I Should Have Stayed in Bed

I apologise.

The details of that night are blurry. I wish I could vividly recall it all and give you the in-depth description you’re after but unfortunately, I cannot. 

Weird thing, memory. How is it so easy to recall trivial details yet so difficult to remember crucial events. Take a wedding for example. Most attendees will remember what their meals but how many will truly remember the speeches? 

I wish that night had been as joyous as a wedding. Rather than being taken back to a beautiful speech of long-lasting love I’m instead left haunted with blood and five simple words.

Funny that.

Anyway, I’ll start at the beginning. With luck I’ll remember further details but for now they are no less a mystery to you than they are to me.

I woke up at 3:58am. Again, a trivial detail, one I’d happily replace for something a little meatier. I rolled to the left of my bed, aiming for the pint of water I’d prepared for this moment. One too many drinks with the guys on a school night, hydration was needed. 

I was tipsy, not drunk. I swayed past my parents in the living room at around 11:00pm and announced that I was ‘retiring to bed for the evening’, all the while trying to use the most eloquent vocabulary I could muster. I hoped this would lead them to think I was relatively sober (they knew I liked to drink but at sixteen I couldn’t be too liberal with it) and grant me the benefit of the doubt. 

After all, tonight was a night to celebrate. My father had just returned from a business trip and had planned a night for just him and mum. I’ve never really known what my dad does, all I know is he has to go away for weeks at a time at a moment’s whim. Sometimes I’d pass him in the hallway en route to bed and share a “see you tomorrow” with him only to find that he’d been called away the following morning. 

My mum and dad looked over at me from the sofa, their legs intertwined as if they were literally a ‘beast with two backs’ and chuckled. From the looks on their faces and the three drunken bottles of champagne occupying the floor I would argue I wasn’t the only tipsy member of the household. 

“Goodnight Vince” called my parents, both failing to escape their entwined positions.

“See you tomorrow son” my father continued. Maybe, I thought. After all, how many times had he promised that and failed.

“Hope you had a good night with the lads. Love you.” finished my mother. 

Those were the last words I’ll ever hear from her.

I’m thankful for that memory.

Of all the crucial details I had forgotten I’m glad I’ll always be able to remember my mother’s last words to me were “I love you”.

I’ll cherish those forever. 

My fathers on the other hand…

The water was inviting when I took my first sip. I could feel the hangover taking over my body. My head ached and twinged at the slightest movement; my stomach churned, desperate to digest the large kebab I’d pick up en route home; and my bladder pinched as the four pints of Guinness and two black Sambuca shots reached its capacity.

I had a routine in places for situations like this.

Firstly, chug a pint of

water. Check.

Secondly, head to the

bathroom. 

Thirdly, proceed with either:

A. Pissing out every droplet

I’d ingested throughout the night.

B. Puking up the remaining

booze and starchy food to relieve my bloated belly.

C. Both. 

As my bare feet touched the shaggy carpet of my cramped bedroom, I felt my world spin around me.

Regaining my footing, I unlocked my bedroom door and stumbled towards the bathroom. 

My eyes recoiled at the glare radiating from the landing lights. Strange, but I just put it down to mum and dad being just as wasted as I was. After all it’s 4am, surely they're in bed. I reached the bathroom and locked the door. At the very sight of the white porcelain throne I dropped to my knees and plunged my head into its watery abyss. One gag of vomit came, the rest were dry.

Again, a detail I’d trade for something a little more substantial.

Was parent’s bedroom door wide open?

As I lifted my head from the

basin I finished my bathroom experience with a nice, relieving piss. 

Option C it is.

At the very least I knew this would help come the morning. The last thing I needed was a hangover in Mr. Spencer’s dull and longwinded psychology lesson.  Now thinking back on his

lessons, which discussed topics ranging from psychopathology to paranoid delusions, I remember a theory he shared with us. Something about a razor.

'The simplest explanation is often the most probable'. 

I should have paid more attention.

I'm sorry, I'm rambling.

I felt sturdier as I stood up, maybe I could recover by the morning. 

I unbolted the door and

started towards my room when-

I stopped. 

I froze. 

I smelt...

something. 

Something...

Wrong. 

My mind couldn’t place it.

Was it the vomit? was it the urine? Were my senses shunted after the night of drinking? 

No. This was different. This was wrong. 

I should have gone back to bed. I should have put it down to a poorly prepared late-night snack courtesy of my parents. But I couldn’t shake it. My body quivered at the scent. 

I headed for the stairs. The floor creaked beneath my feet. I paused. I’ve sneaked out enough times to know exactly which panels make the louder impact. With that in mind I tiptoed towards the stairs, hoping not to wake my parents. 

I reached the top of the stairs. The lights below shone bright back. Mum and dad must have been well and truly drunk.

