It was connected to our hallway by a single white door.
There was fresh paint on the walls, still tacky to the touch. The thick carpet looked newly laid. Everything was a dull cream color, lit by a single bulb without a lampshade. No furniture of any kind, no windows either. It was quiet inside. Warm. A faint metallic smell, I thought. At a guess, the room was 15 feet to each side and 10 feet floor to ceiling.
And of course, it wasn’t there the day before.
But … this is a mistake. I shouldn’t start here. It began before this. It began with the body.
*
Everything I’m going to tell you happened in July of last year. We moved into the apartment on the 1st, just my son and I. It was in a terrible part of the city, every street had abandoned buildings with boarded windows. Trash on the sidewalks, angry faces and sirens. You know the kind of place.
I remember our first day there. I held my sons hand as we navigated around an unconscious drunk in the entrance then up the stone stairs which stank of vomit.
“It’s okay,” I told him as we reached the first floor, feeling him pull himself closer to me, “it won’t be forever.”
The whole building was falling apart. The doors were rotting with damp, locks broken, walls crumbling and marked with mold. The ground floor was deserted. I think it had been a furniture store but the sign was too faded to be certain.
There were 3 more levels, two apartments on each. We would be alone on the first floor. The second floor had single men staying on either side. An unemployed slob directly above us and a skinny stoner who worked nights across from him. The top floor was also deserted and, judging by the dust on the steps, had been for a while.
We reached the door of our new, hopefully temporary, home. The paint was flaking off and the lock had clearly been replaced more than once. I knocked and gave my son a smile as we waited. He held my hand tighter and tried to smile back. 6 years old already, I thought. Long skinny limbs and dusty blonde hair, quiet and shy around strangers. It felt like yesterday he was only learning to walk, stumbling into my arms.
Our new landlord wrenched the door open, snapping me out of the memory.
“Hey,” he said, cigarette hanging from his mouth, “come on in.” We followed into the poorly lit interior. Two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom connected to the living room by a narrow hallway. The kitchen, if you could call it that, was part of the living room. Underfoot had been stripped back to the floorboards, except the bathroom which had cracked and worn tiles. The ceilings were discolored by what I guessed were years of cigarette smoke. Furniture was broken or stained or both. Windows so dirty the sunlight had to fight its way in.
“I’m Joseph and this is my son, Nathan.” I said, looking around, “It was Kenny, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” he stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the counter as he replied, “look man, let’s not screw around. This place is a wreck and I don’t have the cash to fix it. So for you it’ll be cheap as shit and available now. I’m guessing that’s exactly what you are after or you wouldn’t even be here. Right?”
A rush of embarrassment struck me, my reply catching in my throat. My son beside me and this was the best I could offer him. It was my job to look after him and this is where we had ended up.
“So if you want it,” he continued, “it’s yours. What you see is what you get. Don’t fuck me around and I won’t fuck you around. Paperwork is on the table.”
I didn’t want to take it. I wanted to tell him no, that we could find somewhere better. That even on my shit salary I could find a way to do better for us. But it would have been a lie and we both knew it. So I signed.
*
Why were we there? How did we end up broke and desperate? It was the end of a 5 months battle to rebuild our lives with, clearly, limited success.
Nathans mother Natalie, my ex-wife, had walked out on us and took every penny we had. I doubted we would ever see her again. In the ensuing turmoil I had lost my job and struggled to get another. We were forced to leave our home, sell everything we had left.
So much of our lives had just vanished overnight. You wake up one morning and everything, everything has changed. In those two decades I was with Natalie I had pulled away from friends and family, deleted contacts and never took new ones. My grandparents had passed away, then my parents in the last few years. Trying to make our lives work day to day filled every waking moment. Gradually everyone I knew had gone from my life. Until it was only the 3 of us. Then she left.
I tried to treat it as a clean slate, a fresh start for us both. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. You can leave people behind but the memories aren’t so easy to shake. Natalie was always there in my head, old arguments rising up when I closed my eyes. She had a drink problem, had done for a long time. Did I help her enough? I would ask myself. Did I make it worse? When you are alone with your thoughts it’s easy to take on blame, take on responsibility for every problem.
It’s hard to be objective about these things, when you are in the thick of it.
Was she abusive? Mentally, yes, no doubt. But I always felt I was as much to blame for accepting it. For trying to work around it instead of facing her down.
Physically abusive? Only once. It isn’t really worth mentioning.
She used to tell me, when she was drunk, that I would be trapped in my dead end ways forever. That I had wasted both our lives.
