The Blue Room nosleep

I hadn’t thought about the Bauer house for a long time. It’s something I try not to think about. But over the years, even as I’ve moved from place to place—from the Colonial across town, to the college dorm, to the high-rise apartment where I currently reside—every once in a while, it creeps back into my memory, back out of that dark place to which I try to banish the parts of my life that I’d rather forget. Those things always come back.

I was five years old when my family moved into the house on Bauer. It was a white, three-bedroom Cape Cod with a tiny, fenced-in backyard and a mulberry tree—nothing too special, really, but it was a massive step up from the duplex we’d been living in. Honestly, all I cared about was the fact that I no longer had to live next door to the kid who’d made a habit of stealing my bike.

It was bigger than the old place, to be sure, but childhood has a way of making things seem far grander than they really are. I thought the Bauer house was a mansion. I remember being struck by its size as soon as I stepped out of the car: we had a second floor, and our own front yard with a brick path that led to our own front porch.

My parents took us over for the first time right after they’d gotten the keys. My dad walked ahead, boasting about the oak crown moulding, while I followed behind with my sister, Daphne. My mom was still getting little Jed out of his car seat.

“You guys are gonna love this place,” my dad said, grinning. “It’s got a rich history, and it’s really stood the test of time. One of the reasons your mother and I chose it is because a lot of the original woodwork is still intact.”

“How old is it?” I asked.

“The house dates back to the ’20s, I think, but the Bauer family owned this whole area long before then. At least, that’s what the realtor told us,” my dad said, jimmying the key in the lock. “This used to be all forest, until one of the Bauer kids cleared it out. Used the same trees he’d cut down to build this place, went a little off the rails, and sold the rest of the land to the county.” My dad frowned, turned the key over, and tried the lock again. “There we go.”

Daphne let out an excited gasp as we crossed the threshold, dropping her princess backpack at the door. “It’s so big!”

I craned my neck around her, hugging my stuffed elephant, Toby, close to my chest. The foyer led into a living room that seemed larger than our entire old place had been, with a red brick fireplace and hardwood floors. But a living room is only fun with enough furniture to play “the floor is lava,” after all, and we hadn’t moved any of ours in yet.

Daphne and I set to exploring the new house. We moved on to the kitchen, found the bathroom, and found the entrance to the basement, which neither of us wanted any part of.

“Mom says our room is upstairs,” Daphne whispered, conspiratorial grin across her face.

We turned down the hallway to our left and began checking all of the mystery doors—the master bedroom, a linen closet, the guest bedroom, which my dad had already claimed for an office—until we found the one that led to the upstairs.

The temperature instantly dropped a few degrees. A shiver ran through me, and Daphne must have felt it too, because she shot an uncertain glance in my direction before taking the first steps forward. As we ascended, the room flooded with natural light. The upper level was one big room that stretched the length of the house, with one set of windows in the front and another in the back.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “We have this all to ourselves?”

“We’ll still be sharing with Jed,” Daphne reminded me.

The floors were carpeted in a weird, orange giraffe pattern. Daphne said it was ugly, but I liked it. I looked out the back windows and saw that we had a nice view of the wooded area behind the house.

“The bunk beds go here,” I decided. Daphne nodded in agreement.

“And Jed’s crib can go over there,” she said, indicating a corner on the opposite side of the room. She came to the walk-in closet and slid open the door, peering inside. “Hey, come look at this!”

“What?” I asked, approaching with caution. Daphne stepped aside.

“Just go inside and look.”

I walked into the closet, but everything was dark. “What is it?” I asked. “I can’t see anything—”

The closet door slammed shut behind me.

“Daphne!” I screamed, trying to pry open the door, but she was holding it closed. I searched frantically for a light switch or a chain, finding none. On the other side, I could hear her shrieking with laughter. “Stop it! Let me out!”

“You’re so gullible!” she cried.

“This isn’t funny! I’m telling dad!” I shouted. The door swung open.

“Don’t you dare tell dad,” Daphne said, her expression grave.

Hot beads of tears were forming in my eyes now. I wiped them off on Toby, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Daphne’s expression quickly turned to one of amusement.

“Don’t start crying, Clare. It was only a joke.”

“I don’t like this room,” I mumbled, pushing past her and stomping down the steps. I started heading back down the hallway, determined to tell somebody. But then I saw something that gave me pause.

I hadn’t noticed that door before.

The door stood just between the linen closet and the office, where I was certain there had been only a patch of blank wall just five minutes before. It was the same dark stained wood as the other doors in the house, but the knob was fluted glass that reflected the red of my shirtsleeve as I reached for it. It was slightly open.

Everything in the room was bathed in a sort of cool, blue light—no, everything was blue. Adult me would have found this tacky, but my five-year-old self thought it was perfect. Blue has always been my favorite color.

