The Nightmare Room

by Chris Sorensen

  The team met them at the house at eight the next morning, armed with cleaning supplies and contractor bags.

  “Where do want us to start?” asked Juan. He apparently did the speaking for the group.

  Peter, who had always felt odd about hiring people to do his work for him, pointed in the general direction of the house. “Wherever you want.”

  Juan rounded up the crew, and they headed into the house, like troops ready to do battle. The team went to town on the place, hauling out mattresses, broken furniture and, to everyone’s amusement, a plastic kiddie pool someone had left upstairs to chill their brewskis.

  “You mind if I have this?” Juan asked Peter. “Not a crack in it.”

  “It’s yours,” Peter said.

  Around noon, Hannah flagged him down.

  “I’m going into town,” she said. She was wearing her grey slacks and red top. She meant business.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yup. I’m gonna see what kind of jobs this ole town of yours has to offer.”

  “Door to door? That’s old school. Got your resume?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “And your phone?”

  “Don’t get smart, dear.” Hannah was notorious for leaving her phone behind.

  “Then, get outta here. Looks like we’re going to be cranking for the rest of the day.”

  Hannah looked back at the workers. The majority lazed about in the front yard, sipping Cokes or munching on sandwiches. Juan and a young girl were still inside, kicking up dust.

  Hannah offered him her cheek. “Wish me luck, husband.”

  Peter kissed her, careful not to muss her clothes. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

  She strutted off toward the Prius, and he could tell she was feeling good about herself. A moment later, she had disappeared down the drive.

  Peter turned back to the work at hand. “Who wants to clean out a kitchen?”

  * * *

  As Hannah drove the streets of Peter’s youth—through neighborhoods foreign to her—she found it strange not having her husband by her side. The houses she passed seemed to whisper at her arrival. Newcomer.

  The Prius hiccupped, reminding her that an oil change was probably in order.

  She came to the town square and circled the statue of a city forefather standing watch, following the signs toward the college.

  Hannah couldn’t imagine growing up in a small town. She had always been a suburban gal, and later, an urban gal. The wide open spaces didn’t quite make her uneasy but damn close to it. She’d get used to it; she was sure of that. But the idea of a town with one grocery store, one hospital, one Chinese restaurant was still a lot to absorb.

  After picking her way through town to the campus, she pulled past the main Maple City College sign and steered down a serpentine road toward a cluster of administration buildings perched on a rise. Cue Pomp and Circumstance, she mused.

  There was no space left in the visitor parking, and so she nosed into a space in the student parking lot. She grabbed her legal pad and scribbled Visitor in Sharpie and set it on the dash.

  As she walked to the building, all the smells of autumn hit her at once, and they put a spring in her step.

  * * *

  At 2:30, Juan pulled Peter aside. “I think you’re good. We finished upstairs and downstairs. I can send my cousin back later with a weed whacker and mower. Only place left is the basement. You want us to do the basement?”

  Peter hesitated. Of course, he wanted them to clear out the basement, needed them to, but he felt a small twinge of possessiveness when he thought of Lillian’s crew tromping around downstairs amongst the junk his father had left there. Perhaps it was a project he wanted to tackle himself.

  “Did Lillian mention the house over on Oak?”

  “Yeah,” said Tad, Lillian’s gawkishly tall son. “She said maybe we’d get to that tomorrow?” There was a hopeful tone in his voice.

  “I’d love for you to head over there now if you don’t mind. I want you to give it a good airing out. No need to box anything up just yet. There’s a key under the frog on the front porch.”

  There were unspoken grumbles from the crew as they headed for their trucks.

  “Juan,” Peter called. “Any chance you could stay behind?”

  The man looked to Tad. “Sure, but he’s my ride.”

  “I’ll get you home. I just need an extra back.”

  “You got it.”

  Peter waved him over to the Ryder truck and lifted the roll-up door. His planning had paid off—his audio booth was right up front.

  “Howdy, partner,” he said.

  * * *

  The director of human resources was an affable woman, but Hannah could tell quite soon that a job at the college wasn’t in the cards. She looked Hannah’s resume up and down before passing it back to her and offering up her most sympathetic smile.

  “All of our positions are posted on the HR webpage,” the woman in the powder blue suit explained. “Delia puts the new ones up as soon as we get them. Some from maintenance, adjunct positions, cafeteria staff, but mostly admin stuff, like you’re looking for. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a job for her to post in, I’d say, two months. Lord knows, we’ve always been on the quiet side when it comes to hiring, but this year we’re positively silent.”

  The woman had refused her resume, insisting that she visit the webpage.

  She was met with similar responses at the public library, the local paper and city hall.

  “I think you’re overqualified.”

  “We actually just laid off a couple of folks.”

  “Have you tried the college?”

  And so, when she spotted the Coors Lite sign in the window of the Blind Rock Tavern as she was driving down Main Street, Hannah flipped the turn signal and headed for the adjacent municipal lot.

