The Room with No Door

My grandmother’s farmhouse in the rolling hills of eastern Kentucky was a place where time seemed to blur. Dust motes danced in the afternoon sun that slanted through the warped glass of the kitchen windows, and the floorboards groaned with the memory of a hundred footsteps. But there was one room that was always cold, the one at the end of the upstairs hall, the one with no door. As a child, I’d press my ear to the wall where a doorframe had been plastered over, and I’d hear it: a low, rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat from behind the plaster. My mother and grandmother would exchange glances and say, ‘That’s just the old house settling.’ But I knew better. It was waiting.

One July night, the air thick with the hum of cicadas and the sweet smell of honeysuckle, I woke to a different sound. It wasn’t the thumping. It was a voice, thin and reedy, like a child speaking through a tin can. ‘You can hear me, can’t you?’ it said. I froze, clutching my quilt to my chin. ‘I know you can. You’re the only one who’s ever listened.’ The voice came from the wall, from the exact spot where the door used to be. I wanted to scream for my mother, but my throat was tight, and all I could do was whisper, ‘Who are you?’ There was a pause, then a sound like dry leaves skittering across a floor. ‘I’m the boy who was never found.’

Night after night, I talked to him. He told me his name was Samuel, and that he’d died playing hide-and-seek with his brother on a hot August day in 1947. ‘I hid so good,’ he said, his voice tinged with a child’s pride. ‘I hid in the secret room in the attic, the one behind the chimney. But the door swung shut and the latch fell. The grown-ups never found me. They said I ran off. But I stayed here, in the walls, and I’ve been waiting for someone to play with.’ I told him about my toys, about the stuffed rabbit and the plastic dinosaurs, and he laughed, a sound that was like wind rattling windowpanes. He begged me to play hide-and-seek, but I was too scared. I would talk to him until my eyes grew heavy, and then he would hum a lullaby that made my skin prickle.

A week later, my cousin Marcus came to stay. He was older, and he thought I was foolish for talking to the wall. ‘It’s just a draft,’ he said, rolling his eyes. That night, I heard Marcus call out from his room, which was directly across from the wall. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted. I heard a crash, then silence. I sprinted into his room and found him standing, pale as the moon, pointing at the wall. ‘There’s something living in there,’ he whispered. ‘I saw a crack in the plaster, and there was an eye looking back at me.’ The next morning, I told my grandmother about my nighttime conversations. Instead of dismissing it, she grew solemn. ‘We don’t speak of that,’ she said, rubbing her arms. ‘But if you hear it again, don’t answer. Just ignore it. That’s what I do.’ But I couldn’t ignore him. He was lonely, and I was the only friend he had.

On the last night of Marcus’s visit, the voice was different. It wasn’t pleading or playful. It was angry. ‘You told,’ Samuel hissed, his voice dripping with venom. ‘You told the grown-ups, and now they’ll try to make me go away. I thought you were different. I thought you were my friend.’ I tried to apologize, but he cut me off. ‘If I can’t have a friend, then I’ll keep you here with me forever.’ The room grew colder than a graveyard, and I saw a shape in the corner of my eye, a small silhouette crouched by the wall. The wall bulged, as if something were pressing against it from the inside. I screamed, and my grandmother burst in. She took one look at the bulging plaster and began to pray, her voice shaking. As she prayed, the bulge receded, and the cold lifted.

After that, I never slept alone in that room again. But before I left for the city, I made one last trip up to the hall. I pressed my ear to the wall, and instead of the heartbeat, I heard a soft, pitiful sobbing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘But I’ll never forget you, Samuel.’ The sobbing stopped, and for a moment, there was silence. Then, a faint, childlike voice said, ‘Thank you. At least you said goodbye.’ I left the farmhouse, and I never heard him again. But sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, I feel a cold spot in my bedroom, and I know that part of him followed me, that he’ll always be there, waiting for the day I finally decide to play hide-and-seek with him. And I’m afraid that when that day comes, he won’t let me win.