The Secret Bedroom

  But, of course, there couldn’t be anyone walking around up there.

  And if someone had somehow gotten in up there, why was he just pacing back and forth? Why hadn’t he made any move to come down?

  That’s because it’s all just my imagination or creepy, old house noises, Lea told herself. Maybe there’s a shingle loose on the roof.

  Yes. Of course. That has to be it. A loose shingle. And every time the wind blows it, it tilts up, then comes down with a tapping noise.

  Lea felt a little better.

  But she knew she had to find out for sure.

  She was surprised to find herself on the metal ladder outside her bedroom door. It was as if she had sleepwalked out to the hall. And now there she was, climbing the ladder despite the heavy feeling of dread in her chest, climbing the ladder and pushing the trapdoor up and out of the way, and climbing higher, high enough to peer into the long, low attic.

  “Anybody up here?” she called, surprised by her own bravery.

  The darkness was thick and cold. And silent.

  Of course there isn’t anyone up here, she told herself.

  She pulled herself up onto the attic floor, then groped along the wall until she found the light switch. A single bulb suspended from the ceiling cast pale yellow light over the room.

  Lea stared at the window, then turned and let her eyes examine the boarded-up room.

  Nothing. No one. Silence.

  Breathing a soft sigh of relief, she moved to turn off the light.

  Then she heard the footsteps again. Clearly.

  Very close.

  Three steps one way, two steps back.

  Lea looked around expectantly, listening, hoping the noise came from above her, from the roof. Hoping her broken shingle theory would prove true.

  But she knew at once where the sounds were coming from. They were coming from the room, from behind the locked door.

  This is crazy, she thought.

  But she moved to the door, taking off her thongs so she could walk even more silently. She leaned against one of the two-by-fours, pressing her ear against the wood.

  This is crazy. This is so crazy.

  She continued to hear the sounds.

  Yes. She heard them coming from the other side of the door.

  Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

  I must be going crazy.

  This room has been locked up for a hundred years. Locked and blockaded for a hundred years.

  “Hello! Can you hear me?” she shouted into the door.

  She leaned forward expectantly, pressing her ear hard against the old wood.

  From the other side she heard nothing now. The sounds had stopped.

  Lea’s heart was pounding. She tingled all over. The dim yellow light made everything unreal, as if she were living in a faded, old movie.

  The sounds had stopped, as if in response to her call.

  “Hello!” she called again, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting against the door.

  Silence on the other side.

  A heavy silence, as if someone was listening. Listening to her.

  And then she heard a soft plopping, a dripping sound.

  Lea raised her head just in time to see the dark liquid begin to ooze out from the top of the doorway. It descended rapidly, in a single wave, flowing straight down the front of the door to the floor, splashing at Lea’s feet.

  Lea screamed and jumped back.

  It was a thick, dark liquid. It was blood. A curtain of blood. Pouring down the door. Forming a dark, widening circle on the floor at her feet.

  Holding her hands to her face, unable to take her eyes from the flowing waterfall of blood, she screamed again.

  And again.

  “Deena, please—hurry!”

  Lea had been screaming into the phone without realizing it.

  “Just try to calm down,” Deena said, sounding very alarmed on the other end of the line. “You sound hysterical, Lea. You’re not making any sense.”

  “Of course I’m not making sense!” Lea shrieked, gripping the phone tightly, gasping for breath. “It doesn’t make any sense! Please—hurry.”

  “Okay. I just have to get some shoes on,” Deena told her. “I’ll be right there. Where are your parents, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Someone’s house. They didn’t leave a number,” Lea said breathlessly, staring at the floor in front of her bedroom door, as if expecting the wave of blood to follow her downstairs.

  “I hate Fear Street!” Deena exclaimed. “Why do you have to live on Fear Street? I had a horrible experience on Fear Street last year!”

  “Come on, Deena. I’m all alone here!” Lea pleaded.

  “Okay. Bye.” The line went dead.

  Lea replaced the receiver, still staring at the floor by the doorway. Of course my story doesn’t make sense, she thought. How could it make sense?

  Footsteps in a room that’s been boarded up for a hundred years? A waterfall of blood pouring down over a door?

  She dropped down onto the edge of her bed, her hand still on the phone receiver.

  She listened. The house was silent now. So silent she could hear the soft ticking of her desk clock. So silent she could hear the brush of wind through the leafless old trees in the front yard.

  It was quiet up there now. But was the blood still flowing? Was it flooding the attic? Would it soon seep through her ceiling and down onto her bed?

  Terrified, she glanced up at the ceiling.

  That enormous, circular dark spot around the brass light fixture—had it been there before? Those long, straight cracks in the plaster. She didn’t remember seeing them, either.

  I’ve got to get out of here, she thought.

  She darted to her closet, swung open the door, and pulled the light chain. Nothing in the closet seemed familiar to her. Were those her clothes hung on the bar, stacked on the shelves, tossed on the floor, piles of socks and underwear, blouses and T-shirts still waiting to be sorted and put away?

  Nothing here is mine, she thought, gripped with panic. Nothing in this house is familiar. Nothing in this house is right.

