The Nightmare Room

by Chris Sorensen

  Without warning, the staircase rose up before him, and he ran headlong into it, striking his shinbones on the bottommost step with a crack. He tumbled face-first onto the stairs. Wasting no time, for surely the thing was behind him ready to pounce, the boy scrambled upward.

  The steps behind him groaned under the weight of something large, something heavy, but he didn’t look back. He crawled frantically until he finally reached the door.

  The boy grabbed the doorknob and twisted.

  Locked!

  Laughter behind him—low and guttural—like water gurgling down a drain.

  He pounded on the door and screamed.

  “Daddy!”

  The waveform on the screen had flatlined.

  Peter punched a key, and the timeline stopped. He scrolled the cursor back, watching the seconds of silence turn into minutes. One, two, three—hadn’t he hit record?

  Finally, he reached the jagged up and down of his recorded voice and clicked on the final few seconds.

  “Never had Iggy had such a day!” the voice in his headphones chortled.

  He rewound the remainder of the track and listened. Good stuff. Clear diction, delineated characters, a richness that the German mic brought to the table.

  Puzzled, he quickly scrolled across the timeline and snipped out the three minutes of dead air. He’d zoned out before in the booth but usually only after a four or five-hour stint reading a diet book.

  Happy with the take, he compressed the track, saving it in Flatiron’s preferred format, and uploaded it to the p_larson folder.

  Step one complete—he’d recorded his sample. Tomorrow, he’d get word of any adjustments the company might want, but he was more than certain there would be none. With over two hundred audiobooks recorded—most of them of the ten to twelve-hour variety—his ear was a pretty good judge when it came to levels. He recorded the sample and sent it off. Another of today’s wins.

  He shut down the system and stepped out of the booth into the little room. The basement was as quiet as…

  He caught himself before allowing himself to touch on the word grave.

  Peter headed back upstairs and snuggled in close to Hannah who was busy with her night chatter.

  “Not that tooth…” she murmured.

  “Okay,” he said in a calm, low voice—his narrator’s voice. “Not that tooth.”

  * * *

  Breakfast consisted of egg sandwiches and a quart of orange juice Peter had picked up at a quick mart on the edge of town. The short ride there and back gave him a chance to catch up on the local AM radio. Farm reports, high school football scores and ads for the upcoming Fall Festival—there was a comfort in it that he couldn’t quite describe.

  They ate on the front porch, taking in the view. The sun was making its lazy ascent as a jet divided the sky with its contrails.

  Peter eyed the Ryder truck. “I bet we can get it unloaded by noon."

  “I bet we can get it unloaded by…eleven thirty-five,” Hannah countered.

  “I bet we can get it unloaded by—”

  “Eleven twelve!” she said, stealing his thunder.

  They were done before ten.

  “Sometimes I forget how little we actually own,” Hannah said as they carried in the last of the boxes.

  “You forget the Great Purge of 2015 after I read that book about ridding your life of unnecessary baggage. Even Michael got in on the act.”

  Hannah smiled. “Poor guy tossed out his stuffed snake and then cried for days after wanting it back.”

  They caught each other’s eye. They were testing new waters, touching these old memories. The message Peter got from Hannah was so far so good.

  “I want to swing by my folks’ place and check in on the crew,” he said, setting down a box labeled H’s Many, Many Shoes. “I also thought that, since I’ve got the truck, I’d pick up Dad’s chair and take it over to his room.”

  “I don’t hear a lot of we in that plan,” Hannah said. “You want to go solo or can a lady hitch a ride?”

  “How about if I head over first, get the chair, see Pop and meet you at the rental place. Maybe we could grab some lunch, check out the hardware store? I need to pick up a cordless drill.”

  “How could a girl say no?”

  He left her unpacking her shoes and boots, pausing now and then to examine a favorite pair.

  “I’ll text you when I’m done.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, admiring a pair of sleek, red cowboy boots she’d uncovered.

  * * *

  Tad and his team were hard at it by the time he pulled up in front of his parents’ house with the truck. A row of garbage bags lined the curb. Peter soon learned that Juan had not shown up for work.

  “Dude called in sick, can you believe it?” Tad said. "It’s like he knew what was waiting for him in that kitchen. Pardon me saying so, but that was nasty.”

  “Sorry about that,” Peter said. “Can one of you guys help me get the recliner into the truck?”

  After hoisting the patched, leather chair into the payload, Peter thanked Tad and the crew, promising that he’d swing back by with some burgers and fries.

  “Kinda lost my appetite, if you know what I mean,” Tad said.

  A fender bender at the end of the street diverted Peter’s route through a more collegiate section of the neighborhood. Here rows of sorority and frat houses stood, the Greek letters seeming to go on forever. Would his childhood home become the next Sigma Chi house? How would Myrna Larson react if she found out?

  “She’d probably start screaming at the bed,” he said. His take on his mother had turned darkly humorous since her decline. But hey, whatever got you through.

