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FICTION BY RYAN CECERE

RYAN

Ryan Cecere lives in Pennsylvania with his girlfriend and their cat, Willow.

His debut short story “Peel” was published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety.

He can be found on Instagram @notgerardyb.


THE SPACE BETWEEN ROOMS
by Ryan Cecere 

 

Anya’s grandmother claimed there was something off-putting about the new house.

“Why else would it be on the market for such a low price?” Meredith told her daughter and granddaughter. “It’s a steal in this economy! There are always problems with a house that’s a steal, I tell you. I’ve been alive far too long so I know better.”

To Anya, nothing seemed negative about the house. It was a simple Cape Cod structure in a family-oriented neighborhood lined with similar houses. It looked cozy and was bigger than their cruddy apartment back in Manhattan. She did notice that there were a couple of cosmetic problems, but in Anya’s perspective, certain disfigurements simply gave the house character.

Despite her thoughts, Anya kept quiet. Adults never seemed to listen to kids, even though two months back she had turned twelve and so she no longer considered herself a child.

Anya’s mother Elizabeth, however, seemed annoyed. “Listen, Mom. I’ve already bought the house. Why are you so negative about it now? You know it passed the inspection. I love this house and you should stop being so mean about it. We’re all moving in today so let’s stop any fussing and enjoy our beautiful new home.”

She grabbed a large box from the trunk of the SUV and stopped. “Anya, grab some things, kiddo.”

Her dad, no longer in the picture, used to call her kiddo. Anya knew her mother was trying to step into the role of both mother and father, and she sometimes wished her mother didn’t try so hard. Anya didn’t know how to express to her mother that it was okay if things weren’t perfect.

She started toward the trunk of the car and stopped because her mother and grandmother were already leaning inside it, so she had to wait.

In the meantime, Anya faced the house and took a few steps up the walkway, peering intently at her new home. She wondered if she had been too eager to see the positives. A wave of uncertainly overtook her. She felt a fluttering in her heart and an odd chill on her arms, which raised goosebumps.

Unlike the neighboring houses on the block, her new home came without a porch, but also one section of the gutter on the right corner hung loosely with webs plastering leaves against rusted metal. The chimney’s tarnished brick looked like it hadn’t been attended to in years. Anya told herself that these were simple fixes her mom could afford: she worked as a divorce lawyer.

Her eyes navigated the first floor and lifted upward to the second floor and over to a room on her left. Something in that room’s window suddenly caught her eye. She felt her heart jump as she realized a person was looking down at her. Someone was in the house!

Anya’s skin crawled, as if a thousand tiny bugs paraded all over her arms. She gasped and her mother turned around. Anya tried to scream but her tongue felt anchored down. She sank her teeth into her tongue, hoping to force it to function. For a moment, she tasted copper in the back of her throat.

“Honey, what’s the matter!” her mother shouted.

Anya cried, “There’s someone in the house! Look!” and she pointed at the second-floor window.

Elizabeth looked and then turned back to her daughter. “Honey, that’s just some doll left by the previous owner. See? It doesn’t move. Go ahead—look. It has fake hair. Someone propped it against the window, maybe as a joke.” Her mother tried to sound light. “I guess the joke worked!”

Anya looked again, and could immediately see that it was indeed a doll. A large doll, but a doll nonetheless, with fake blonde Shirley Temple-like curls. How had she thought it could possibly be real? Yet it had looked real at first.

Anya shrugged it off and relaxed. She was mistaken, that’s all it was. Who would possibly be inside their house? No one.

Her mom tapped her nose, then motioned to the SUV. Anya picked up a box out of the trunk and headed to the front door of their new home.

*****

The room Anya chose as her own was on the second floor. A small door revealed a space between her new room and the room next to it.

The hatch-like door, made of dark wood, was small and square with a bolt lock on the outside. The interior was five feet wide and appeared ten feet in length. The ceiling was of normal height, the same as her new bedroom. Without a light, the space was dark, growing darker deeper in to a point you couldn’t see the end.