I descended. Worse comes to worst I’ll find a mess in the kitchen. If I clean it up and turn off the lights, I can at least garner some brownie points. The next time I return in a state and my parents aren’t as understanding I can remind them who cleaned up their mess.

A ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card.

I took every declining step

delicately until I reached the hallway. Everything was as it was when I left for bed. I inhaled deeply, hoping to source the whereabouts of the stench. My nose traced the hallway like a dowsing rod searching for an oasis. The smell was thicker here, so much so it stung to breath. I raised the sleeve of my shirt to my face hoping barrier myself from it. 

I couldn’t tell you what the smell was, all I know is it wasn’t right. 

The scent led me down the hallway towards the kitchen and living room. 

What am I doing, I thought. I have school in five hours, does cleaning up after my parents really take priority? I nearly turned on my heels there and then. 

But that smell. 

I couldn’t shake it. 

It’s as if the scent had entered my nose and invaded every cell in my body. Even now my bones shake at the very remembrance of it.

I had to continue. 

I moved slowly down the hall, passing a gallery's worth of family photographs. 

We looked happy.

The kitchen was ahead. Adjacent to it was my father’s office. Part of the mystery the surrounded his job was that his office was permanently locked. I’ve asked him a few times;

“what’s inside?” 

But he’d always shrug the question off with a joke like: 

“it’s my lair” or;

“if I told you I’d have to kill you” followed with a wink for good measure.

As I stepped closer I noticed one of two things. What I should have

noticed was the darkness coming from the undisturbed and odourless kitchen. Instead it was the room opposite that caught my attention. 

The office was open. 

If my parents leaving the lights on was improbable then this was

impossible. Dad never unlocked his office door, let alone leave it ajar. The lights were off, still preserving its mystery. Every instinct inside me burned with the same response: 

Don’t go in there. It’s dad’s office, it has nothing to do with

you. 

I couldn’t miss this opportunity. If curiosity killed the cat then strike me down here and now. 

Again, memory fails me here. It’s as if the discovery of the unlocked door wiped any prior concerns from my mind. The lights; the smell; the hangover, any troubles, feelings or anxieties subsided. All there was in my universe right now was the office.

I took in a deep breath and walked into oblivion.

I moved my hand blindingly across the wall next to the door, hoping to feel for a light switch. The wall felt soft to touch, as if stroke a dry sponge. Eventually I found a switch. I paused. Do I really want to do this? This was dad’s office. In all my life I’ve

never even come close to getting a glimpse into it, surely there’s a

reason? 

But reason had no place in tonight’s events. With a gentle pressure I pressed the switch.

The room was black, even with the single, uncovered lightbulb hanging brightly above. Within the deep blackness was a sea of tiny black pyramids all pointing into the centre of the room. 

Sound proofing. 

The room was deafening to be in. One thing I do remember was the silence. I could feel my body yearn to adjust to deadly silent room and struggling. It was nauseating. I poked and flicked my ears, hopeless trying to kick them into gear. After a few moments the nausea passed and I was able to take in my surroundings.

At this point I should mention just how wicked memory is. Both in a sense of wonder but also in sense of unnerving.

Another dull Mr. Spencer topic was the Multi-Store Memory Model. I zoned out for most, but from what I remember it takes 30 seconds of studying something to become a short-term memory. After that you have to purposely rehearse what you’ve seen for it to

become a long-term memory.  If not, then eventually you will forget it. 

What’s worse is you mind will try to compensate, it will make up facts, sights, smells, sounds to try and complete to story. 

I never got chance to rehearse the sights in that room. Everything I mention here on in this could be accurate, or they could be my mind trying to fill in the blanks. 

All I remember now are those damn words... 

The room was a scene from a late-night horror show. The floor beneath me was an overturned chalkboard, sprawled with hundreds of crudely drawn symbols taken straight out of a tarot

cards pack.  I saw five-pointed “devil” stars, Egyptian-like crosses which looped at the top, and a variety of other shapes I could only somewhat recall from Religious Studies or Mathematics. To the right of the door stood a wide, dark wood desk on which were scattered several ancient looking books and instruments. I tepidly walked across to the desk, my quaking feet tactfully aiming for the unmarked areas. I briefly scanned the books for any sort of meaning, I found words like Malleus Maleficarum; Demonologie and Lycanthropy; hardly a clue.

Above the desk pinned into the wall was a world map. Across it, strategically placed, were tiny red dots pinpointed over various locations (England? Romania? Peru?...). Under closer inspection I noticed the red dots were all different shapes, sizes and tones, one even seemed to have a tail. 

I clambered onto the desk, moving the various medieval looking contents aside with my knees, and leaned my hand close to touch the tailed dot. My finger pushed softly into the dark red spot.

