinched on the doorstep and did a little dance. He clutched his chest and sucked in air. “Shit, you scared me to death, Mrs Gable. What are you all doing at the door?”

  My mum recovered from her fright and grabbed hold of her anger. “What are you doing back here, Courtney? It’s late.”

  He took a step back, forced to retreat by my mother’s furious glare. “I-I forgot my house key, and I didn’t want to ring the bell because my dad’s got a shift early in the morning.”

  “You must have left your keys in my room,” said Sarah, “but we’re leaving.”

  “What d’you mean, you’re leaving? It’s eleven o’clock at night.”

  “Babe, it’s impossible to explain. I wish you’d been here earlier.”

  I jolted. A heavy feeling spread through my chest like I was drowning in custard “That’s the second time you’ve wished that, Sarah.”

  She pulled a face at me. “What?”

  “Upstairs, you wished that Courtney was here. Now he is.”

  “Yeah, so? What’s your point, idiot?”

  I shrugged. “Just saying.”

  But what was I saying? That something made my sister’s wish come true? Like mine had when I wanted a Big Mac?

  Don’t be stupid, Martin. Don’t get carried away.

  I tugged at my mum’s arm. “I want to get out of here.”

  “I know, honey. We’re leaving right now.”

  Courtney held up a hand. “Wait! I need to get my keys first. Unless it’s okay for me to stay here tonight and—”

  “You’re not spending the night with, Sarah,” said Mum snippily. “If you need your keys, be my guest and go upstairs to get them. I suggest you do it quickly though.”

  “No,” said Sarah. “You can’t go up there, Courtney. It might be dangerous.”

  Courtney frowned. “Dangerous? What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing, I just don’t want you to go upstairs, okay?”

  “Okay.” Courtney barged past us into the hallway and paused at the bottom of the stairs. He peered towards the landing, then turned to look back at us. “I’m going to get my keys, so why don’t you just tell me what I’m going to find up there?”

  We all looked at each other. How could we explain about the strange door without him laughing in our faces?

  I found my voice before Mum or Sarah did. “We thought we smelled gas. Just be quick because we need to leave.”

  Courtney looked at me suspiciously, then started up the stairs. “Wait for me, okay?”

  Sarah hugged herself nervously. “We will, babe, I promise.”

  “You have less than one minute,” said Mum.

  I watched Courtney stomp up the stairs, wondering if we had done the wrong thing. What if something happened to him up there?

  Like he gets eaten by a door.

  Insane.

  We waited silently in the hallway, the front door hanging open behind us and letting in the summer night breeze. I was still only wearing boxer shorts, which caused me to shiver. It would be humiliating if anyone saw me, yet the thought of dashing back upstairs to find some clothes was terrifying. That strange door might open up and spill monsters onto the landing. As much as I wanted to be a grown-up, right then I wanted nothing more than to be treated like a child.

  A thump sounded from upstairs.

  We flinched.

  We waited.

  Courtney appeared at the top of the stairs and quickly stomped his way down. At the bottom, he held his keys out and jangled them. “Found ’em.”

  Sarah grabbed him and hugged him. “Didn’t you see anything?”

  “Huh? What are you on about?”

  “Did you see a door?”

  Courtney looked left then right, and when he focused back on my sister he had a smirk on his face. “Um, yeah. I used one to get in your room. Seriously, what’s going on?”

  This was taking too long. “Courtney,” I said, “there’s a weird door on our landing. Didn’t you see it?”

  He looked at me like I was mad, and I wondered if that might be the case. I certainly felt crazy, and if men in white coats came to take me away, it wouldn�
��t have surprised me.

  Courtney put his hands on his hips. “I don’t get the joke. Can you all just be normal, please, because I’m getting confused.”

  “Babe, there’s a door,” Sarah blurted out. “Just like Martin said.”

  Courtney turned to look up the stairs, seemingly irritated rather than afraid. With a grunt, he said, “Enough of this. I don’t understand what you’re doing, so just pack it in right now.”

  I was a little taken aback by his tone. Courtney was a year or two older than Sarah – he was learning to drive – but he had just shouted at us all like we were little kids, including my mum. Her face tremored like a firework about to go off, but then she calmed down. “I suppose it’s understandable you think we’re all mad, Courtney, but something strange is happening that we can’t make sense of. That’s all you need to know, okay? We’re going outside to figure things out.”

