The Room Upstairs: A Novel Page 5

  Had it abducted him?

  Could it be aliens?

  I laughed and tried to stop myself, but the sound escaped in a clipped guffaw that made both my mum and Sarah glare at me. “Sorry,” I said. “I just feel like I’m going to wake up from a nightmare any minute.”

  Mum pulled me into a hug. Usually, I would’ve resisted the dramatic display of motherly affection, but it was exactly what I needed. Safety in her arms. Sarah joined us, and the three of us just stood there, hugging for several minutes.

  Eventually Mum broke away and went to put the kettle on. “The main thing,” she said, “is that we don’t panic. We’re all okay, aren’t we? Let’s just have a cup of tea and sit for five minutes while we talk it all through. Does that sound okay?”

  I felt very grown-up being consulted like that, so I agreed wholeheartedly. Minutes later, I was sitting in my dad’s armchair with a piping hot cup of tea in my hands. At first, nobody said anything. We just sipped our drinks and stared at the threadbare carpet long in need of replacing.

  It was Sarah who eventually spoke first. “What if Courtney’s hurt?”

  “I’m sure he’s not,” said Mum. “How well do you even know him, Sarah? You can only have been seeing Courtney a couple of weeks because you were with Darren before that.”

  My sister blushed and looked away. I didn’t understand, so I stayed quiet and let the conversation continue without me.

  Mum’s eyes narrowed while she waited for Sarah to turn back and face her. “Sarah, how long have you been seeing Courtney?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. Two months, maybe.”

  “So, while you were seeing Darren then? Classy.”

  “Me and Darren were never serious, Mum.”

  “He was heartbroken when you dumped him. I suppose that was so you could be with Courtney?”

  Sarah shrugged again. “I could have carried on going out with both of them, couldn’t I? I dumped Darren as soon as I knew it was serious with Courtney. Anyway, who are you to talk, Mum?”

  Mum’s face turned sour, and I waited for her to lash out, but she didn’t. She just sucked in her lip and chewed on it for a moment. Eventually, she asked a question. “So, it’s serious?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “Well, he seems like a nice lad, I suppose. A little old, perhaps.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “God, Mum, he’s seventeen. All my friends go out with older lads. The boys in my year are all dickheads.”

  “Language, Sarah.”

  I rolled my mug back and forth in my hands, spreading the warmth through my fingers. “Courtney’s all right. I like him.”

  Sarah gave me a brief smile, but no verbal reply. Maybe she was happy that I liked her boyfriend, but it must have annoyed her too. Anything I liked was, by default, childish and uncool.

  “It would be a shame,” said Mum, “if Courtney has anything to do with all of this… strangeness.”

  “He doesn’t, Mum,” Sarah almost shouted it, “so will you just stop with that? He went into that room and disappeared. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “Yes, actually. Do you kids have any idea what’s going on? Any playground talk you can share that might make sense of this?”

  I frowned. “You mean like ghost stories or something?”

  She looked at me and shrugged. “I’d take anything right now.”

  When it came to playground ghost stories, I had a ton, but one came immediately to mind. “I heard the local tip is haunted. One night, ten years ago, a girl named Annie May played hide and seek with her friends. She hid inside a fridge and couldn’t get out again. When the workmen arrived in the morning, they threw the fridge in the crusher and pressed her flat as a pancake while she was still alive. Her bones and all the metal fused together. They never found the body, but if you visit the tip at night, you might see her. Annie May will smile at you and you won’t be able to breathe.”

  Mum grimaced. “Why are you telling me this particular story?”

  I shrugged. “I think it’s cool.”

  “It’s rubbish,” said Sarah. “Everyone knows the story of Annie May. It’s made up.”

  “No, it isn’t. Mike told me his big brother went to school with her.”

  “Well, Mike’s a liar. Kids have been telling that story for years. Anyway, how do you know she was crushed in a fridge if no one ever found her body?”

