Chapter 6: What My Soul Does When I Am Asleep by Stephen Simpson

On our way back to my grandma's cottage, my dad stops at a takeaway and my mum buys us a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

At the house, we eat in silence. Everyone is occupied with their own thoughts. My dad is very attentive to my mum, and every now and again, quiet tears slide down her cheeks, which she quickly wipes away, and then my dad reaches for her to console her.

After dinner, I help to scrape the plates clean and pack the dishwasher, after packing out the clean dishes into the cupboards. This takes me a while, because I must open every single cupboard to find out what goes where.

“I'm tired,” I announce when at last I step out of the little kitchen area, to the side of the lounge. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

My dad replies, “Why don't you sleep in your grandma's room?”

“No way.”

My mum asks, “Why not?”

“No. It will just feel creepy.”

“What do you mean?” My mum looks insulted.

“No offence, but no,” I insist.

My dad does his signature sigh. It's long and loud. “Fine, sleep in the spare room. Your mum and I will sleep in your grandma's room.”

“And me?” Isaac asks.

“You can sleep here on the couch.”

Isaac pumps the air. “Yes!”

“No need to get excited about it. The television goes off when your mum and I go to bed.”

Isaac's face falls.

“Well, I'm going to bed now.” I walk across the room to a small corridor from where the bathroom and two bedrooms split off.

I change into my pyjamas, and then slip in under the sheets. The bed smells stale. Either my grandma has been so preoccupied being online she stopped bothering to clean her house or, she has been ill for longer than anybody knew. I overheard the nurse tell my mum, that according to the EMT, nobody knows how long my grandma was laying on her bedroom floor before they found her. The old lady who lives in the attached cottage next door told them she heard loud moaning noises which sounded like muffled help sounds coming from my grandma's direction one night late, and she called the emergency services. Luckily, the old lady next door had a spare key in case of emergencies like this. Apparently, my grandma was very disorientated, and in the ambulance, she slipped away into a deep sleep for almost three days.

Laying on my back, I listen to my mum and brother argue.

“Time to have a bath, Isaac.”

“Let me just finish watching this show.”

“No, Isaac. Now.”

“It will be finished in ten minutes.”

“Isaac!”

Then I am standing at the bottom of a set of stairs going up into a black darkness. It is so dark I cannot see the top landing. I look back over my shoulder and see a dark brown door with a glass panel in it at the end of a corridor. The light shines dimly through the bevelled glass, but there is not enough light to reflect off the walls and brighten up the whole room. I lift my hand and place it on the smooth wooden bannister next to me. My hand slides up the wood a little before I lift my foot and place it slowly on top of the first stair. It feels as if something is waiting for me with eager anticipation up in the pitch-black darkness above me. I feel my stomach contract with fear. I put my other foot on the second step slowly. As I climb each stair, it is as if only that small area is illuminated. Looking back across my shoulder, the corridor behind me seems darker and gloomier. I can only see the next two steps in front of me, and the two steps behind me.

Eventually, I reach the top landing, and as I step onto it, the wooden slats under my foot shift and creak. I jump with fright. It is as if the bannister is my lifeline, and if I let go of it, I will never find my way out of the massive, creepy building. I lean my head over the side of the bannister and look down. The darkness is forever. Although I have only climbed up one flight of stairs, the void beneath me is limitless.

I want to turn around and go back down the stairs, but I feel compelled to continue up the stairs. I have this feeling of looking for something. I must find it. If I do not, it will always be lost.

The wallpaper on the walls next to me is faded to a grey colour, and whatever colour it used to be before has been sucked out of it by age and decay. The wood panelling on the roof is dull. I take a few steps on the landing and then there is a choice. I must either proceed along a corridor so dark I cannot see where it leads or climb up the next flight of stairs of which I can only see the first two steps immediately in front of me.

I take a breath so deep, my chest lifts dramatically, and then I let go of the bannister.

Stepping away from the bannister, I keep my arm out straight, ready to grab onto it again, if necessary.

Another step, and then another two steps. I look back and I cannot see the bannister anymore. Panic starts to fill me, and then I remember I need to find something. I must, must find it.

Stepping into the dark corridor, I keep mumbling to myself, “Don't be scared. Don't be afraid. You can control this.” I don't believe a word falling from my own lips.

Walking slowly down the corridor, I walk past open rooms. The doors are wide open and at the end of each opening there is a dark, murky window with dull light shining through them. I feel the urge to walk into one of these rooms, to go to the window and see if I can rub a circle of dust and dirt away so I can look out, but I am afraid once I enter one of these rooms, I will not know how to get out again.

With the help of the dull light from the windows in each room and the strange light around me, I see the place is empty and abandoned. What can I be looking for in here? Why am I here?

I feel a shift in the darkness behind me and I swivel around, but there is nothing. Something moves to the side of me, past the light of a window.

I need to get out of here. I am not sure which way is out. I walk faster.

Wait. I stop. I am sure I was walking in the opposite direction before I turned myself around. I turn and look. Squinting my eyes, I try to see through the darkness. Was I walking this way? I feel lost.

I take a few tentative steps forward to an open doorway. I look inside the room without leaving the centre of the corridor. The room looks exactly the same as all the rooms I have passed. I should have stayed on the stairs. I could have gone back down them to that door where I started.

I can feel my heart beating through my shirt as I take deep breaths. I am afraid. Really afraid.

“Wake up,” I tell myself.

Hoping I am walking in the right direction toward the stairs, I walk faster.

Two steps ahead, I walk into a solid wall. I put both my palms on the wall and let my head sag between my arms. I take a deep breath. “I must get out of here.”

I must find something though. What was it, again?

A voice whispers next to me, close to my ear, “You cannot control this.”

I scream.

“Run,” it says.

I move away from the wall and run.

It is as if the words do not want to be spoken, but I force them from my lips. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone!”

My eyes jump open and my body jerks violently.

I look up at my mum, leaning over me. She is touching my arm. “Gaby. Gaby wake up. Wake up, sweetheart. You are having a nightmare.”

My mum comes into focus. My hand comes up to my chest, and I can feel my heart beat a thousand beats a minute.

“Are you okay?” My mum asks.

“Yeah.” I sit up in the bed.

“You were moaning in your sleep, and it woke me,” she explains. “Do you want to talk about the dream?”

I shake my head. “I just need to get a glass of water. What's the time?”

“Just gone three.”

Taking a deep breath, I slip my legs out from under the covers. “I'm okay now. Just going to get a glass of water and then I'll go back to bed. I'm exhausted.”

“It's been a long couple of days. You sure you're okay now?”

“I'm okay. Thanks, Mum.”

She turns to leave the room, and I follow her. In the little hallway, she turns to me, and lightly touches my arm. “Hope you have nice dreams for the rest of the night. This has been incredibly stressful for all of us, but everything should settle down now.”

“Goodnight, Mum.” She turns to go back into my grandma's room. “Mum?”

She looks back to me.

“How long are we going to stay here? What about school?”

“We'll phone the school in the morning. There's only a week left of school before summer break anyway, then we have almost two months to sort all of this out.”

“Is grandma going home with us?”

“I hope so, but we'll have to see what happens.”

Continue reading Chapter 7/19

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