  Frantically she pulled off her pajamas, kicking them out of her way, and grabbed a pair of jeans and a green, long-sleeved sweater.

  Where should I go? Where can I go?

  If only Mom and Dad were here.

  But what could they do about the blood, the pouring blood?

  Lea started out of her room, pausing at the doorway, looking both ways down the hall, then realized she was barefoot.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked herself out loud. Her voice sounded small and frightened in the vast old house. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

  Glancing up to the top of the ladder, she made sure the trapdoor was in place. Yes.

  Even in her panic, even as she had run from the blood, run from the attic, pulled herself in a frenzy down the ladder, trembling all over, more frightened than she had ever been in her life, more frightened than she had ever dreamed possible, she had remembered to replace the trapdoor.

  To her relief, it remained in place.

  And the house remained quiet.

  But upstairs—what? What was happening in the attic?

  I’ll call the police, she decided.

  Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

  Of course. The police.

  She ran downstairs, still barefoot, the wooden stairs cold beneath her feet She turned on all the lights as she hurried back to the kitchen. After she snatched up the receiver of the kitchen phone, she dialed 911.

  Lea heard static over the phone line, before the ringing. A few seconds later a man’s voice came on the line. “Sergeant Barnett.”

  “Hello, I—I need help.”

  “How can I help you?” he asked, sounding concerned.

  “I—I mean, there’s blood. In my attic,” Lea stammered, staring out the kitchen window into the blackness of the night.

  “I beg your pardon?”

&nbs
p; “Please—come. I have to show you. It’s blood. Pouring down. I’m all alone here.” Lea realized she wasn’t making much sense. But her mind was spinning. The words wouldn’t fit together right.

  She spun away from the window, staring back into the long hallway leading to the front of the house, expecting to see something or someone standing there.

  But the hallway was empty.

  I’m really losing it, she thought.

  “Please—hurry,” she pleaded into the phone.

  “I’ll send someone right over,” the sergeant said. “Give me your name and address.”

  Lea’s mind went blank.

  Name and address?

  So this was what panic felt like. This was how it blanked your mind, made you forget everything—everything but your fear.

  I’ve got to get out of here, she thought.

  The doorbell rang.

  Deena!

  Her memory returned. She told the sergeant her name and address.

  The doorbell rang again, longer this time, more insistent.

  “Let me just make sure I have it right,” Sergeant Barnett said.

  Lea groaned. “Please—hurry.”

  The doorbell rang and rang again.

  The police sergeant repeated Lea’s address. “We’ll have a car there in five minutes,” he said. “Will you be okay till then?”

  “I hope so,” Lea said, hanging up and running through the hallway to the front door. She pulled it open just as Deena rang again.

  “Lea—you didn’t answer the bell. I was so worried!” Deena’s blond hair was windblown, tossed wildly around her face. Her wool poncho flapped behind her in the gusting wind.

  “Thanks for coming. Come in. Hurry. It’s so windy,” Lea said, checking up and down the street. Leaves swirled across the lawn in a wild, unending dance. The old trees bent and swayed. It seemed to her as if the entire front yard had come alive.

  Shivering, she slammed the front door. “I-I’m so scared,” she said.

  “I don’t really understand,” Deena said, yanking off her poncho and tossing it onto the banister. “You went up to the attic and saw blood?”

  “I was in my room,” Lea explained again. “Asleep. But I woke up because I heard noises upstairs.”

  “Upstairs in the attic?”

  “Yes,” Lea told her. “Footsteps. At least, it sounded like footsteps. But I knew that was impossible. So I went up to the attic and—and the door—blood started to pour down the door, and—”

  Deena was listening to all this openmouthed, her eyes wide with disbelief. Suddenly her expression changed, and she stared intently at Lea.

  “Lea, it was a dream,” Deena said softly. She reached out and placed her hands gently on Lea’s trembling shoulders.

  “What?”

  “It was a dream. It had to be. You were asleep, right? And you dreamed the rest. And then you woke up in your room, thinking it was real. And you called me.”

  Lea backed out of her friend’s hands. “You think I’m cracking up, huh?”

  “No, of course not,” Deena said patiently. “Some dreams can be really vivid. I have very real dreams too.”

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Lea insisted angrily. “The blood poured right down to my feet.”

  Deena glanced down at Lea’s bare feet. “Did you wash it off?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t have time,” Lea replied, glancing down at her feet too.

  There were no bloodstains on her feet. Not a trace.

  She lifted her head up. “I jumped back. I got out of the way of the blood. Then I ran downstairs.”

  “Lea—” Deena started. But Lea grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her to the stairway. “Hey—what are you doing?”

  “I’ll show you,” Lea said. Deena’s hand was still cold from the outside. “Come on. I’ll show you it wasn’t a dream.”

  “But, Lea, wait—” Deena held back. “Maybe we shouldn’t go up there.”

  “Why are you so frightened if it was only a dream?” Lea asked, challenging her friend.

  “I just—” Deena shook her head as if trying to get her thoughts straight. “I don’t like dark, old attics.”

