The Red Room

THE RED ROOM

BY

DOUG LeBLANC

The house shook. He had no idea why it shook, but it shook constantly. As owner of Howard House, Dale hated the place, but he called it home. Built some three hundred years before, it represented all that was warped and demented of the gothic period of architecture. The designer of Howard House was as warped and demented as any of his contemporaries, and was on for the being the ultimate In his field. In the summer the huge, ugly edifice was unbearably hot, and in the winter was as cold as the shadow of hell. Like rot on a corpse, gloom gathered in the corners and corridors, and no amount of light from the dingy windows could penetrate its shadowy domain.
And the place stank. Mold was a permanent resident, adding comfort to the rodent and insect denizens of the stately old cesspool. If only he could sell it! He sighed deeply, his ragged old frame heaving with the exertion. He shook his balding pate free of the particles of dust, and they drifted slowly to the floor like flakes of snow. Damn this place! If only he could sell it!
Sadly, he was utterly unable to do that. A rather large pension went with the property, as long as it remained with the Howard family. Anyone who sells the old rat-trap is no longer entitled to the money, and Dale was too old to go back to work now. If he could get enough for the property, he could retire on it, and never have to see the ghastly old estate again. However, he could not do that. There was the Red Room. Besides, the house was a family heirloom.
A family eyesore was what it was. A good fire could improve the site tremendously. A wrecking ball would be a God send. Every once in awhile the neighbours would pass a petition demanding the place be condemned, and were always surprised at Dale Howard’s whole-hearted agreement with their assessment. Unfortunately, there was no real legal grounds to condemn the place, and the petitions always failed.
The house shook again, and Dale Howard shook with it, almost, but not quite, in unison. He shuffled from his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He always did this as the damn thing had an unfortunate tendency to slam loudly when he was least expecting it. He could almost swear he could hear the faint tinkle of distant laughter when it happened; but he didn’t like to think about that.
As he descended the staircase toward the kitchen, he thought of the long way he was taking, and had taken for every one of the mornings for the last thirty years he had been the sole resident of Howard House. There was a reason, although he rarely allowed himself to dwell on it. The Red Room. No one was allowed into the Red Room, mainly because those who went in almost never came out again, and those that did were utterly mad. No one knew what would happen if someone went in who was not a member of the family, but speculation held that it would be very, very bad. Even family members were not allowed in, on pain of, ... whatever.
Dale lived in the house all his life, and knew this to be true. In fact, he had come to be the sole heir to the house because his uncle David had bravely entered the room, and was never seen again. That was almost thirty years ago, and Dale had not even gone near the room since. Still, it was there, brooding like a great vulture, never consciously thought about, but never forgotten, either.
This morning he entered his dining room, and sat down to breakfast. A small bell sat at his right hand, and he gave it a short ring. Before it had finished chiming the door burst open like an explosion, and out spewed Mrs. Limestone, bearing a tray with the morning meal set upon it. She bustled up to the table, mumbled something that may have been ‘good morning’, but easily might have been an invitation to self-inflicted physical harm. She set the plates down before him with all the vigor of a blacksmith attacking an anvil, then vanished back into the kitchen.
Dale looked down upon the congealing mess that lay before him, and wondered for the thousandth time how anyone could possibly make such a horrid job of cooking a simple thing like bacon and eggs. Beside the main course lay a smaller plate that contained the charred remains of what were undoubtedly once two happy pieces of bread. They lay on the plate like toppled tombstones, giving mute testament to the woman’s ability to maim and torture even the most inoffensive of lifeless matter. Beside this sat a cup that looked as if it desperately wanted to be cracked and broken, if only to appear to have achieved some goal in life, filled with liquid that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the creation usually made from coffee beans. Dale consumed just enough of the conglomeration to dissipate any hunger pangs the morning might bring, but not enough to advance any possible attempted poisoning by Mrs. Limestone. Secretly he referred to her as Mrs. Slime, but having once made the mistake of repeating this audibly, he was disinclined to do it again, once the bruises had healed.
He finished his meal, or as much of it as courage would allow, and gave the bell another little ring, and again Mrs. Limestone appeared on cue. Silently she took away the dishes, and placed before him a glass of milk and something which was so ghastly it almost frightened him. It looked like a cross-section taken of a newly filled grave. Sandwiched between two slabs of earth-coloured crust was a mass of bloody pulp that might have been the result of Attila the Hun’s final curse on Christianity, but Dale recognized as a slice of cherry pie. This was the same slice that was offered to him last night for dessert. He refused it then on the grounds that the concoction should be given decent burial in hallowed ground, and not be left out in the open as a mockery to life in general. He wanted to make the same refusal now, but his knowledge of Madame Slime’s habits led him to believe she would offer this slab of monstrosity to him until it was consumed, either by himself or by natural deterioration. He resolved to ensure neither himself nor any other poor creature would be inflicted by this curse, and promptly threw it out the window. Here it would be taken care of by the groundskeeper, a man known only as Groundache. What he did with the foodstuffs that had occasion to journey through the portals of Howard House, he and he alone knew. Dale shuddered to think of it, and dismissed himself from the table with another ring of the bell.
