The Roommate

The entire country was ordered to stay home. I was glad to comply. I had just bought an old musty house. The sellers claimed that it was built in the late 1800s but certainly there is at least one much older room. The ceiling in this room is five feet high and the floor is made of cracked and dirty stone. The walls are made of the same dirty stone. It's not very big, ten feet wide by 11 feet long. There are no windows because it sits in the exact middle of the house. I asked the realtor about this oddity when I first saw the house. She told me that it was used as a storage cellar, even though it is on the first floor. A very modern kitchen is on the other side of the wall so I thought I could turn it into a pantry.

               There is another unusual thing about this room;  the master bedroom sits directly above it. That is not unusual, but there is no indication that the room below has such a low ceiling. There is not a sunken floor that would indicate the peculiarity below. The master bedroom has an old carpet covered in dirt and grime so I can't tell if the floor has been replaced.

 The house sits near the cliffs of Dover in Southern England. The location makes me think of a romanticized version of pirates and smugglers. It needs a lot of work so I paid less than half the cost of a similar-sized house. Of course, all the locals say that it is haunted, but what old house isn't.

I decide to start with the modern kitchen. It's modern but not very clean. First, I sweep all the debris, including traces of animal habitation, to the attached dining room to be picked up later. Then some soapy water on all the surfaces. The water in my pail is black before I have even finished one-third of the room. way through. I end up using ten pails of soapy water before I'm satisfied.

               Things look clean but I want to disinfect everything. I pour bleach into my bucket and start to add water but my eyes keep drifting to the wall next to the stone room. "Yes," I tell myself. "That wall should be six feet closer to the stone room." I still have my tools in my car so I go out to get my measuring tape. I measure the kitchen. I measure the hallway. I measure the other rooms. There is no denying that the stone room should be six feet bigger in all directions.

               Should I finish cleaning and investigate later? I tell myself that I need to accomplish at least one thing today but I keep going back to the stone room. 

 I'm still arguing with myself when I discover my sledgehammer in my hands. I'll have to clean again anyway so I might as well make the mess before I finish cleaning.

 Crash! The sledgehammer makes a hole in the kitchen, next to the stone room. I'm dripping with sweat when the hole is big enough for me to walk through. I can tell that there is a passage but it's dark. I make another trip to the car for my flashlight.

The passageway is even dirtier and moldier than the rest of the house but curiosity takes over. I follow the passage to the first corner, wiping the cobwebs from my face.  As I turn the corner a catch myself before I falling down a steep set of stairs. "Railing for the stairs in the passageway," I add one more repair to my mental list.

               The steps are made of stone so I don't worry that they will break under my weight. I go down thirteen steps when I reach a small platform, then thirteen more steps to another platform. This time the steps change direction and I follow them to a room. I can smell the sea here, but what I can see is what causes me to scream. I skeleton guards a doorway.

               I step back and take ten deep breaths; after all the skeleton can't hurt me.

               Shining the flashlight beyond the skeleton, I see a room. "This must be a treasure room," I tell myself.

               Carefully, so that I don't touch the skeleton, I ease through the doorway. Another scream, mine. This room has many skeletons. I don't hang around to count them. I think I touched the first skeleton in my hurry to leave.

               Safely back in the passageway, I regain common sense. I knew it was an old house when I bought it and that it was reportedly haunted. That's why it was so cheap.  I retrace my steps back to the hole leading to the kitchen. I'm tempted to stop and save the rest of the passageway for another day, but one again curiosity wins. This time I'm careful as I turn a corner but there is no cause for alarm. I walk to the next corner and turn, again nothing alarming. I turn the next corner.

               If my sense of direction is correct, I should find the stairs down this hallway. My flashlight shines on stairs a few feet away, but these go up. I start to climb, relieved that they are also made of stone. At least I won't have to worry about falling through rotten wood.

Thirteen steps up, I reach a platform. "At least the builder was consistent," I remark to no one. The platform simply stops.

               "I've come this far," I tell myself. I go back to get my sledgehammer.

 Back on the platform a swing at the wall. I must be getting tired because it takes several swings to make a hole. I thought I would have to use the flashlight to see inside but there is light streaming from the opening. I peak through and see the kitchen. "Two holes in the kitchen, " I add to the fix-it list.

 The sledgehammer bounces off the opposite wall and I try again. And again. Stone is hidden under the wood of the wall. I should have brought water because I am hot and thirsty, but I don't want to give up.

 Finally, a crack in the stone appears. With renewed vigor a keep swinging. This time it is total darkness on the other side of the hole.  

 "I'm glad that this flashlight had fresh batteries when I started." I'm starting to have a regular conversation with myself. I shine the flashlight through the hole . . . and scream.  

               Yes, there are more skeletons. 

               "Alright, why are they here?" I ask out loud. Bravely I look through the hole again to look for clues. I do not see any chains, no instrument of torture, nothing that would indicate the cause of death.

               "The room below could be pirates. The tide might have come in and trapped them or they might have lost their boat." Now I'm talking out loud all the time.

I'm happy to be back in the kitchen  "Take skeletons from the closet." I add to my to-do list. If small dark rooms aren't closets, what are they? I take one more look at the stone room; this time shining my flashlight into all the corners. I think I see something in one corner so I go closer to investigate. Although covered with dirt I can read '1545' chipped into the stone.

"1545 was the year of the black death." I should be scared because no one should be in the house with me, but I feel calm. All of my adrenalin must have been used for the skeletons. I turn to the voice.

               "Bring out your dead. We heard those cries every morning. We were nobles! We were not commoners!  How dare they think they could put us in a mass grave with everyone else." The voice belonged to a man that wasn't quite there. I could see the wall through him.

               "So you stayed inside the house to die?"  I asked.

               "This was our house, our castle. It is my family that you saw in the room upstairs. I feared that the death squad would demand to come into my home so I walled off the burial room. Then the rest of us got sick. We knew that we wouldn't recover so we went down to the room by the sea. That room had been a secret for hundreds of years. I knew that we wouldn't be found. It was me that you touched when you ran out of there. Thank you, I am now awake and I can live again!"

               It appears that I have acquired a roommate.