  No doubt he’d be hearing again soon from Lillian Dann and Mr. Moots. If the college was hot on snapping up the old homestead, one less thing on his plate. At least he could keep the government off their backs. And Applegate was decent enough. They lay out a buffet on Sunday that’s top notch, Moots had said. Pop had always loved a Sunday buffet.

  Upon arriving at the home, Peter had to decide between the handcart and the dolly to transport the chair. He chose the handcart and halfway to the front doors wished he had chosen the dolly. The chair wobbled treacherously as he pushed it, almost running a poor woman waiting for her ride off the sidewalk.

  “Sorry!” he called, jabbing at the button for admittance. The woman merely glared at him.

  As he wheeled the chair down the hall, he thought he felt envious eyes watching the recliner pass. It was a comfortable chair. His father had picked it at Goods Furniture years ago and had kept it patched and reclining, much to his mother’s chagrin. Peter realized that its intrusion into her new living space might cause some friction, but frankly, he didn’t care. He couldn’t give Pop much, but he could give him his chair.

  “He’s at PT, and she’s…I’m not sure where she is,” said the nurse on duty. She eyed the chair like it was an unwelcome guest. “You really bringing that thing in here?”

  Peter removed the uncomfortable, wooden chair from next to his father’s bed and positioned the recliner so it had a good view of the window. He stepped back and viewed his work. Big Bear’s throne. Maybe it was best if it just appeared in the room. Like magic.

  When he got back to the truck, he called Gina. “I’ve got a crew cleaning up the house on Oak. Is there anything you want me to put aside for you?”

  His sister sounded like she was in the middle of a dozen tasks, as always. “Photos, jewelry and Mom’s doilies. Look, can I call you back later?”

  A text alert chimed in his ear. “No problem,” he told her. “I gotta take this anyway.”

  He looked down at the message.

  Little tech issue. Call me.

  It was from Mika at Flatiron.

  She answered on the first ring. “Hey, Peter. No big de
al. Your levels are fine. I just need you to do a double-check for glitches. You just about blew my engineer’s ears out.”

  “Glitches?”

  “Check the end of your file. Again, no redo—just send clean audio.”

  Peter apologized and assured her that he would.

  He dialed Hannah as he headed for the Ryder truck office.

  “I’m on my way to drop off the truck.”

  “Ooo, does that mean lunch?”

  “Going to have to take a rain check. I need to check out the sample I sent.”

  “Nuts,” Hannah said. “I was looking forward to trying my first tenderloin.”

  “Don’t get hangry. Give me one hour in the booth, and I’ll get you some strawberry-rhubarb pie. I’m sending you the rental place’s address right now.”

  * * *

  After returning the truck, Hannah dropped Peter back at the house.

  “I need a couple of new outfits for work, and before you tell me I’ve got plenty to wear, let me remind you that I’ve still got those Visa gift cards my family gave me for my birthday. So there.”

  “There’s not a big selection in town,” Peter said. “What kinda look are you going for, Mrs. Larson?”

  “I think yee-haw would best describe it.”

  “This I gotta see,” Peter said. He gave her the directions to Bourne Farm Outfitters and sent her on her way with a slap on the butt. “Ride ‘em, cowgirl.”

  Back in his booth, Peter loaded the Iggy Ostrich file. He visually scanned the file for the telltale sign of an ear-splitting glitch. He finally found the defective section and selected it.

  Turning down the volume on his headphones, he hit play.

  The sound that raged in his ear was like nails screaming down a chalkboard—an explosion of static and hiss. How in hell hadn’t he caught it before turning in the sample?

  He started to delete the section, caused by a bad cable connection no doubt, but stopped. He moved his cursor to the filters menu and viewed the selections: remove noise, high pass filter, anti-distortion. With each click of his mouse, the jagged waveform shrank. And after applying the seventh filter, he hit play once more.

  A wind tunnel roar filled his ears, and a single word fought its way through the cacophony to reach him. When it did, it was enough to make Peter’s heart seize in his chest.

  “Daddy!”

  Peter jolted as if he’d stepped on the third rail. He replayed the clip.

  “Daddy!”

  Sweat forming on his brow, he clicked a button, causing the section to loop.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

  He strained, trying to identify the voice, but it was evading him. All he could tell was that the speaker was young. And scared.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

  The repetition beat in his head like a chant, like a prayer. He raised the volume.

  “Daddy! Daddy! DADDY!”

  He felt fabric rustle against his face. He tried to resist. It reached up over his head, engulfing him. Cloth pressed down on his mouth, stifling him.

  “Daddy?”

  He raised his hand and fought against it, trying to break free of the invisible shroud that was hell-bent on stealing his breath.

  “Daddy, stop it.”

  Peter struggled—against the haze he was falling into, against the voice, against…

  “Stop it!”

  Small hands pulled the sheet from his head.

  “That’s not funny anymore,” Michael said.

  Peter stared in disbelief. Sitting before him, propped up by pillows, was his son. He had a stern look on his face and not a single hair upon his smooth head.

  “No more spooky stuff,” his child said. “Time for a story.”