The space was probably intended for storage, but it was just the right size for Anya to creep around in and explore, to make pretend the same way she did as a child. Even though she now considered herself a pre-teen, when she was alone, she still sometimes liked to revert to her younger self. After all, no one had to know.

She was startled when a voice said, “Don’t even think of going in there.”

Anya whirled around to see her grandmother standing in the doorway. “Why?”

“Because I said so,” Meredith said.

“Grandma, it’s just a little storage room. Kind of cute, actually. Dad wouldn’t have cared if I—”

Meredith shifted on her feet. “You don’t want to accidently get trapped in there.”

She admitted the truth in her grandma’s warning. She imagined herself playing with some of her childhood toys in the storage space (not the creepy life-sized doll left by the former owners; Mom had chucked that one in the garbage out on the curb), and suddenly the hatch-like doors slamming shut and, somehow, bolting themselves locked from the outside. She’d bang and shout for help, but neither Mom nor Grandma would hear.

At the thought, a pang of fear struck inside her very soul. It didn’t help that there was no lamp inside the passageway.

Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Doors with bolts can’t lock by themselves.

“Grandma, you just need to get used to this house. I’ve pretty much seen it all now. It’s nice.”

“Not all is as it first appears,” her grandmother said as she started to leave, then said almost as an afterthought: “I think you’d better keep that crocheted lama I made you when you were younger. It brings positive outcomes.”

Anya shrugged to herself. The lama was cute, and she loved it, but it was still a toy, not some amulet to ward off evil spirits.

Her grandmother always spouted off old-fashioned, weird sayings. After all, it wasn’t like you could get lost inside a wall or anything. The storage room had a beginning and an end. And for this little storage room, the endpoint was the bedroom next to hers.

In fact, the choice had been hers as to which bedroom she chose. She chose the one on the left because the paint was yellow and cheerful. It had a large window where she could see the back yard.

The room she rejected was painted a dull brown and its window was cracked. It became Grandma’s room. Her mother said she would have the window fixed right away but Anya knew her mother always procrastinated; she was busy all the time with work.

“Are you okay with your new room?” Anya asked her grandmother. Reluctantly she added, “We can switch if you want.”

Anya was secretly relieved when Meredith told her the brown room would be just fine. “The window is only cracked, not broken. No cold air comes in. Besides, yellow is for youth.”

Suddenly her mother’s voice called up the stairs. “Who’s up for dinner? Both of you, take a break and come down to the kitchen. The pizza delivery is here.”

Anya hesitated. The small, short passageway door was still open. She stared into the dark end of the storage space with a feeling of dark intrigue. It was almost as if a presence was drawing her towards it, and she ducked down and crouched forward to peer intently inside the space, careful not to stick her entire body inside.

What was she expecting to see? Yet there was a strange force tugging at her brain, her ears slightly clogged, like she submerged herself under water.

“Anya! Quit daydreaming and let’s go down to eat,” her grandmother said, halfway in the hall.

Anya blinked away the spell. Her stomach grumbled. She realized she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten since lunch. She slammed the hatch-like door shut, bolted it locked, double-checked for good measure, then raced out to meet her mom and grandma downstairs.

*****

Anya needed to tell her mother what she heard.

She had finished helping in the kitchen after dinner when she returned to her bedroom in the evening. She picked a YA fantasy novel she’d been eager to read prior to moving off her bookshelf, then dove onto her new memory foam mattress with an exhausted sigh from the move. She lay on her stomach. She was two pages in, the main character explaining how she loathed the village she grew up in with her overprotective father disapproving of her want to venture out to the world beyond—

Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . .

Three delicate, faint taps. She lifted her eyes off the page, barely a glance. Maybe the wind pushed a branch against the side of the house. No. A branch would scrape, not tap. She waited a few moments, listening. When she heard nothing else, she focused again on the story.

Anya flipped to page three, eyes tracing along the words—

Knock! Knock! Knock!