  I opened my mouth but couldn’t find an answer. She had made a good point.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Idiot.”

  Mum put her mug down on the coffee table with a clink. “Sarah, will you stop? Getting at your brother isn’t helping; and Martin, while I appreciate your story, it doesn’t help our situation, does it? Don’t you have anything relating directly to what’s going on?”

  Sarah put her head in her hands. “This is so stupid. We should try the doors again. They stick. We just need to pull them harder.”

  “They stick in the daytime,” said Mum, “not late at night. Besides, it hasn’t even been that hot today.”

  “Still, I think we should try the doors again. We need to get help for Courtney.”

  Mum nodded. “I know, honey. Let me get things straight first though. So, Courtney went into the room and the door closed behind him? Did he close it?”

  Sarah shook her head. “It was more like a gust of wind blew it closed. He yelled something to me, but as soon as the door closed I couldn’t hear a thing. Mum, I’m worried about him.”

  “Try to focus on what we’re doing right now. So we’ll try the doors again. And if they’re still locked?”

  “We try the phone,” said Sarah.

  “And if it still doesn’t ring out?”

  “We wait for Dad to get home,” I suggested, staring into the last of my tea. It had gone cold remarkably quickly.

  Mum glanced at her watch. “Dad won’t be home until gone three. You kids should be fast asleep by then.”

  I scoffed. “You expect us to go to bed?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Okay, so I’ll go and try the doors again. Sarah, can you try the phone to call Dad, please?”

  Sarah put her tea down and stood up. “I’ll give Deb a try too, just in case Dad doesn’t pick up.”

  “What about me?” I asked. Mum was speaking so calmly that it had eroded some of my fear. I wanted to do something useful.

  “Just sit tight, Martin.”

  “Really?”

  “Just for a minute.”

  “Okay, fine.” While staying put sounded appealing, I was disappointed not to be given a task. It would be a battle to sit and do nothing while Mum and Sarah went off to investigate, but I was too weary to argue.

  What if something happened to them though? What if something happened to me?

  I remained sitting while my family left the room, and with nothing else to do, my head filled with questions. What if our house had been beamed up by aliens? What if time had stopped and we were trapped here for all eternity?

  Sarah came back into the living room, shaking her head and muttering to herself. At some point while she’d been gone she’d wiped the dry blood from her face, and it was a relief to see her face again. “Phone’s still not working,” she said. “Sounds like bees buzzing.”

  I frowned.

  Mum came back into the room a second later, her expression telling a similar story. She slumped on the sofa and rubbed at her forehead.

  “Mum?” I asked tentatively. “Are the doors still stuck?”

  She sighed. “It’s late. You should both get some rest.”

  “I’m not going upstairs. No way.”

  “Me neither,” said Sarah.

  “Then I want you both to lie down here and try to get some sleep. I’ll watch over you until Dad gets home. We can’t do anything else, can we?”

  “I don’t think I can sleep, Mum,” Sarah said earnestly.

  “Please try, sweetheart. I… I need to rest and I can’t do that if you kids are running around.” She rubbed at
her eyes, which were dark and swollen. I hadn’t ever seen her look so tired. It worried me.

  “Just sit down, Mum. I’ll try and take a nap, okay?”

  Sarah sighed. “Yeah, okay, me too.”

  “Thanks, kids.”

  Dad’s armchair reclined, so I pulled the handle and my legs jumped up. Then I pushed back with my shoulders and lay almost flat. Like Sarah, I didn’t think I could sleep, but as soon as I closed my eyes I began to drift. My body was heavy and my legs ached. In the last hour my heart had been racing a sprint. Everything could wait a little while.

  When I next opened my eyes, someone was banging on the front door. It was light outside – not fully daytime, but getting close – and a weak blue light came in through a gap in the curtains. My eyes were fuzzy, and for a moment I was confused. Sarah was still asleep on the sofa, lying on her side and snoring loudly. Mum stood in the centre of the room, as disoriented as I was. “It-It must be your dad,” she said. “He’s late.”