  Courtney continued looking up the stairs. “What did I miss? What’s really up there?”

  Sarah reached out to take his hand. “It doesn’t matter, babe. Just come outside.”

  “No way. I want to know what’s happening.”

  “Nothing is happening. We’re just being silly. Please, just come on.”

  “Someone is up there, aren’t they? Did they break in?”

  “What? No! Courtney—”

  “Okay, that does it.” To our horror, Courtney dashed back towards the stairs.

  Sarah called after him – “Don’t go up there. Please!” – but he ignored her, so she ended up racing after him.

  Mum tried to grab her but missed. “Sarah, get back here right now. Sarah!”

  Sarah disappeared up the stairs, calling after her boyfriend the entire way.

  I looked at Mum, wondering what we should do. “I want to go outside.”

  “We can’t without your sister.”

  “Mum, I’m scared.”

  She laughed, but I didn’t like the sound. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, sweetheart. It’s just a door.”

  “But where did it come from?”

  “I… I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled. “Sarah, come back down here at once. Sarah!”

  No reply – at first – but then: “Mum! Help!”

  “For Christ’s sake!” Mum bounded up the stairs and suddenly I was alone. I felt the night at my back, the breeze on the nape of my neck. The fear of standing there alone, late at night, by an open door, became too much to bear. I hurried up the stairs. Sarah’s voice was all I heard as I approached the landing. She sounded frantic.

  “Mum, he went inside. He went inside.”

  I found Mum and my sister staring at the mysterious door again, but Courtney was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell was he?

  “The door opened,” said Sarah, her voice wavering like she was about to cry. “He went inside, Mum. He went inside.”

  I could see Mum’s hands shaking by her sides. She clenched them into fists and yelled at the mysterious door. “Courtney, I demand you come back out here at once. Courtney?”

  Courtney gave no reply. The door remained closed.

  “Right!” Mum stepped forward, her hands shaking even more as she reached for the door handle. “Last chance, Courtney.”

  Still no reply.

  Mum cursed under her breath then pushed down on the handle. It moved an inch, but no more. She shoved her shoulder against the wood. The door didn’t budge. It didn’t even rattle.

  “Courtney!” Sarah pulled at her hair, which was still a mess from earlier. “Courtney, are you okay? Say something, for fuck’s sake.”

  Mum shot her a look, letting her know that the bad language had not gone unnoticed, but the situation was too tense to make an issue of it right now. I wondered if I could get away with swearing, then decided it wasn’t worth testing. “Are we still going outside?” I asked, wanting to leave now more than ever. My head was a jumble of thoughts. Why the hell did Courtney go inside? What was behind the door?

  Mum must have been thinking the same thing. “What happened up here, Sarah?” she demanded. “What on earth made him go inside?”

  Sarah shook her head, tears in her eyes and clotted blood staining her face. “He said he saw something. Then he just ran in. The door closed right after him.”

  “D-Did you see anything?” I asked, my voice tinny and childlike.

  She scowled like it had nothing to do with me, but then she must have realised I wasn’t trying to stick my nose in or make trouble. I was just her scared little brother. “I didn’t see anything,” she said. “It was completely dark inside. Courtney couldn’t have seen anything either.”

  Mum rattled the handle again, but it still refused to budge. She ended up standing with her hands on her hips and just staring at the door.

  “Are we still going outside?” I asked her.

  “We can’t leave,” Sarah snapped. “Not without Courtney.”

  Mum kicked the door, banged on it with her fists. “Goddamn it, Courtney, get out here. Answer me!”

  A clicking sound.

  The door opened with a menacing creeeak. I remember that sound now, years later, with absolute clarity. It was the sound of something mocking us.

  Mum stepped back and gasped. She might have turned and run, but I could tell she was forcing herself to stand there and face the room. She was the adult; she couldn’t panic. Not if Courtney was in danger. He was in our house, which made him our responsibility.

  I wrapped both arms around myself and shuddered. “Mum, what’s in there?”

  “I don’t know, Martin. Be quiet.”

  Sarah took a step forward. “Courtney?”