This time the knocking was clear and louder. She looked frantically toward the window, where the evening light had rapidly turned dark. Anya got off the bed and made her way to the window, wondering if she’d see the monster or some creep lurking outside. Only, in the glass pane, she saw a reflection of her herself.

And then she realized that the sound wasn’t coming from the window. The knocking sounded more like knuckles on wood opposed to knuckles on glass.

Slowly, she faced the wall of the storage space, heart thumping irregularly. But she didn’t advance a single step. She couldn’t wrap her head around the source. Certainly not ghosts. She didn’t believe in ghosts. And, even if ghosts existed…

Anya shook away the intrusive thought. How could she let her rational mind wander down that path? But what explanation can I give myself? She was silent, still…listening. And what she next heard was a faint hiss like the alley cats outside her old Manhattan apartment trying to fend off predators. Old pipes? Worse: it sounded reptilian.

She hurried downstairs where Elizabeth stood in her new unfurnished office the room over with the door slightly ajar and a desk lamp light on.

“We need internet connection right away,” Elizabeth said.

“Mom, I want to talk to you,” Anya started. “Something is weird about this house. It’s a little scary.”

Elizabeth exhaled, appearing too tired to comfort her pre-teen’s childish fears. She rubbed her eyes and placed her hand on her forehead and gave her daughter a drained, apologetic stare. “You’ve been listening to your grandmother. This is a beautiful house and you’ll come to love it. Give it time. We haven’t even been here a full day yet.”

Anya sighed, annoyed. She went into the kitchen and found her grandmother there.

“I overheard. Maybe now is not a good time to talk to your mother,” Meredith said, “this current divorce case she’s been working on has been putting strain on her. But you can tell me your troubles.”

“I heard something. Something like knocking or tapping,” Anya frowned.

“Old houses settle,” Meredith said.

Anya hesitated, weighing in her mind what she was thinking of saying next. Then she blurted, “But I also heard a hissing noise! Like a frightened alley cat—or snakes!”

“Could be a possum in the attic. Not sure your mom was as thorough with the walk-through she claimed to be when we spoke about it last week.”

“Grandma, I thought you would understand.”

Meredith put her hands on Anya’s shoulders. “Okay. I think you are old enough to tell what I really think. Tons of houses all across the world have dark secrets buried within the foundation. Our new home might not be too different. Whenever the living intrude, it wakes the spirits, whether they are angry or curious themselves.” After quite a long pause, her grandma added: “I do fear this house myself…” she drifted off and seemed to stare into space.

A shiver ran down Anya’s spine. Why was Grandma speaking this way? She was saying this house could possibly be haunted! It terrified her.

Anya swallowed a dry lump in her throat. “Do you mind coming upstairs and checking out the noise with me? I swear it’s coming from the storage space between our rooms.”

Meredith relaxed and chuckled, and Anya felt her old grandma had returned. “I’d love to, but my knees aren’t the same. That hatch door is very short. Tell you what, Anya. Why don’t we keep the storage room doors open on both ends? You can keep your beside lamp on if you want.”

“No way am I keeping those doors opened, Grandma.” She then called for her mother. Elizabeth exasperatedly stuck her head out the office. “Mom, can you please just come double-check for me? Just once.”

“I refuse to tuck you in, kiddo.”

Anya’s face burned. Her dad used to spoil her so much her mom was visibly irritated each time. “I thought I heard noises, that’s all.”

“It’s probably old pipes, kiddo,” Elizabeth said. “Older homes tend to have creaking floorboards and the like. It’s also a new place, so you’re allowing your imagination to get the better of you.”

“I dunno, Lizzy,” Meredith chimed in. “There are strange, unexplainable phenomena in the world—”

“Mother! Knock it off. Honestly, you can be a pain with all your superstitions.”

Meredith shrugged, then said, “Wouldn’t harm you to at least check.”

Elizabeth exhaled. “All right! You two win. I’ll check it for you, Anya, so your imagination can calm down. Then I have to get back to work. The case I’m working on is really important. I have to get it done this week, and the move already set me behind.”