  “Listen,” Lea said, tugging at Deena, “you said I was crazy, so—”

  “I did not say you were crazy. I just said it all sounded like a dream. Like you were having a nightmare.”

  “It’s a nightmare, all right,” Lea said, sighing. “But it’s real, Deena. It’s all real. Come on.” She pulled with renewed strength.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t pull me,” Deena said. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  They hesitated at the ladder next to Lea’s room. They both stared up at the trapdoor and listened.

  Silence.

  “Come on,” Lea said, whispering. She started up the ladder. “I’ll just show you the blood. Then we’ll close it up again.”

  “I really don’t like this.” Deena stepped onto the ladder, staying close behind Lea.

  Lea slid the trapdoor up and away. They both stared up into the silent darkness.

  “That’s funny,” Lea said, glancing down at her friend, bewildered. “I left the attic light on. I’m sure I didn’t turn it off.”

  Deena stared back at her, didn’t say anything. Then finally she said, “Maybe we should get a flashlight or something.”

  “No. I’ll just turn on the light,” Lea said, and disappeared up through the rectangular opening in the ceiling.

  “Lea, please—” Deena called softly, her trembling voice revealing her fear. “Don’t go. Don’t!”

  It was too late. Lea had stepped onto the attic floor, and Deena was pulling herself up behind her.

  The rough wood of the attic floor felt cold beneath Lea’s bare feet. She groped around, found the light switch, and turned it on. The long, narrow attic filled with yellow light.

  “There—” Lea said, pointing. “There’s the door. And look—”

  Both girls huddled together, peering across the attic through the dim yellow light.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Neither of them moved.

  Above their heads the wind was a roar against the roof.

  Lea was the first to break the silence. “I don’t believe it,” she said, her hands pressed tightly against her face.

  “No blood,” Deena said softly.

  “No blood,” Lea repeated. The yellow light made everything unreal, dreamlike. But it was easy to see that the door was as it had always been, solid, locked, boarded up—and dry.

  “So it was a dream after all,” Lea whispered, staring straight ahead.

  “What a relief,” Deena said, sighing.

  Lea knew she should feel relieved. But to her surprise, she felt more frightened than ever. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said quickly.

  Deena led the way down so Lea could replace the trapdoor. They were heading down the stairs when the doorbell rang.

  “Police!” a voice called from outside the front door.

  “Oh, no!” Lea groaned, raising her hand to her forehead. “I forgot. I called the police. What am I going to tell him?”

  “Police!” the voice repeated. This was followed by loud pounding on the door.

  “I don’t know!” Deena cried.

  “I can’t tell him I had a bad dream!” Lea wailed.

  She pulled open the front door. A very young-looking police officer stood under the porch light in a dark blue uniform, one hand on his gun holster, one hand raised, ready to knock again.

  “I’m Officer Beard,” he said, his eyes studying first Lea, then Deena. “What’s the trouble here?”

  “Uh—it’s okay, actually,” Lea said, holding the storm door open just a few inches.

  “Okay?” His small, dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Uh—yeah,” Lea said, unable to conceal her embarrassment. “I heard noises up in the attic. I mean, I thought I heard noises. But I didn’t.”

  “What did you hear?” the police
officer asked, relaxing and allowing his hand to slide off the holster and down his side.

  “I didn’t hear anything. I mean—” Lea turned to Deena for help, but Deena only shrugged. “I went up to the attic. There was nothing there,” Lea continued.

  “I got a three-oh-two call. Emergency,” Officer Beard said, staring into Lea’s eyes as if searching for the true story there. “Mind if I come in and have a look around?”

  “No. I don’t mind,” Lea said reluctantly. “But everything is okay. Really.”

  Lea held the door as the wary police officer came in. Then she followed him around as he made a quick survey of the house.

  “Glad there’s no problem,” he said without smiling, returning to the front door after his search.

  “I’m sorry,” Lea told him sincerely. “I was scared. I was all alone here. I thought I heard something. I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” the officer said, stepping out onto the front walk and noticing all the empty moving cartons stacked against the side of the house. “This can be a scary neighborhood sometimes. You just move in?”

  “Yes.” Lea nodded.

  “Don’t hesitate to call. Better safe than sorry. Know what I mean?” Officer Beard grinned, revealing long, crooked front teeth.

  “Thanks, Officer,” Lea said, relieved. “Thanks a lot.”

  He reached up and touched the brim of his cap, a real movie-cop gesture. Lea and Deena watched him walk down the drive to his black-and-white patrol car. Then Lea closed the door and started to lock it.

  “No. Don’t close it. I’ve got to go,” Deena said, checking her watch. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine,” Lea said, yawning. “Now that I know it was all a dream.”

  “Jade and I went to this horror movie once,” Deena said, “where this girl kept having bad dreams, and the dreams started getting more and more horrible, and she couldn’t wake up, and she knew if she didn’t wake up, she’d be trapped in a dream forever, and the dream would become her life and her life would become a dream. Jade thought it was really neat, but it gave me nightmares for a month.”

  “Gee, thanks for sharing that with me,” Lea said dryly.