  * * *

  “That does it,” Peter said as Juan maneuvered the final sectional wall into place. The worker had done him the service of replacing all the light bulbs in the basement from a box conveniently labeled Light bulbs. The two of them had managed to transport the booth piece by piece down to the small, basement room and were putting in the final screws that held the thing in place.

  “You get inside?” Juan asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And read the book?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  Juan looked rather impressed. “And they pay you?”

  “Strange world, huh?”

  Juan pondered this. “That’s good. That’s a good job.”

  “I suppose so. Thanks for hanging back to help me. I would never have gotten this down here myself.” He fished around in his pocket for a twenty, then realized that he had given the last of his cash to Hannah. He stuck his other hand in his pocket as well, trying to disguise his thwarted tip. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They sidestepped the plastic crates containing Peter’s recording equipment—mic stand, preamp, coils of audio cable—and headed for the stairs.

  Juan stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Juan?” Peter asked. “Something wrong?”

  The man seemed rooted to the spot.

  “Juan?”

  Tears started rolling down Juan’s face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Juan looked perplexed. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m…” Wave after wave of tears poured down his cheeks.

  Peter clapped him on the arm. “C’mon, let’s get you some air.”

  The other man broke free and rushed to the stairs, bounding up them, making the whole staircase shake.

  * * *

  Riggs perused Hannah’s resume a moment before tearing it up and tossing the scraps into the trash. He held out his hand.

  “When can you start
?”

  “You don’t even know if I know a muddler from a mop,” she said.

  “Mop gets a lot more action around here than the muddler, but if you wanna strut your stuff, how’s about you make me a Rum Martinez?”

  Hannah slipped behind the bar, removing her coat. “You want that with or without the applewood smoke?”

  “Surprise me.”

  She grabbed a bottle of dark rum and got down to business.

  “I’m sorry about that crack I made yesterday,” Riggs said. “I was way outta line. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”

  Hannah flipped a maraschino cherry into the air and caught it in the mixing glass. “Giving me a job would be a great start.”

  * * *

  Back upstairs, Peter found Juan standing in the front yard, his arms folded and his head down.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes on the ground. “Please don’t tell Mrs. Dann.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I need this job.”

  “It’s nothing, Juan. Are you okay?”

  A distant train whistle echoed across the plains. “Can you drive me home?” Juan asked.

  “Let me get my keys.” Peter headed for the house. He paused next to the plastic swimming pool. “Can’t let you forget this.”

  Juan didn’t respond, and when they drove off down the road, the pool was still sitting in the front yard.

  * * *

  The sun was setting by the time Peter returned with the truck. Juan hadn’t said a word during the drive. When Peter had pulled up to Juan’s house, the man jumped out of the truck before it came to a full stop.

  As he pulled up next to the house, he saw that the Prius was back. Next to it sat parked a Midwest Connections van. The internet serviceman that he’d scheduled for earlier this morning. Some things never changed.

  “Hannah?” Peter called as he stepped inside.

  “Back here!” she replied. “Near the back door.”

  He found her and the handsome service tech in the room at the rear of the house where the door to the basement stood open.

  “This is Lance. He says this is the best spot to make sure the whole house is covered. Especially your booth.” Hannah made it a habit of finding out workmen’s first names.

  “All up and running,” Lance said. He turned to Hannah and handed her his card. “That’s my cell in case you have any problems.”

  The serviceman had Hannah sign off on the work and took his leave. Peter fished the card out of Hannah’s hand.

  “Lance, eh?” he said, his voice dripping with insinuation.

  “Stop.”

  “He gave you his digits, hmm?”

  She gave him a shove. “The place looks great. How’d you make out with the crew?”

  Juan’s face popped into his head, and he closed the door. “Fine. My booth’s already downstairs. I’ll get up early and upload some audio samples, which I can now do thanks to Lance.”

  Hannah wrinkled her nose at him. The jealousy game was fun, but only in small doses.

  “And you?” Peter asked.

  “You’re looking at the Blind Rock’s newest bartender, my friend.”

  “OMG. You’re kidding me. When do you start?”

  “Saturday. I told your buddy that my husband needed my help unpacking tomorrow. So, what do you think?”

  “I think you’re amazing.”

  Hannah walked over to Peter and put her arms around his neck. She kissed him gently. “Now, can you go get the Aerobed out of the truck, Mr. Larson? I think I’m in desperate need of a cuddle.”

  “Anything you want, Mrs. Larson.”

  At first, Peter didn’t know where he was. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the lines of the room where he had found Hannah the night before, laid out in the inflatable bed beneath the poster of New York City she’d hung above it. A regular Mary Bailey waiting for her George.

  For the second night in a row, his sleep had been fitful, sparse and the shreds of relief he’d managed to piece together didn’t add up to a full night’s rest.

  He lay next to Hannah on the inflatable bed, listening to the house creak. The room Hannah had settled on for their master bedroom was rather sizable with a row of windows looking out over the backyard, over the pond. The wallpaper was pale and faded, and it would need to come down.