The carpets were blue, the walls were blue, even the radiator in the corner was painted blue. There were blue curtains, too, though the blinds that hung over the windows were white. I peeked out onto the street. The birch tree swayed in the front yard, surrounded by robins pecking for worms in the grass. A boy walked down the sidewalk with his dog; it stopped to take a piss on a bright red fire hydrant.

I surveyed the rest of the room and opened the door to the closet. There was a lonely hanger bar and a few empty shelves that were destined for my dollhouses, but what caught my eye was the peeling, yellowed wallpaper.

It was done in that Pennsylvania Dutch style that favors bright, primary colors, and it looked hand-painted. A cute little house and a family meandered through the floral pattern: There was a man wielding an axe emerging from a patch of trees, a log over his shoulder. Behind the house, a woman wearing a prayer cap was trying to coax a bird out of a mulberry tree. There was a chicken coop, and a little girl crouched on the ground, scattering feed for the hens. Just beyond, a boy stood ready to throw a stick for a floppy-eared dog.

This was my room, I decided. I left Toby sitting on the floor and rushed out to find my mom, hoping to bypass Daphne’s seniority if I staked my claim first. I found her on the front porch, lugging a plastic storage bin filled with my Barbie dolls.

“Hey, mom! Can I pick my bedroom?”

She took a deep breath, preparing herself for an argument. “The guest bedroom is going to be your dad’s office. You and Daphne and Jed will be in the upstairs room.”

“But what about the blue room?” I asked.

“What?” She set down the storage bin and wiped the sweat from her brow. “What room are you talking about?”

I motioned for her to follow me. We sidled past the pile of our belongings that had collected in the foyer, passed the door to the master bedroom, and came to a patch of bare wall.

“No,” I said aloud. I looked at her, then back at the wall. “No, it was right here,” I insisted.

“Just help me get your things out of the car, honey,” my mom sighed, shaking her head. When I followed her back outside to help, I noticed something odd: that fire hydrant was white.

When all was said and done, the three of us kids moved into the upstairs bedroom. We turned the house upside down looking for Toby, but of course, we never found him. I didn’t try to tell anyone else about the blue room.

Days came and went. We made friends with the two boys who lived down the street. We took in a stray calico that we named—not so creatively—Cali. We picked mulberries from the tree in the back, and my mom baked them into a pie for the family reunion. I grew to love the house.

At the end of that summer, I started kindergarten. I met a girl named Holly on the first day, and we instantly became best friends because of our matching light-up sneakers. We had lots of sleepovers where we’d play dress-up, and give each other makeovers using the giant, cheap makeup kit I’d received for my birthday. Sometimes Jed would let us braid his long, blonde hair, but whenever we pulled out the nail polish he got as far away from us as possible. That was when we’d start dressing up poor Cali in my baby doll clothes. Looking back now, I think she must have been a pretty old cat. At any rate, she didn’t put up much of a fight.

One day, Holly and I were walking home together. It was a Friday, and her mom had sent her to school with a change of clothes and a toothbrush. We arrived with our minds full of plans for prank calls and truth or dare, only to find my mom in the kitchen, cradling a sobbing Jed.

“It’s okay, honey,” she cooed, stroking his head. “I’m sure she’ll come home soon.”

“Who will come home soon?” I asked.

Cali was missing.

Daphne came home shortly after, and she joined Holly and me as we walked around the neighborhood, shouting ourselves hoarse.

“Cali! Come on, Cali!”

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

Does this ever work to bring lost animals home? It sure didn’t for us.

When another day passed, still with no sign of Cali, my mom took us to the local Humane Society, then to the public library to print off signs. We spent the day stapling them to telephone poles. We received no calls.

It was late November by that point, and as usual, kids at school started coming down with the flu. Daphne got it first, and pretty soon, I started to feel it too—I threw up while my class was learning the words to “Arre Borriquito,” and my mom came to pick me up early and sent me to bed.

I woke in the middle of the night, feeling sick to my stomach and disoriented, probably a little dehydrated. I needed my mom. I crawled out of bed and made my way down the stairs on all fours. In the dark, I felt along the wall for my parents’ bedroom door. It was slightly open.

But this wasn’t my parents’ room. I was in the blue room.

Something was different. I don’t know what, exactly—a presence, or maybe just a feeling—but something hung thick in the air. Moonlight spilled in through the blinds, casting shafts of light that swayed back and forth across the floor. The whole room seemed to vibrate, and I could feel it in my knees and the palms of my hands as they made contact with the floor: a pulse, a heartbeat, a sign that the room lived and breathed. Somewhere in the low hum that pounded against my eardrums, there was a voice. It whispered just below the threshold of my awareness, but I know it was there, calling me, urging me forward. It wanted me.