I didn’t get angry. I had grown up with my fathers constant rages and was terrified by the thought of becoming like him. So I tried to be patient and understanding, not bitter or resentful. I failed.
With her gone I found myself angrier than ever, cursing under my breath at memories, trying not to think of her at all.
And that’s where we were.
*
The problems with the neighbor directly above us started that week. I think it was the Tuesday night we first heard him, shouting and stamping his feet.
The next night I saw the landlord coming into the building and heading up the stairs. A minute later a shouting match ensued in the corridor above. Eventually I heard the door close and Kenny leaving.
The next night, 12.45 am, the screaming began. Doors being slammed and what sounded like every item of furniture being smashed. Then the running started, a relentless hammering of feet on the floorboards. For hours. It was honestly insane. There were only a couple of rooms, I thought, where the fuck was he running? Just lap after lap around the place?
I might have let it go, for another day at least, just to avoid the inevitable confrontation and stress. But it woke Nathan. Having my son frightened awake was too much.
I had picked up my phone to call the police when it finally stopped. Silence at last. The faint sounds of the city at night drifted back into hearing.
Fuck it, I thought, it’s 3am I’ll deal with it in the morning. I told myself I would go to his door, give him a chance to explain and apologize. If not, fine, I’d call the police and tell the landlord. Unlikely they would act but what else could I do?
The next morning I got Nathan ready for school then asked him to wait 5 minutes while I went upstairs. As I climbed the steps I heard a knock ahead of me. The landlord was already there, banging on the door and looking pissed.
“This asshole wake you up too?” he hissed, “Got people phoning me at 2 in the fucking morning about him. I’m sick of his shit.”
“Yeah, he did.” I replied. “Woke up my son.”
Kenny didn’t actually seem to be listening to me. He started kicking the door.
“Fuck him. I know he’s in there.” he muttered, pulling an assortment of keys from his jacket.
In all honesty, I had started to feel a little uncomfortable. I was about to make my excuses and escape back downstairs when the door swung open and we both saw what was inside.
The apartment was trashed. Every chair broken, the TV face down, every item pulled from drawers and cupboards and strewn across the wreckage. And, in the center of it all, what had once been the occupant.
His bloated gray corpse lay on its side, one arm stretching towards us. There was a ring of stained carpet around him. He looked as if he had been dead for months. I saw a fly crawling on his lips and realized I was holding my breath.
Then the smell struck us, pushed out by the summer heat. Nausea washed through me and I grabbed the doorframe to steady myself. I wasn’t the only one, I realized, when Kenny threw up against the wall behind me. As I sucked in a breath I looked down and saw my foot inside the door, just an inch over the threshold. It felt … wrong, for some reason. Hard to describe. I pulled it back like I had been stung.
The burning acidic odor began to fill the hallway.
“Not more of this shit.” Kenny was saying under his breath, “I can’t take any more of this. I’ll be fucking finished. Ruined.”
He turned away and raised his phone to his ear. I heard him calling for police and ambulance but his voice sounded miles away. I went back downstairs to my son.
More of this shit? I thought. What did he mean?
I had to give a statement to the police, as basic as it was. It made Nate late for school but I was off that day so didn’t miss work. The landlords words had stuck with me, so as soon as I was alone I searched for our building online. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.
The previous year a single mother and her daughter had gone missing from their apartment on the top floor. The guy who had lived opposite, an unemployed teacher, had been found unconscious in their home. He never confessed and they never found the bodies. I kept searching and found out he had died before the trial. Natural causes.
It was a fucking nightmare. I should have checked this before we moved here, I thought. I had let Nathan down again, bringing him here. I had to do better.
The photograph of the missing woman and her daughter in the article stared back at me.
I’ll find us somewhere else, I told myself. I’ll get more shifts at work and I’ll find us somewhere else.
*
I remember dinner with Nathan that night. Fish fingers and some tinned vegetables, not exactly gourmet cuisine but it was all we could afford. The conversation went like pretty much every night.
“Can you try to close your mouth when your eating, Nate?”
“Sorry.”
“I genuinely think I’ve told you a thousand times.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And stop saying you’re sorry about every little thing, please.”
“I’m s … okay.”
“I don’t actually enjoy moaning at you, you know that? But there’s only so many times I can ask.”
He stared down at his food in silence, on the edge of being upset. I should apologize, I thought. I was too hard on him. Always too hard on him.