  There was something odd about the house, that much he knew, but he was determined not to let his mind run wild. True, he had had his initial jitters in the basement, and there were Juan’s tears. But odd wasn’t terrible and it sure as hell wasn’t a deal-breaker. Besides, there were countless other times he had gotten a sense of something being off. In neighborhoods where he had quickened his pace, in certain taxis he had taken. In Michael’s empty bedroom before Hannah’s deep dive. And weren’t those times more reflections of himself than his location?

  Sheesh! Enough with the philosophy, Professor.

  He forced himself to get up. He slipped on his sweatpants from the night before—the ones Hannah had so eagerly stolen from him—and searched around for his shoes.

  Flipping on the overhead lights, he descended the stairs to the first floor and tried to see the place as he imagined Hannah saw it. New coats of paint, a throw rug or two. Potted ferns. Did she like potted ferns?

  He reached the foyer and double-checked that the front door was locked—it was. As he passed the stairs and headed down the hall past the living room, he realized that he’d have to write Larson Enterprises a check for one dollar tomorrow. Strange days indeed.

  The door to the basement was open.

  “I’ll have to put a latch on you,” Peter said to the open door, keeping his nerves in check.

  He flipped the switch, and the basement lit up.

  Time to make the donuts.

  * * *

  By the time Peter had pieced his recording equipment back into its familiar configuration, snaking cords from his laptop to the preamp and into the booth, he was eager to get to work. Once he had placed his ergonomic chair inside and rigged up his fancy German microphone, Peter stepped inside and checked it out.

  It was the same booth he’d been using for years, bought off Craigslist from a musician in Brooklyn. When asked why there was a latch at the top of the door—allowing it to be locked from the outside—the man replied, “My kid just turned three, and equipment’s expensive.”

  Through the vertical window in the door, he could peer at the room outside, but other than that, the effect was much like being tucked away inside an oversized phone booth. Or a padded cell.

  Having positioned the booth inside this little room, the recording environment felt doubly soundproofed. No more waiting for planes to pass overhead, no more two-hour pauses waiting for the neighbors to finish washing and drying their sneakers. Thunk-thunk-thunk.

  He sat and adjusted the height of the chair. Perfect. This was going to work just fine. He switched on the power to his system and made a little prayer. Please, don’t trip the breaker. The little lights on the preamp flickered on. All was good.

  Peter powered up his tablet and found the Wi-Fi signal. Hannah had named the network homesweethome. Soon, he was searching through the folder he shared with the team at Flatiron Audio. He opened the folder labeled p_larson.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he sighed. There was a long list of pdfs, each with accompanying titles such as The Birthday Doctor and Squirrel’s Holiday. Instead of the usual dozen or so titles the company assigned narrators working a thirteen-week contract, Mike and the good folks at Flatiron Audio had filled his queue with children’s books. Minimal prep time, funny voices, zero need for his dictionary of geographical place names.

  “One of today’s wins,” Peter whispered, echoing a daily tally he and Hannah had started back when Michael had first gotten sick. The big stuff was overwhelming—why not celebrate
the little victories? Drinking an especially good cup of coffee, finding a MetroCard with twenty dollars on it, catching a pocketed pen before it made it into the laundry. Little victories. Today’s wins. Finger holds on the cliff of life.

  He opened the first title, Iggy Ostrich, and scanned the text. After settling on a passage to record, Peter put on his headphones, opened the Vocable recording program and proceeded to set his levels. He recorded the section a number of times, making adjustments as he went.

  Finally, he was ready to record the first take.

  “This is Peter Larson testing studio levels for Flatiron Audio. I’ll be reading from Iggy Ostrich by Ronald Orson Platt.”

  The boy ran through the basement, hands out in front of him, ready to fend off whatever he might encounter.

  He made a beeline for the stairs, the lone overhead bulb a beacon. But as he ran, his vision tightened. The staircase receded into the distance, growing smaller like an image seen through a pinhole camera. It shrank, threatening to blink out of existence entirely.

  Suddenly, the stairs veered to his left, and he was certain he would throw up. Nausea welled up inside him the likes of which he hadn’t felt since the Old Man had spun him wildly about on the merry-go-round at the park, laughing at his pleas to stop, reveling in his screams. Now, as then, he felt like he was going to fall off the end of the world.

  “Stop!” he cried.

  Cold breath played across the back of his neck, and something snickered, “Stop!”

  The staircase shifted again, to the right and behind him. He whirled about slowly as if underwater, fighting against the tide. He got the stairs in his sights and pressed on.

  Stick figures raged in his head, fighting, cavorting, doing things his seven-year-old mind could not comprehend. Crayon hands dug into his brain. There was laughter, too—inside and out—pounding behind his eyes, bouncing against the walls. He tried to scream, but a waxy film filled his mouth.

  “You can’t scribble me out!” he cried, spitting crayon shavings as he ran.