I rose to my feet and approached the closet door, which stood open. Leaning against the doorjamb, I peered inside. There was that same wallpaper, but it looked fresher. Newer. The colors were brighter, and the people seemed more lively. I wondered if it was just the light playing tricks on me, but I could have sworn that the people had moved. The man with the axe had gotten closer to the house, and the little girl was reaching out to pet one of the chickens. The boy stood in the same place, but the stick was now in midair, not in his hand. The woman in the prayer cap looked the same, but the bird in the tree… well, it wasn’t a bird at all.

It was a cat. A calico cat.

I fell backwards and stumbled out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I made it to the bathroom just in time to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. My head became heavy, and the room grew smaller around me as I curled up on the bathmat and fell asleep.

I woke up in my bedroom and breathed a sigh of relief. A dream. Of course it had been a dream. I stretched my limbs and climbed out of bed. What time was it? I must have slept past noon. As I came down the stairs, the sounds and smells of breakfast cooking filled my senses.

“Clare!” my mom’s voice called. “Clare, are you up?”

“Yes,” I groaned.

“How are you feeling, honey? I found you in the bathroom last night and saw that you’d thrown up, so I called you off for the day.”

My knees buckled underneath me. I reached out to steady myself against the wall, but I felt something strange brush against my hand. Something that should not have been there.

There were hairs sticking out of the plaster. Orange, black, and white hairs.

“Cali,” I whispered, pressing an ear against the wall, as though I might hear her mewling on the other side. But there was nothing.

I never saw Cali again.

The days went by, and again I put the blue room out of my mind. Those days turned into months, Daphne got a pet hamster to fill the cat-sized void in her heart, and soon we forgot about Cali. Still, whenever I came downstairs at night to use the bathroom, I always double-checked that patch of wall.

It was around that time that Jed moved up to a big-boy bed. He had reached that age where kids start getting into everything, and he made good use of his newfound freedom through his nightly escapades. One night, my parents were woken up by a crash from the kitchen, and found Jed, illuminated by the open refrigerator, sitting among the ruins of a pickle jar. Another night, he gathered up our shoes and arranged them in a neat line going up the stairs. My parents really weren’t happy after the night he scribbled all over the living room walls with magic marker.

But those were good days. Daphne and I were doing well in school, and Jed was soaking up everything like a sponge; soon he’d be ready for preschool. My parents were happy. My dad got a promotion, and there was talk of a summer beach vacation.

Then Jed went missing.

No one was really sure when or how it happened. It must have been sometime in the night. But there were no signs of a break-in. No open doors.

I don’t remember much from that time, but the memories I do have are sporadic and oddly specific: I remember the crumpled mess of blankets and pillows on his bed that morning; it looked like he’d be back at any moment to curl up and go to sleep. I remember the name of the officer who worked on our case (it was Jefferies). I remember the vein that stood out in my dad’s neck as he screamed at that same officer weeks later, when he told us that the search had been called off. I remember the boxes labeled “Jed” in black Sharpie when we moved out a few months later.

That was sixteen years ago. But my family didn’t move across the country to get away from that place that held so much pain, not like the movies. We only moved across town, not far from the Bauer house. When I eventually moved out, I didn’t go far either—I pass the Bauer house on my daily commute.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the big “FOR SALE” sign in the front yard. And just today, there was an open house. I figured I’d stop in, just for the hell of it.

I was greeted by the realtor, a smiling, middle-aged woman in a white pantsuit. I learned through the whispered exchanges of neighbors that the owners had a six-year-old daughter. She was missing.

They weren’t completely moved out; it looked like they’d packed up in a hurry. There was still some furniture, and a few pictures on the mantel. I noticed one of a little girl, her red hair in pigtails, smiling with purple teeth in front of the mulberry tree. It had grown a bit taller since I’d last seen it.

But the tree was gone now. I was disappointed when I realized they’d gotten rid of the entire backyard and put in a garage. Other than that, the house was largely the same. They had done some repainting, put new linoleum in the kitchen, the usual renovations. The hardwood in the living room looked a little worse for wear.

But that’s not why I’m writing this.

I went upstairs to check out my old bedroom. I was pleased to see that they hadn’t replaced the giraffe-print carpet, but my heart sank as soon as I looked at that corner of the room where Jed’s bed had once been. Tears welled up in my eyes as the old feelings came rushing back, and I hastily climbed back down the stairs. I stepped out into the hallway, brushing my hand against the wall as I passed. What I felt instantly made my entire body break out in gooseflesh. I looked down, knowing full well what I would see.

There, sticking out of the wall, were a few mixed strands of red and blonde hair.

Submitted May 26, 2017 at 02:53AM by NotTheOnePercentMilk http://ift.tt/2rmq7r5 nosleep