  Peter could see the rest of Michael’s room in his periphery, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the boy. He lifted trembling hands to his son’s cool face, splaying out his fingers to touch as much of him as possible.

  “Michael?”

  “C’mon, tell me a story.”

  Peter pulled him close and felt how frail he was, how small. Outside, snowflakes fell like little angels.

  It had snowed his last week—Michael’s last week.

  “Ow. Too tight.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Story, story,” the boy said as he wriggled out of the hug.

  This is a dream. I’m in a dream.

  The thought settled Peter, and he finally smiled. His boy—his beautiful, breathing boy. He took the boy’s small hands in his. His fingers so like his own, the red marks on his arm so like his mother’s.

  “Story!” Michael insisted.

  “All right, all right. Which one, kiddo?” Peter had a million of ‘em.

  “I want a new one.”

  “You got it.” He settled in next to Michael and lay down, looking up at him. The boy watched with hollow, expectant eyes.

  Peter suddenly realized he couldn’t come up with a single idea. Not a shred of a story.

  “Go on, Daddy.”

  “Gimme a sec…” One suddenly came to mind, and he ran with it. “On a hot summer day in the middle of June, Iggy Ostrich turned to his friends and said, ‘I believe I could go for an ice-cold cherry popsicle!’”

  Michel tilted his head and frowned.

  “No, tell the other one.”

  “Which one is that, Michael?”

  The boy leaned in. He put his hand on Peter’s, chilling it.

  “The new one. The one about the broken bird.”

  The boy’s words stopped him cold. “I don’t…how do you know about that?”

  “Tell how it flopped, Daddy. Tell how it flopped around!”

  Peter sat up. His vision blurred momentarily, and he felt as if he might fall off the bed.

  “Tell it!”

  The falling snow had turned black, like ash.

  “Tell it!”

  Peter scrambled backward, willing himself away from the boy.

  Black liquid, thick as blood, began trickling from Michael’s nose. He touched the dark flow with his fingers and examined it. He held out his hand for his father.

  “I’m messy!” the boy screamed.

  “This never happened,” Peter whispered.

  The blackness poured from Michael’s nose and mouth, soaking his shirt, the bed—moving like a living stain toward Peter’s feet.

  “I’m messy!”

  “This never happened!”

  The software froze. The cursor disappeared, replaced by a spinning pinwheel.

  “Michael!”

  A second later, the audio program vanished from the screen.

  Peter frantically clicked on an icon and the program reloaded. It attempted to open the last file saved before once more balking and dying.

  Authorization Error: Vocable cannot run because it is corrupted. Please try reinstalling the product.

  “No…”

  Try as he might, Peter couldn’t get the program to open.

  He jumped up and abandoned the booth. He took the stairs two at a time and shoved open the back door. Peter shielded his eyes from the glaring sun as he circled the pond, willing the adrenaline from his system.

  What the fuck was that?

  The question propelled him forward, around and around and around.

  Round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran…

  Peter finally stopped to catch his breath.

  Michael! He had seen him, touched him…

  Not Michael. Not real.

  His heart said different. It cried out for the boy, urging him back down into the basement. Back to the bed where his son lay screaming.

  No! Not real!

  He stared across the pond—the house was reflected on its surface, upside-down and undu
lating. Picking up a large rock, Peter stepped forward. He threw it, scattering the reflection into giggling ripples.

  No.

  The spell—or dream or whatever the fuck it was—was broken. The heaviness lifted, the howling grief silenced. The world normalized with alarming alacrity. A distant truck blasted its horn, putting a period to the episode.

  This is what comes of remembering.

  The thought hit Peter hard. He had done this to himself, jumped—too quickly, perhaps—back into the pool of memories where Michael lay buried. The same had happened to Hannah, her bad day the result of wading back into the depths of her sorrow.

  Perhaps this was his bad day.

  “I’m either going back in there, or I’m standing in this yard for the rest of my life,” he said aloud. “What’s it going to be, Peter?”

  As soon as he had said it, he had his answer. He moved toward the house, hesitantly at first but gaining speed as his resolve kicked in.

  “I’m coming in!” he called as he opened the door.

  He marched down the stairs and headed straight for the room, for the booth, ignoring the tricks his eyes tried to play, coming so quickly as he did from sunlight to shadow.

  Peter threw open the door to the audio booth and sat. “I’m getting back to work, Michael,” he said, his voice muffled by the soundproofing.

  And as soon as he had said the name, Peter laughed. There was no humor in it, only release. It was laugh or cry, and so he laughed as he searched his computer, located the Vocable folder on his external hard drive and reinstalled the program.

  His hands were so cold.

  Shut it down.

  I should have stayed with him.

  Now.

  He opened the program. It went through its initialization phase, then offered up a new project window. Peter closed the window, located the Iggy Ostrich sample file and opened it.

  He zoomed out on the timeline so he could see the full length of the waveform—the rises and falls of his voice laid out like a landscape.

  He played the final seconds of the track to confirm what his eyes had already surmised.

  The glitch was gone.

  Just like my boy.

  With practiced movements, Peter selected the entire track, deleted its contents and closed the program.