Again the door to the kitchen blew open, once more spewing out Mrs. Limestone like Satan being cast out of heaven. Employing the wisdom of long years, Dale Howard made for his study as quickly as possible. Once safely ensconced at his desk, he proceeded to his normal occupation for the day. Here the servants were given to understand their lord and master was hard at work determining the future fate of Howard House, and that he was not to be disturbed unless good and sufficient reasons abounded. As these rarely occurred, he was left to his labours. Little did anyone suspect he was dutifully at work on his usual labour: crossword puzzles.
This morning, however, there did exist good and sufficient reasons for the disturbing of the master: there was a knock at the front door. A less than prompt response by the cadaverous creature known as the Butler brought a frustrated Mr. Plator into the study some ten minutes later. The Butler then removed himself, more out of habit than due to the pressure of popular opinion. In many tales this semi-living organism is known to have been the perpetrator of certain ghastly crimes. This creature could not be said to be of the same ilk; although this is hardly attributable to any lack of criminal intent, so much as a lack of purpose in life; indeed, to a lack of anything resembling sentience whatsoever.
Mr. Plator, after having accepted the offer of a seat, then proceeded to unburden himself as to the purpose of his visit. He was a Hollywood movie director, and was hoping to use Howard House as the setting for his latest adventure in cinematography. Dale Howard stared at his guest in stunned amazement.
“You wan to use MY house to make a movie?” he blurted out in shock.
“Why, yes. This setting is absolutely perfect,” Mr. Plator responded.
“What are you making, a horror movie?”
“No, a romantic picture in the great tradition of ...”
“A romance? What, in this dump?”
“Of course,” Mr. Plator carried on as if he hadn’t heard (which he hadn’t), “I will have to examine the house, but so far I am content with what I see.”
“You are?”
“Yes, now if I may see the rest of the house...”
Dale shrugged. “Certainly,” he agreed without thinking. Figures of excessive amounts of liquid cash were flashing through his head when he said this. “Help yourself.”
Mr. Plator, actually know to his co-workers as Mr. Playtex, due to his fondness for the wearing of certain garments, thanked his host, and proceeded to search about the house for appropriate sites to shoot his film. He was unsupervised, and made his way quickly through the edifice at will.
Dale, still thinking in financial terms, had a thought suddenly cross his mind. It was a terrible thought, a horrible thought, and he froze.
He listened, and heard the sounds of the man opening and closing doors. He wanted to yell, to scream, to do anything, but he was frozen in fear. He began to move, to try to catch him in time.
Then he heard the sound of a door opening, and a gasp from Mr. Plator, then slowly, as if there were no other sound in the whole world, the door closing. The silence came, and he knew the producer had found the Red Room. Someone who is not a Howard had gone into the Red Room. Tension began to build in the old house, build like thunder, build up like a storm of biblical proportions. Dale Howard waited in terror, and it seemed as if the whole house waited with him.
Finally, it exploded. A scream, torn from a throat at the end of terror, exploded like a bomb. On and on it went, like a shout from the very pit of hell. It stopped suddenly, and in the ensuing silence the very air seemed bruised. They waited.
Then, unmistakable but sure, came the sound of a door closing. The door to the Red Room had closed once, and now had closed again. It had closed again, without having opened a second time. Whatever had been in the Red Room was now loose in the house. There was no sound of movement, but a presence could be felt moving down the stairs.
The door opened, and Dale marveled to see his Uncle David there. He was almost ready to greet him, he was actually going to greet him, before the horror came. Before he realized that what was before him was not human, but was a thing made up of captured souls. Mr. Plator, the latest addition, had been captured and wore a look of utterly profound horror. And, once it came, there was only one way to make the horror stop.


“Odd, but they never found his body.”
“I know. They found everyone but his. All of them killed themselves, apparently within hours, maybe even minutes of each other. Whatever caused them to kill themselves must have affected Plator as well.”
“Then why wasn’t his body found?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect it’s that room.”
“What did they find in it?
“Nothing, not a thing. It was just a bare, empty room, painted completely red. No furniture, nothing. “
“There must have been some clue there. Are you sure they searched thoroughly?”
“Quite sure, but I’m going to go take another look. One of the police officers swears that he heard maniacal laughter coming from the room after they closed the door. Also, just when they were leaving, he swears he heard the door close again, even though he was the last one out, and there was no one left in the house. He told me he could feel something moving around, but left before his fear got the better of him.”
“Are you sure you want to go back?”
“Well, maybe I will one of these days. I’ve a lot on my mind right now. There’ll always be time later.”
“Certainly. That’s the wisest course. There’ll always be time later.”


Somewhere, in an old, tormented house, a door closed that had never been open, and that which should not exist existed for another day.

THE END