It wasn’t ink.

But it was wet. 

Suddenly my hand went cold, as if it had been plunged into the arctic sea, before I even removed my finger I already knew what it was. 

Whose blood was this? Dads? Mums? Some unknown donor, if so willingly or forcefully? In either case I prayed the former. 

I wiped my finger on my shorts, a little blood stain was the least of my worries. 

My mind became a fiery whirlwind, desperate to find any sense of logic. My entire world had been opened with such painful intensity, like a shining a bright light on a developing piece of film. What the hell is going on?

I feared the answers as much as I feared the questions. 

I climbed down from the desk. There was more I needed to know. I opened each draw in the desk, hoping to find more answers. Two alone just contained documents, all of which seemed alien to one another. Another held a collection of religious relics: crucifixes; Stars of David; prayer beads, to name a few.  Finally, I went to open the last larger draw. As I cracked it open I saw steel glistening against the bulbs light. I never had chance to look properly, for you see-

I heard it. 

The reality of my situation had dawned on me. My body frozen like a statue of a Greek God, forever trapped a moment of terror.

In the frightful fear and fascination of discovering the room and its contents I had become oblivious to everything else. I didn’t take it all in. I only took in what fascinated me, but the reality is. 

I had forgotten to look behind me. 

My mind and body fought an agonising battle.

My mind screamed: ‘Turn around! Quickly, you heard that scream!’

My body shrieked: ‘No, stay where you are, you’re safer here in ignorance!’

Slowly, surely, as if my body was awaking from a centuries long sleep, I turned my head to the space behind me.

There stood the cast-iron doors only nightmares could fill.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

I wish I had stayed in bed.

More than anything do I wish that I had just gone back to bed and laid in that sweet ignorance that mum and dad were both sound asleep after a merry night of celebrating.

As if compelled by the energy that had given me strength to turn and face the door, I slowly crept towards the dark portal. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The simplicity of it was the true terror: cold, dark, with just a simple handle and lock.

My hand reached out and

touched the icy handle. 

I pressed down. 

It budged.

It wasn’t locked. 

I pressed down a little further, hoping for my strength would be stopped by a sudden stiff locking mechanism. 

I heard the bolt release. 

A question dawned on me: if dad had gone to the trouble of keeping this part of his office a secret, then why the need for a large metal door? 

The possibilities screamed out at me, none of them positive. 

I opened the door a crack. It hit me again. Dormant but now awake like an angry serpent, the decaying, sour smell returned to my nostrils. I struggled to breathe.

This is it, the origin.

Taking in a deep breath, I continued. Even with the air in my lungs the smell managed to corrode me. 

I opened it fully.

Who knew this whole time my house had a basement? 

The cobbled stone staircase led into the earth. Its final destination was dimly lit and flickering.

I had gotten this far, why stop now?

Fear and trepidation were nothing to me now, only curiosity and discovery remained, drawing me, leading me into the cavern, like a holy man following his pilgrimage. My mind was focused, I hardly

noticed the cold, ancient stairs. 

They say hell is cold, not hot. 

I reached the final cobble and turned to face the flickering candles, all sitting on the stone floor in the unmistakable shape of a pentagram. My short-term memory recorded this. I’ll remember this for now, but it won’t linger. 

What happens next will sit forever in my long-term memories for the rest of my life. Rehearsing, always rehearsing.

On the plus side, I found my parents.

I stared at my father. He was on all fours within the glowing star he’d created in the centre of the ancient room, facing away from me, panting like a dog that had just caught a bone. 

Beneath him lay my mother, her pyjamas unmistakable but darker that earlier. A second dwelled before I realised, they were stained just like mine.

The silhouette of my father’s head jerked up. He knew they were

not alone. A long, deep sigh replaced the rapid, short panting. 

My father stood. My mother stayed. The wound on her neck became visible now. So deep you'd have thought her head was separate to her body. 

I’m afraid this is where my story ends.

Like I said, the details of that night are blurry, only certain details are accurate, others, well, might just be my mind trying to fill in the gaps. 

For you see, after my father’s final words to me everything is dark, I have no memory of what happened next. I’m sorry to leave you like this but unfortunately that’s memory for you.

My father turned to face me, his entire being looking like a lion that had just caught its prey. Bloody, triumphant, proud. He wiped clean the silver knife on his already bloodied shirt. It made no difference now. It became somewhat more sinister without the blood, the candles light glinting off it like a beacon. 

My body was stuck in eternity as the ghoulish figure of my father came closer. I felt the weight from his hands sink into my shoulder with all the intensity of the discoveries made tonight.

“Son”

My father said with a victorious yet regretful smile.

“Can you keep a secret?”