“Hey,” I launched a forced smile across the table, “Just try your best, alright? Now, tell me about your day. Come on grumpy, don’t go in a mood.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay, okay. You’re not in a mood. What did you get up to today? How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
It was like drawing blood from a stone, always was. Was I like that at his age? I wondered. Worse, probably.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you miss mum?”
A pause. A breath.
Think about how he feels, I told myself. Don’t be angry with him. If you get angry that’s your fault not the boys. And don’t lie to him, not ever.
“Do you miss her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
He was crying, silently. Hiding his face. My first reaction was, not this again, I can’t handle this. Then I thought no, for fuck sake what is wrong with me? He is little boy crying because he misses his mother and I’m his dad, stop being such an asshole. He doesn’t understand what she was like. He just misses her.
I went around the table and pulled him to me in an awkward hug. He slumped into my arms. I remember thinking how small he seemed again, as if he was shrinking with every sob.
“It’s okay.” I tried to sit him back on the chair as I spoke but his arms were tight around me, “I won’t leave you, not ever. I promise.”
He didn’t reply but the crying eased. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, I knew that. He wanted me to tell him his mother was coming back. But I couldn’t lie.
“Come on, crying won’t help.” I tried to sound as positive as I could, “Chin up, wipe your face.”
He rubbed his nose on his sleeve and I went back to my seat as I spoke. Change the subject, I thought.
“You hardly told me anything about school today. What was happening?”
It took a minute to get him talking but he told me a little about his friends and teacher. We were just finishing up when we were interrupted by noise from the floor above. Voices, something heavy being shifted. Police, I guessed, or whoever dealt with removing the body.
“What happened upstairs?” he asked.
“Oh, grownup stuff.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing, Nate. Please stop saying huh. You heard me, I know you did.”
“Sorry.”
“Nate … forget it. It’s … just finish your dinner.”
I was too impatient with him and I hated myself for it. All the problems and stresses of my life, he didn’t cause any of them. If anything he was the only bright spot I had. Being tired and irritable was no excuse.
After dinner, as I stood washing the dishes, I could hear him playing in his room. I should go in, I thought, spend some real time with him. Play with his toys together. A board game. Fucking hide and seek, anything. I’ll regret not doing it when I’m an old man. A few more years and he won’t want to anymore, won’t want to play pretend or have me read to him. He will have new friends and thousand other things I can’t be part of. I wanted to go to him, I did. But I was exhausted. I was always exhausted.
Trying to get him to sleep in his own room for a full night took years, I told myself, so I should savor a bit of peace and quiet. Nathan always hated being away from me and his mother, even if it was only a different room. Just hated being alone. He’s a people person I thought, always will be. Nothing like his dad.
My eyes were heavy, body aching. Even with every window open the summer heat was draining. The TV chattered away and I sunk onto the couch. Told myself he was fine on his own.
*
The sounds of my son getting ready for school woke me. I hardly remembered putting him to bed never mind going to my own. Weak sunlight filtered through the dirty windows as I reached for my phone to check the time.
“Dad?” I heard him push my door open and peek inside.
“Yeah, I’m up. Just coming.”
“Dad.”
“I said I’m coming.”
“There’s a new door.”
I sat up, trying to clear my head. What was he talking about? I pulled on a shirt and stepped out into the hall where he was standing. There was, indeed, a new door.
“See.” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. Was this some kind of joke? How could I have missed that?
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Impossible.
Nate watched me as I reached out for the handle and pulled the door open. There it was. The new room.
I stepped inside and turned a slow circle, mind working overtime and coming up with nothing.
I still had to get Nate to school, then myself to work. I remember I checked the time again on my phone and noticed there was no reception in there, which only added to the strangeness.
When we left I stopped in front of our building and looked up at our floor. It didn’t even look as if another room would fit … but in all honesty it was hard to tell.
It rolled about in the back of my mind all day at work. Should I tell someone? Who? The landlord? Christ almighty, that wasn’t an appealing conversation. When we had taken the place it had said 2 bedrooms, hadn’t it? Kenny was not the type of guy to miss charging for an extra room. Had he made a mistake? Had we both? Then how did Nate miss it too?
I was doubting myself, I realized. I had been doing it for 20 years it was hard to stop. Maybe someone snuck in and added another room. Ha. Ridiculous. Really though, what could I do?
*
“Where did it come from?” Nate asked that night, leaning inside the doorway. I pulled him back and closed it, then felt stupid for doing so. It was an empty room, what was I pulling him back from?
“We must have just missed it.” I replied, “Weird, eh?”