  “Why is he banging at the door?” I asked, then answered my own question. “Oh yeah, it’s stuck.” I struggled to lean forward and fold down the recliner. It meant I arrived in the hallway several seconds after Mum. A blurry shape moved on the other side of the front door’s glass pane that I hoped was Dad. When I heard his voice, I grinned.

  “Someone’s left their key in the door,” he shouted. “I can’t get in.”

  Mum stepped up to the glass. “Charlie, the door’s jammed. We can’t get out.”

  “Huh? Just take your key out of the lock.”

  “I can’t. It’s stu—” Mum turned the key easily. “Oh!”

  The door opened and Dad appeared in his dirty blue overalls. He seemed confused to see me standing there with Mum. “Sorry if I woke you both. Work ran late. I think Tim got fired.”

  Mum rubbed at her eyes and glanced at her watch. “It’s almost six. Shit, I must have fallen asleep.”

  Dad frowned, probably surprised to hear Mum swearing. He let it go, though, and turned to close the door.

  I screamed at him. “Don’t!”

  Dad flinched. “Wow, buddy, what’s wrong?”

  Mum put her hand on his shoulder and moved him aside. “Just trust us, you don’t want to close the door.”

  “Why not exactly?”

  Mum and I looked at one another. It would be very difficult to explain, but what choice did we have?

  “You’re not going to believe this, Dad, but I swear it’s all true.”

  8

  We explained the events of the night to Dad while frigid dawn turned to sunny morning, and when Sarah stirred from the sofa, we explained it all over again. He didn’t believe us for one minute, of course, and his biggest question was why his family had suddenly banded together to tell such an insane story.

  “We need to show him the door,” said Sarah, leaning against the hallway bannister. The angle made her hip pop out, and I wondered when she had got so skinny.

  “I don’t want to go upstairs,” I argued.

  “But it’s the only way he’ll believe us.”

  Dad folded his arms, alternating between amused and concerned. Currently, he was smirking, like he suspected he was being tricked. If only that had been the case. “I think you better show me,” he said. “Sooner I get my family back, the sooner I can get some sleep.”

  Mum folded her arms and nodded. “Sarah, stay with your brother and make sure this door doesn’t close. Charlie, you come with me.”

  Dad shook his head and chuckled. Mum hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment it looked like she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. Then she started climbing one step at a time, Dad right behind her.

  Sarah came and stood next to me by the still open front door, which I welcomed. I was chilly, afraid, and still dressed in only my boxer shorts, but I didn’t want to move. People would start getting up for work soon, and I really didn’t want them to see me, but it was better than the alternatives.

  “We’re going to end up in the newspapers,” said Sarah. She still wore only a T-shirt and silk shorts, but she didn’t seem as self-conscious as I was. “We’ll be known as the crazy Birmingham family.”

  “They might make a movie,” I said hopefully. “We could be in it.”

  “Get real. They’ll lock us up the moment we start talking about ghost doors.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Don’t say ghost. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Then what do you think it is?”

  “Aliens.”

  Sarah groaned. “Nice one, idiot. I’ll believe in ghosts before I believe in aliens.”

  “Aliens are real. We can’t be the only ones in the universe, can we?”

  She didn’t answer my question, just sniffed and turned away. We waited in silence until Mum and Dad came back downstairs. Mum had a hand to her mouth. Dad appeared even more confused.

  “Well,” said Sarah, “did you see it?”

  Dad hopped off the bottom step and faced us. “I didn’t see anything.”

  I looked past him. “Mum? What’s up there?”

  She had to blink before she could look directly at me. “Nothing. Just the same old wall that’s always been there.”

  “Do I need to call a doctor?” asked Dad, still looking confused.

  “I don’t know,” said Mum, and she sounded genuinely unsure. “This has been exhausting. I don’t even know what day of the week it is. Charlie, I swear to you – we all swear – there was a strange room upstairs, and Courtney disappeared inside it. It happened.”