The guilt of yanking away her mother from work bothered Anya. She was about ready to tell her mother never mind, that she wouldn’t further allow her imagination to spook her. I’m almost thirteen, she thought. I need to outgrow childish fears such as a monster lurking in the dark.

Then Elizabeth told her to hold tight, she’d be right back. Her mom disappeared into the office, and when she came back out, she had her iPhone.“Let’s take a look, kiddo.”

Anya led the way, though she wanted to hide behind her mother. Once they reached her bedroom, Anya stood in the center of the room, watching her mom turn on her phone’s flashlight and pull open the hatch-like door.

Anya felt another wave of fear. Hadn’t she locked the hatch door earlier? Why was it unlocked now? She squeezed her eyes to narrow slits, trying to remember.

Elizabeth bent over and peered inside the storage space. “I’m not hearing any noises, Anya,” she said.

You’ve been looking in there for all of ten seconds, Mom, she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “I swear I heard noises. Like something knocking from inside!”

“Like I said downstairs: it’s an older house. Whatever you heard, I’m sure some remodeling will do the trick. Then it’ll be like brand-new. Come check for yourself. Your mind will be more at ease for when you go to bed soon.”

Anya looked inside the storage space without entering. The beam of her mother’s phone’s flashlight lit the walls and concrete floor, but didn’t penetrate the darkness at the far back. She reached, ready to tug the tail of her mom’s shirt, have her deadbolt the entrances to the storage space in both her and Grandma’s bedrooms. Block them with a heavy bookshelf or dresser and never come in here again. Anya’s mouth slanted to either side, and her hand dropped.

She wondered about her own sanity. Questioned it, really. What was making her overreact? Back in Manhattan the dark and unknown places never frightened her. But…here…how did Grandma describe the house earlier in the day? Off-putting? Yes, that was it. She felt something about the house was off-putting too.

“I have to get back to work. Why don’t you get ready for bed and brush your teeth? We can go grab IHOP tomorrow for breakfast. Sound like a plan?”

Elizabeth ruffled the top of her head, then added a kiss and left.

Meredith came in the room. Anya told her, “We’re leaving the hatch doors open on our sides, right?”

“Of course.”

*****

Anya slept without dreaming.

She rolled over and, as her eyes began to open, a shrill scream jolted her awake. She fumbled around in bed, the pillows and blankets tumbling onto the floor. Her bedside lamp was still on and she couldn’t see anything amiss. She was groggy with sleep, but she knew what she had heard.

Anya’s gaze was drawn to the storage room hatch. It was closed. Why was it closed? She had left the door open.

Her mom was suddenly inside her room, her expression wild, her night robe open wide to reveal her pajamas underneath. “What’s wrong!” she shouted. “Why did you scream?”

“Grandma! Is Grandma okay?” Anya was sitting against the headboard.

Elizabeth rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Grandma’s fine, Anya. She’s asleep—or, was asleep until—”

“She screamed! I heard her screaming,” Anya said without a breath between sentences.

“Anya—Anya, relax. The only person I heard screaming was you.” Elizabeth sat next to her, placed an arm on Anya’s clammy hand. “You were having a nightmare of sorts.”

Anya trusted her intuition more than her mom’s attempt at comfort. She was kicking off the blankets still wrapped around her feet, shaking her head, ready to spring off her bed and run into Grandma’s bedroom without the aid of her mom.

“We have to check on Grandma. Please!”

“Okay, Anya, calm down. You’re starting to scare me. Listen, I’ll go check on Grandma, but you stay here. Understand?”

“I’m coming with you—”

“Don’t fight me on this. It’s”—she glanced at the nightstand clock—“two-fifteen in the morning. Seriously Anya, you don’t need to follow me to Grandma’s room.”

Elizabeth made her way into the hallway. Anya slid out of bed and followed behind, her footfalls silent on the carpet. Her mother placed a hand on the doorknob to Meredith’s bedroom, stopped as if she would look over her shoulder, as if she knew already Anya disobeyed her simple request to stay put.