He didn’t look convinced.
“We were both tired from everything that’s been happening lately. Lots of stuff going on. Guess we just never noticed.”
He looked from me to the door and back.
“Really?”
“Yes Nathan, really.”
As I watched him finish his meal that night my mind drifted back to those news stories. That teacher from the top floor. The missing woman and her daughter. I had fucked up moving there and I knew it.
The sudden blare of a car horn and shouting from outside snapped me out of it. A smash of glass followed and the sounds of a scuffle. I went over and closed the window. I need to get Nate away from here, I thought.
It was incredibly warm that night, the worst of the summer. A stifling, oppressive heat and humidity. Even the usual noises of the city were dampened, energy sucked from the streets. I was drifting in and out of sleep. Nights like that always seem darker, the silence heavier.
Nate had fallen asleep quickly in his room. I was going to stay up but the heat had drained me. A shaft of moonlight cutting across my bedroom was the only light.
A door slammed, the shock of the sound running through the house. I snapped awake and up in bed, heart racing. Peered into the dark of the hallway.
Silence.
My bedroom door was still open. Always was in case Nate shouted me. I slid out of bed and put on the lights. There hadn’t been another sound since the slam. I went to Nates room and softly opened it. He was still fast asleep, his blue dinosaur nightlight illuminating his bed. I looked around his room.
What was I expecting to find? I hadn’t imagined it, had I? I went to the front door. It was locked and the chain was on, just like I had left it. Had it been a dream?
There was one other door, of course.
I turned to the new room. I had closed that, hadn’t I? The silence seemed to press on me as I stood there, sweat trickling down my back. I snatched at the handle and opened it.
Nothing.
It was dark and empty inside.
Stupid.
I closed it tight, annoyed at my own nerves. A grown man afraid of a bump in the night? Idiot. It had been the wind, I thought. All the windows were open, weren’t they? There wasn’t much of a breeze but still.
That tinny smell was in the hall now, I thought. Or was I imagining that too?
I rechecked every door was closed tight, looked in every corner in every room again. Then I lay back in bed, wide awake. It took a few more hours of fighting the heat before I got back to sleep.
*
The next day was Saturday, when Nathan went to visit the only family we still had. Natalies parents. Sadly, they had never cared much for either of us.
“They aren’t always nice to me.” he sounded worried, as if he might get in trouble for saying it.
“I know Nate. I’m sorry but we don’t have anyone else. It’s hard to explain, but we need to have somewhere you can go so I can work. And it’s always good to have people you can be with in case anything happens to me. In case I can’t look after you.”
“Why would that happen?”
I shouldn’t have said that, I thought.
“It won’t son. It won’t happen. We just have to be careful. Be prepared. Just in case, you know?”
“Can’t I just stay with you today?”
“No, you can’t stay with me. Come on Nathan, we talked about this. I’m sorry, I know it isn’t much fun but it’s only for the day.”
“Please dad, can’t …”
“No means no.”
My voice was too harsh. Again. He looked like he was going to cry but he held it back, trying to hide the waver in his voice.
“Okay.”
Everything was hard now, I thought. No easy days. No easy decisions.
The room kept edging its way into my mind as we were getting ready. Just another thing to worry about. Something kept drawing me eyes back to it, making me look, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. An urge to open the door again. To step inside.
I glanced down the hallway. The door was lying open. Only an inch or so, but it was open.
“Nathan, did you open that door?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Did you open that door?”
“No.” he sounded scared just to answer me.
I felt a rush of guilt. Was I really that bad to him? To scare him so much that he was afraid to answer a simple question? I didn’t shout at him. Only once or twice when he done something dangerous. He shouldn’t ever be scared, not of me. Not in his own home.
“Okay son, it’s okay. Go finish getting ready please.”
I waited till he was out of sight then walked slowly down to the new door and peered inside. The room seemed … bigger. I stared, my chest tightening. It was a different shape. I wasn’t imagining it. There was an indent on the far wall, about a foot deep, that hadn’t been there before. Like the beginnings of a new corridor. It was impossible.
I stepped in, disbelieving.
There was a sound now on the edge of my hearing but I couldn’t make it out. Like an echo of a voice. A womans voice. When I closed my eyes it sounded like Natalies voice.
No, I told myself. Just my imagination, filling the silence with my own thoughts. The stress was making me paranoid. Stupid stupid stupid. I should have left her. I should have left her a decade earlier. But I held out hope she would change, didn’t I? Be the girl I fell in love with again. It would have been worth it, you know. Two decades of shit would have been worth it, for just a few hours with that woman I first met. I can forgive her for everything she done to me, I can. But I can’t forgive her for destroying that girl I loved. Burning her away through selfishness and bitterness and hate.