  Dad finally lost his confused smirk. He looked at Mum and only her, as if he couldn’t trust anyone else to tell the truth. “Okay, something has clearly happened, but it’s over now. Everything is normal. I’m here and everything is fine.”

  “Except Courtney,” said Sarah. “He’s still missing.”

  Dad scratched at his beard thoughtfully. “Let’s see what today brings, okay? Maybe he’ll turn up later with an explanation. If not… well, let’s just see. It’s half six in the morning and we should all get a couple of hours sleep. Things will be less confusing after a decent rest.”

  “I can’t sleep any more,” said Sarah. “I’m going to go to Deb’s, if that’s okay, Mum?”

  “She’ll still be sleeping.”

  “It’s okay. Her window’s at the front of the house. I’ll throw pebbles until she hears me.”

  Dad grunted. “Break a window and you’ll be in big trouble, young lady. I’ve got enough to pay out for this month.” He then turned to me. “What about you, buddy? You look knackered. I’d like it if you went to bed for a while. Can you be brave and go upstairs?”

  I shivered, still standing by the open front door. “You’ll be up there too, right?”

  “Right across the landing. Anything happens, I’ll be right with you.”

  “I’ll be there too,” said Mum, rubbing at her dark eyes. “I can barely stay awake now that things have calmed down.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go back to bed, but can you wait until I fall asleep before you do?”

  Mum gave me a cuddle. “Of course.”

  Sarah grunted. “I’m going to get my coat.”

  And so it was decided. The room upstairs had disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. The house I’d lived in my entire life was back to normal. No more crisis.

  I just needed to see things with my own eyes.

  And we needed to find out what happened to Courtney.

  I waited for Dad to go upstairs and then followed. Sure enough, the door at the end of the landing was gone. Even so, I sought the safety of my room. I hurried in and slid beneath my covers, then stared at the ceiling until Mum came and tucked me in like a baby. “This will all be behind us soon,” she told me, stepping back from my bed. “We’ll probably never understand it, but at least it’s over and we—” She stumbled in the centre of my room and looked down at her feet. “Oh, clumsy me. This
goes on your shelf, right?”

  I saw the Karazy Klown doll in Mum’s hands and wondered how it had got there. “Put it next to my TV,” I said. “It keeps falling off the shelf.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

  “Yeah, Mum. In a bit.”

  “Love you.”

  I rolled over on my side. “Love you too.”

  Mum left my room. I closed my eyes. Sleep pulled me in. I hadn’t fully left slumber behind after waking up in Dad’s recliner, so it was easy to find my way back. I settled down on a jet-black cloud and thought of nothing.

  I awoke over five hours later – past noon, according to my clock – and I felt naughty for having slept in so late. I forgave myself by remembering that the night had been somewhat hectic, and that Dad had awoken me by returning home at six that morning.

  In light of the new day, and having finally rested thoroughly, things seemed less frightening. My fear of the mysterious door now turned to curiosity, and even though it had happened mere hours ago, it felt as if it had never happened, like looking back on a bout of illness. The pain and distress feels endless in the moment, but when it finally breaks, you look back on it curiously, unable to fathom the misery you were in. You’re just glad it’s over.

  Despite it feeling like a dream, I was anxious as I got out of bed and threw on some clothes. Part of me expected to see the strange door as soon as I poked my head out onto the landing, but when I stepped out, I saw only the normal cream-painted wall that had always been there.

  How could I ever speak about last night to anyone?

  Mike would laugh his head off at me.

  But it had happened, I was sure of it. Last night, something visited our house. Something unnatural. Something wrong. My mind turned to Sarah, and to whether she was currently sharing the truth with Deb. Her best friend had once thought lamb was meat from a unique animal called a ‘lamb’. It had taken twenty minutes to make her understand it was a sheep. Trying to make her understand about a mysterious door that appeared from nowhere would be an impossible task. I pitied Sarah if she even tried.