“Oh, my God . . .”

Anya’s eyes widened at her mother’s shaky voice, at how Elizabeth forced her way into Meredith’s bedroom. The pit of her gut churned.

She disobeyed her mother and hurried over, praying her intuition wasn’t right. She stood in the doorway and her eyes swelled when she saw Meredith on the floor, on her side, with one arm twisted over her body. Meredith’s mouth hung open, and her eyes were rolling to the back of her head.

Anya grappled the doorjamb, a tear traveled down her cheek and dripped off her chin.

Her mother reached for Meredith, but held off. Touching or moving Meredith might make her worse. “Mother, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

Anya’s vision blurred. She felt cold ice over her bones. The hatch door remained open on Grandma’s end…but why was it closed on her side? What had got out—and why choose Meredith first?

Her mother said frantically, “Call 911, Anya. Do you hear me? Anya!”

She stared into the pitch-black gap, having no control over the trembling which overtook her body. Her skin crawled; blood rushed to her head. Was her mother next, then her?

Careful, Mom! she wanted to scream. The strength in her voice wasn’t there. Don’t keep your back to the storage space!

“Anya! Call an ambulance right way—my phone’s on the nightstand.”

Her ears clogged. Anytime she blinked away tears, more produced.

Elizabeth’s head snapped toward her. “Anya! Call 911!”

Anya removed her attention of the storage space, glanced to her mother. She nodded, rushed into her mom’s room, found her iPhone on the nightstand. She didn’t allow the dispatch operator to start speaking. “Help! My grandma needs help!”

*****

Anya watched from the middle of the staircase, holding onto the railing as the paramedics wheeled her grandma out to the ambulance on a stretcher.

Elizabeth sniffled. “I’m going to follow the ambulance to the hospital. I think you should come with me.”

“Did they say what happened to Grandma?”

“They said it might’ve been a stroke.”

The ambulance blared its siren, and the flashing lights flood parts of the foyer. It took off Elizabeth grabbed the car keys from the hook on the wall, along with both their jackets. Autumn leaves rustled across the walkway outside, and a chilly draft traveled through the foyer.

“Coming?”

Anya nodded. “I just want to grab something for Grandma.”

“Make it quick, kiddo,” Elizabeth said in a calm voice as though she wase trying to mask sobs in her throat. “I’ll warm up the car.” Her chin dropped to her chest, and her hands fell into her jacket pockets.

She left her daughter in the house—alone.

The SUV’s engine coming to life faded not long after Anya reached the second-floor landing. Everything felt abnormally long down the hall—as though she were Alice in Wonderland. It was ten feet or so from the stairs to her bedroom but it seemed like the hallway was endless. For a moment, Anya wondered if she were still dreaming and had never left her bed at all.

She rubbed the prickly skin of her arms; a cloud of her own breath formed lightly, almost transparent. When she first walked into her bedroom she hadn’t noticed the sudden drop in temperature. So she checked her window, found it both locked and closed like how she left it before bed.

She rummaged through her dresser in search of the crotchet lama, a symbol of good luck and positive vibes. No one needed good luck right more than her grandma.

 Anya couldn’t find the gift. She tossed her clothes out of each draw onto the floor. She wanted to bring the crotchet lama to the hospital. She paced around her bedroom, rubbing more madly at her arms. Outside, her mom honked once. Once was a reminder to hurry. Her mother would be annoyed if she had to honk twice, especially with Grandma on the way to the ER.

She was ready to give up when she remembered the only place it could be was stored away in one of the many unpacked boxes. In the storage space, where my shoved stuff for the time being. Would she be brave enough to retrieve it now?

She sucked in her lips, told herself that she would only take a quick peek inside just to see if the lama was really in there.

Anya crouched. She unlocked the bolt and pulled the door open—screech. An arctic draft barreled out, momentarily stunning her, curling her fingers to fists. She had to clench and unclench several times to regain feeling. She rubbed arms and shivered, teeth chattering. Why was it suddenly so cold inside the storage space?