I wish I could stop thinking about her.
“Dad?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry Nate. I got distracted.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“We’re not going to be late Nathan, stop worrying so much.”
I took one last look around the beige walls.
“Come on.”
*
We got back late that night, Nate falling asleep in my arms as I carried him upstairs. Despite everything that was going on, when I sat us both down on the couch I drifted off as well. It was still over 30 degrees, seeming like it would never break.
I don’t know what woke me. Suddenly I was wide awake and alert, as if I had never slept at all.
In the hallway I saw the door of the new room swing slowly open. There was no sound. I froze in place and held my breath. A flickering shadow was cast into the hall then the light went out. The sounds of movement reached me.
Someone was in there.
It wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t stress. I know what I saw, what I heard. I glanced at Nate. He was still fast asleep and unmoved.
I got up as quietly as I could, slipping my shoes off to quiet my steps. There was a kitchen knife lying out on the drying board. I picked it up, trying to keep my eyes on the door.
The lights flickered again. I gripped the knife as I advanced down the hallway.
Someone was in there.
I reached the doorway and inched forward. I looked inside. There was nothing there. No-one. Only the room. But it had changed again.
There was a new corridor, at least 20 feet long, running out far beyond where the building would stop. It was impossible. That word again. Impossible.
I moved inside as the light clicked on and off, knife still in my hand. I saw a mark on the wall. A long unbroken line maybe 4 feet off the ground. It hadn’t been there before, I was certain of it. I knelt down alongside, ran my finger across the surface. It looked like crayon. The tinny smell was in the air again.
My eyes were pulled to the end of the corridor. A feeling of being watched. A voice on the edge of hearing. The lights flickered. Off. On.
Something in the air.
I don’t know how to explain it properly, being inside that room. I was afraid, I’m not ashamed to admit it. But there was something more. An urge to keep moving forward, to follow the corridor. Pushed by invisible hands, into the dark.
I stepped forward.
“Dad?”
“Jesus christ!”
His voice had scared the shit out of me. I kept the knife out of sight as I turned, slipping it inside my shirt so he couldn’t see.
“Dad, are you okay?”
I realized I was shaking like a leaf, soaked in sweat.
“Were you in here Nathan? Did you wake up since we came home?”
“Hu – I mean no. No.” he sounded confused.
“Nate. This is important, ok. Tell me the truth.”
“I am, Dad. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing, it’s fine. You don’t …. I’m sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Come here.”
I snatched him up in a hug and carried him out of the room, tickling him as we went until he started laughing. I went back as soon as he was in the living room and closed the door. After a seconds thought I pulled a chair out of the kitchen and braced it against the handle. I checked the front door and windows were locked yet again, checked every room and cupboard and behind every door was empty. I felt like an idiot, like I was cracking up but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise.
“Hey Nate, you want to sleep in the big bed tonight? Watch a movie with me?”
I didn’t want him out of my sight.
“Yeah!”
He fell asleep beside me in half an hour, still exhausted.
I lay there wide awake, must have been half the night. Worrying about my own mental state, if I’m honest. Is this what it felt like to lose your grip on sanity? I thought. When stress and anxiety become too much? Experiencing things you know are impossible. It couldn’t be real, could it? Then what did that mean? It couldn’t all be in my mind if Nate had seen it too and we weren’t both crazy. I had been in there, touched the walls. If I asked someone else to come in and look and it was all in my imagination …
I didn’t know. I should see a doctor, I told myself. Stay calm. Make an appointment in the morning. Nate too, just to be safe. And get out of there.
*
The familiar sounds of the city woke me in the morning. Traffic, voices. Like any another day. I swung out of bed and left Nate sleeping.
We were leaving today, I told myself. Right now. I dug our cases out of the cupboard and started packing. I had left the kitchen chair propped against the door of the room. I checked on Nate every few minutes but he had hardly moved.
I was about half way through when I realised some things were missing. Nathans football. A couple of my books. It didn’t make any sense. I remembered unpacking them and we hadn’t taken them out of the house.
I had almost given up searching for them when my eyes fell back on that door. No, I thought. The chair was still tight under the handle. Nothing had moved, not a millimeter.
I took a breath. I had to know. One last look before we left this place forever. I slid the chair away and opened the door one last time.
