The Infinite Doctrine: Vol. 1 (5 Short Stories) by Scott Donnelly - HTML preview

WITHIN THAT ROOM

The old house now sat dark and damp.  The only light was that that shone in from the cracks in the boarded up windows.

The wooden floor was chipped in many places, and what was left of the furniture was ripped and stained of the clamminess to the house.  Broken glass lay on the floor under the closed off windows, and a few cockroaches scurried up and down the damaged walls.  This was certainly not the house I remembered growing up.

When I was little, this house was a breeding ground of memories.  I took my first steps here.  I trotted in this front door after my first day of school.  I had my graduation party here.  My first serious girlfriend and I had _ a few memories here.  This house was my life.  I lied here with my family for nearly 19 years.  Then we had to leave.  A change in my fathers' job was responsible for that.  I am just shocked to see that after 10 years, the house is still here _ having nobody, since us, live here.

Why'd I come back?  Curiosity lured me back.  Probably not in the fashion you're think about though.  It had to do with extra bedroom upstairs _ a small 7x7 bedroom, never once used by my sister or I, nor my parents. It was a room where we stuck old boxes that got in the way, or where we kept old furniture, waiting for a possible garage sale.  We probably only opened the door to that room once a year, if that. But besides the storage, this room held a different purpose.

When I was close to six years of age, my late grandfather, sister and I were walking in the thicket behind the house.  He was showing us nature.  Birds' nests and groundhog burrows.  We'd go down by the pond and lift up rocks to see the salamanders and worms.  And that is when we found 'Chubs'.

My grandfather was lifting up a rock along the muddy banks of the pond.  A strange animal, one in which I had never seen or heard of was coiled up underneath it.  The animal, almost snake_ like, must have been three feet in length, with dark green with black spots.  The animal differed from a snake in many ways, or else I would have been convinced that's what it was. The creature, which my little sister dubbed, 'Chubs' at the time, was slimy in texture, and was six inches wide _ it was very fat for a snake.  The eyes sat very close together in the center of the face, unlike a snake, and I never once saw its tongue shoot out.

My grandfather thought it would be a good idea to bring Chubs back to the house to show my parents; he also thought there may be some kind of publicity involved, with perhaps discovering a new species of animal.  However, when we got it back to the house, and before my parents got home to see Chubs, my grandfather claimed he had a vision.  A vision in which we three were not supposed to find this creature.  It was to be hidden from the world for another time.  This didn't make sense to neither me nor my sister at the time, so we trusted the adult.  My grandfather was never one to lie, or make things up to scare us.

He was dead serious about hiding the creature, fearing that it wasn't the right time.  My sister always said that Chubs spoke to my grandfather.  I never saw this happen, but how else would you explain his freaking out at the last minute, and proposing we hide it _ none of it made sense to me.

My grandfather, almost immediately, carried the seemingly harmless Chubs, upstairs and into the spare room.  He put the creature gently onto the floor, and watched it slither its way into the far corner of the room.  He closed the door, and came to me, asking where my father kept the key to the room.  I told him it was in an old coat pocket, which hung in the downstairs closet. He grabbed the key and locked the door.  Stuffing the key into his jeans pocket, he took it with him later that night when my parents got home.  He told my sister and I to never mention Chubs to my parents, or open that door until the time was right; it was our little secret.

I never once mentioned it to my parents.  I wouldn't betray my grandfather like that.  Although there were plenty of times, that I feared what was in that room, and wanted to tell someone.  But the only person I could talk to was my sister.  She felt the same way I did about it.  Years go by, and you don't see what's behind the door, and in that room.  But you know it's in there, and that's the scariest part _ knowing what Chubs looked like as the seasons changes, or how big he'd gotten.  My sister and I wondered if Chubs would remember us, or if he was angry.

There were times when I would come out of the bathroom after taking a shower and pass by the spare room.  I would put my ear to the door, and hear sounds.  Sounds that resembled dragging, or shuffling on the floor.  I knew Chubs was in there, moving about.  I also knew that there was a air vent on the wall in  that room, and to this day, I could swear that there were times, late at night, when the silent dark overtook the world, that Chubs would creep through the walls and watch me sleep from the vent in my room.  It was these thoughts that kept my curiosity and fear on edge until we moved.

Now ten years after we moved, I am back at this house. My curiosity had taken the better part of my life, and I had to know. Was Chubs still there?  Had he grown? If so, what did he look like now?  Did he slip out of the house somehow at one point, and is now back down in the pond?  Was he dead?

I walked up the stairs, which seemed to creak on every step. Down the hall, and to the right _ the spare room sat.  Door still closed.  I walked up to it slowly, memories resurrecting in my mind.  The whole history behind Chubs had rendered me confused.  I didn't know what the reason was for my grandfather to hide him in that room, or when the right time was for Chubs to come out.

I stood at the door, by face two feet away from it.  I gently put my hand on the door, and moved in, turning my ear to it.  I listened, being as quiet as I could, waiting for a sign that Chubs was still in there.  I couldn't hear anything.  I closed my eyes, and held my breath. I hoped.  From what sounded like the furthest possible point in that room, a slight sliding sound started.  It sounded like a very large object dragging on a very rough surface.  It was Chubs.  He was still in there.

My mind began to shuffle though images of what terrible thing could be in the room, right behind the door my ear was placed against.  It was time to find out.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the screwdriver I brought, to take off the doorknob.  I fixed the screwdriver in place, and before I began to twist out the screws, I thought to myself: What if this is not that time for Chubs to come out of hiding?  Maybe it was just a way for me to get closure on the whole thing, and not the right time for this room to be opened.  I stopped where I was, and contemplated these thoughts.  Finally, I decided to pull away from the door.  It just wasn't time yet.  And there was no way I was going to go against my grandfather _ this was our secret.  It was part of our bond.  Maybe Chubs would be revealed sooner or later, but now wasn't his time.  I was happy with my decision, and knew my grandfather would be proud.  Some things are just better kept hidden.