Can’t think about that now. She battled her mind to stay focused on the lama, not to give attention to the mystic aura of the darkest place deep in the back of the storage space.

She crawled inside. A dim sliver of light, thanks to her bedroom’s ceiling light, revealed the unpacked boxes shoved against one side of the wall. Almost as a godsend, she spotted the lama sticking partially out of one box. She reached, felt the material on the tips of frost-bitten fingers, her ears clogged once more, when the whisper spoke out to her.

Anya…

In this cold, confined, strangely-placed space, the whispering sounded like a little boy’s voice—afraid and potentially seeking help.

Anya sat on her heels, bug-eyed and immobile, shivering and tasting a sour taste on the back of her tongue. How does it know my name? She squeezed her eyes shut, counted to five (something her dad taught her to ease or eliminate anxiety or fear). She snatched the lama, twisted her body toward the exit…and fell on her hands and knees.

The little boy’s voice spoke to her once more before she moved.

Wait, the whisper said.

In her fright, Anya released the lama. She tried to back away, but couldn’t. One knee throbbed from the fall.

Don’t go. Come here, the voice hissed.

She scrambled to a crawling position, her knees scraping across the concrete, tearing at her pajamas pant legs—ow! The skin on her knees pulsed and stung. She knew she opened a wound, she could feel fresh, warm blood trickle down her legs.

Anya backed away. She figured if she moved slow and calculated, she’d end up back in her bedroom and make a beeline out the damn house. I’ll convince Mom never to step foot back in this house. I’ll make sure…

She halted. At first she thought it was an illusion or perhaps her eyes hadn’t quite adjusted to the dark. Whisps of shadows lashed out of the deep void, growing along the ceiling and walls and floor, enveloping the room, like the darkness was coming at her.

It’s coming for me!

Anya hyperventilated. As the shadows accelerated, swallowing Grandma’s crotchet lama, she backpedaled as quickly as she could. The shadows wanted her—whatever entity dwelled within the shadows wanted her—just like it got Grandma. The unpacked boxes disappeared into the darkness, creeping along every corner and inch of the storage space.

A yelp escaped her. She slipped, recovered, then continued backpedaling. The shadows kissed her fingertips and, oddly, inside the shadow felt warm, like a mid-summer’s day, while the rest of her body froze. She yanked her arm back but her wrist was consumed and she found herself unable to pull free once her hand was inside.

“Mom!” Anya cried. “Mom—help me! Please, help—ahhh…

Her entire arm vanished into the black. Warm compared to her free body parts. She was yanked halfway inside the darkness, almost fell flat on her face. The force’s unbarring grip held too much power for Anya. She called out again, this time barely able to free much of her face. She kicked her legs and peddled her feet along the floor, flailed her non-trapped arm. Her engulfed hand felt for ground but hung freely in limbo.

Anya let out one last cry, throat hoarse, before the darkness swallowed her whole. She disappeared into another dimension, one inhabited by a young boy no older than herself who wore clothes from a hundred year ago.

*****

Elizabeth honked several times. When Anya never came outside, she wiped the tears from her face and went back into the house.

“Anya!” her mom called out. “We need to get going. What’s taking so long? Anya, hurry. Anya?”

Her mom climbed the stairs to the second-floor landing. She entered her daughter’s empty bedroom.

“Anya?” she said again, confused.

The hatch door to the storage space was open. Elizabeth bent over, looked inside, not pleased about her daughter’s whereabouts. Where was she and what was she doing when they needed to get to the hospital?

How dark it was didn’t settle well in her stomach either.

“Honey? Are you in there? This isn’t funny. Grandma needs us.” A long pause. “Kiddo?”

Elizabeth was about to leave and search the rest of the house until she heard a thud from deep within the space, at a spot so dark it was like staring into an empty world, it rattled her.

She gasped, placed her hand over her heart.

A moment passed.

From the darkness came a whisper that raised the hairs on the nape of Elizabeth’s neck.

Come in…Anya’s voice whispered.