There they were. The football, my books, some tins from the kitchen I hadn’t noticed were missing. The crayon marks were still on the walls. And there was a new door, at the end of the corridor.
I began to panic. I tried not to, I tried, but it was too much. Someone was fucking with me I thought, or I had lost my mind. Either way it wasn’t safe for my son. We had to get out.
“Nathan!” I shouted. “Nat -“
The door slammed shut behind me.
I’m haunted by these moments, you know. No matter how many times I go over them, no matter how much I pray. It never changes and it never hurts less. I wish I could go back and do it again. I done everything wrong. Everything.
I wrenched the door open and ran to my bedroom for my son but he was gone. It all becomes a blur. Adrenaline, fear, confusion. I ran through the apartment, shouting his name, knocking over furniture. The front door was still locked and the chain was still on.
I saw the new door lying open and rushed back to it. He must be there, I thought. Got past me somehow. It didn’t make sense, any of it. I can see that now.
I charged through and there was only another corridor, another door, all as featureless as the ones before.
“Nathan!”
I ran forward, reckless, foolish. The next door opened with a push and I was through again. Another corridor, a dozen more doors, one already a crack open.
“Nathan!”
I ran through it, heard another slam closed behind me. It is like trying to remember a nightmare. Disjointed images and sounds, that metallic smell, echoes rolling back through dark corridors. The flickering lights. Her voice in my head. Natalies voice.
You’ve wasted your life, she said. I had believed her when she said it. I couldn’t admit to myself then but I had. It hurt so much more because I believed her.
You’re no good for Nate, she told me the night before she left. You’ll let him down. You won’t keep him safe. You’re not even his real father.
She probably didn’t even remember saying it. Too drunk to know. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it was true or not. It doesn’t.
“Nathan!”
I saw more crayon marks on the walls, long lines leading through doorways. A series of giant stairwells plunging down into the gray below. A thousand other rooms. I was delirious, rambling, I remember my own voice coming out in a frenzied stream. I remember the crayon line stopping, standing over a womans dead body. There were toys beside her, a drawing book and a stuffed bear. Words on the walls I can’t remember. I ran on.
“Nate.”
That feeling of being watched. Something there. Coming closer, following. Times passes and I was still running but from something, not searching. Doors slamming behind me, endless rooms and hallways. For how long I don’t know.
The lights flashed on and off. I heard a voice in the distance, different this time.
Then I saw it.
Nathans football. I saw it lying on the floor through the next doorway. I stumbled forward and crashed through to the other side. The door slammed behind me. I was back in our apartment, in the hallway.
But I was alone. My son was gone.
I turned to go back and there was only a blank wall where the door had been. No sign that it had ever existed.
“No.”
I heard my own voice, weak, sick, desperate.
“No.”
My legs buckled beneath me. The world was spinning, vision blurred and then was gone.
*
It’s been a year since Nathan vanished.
I woke up in hospital the next day. I tried to get up as soon as I was conscious, to get away, get back to the apartment. To find my son. They wouldn’t let me leave, the police or the doctors.
They thought I hurt him. That I hurt Nate. The other neighbor upstairs phoned the police, said he heard crashes and screaming from our apartment. When the police broke down the door they found me unconscious in the hallway.
Months of questions, lawyers, doctors. I told them everything I could without sounding crazy. We were getting ready to move and he disappeared. I panicked when I couldn’t find him and passed out. I didn’t know what else to tell them.
I don’t know where he is, I told them. I don’t know where he is.
I kept the flat, kept everything as it was. I sleep in the hall, walk the building at night, listening for his voice. I see him every time I close my eyes.
He might still be here somewhere. He must be. And I can’t ever leave here if there is a chance, no matter how small. I tell myself I will find him. That he is lost in those rooms like I was, needing me. I tell myself I can get back to him, I have to.
Maybe he will find his own way out, he could do it. He was a clever boy, always clever, he could do it.
I have to get back there. I can’t live like this any longer, knowing I left him alone.
He must be so scared. I always told him I would keep him safe. I told him I would be there for him if he needed me, his whole life, no matter what. I am breaking my promises and I am not there.
He could be calling for me now, calling for me to help him. Every morning I wake I think, this is the day it will all have been a dream. I’ll run to his room and snatch him out of his bed and tell him I love him, tell him how sorry I am for every time I wasn’t good enough. I’ll hold him like I did in those minutes after he was born, when he met my eyes and we were the only people in the world.
I will.
Just let this be a dream. Let me wake up.
I can’t leave him alone.