The House at Number 92

By R.J. Tennyson

 

It started to happen more and more often. He was only three when he moved into the house at number 92. Things were less active then. By the time he was seven it was happening three, four, sometimes five nights a week. 

The house was fibro-cement with imitation bricks covering the outside. It looked almost lost, sitting by itself on the huge residential block. 

The house has been gone for three decades now, where to, he often wonders. Was it knocked down? Was it moved, along with its secrets, to somewhere else? He’ll probably never know.

Today the block has a half-dozen units built on it, but like a moth to a flame, he still drives past from time to time, just to wonder – trying to remember. 

When he least expects it, the past bubbles up in his mind, threatening to pop and flood him with a million memories – the silk threads that will join the fragments together. Perhaps that will solve the mystery for him. Convert the stories he’s been told into something more tangible.

He’s lived in ten houses since the house at number 92, but it’s the only one he ever dreams of. The dreams are always the same. He stands defiantly in the hall –  his last stand. He mocks it as he recites the Lord’s Prayer (a strange dream for an Atheist don’t you think?). 

Come at me, he challenges it. 

It starts to – and that’s where the dream ends. 

His conscious expands and the bubble grows smaller and smaller until it’s gone again.

He slept in the bedroom at the end of the long hall. In it were two single beds. They were bunks, now broken apart, and sitting opposite each other. Foam mattresses atop metal frames that played a dry spring symphony with each tiny movement.

Squeak.

Creak.

Squeak.

Creak.

The melody never bothered him. He slept undisturbed.

If that had been the only sound, then perhaps others would have slept in the room with him – more than once. Adults – uncles, aunts, friends of his parents, would accept the offer to stay in the room the first time. But if offered the room a second night, they’d always decline. 

They weren’t stupid.

They didn’t like what he said in his sleep. It wasn’t that he talked (everybody talks from time to time), it was what he said; and the tone in which he said it.

You see, when he slept alone in the room he would talk playfully. The same lines over and over. 

I can see you there, Des. 

Des what are you doing there?

Get down from the roof, Des.

Come play with me.

If that’s all he’d said on the nights the adults shared the room, they may have felt just a little uneasy – that would be natural. But that isn’t what he said on those nights. If you asked those unfortunate enough to share the room at the house at number 92, they’d be quite adamant that it wasn’t him that spoke at all.

On those nights, his voice changed. From the sweet high tone of pre-pubescence, it grew to a deep gravel-pocked tone of an adult. It was no longer playful. It was now lifeless, grave.

GET OUT!

I SAID, GET OUT!

GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN.

Now you understand why no one stayed a second night.

Night after night, year after year, the talking continued, until shortly after his 14th birthday.  That was when he left the house at number 92 forever.

 Until this very day he still speaks in his sleep most nights, but in the 30 years since he moved from that house, he’s never uttered those sinister lines again – well, that he knows of.

***

As I sit writing this story I think it’s only fair that I confess – he is me. Or is it ‘was’ me? It’s so long ago now, 30 years might as well be a million. 

Writing this has forced the bubble to slowly grow again. It’s filling with memories. Expanding to breaking point.

I watch the seven-year-old me, lying in the bed. He’s talking.

I can see you there, Des. 

Des what are you doing there?

His mother creeps quietly into his room to check on him. 

Get down from the roof, Des.

Come play with me.

She runs a cool hand over his forehead, tucking his golden locks back behind his ears.

He stirs for a moment, and then rolls over.

Squeak.

Creak.

He drifts back into a deep sleep.

She slips back out of the room… pulling the door closed.

Behind it, stands an old man. He’s only just there; a translucent wisp. 

Holding his hand is a young boy, five or six-years-old. His feet are bare and he wears blue overalls, cut into shorts, and a long sleeved button-down shirt that was once white. On his head is a blue denim cap. 

He smiles at me. He doesn’t speak, but I know his name. 

Des.

My conscious expands once more. The bubble grows smaller and smaller. 

And it’s gone.