  Mum let out a breath that turned into a growl. “Okay, enough of this.” She shoved the door and pushed it all the way open. The room was unlit, but the light from the landing spilled inside and illuminated the interior. I leaned around my mum to see. Would I see a magical portal? Or a fantastical realm filled with dragons and fairies?

  No.

  All I saw was an empty, featureless room. The walls were a light colour, possibly white, and the floor was smooth – no wooden boards or carpet. It was the emptiest room I had ever seen.

  Sarah bent forward and tried to see inside without having to step closer. “Courtney? Courtney, where are you?”

  It made no sense, but Courtney wasn’t inside the room. I hadn’t seen him go inside, but where else could he have gone? I edged back until I was in line with my bedroom, then nudged the door to look inside. Courtney wasn’t there either. “Check the other rooms,” I said. “Maybe he’s winding us up.”

  “He’s not hiding, you stupid idiot.”

  Mum pointed a finger. “Sarah, don’t talk to your brother like that. I want you to check the other rooms just like he told you; and this best not be a joke or you’ll be grounded for life.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this.”

  Like the stroppy teenager she was, Sarah barged open the door to the bathroom followed by the door to Mum and Dad’s room. Courtney was inside neither. The final room was Sarah’s own, and she grumbled to herself as she opened the door. Even from where I was standing, I could see that the room was empty. Her boyfriend wasn’t hiding inside.

  Courtney was gone.

  Impossible.

  Sarah put a hand to her face and started to sob. “Mum? Mum, where is he?”

  I crept towards the stairs. “Mum, I don’t like this. Can we go?”

  “It’s okay, Martin.” Mum had lost all the colour in her cheeks and she no longer seemed drunk. “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay.

  Sarah’s boyfriend had disappeared.

  I stared into the blank, featureless room that shouldn’t have been there and wondered what it had done with Courtney.

  Soon, I would find out.

  Part II

  7

  Thinking back to that night is a strange and difficult thing. Have you ever had a memory t
hat is blurry yet crystal clear at the same time? It doesn’t make sense, I know, but nothing about that night does. It was a nightmare come to life, and I still haven’t woken from it completely.

  I remember Mum ushering us downstairs while Sarah protested. I was so freaked out that I skidded on the hallway’s wooden floorboards and almost fell, and it was only my momentum that kept me upright and hurled me towards the front door.

  Which was now shut.

  It’d been open when I’d gone upstairs. There was no doubt in my mind.

  I grabbed the handle, but it didn’t move. Mum’s key was still in the lock and I tried to turn it – totally stuck. “It won’t open,” I cried.

  “Move out of the way.” Mum eased me aside and tried the key herself, but she gritted her teeth and pulled back her hand, sucking on her thumb as if she’d hurt it. It reminded me of my own thumb, and the splinter I had got from the jackal statue. I looked at it now and saw reddening flesh.

  “Damn thing is stuck tighter than a jam jar lid,” said Mum, pulling her thumb from her mouth and shaking it irritably.

  Sarah slumped against the bannister. “We’re locked in?”

  “We’ll have to try the back door.”

  And so we did, dashing through the hallway into the kitchen. The back door was old, with gaps in the wooden frame that let in cold air. It was also stiff and heavy, difficult to open. Tonight it turned out to be impossible. The key was jammed just like the one in the front door. The handle wouldn’t move.

  “Try the phone,” said Sarah.

  “Good idea,” said Mum, grabbing the handset from the wall beside the fridge and dialling a number that I could tell wasn’t 999 – too many key presses. I assumed she was calling Dad. After a moment, she tapped the phone against the wall. Then she prodded at the buttons on the handset like she was trying to squash bugs. I didn’t like her expression. She was getting worked up.

  Someone should’ve picked up by now.

  Sarah wiped tears from her eyes and cut streaks through the blood still caking her face. Her whole body shook. She was terrified.

  I felt utterly bizarre – like I had somehow left my body and was watching the whole scene unfold from above. My life until that point had been more or less ordinary. At some point I had changed dads, but I barely remembered the original, and when I was eight I had got chicken pox and needed to stay off school for a week. Finally, when I was nine, I fell out of a tree and twisted my ankle badly enough to need an X-ray (it was fine), but other than those three things, I considered my life boringly normal. Now I suddenly found myself caught up in a real-life episode of the X-Files. A room had appeared in our house and it had made my sister’s boyfriend disappear.