As a child, I was obsessed with the idea of my house being haunted. Never mind the fact that my family and I were the first and only ones to have lived in it, there had never been any deaths, and there was absolutely nothing strange about the spacey suburban neighborhood it was constructed in.
My child’s mind filled the dark spaces in the hallway with imaginary monsters—zombies, ghosts, and the like. I tried to imagine Jacob Marley’s face appearing in the wall above my TV, his gaping mouth stretching the plaster. I tried to rethink the creaks from the floor during the wintertime to be a spirit’s footsteps as he patrolled the hall outside my room.
But try as I might, my house was not haunted. Dormant. Empty. Boring. In fact, though I consumed ghost stories like caffeine and even wrote them on my own time, I had never encountered anything... spooky.
Until the day after New Years, 2020.
The day after my Papa died.
I had visited along with everyone else, gone to see him on his deathbed that fateful afternoon—around one o’clock. But it was too much for me. I had never seen death up close. I had never listened to someone’s breath rattle like that—closer to death than life.
The way his chest seemed to pulsate with each struggled schlunk-hissss of his oxygen machine. The way his mouth opened, and a bubble protruded with each breath.
My Nana had been standing next to me while I stared at my Papa on that bed. Her arm was around me, her gentle, old fingers on my hip.
“You alright?” she asked me tentatively. God, she was so shaken herself, she had no reason to ask me. “You look a little pale.”
“No,” I ground out. “I’m fine. I’m just—I’m just not wearing any makeup.”
There. That pulled a little chuckle out of her. My Mom too, standing behind me, let out a soft snort.
I had squirmed a little, the sight of my Papa asleep—fully unaware that we were standing six feet from him—was a little much for me.
Schlunk—Hisssss.
Months ago, I had wanted to destroy that oxygen machine. I remember sitting stalk-still in their living room, watching my Papa cling to it, watching him maneuver around the clear tubes and adjust them around his neck so that they would not get in his way. I remember wanting to take a baseball bat to it when this was all over, wanting to beat it so thoroughly and viciously that it could never Schlunk—Hisssss again.
And here it was at the very end, possibly the only thing that was keeping my Papa alive. The only thing letting him remain in this comatose, unaware, drugged, vegetative state.
Schlunk—Hisssss.
I went home shortly after. The drive back had been a blur. I didn’t sing with the music. I didn’t talk on the phone. I just... I just drove.
And I didn’t return there, even after my Mom called me and told me in a shaky voice that “Papa’s passed.”
I had cried. I had cranked out some killer poems in the following hours—as I often did when I didn’t know how else to process my emotions. I didn’t just cry for my Papa, but for my Nana. For my Dad and uncle and brothers and Mom. I cried for my 11-month-old nephew, who would never have any memories of Papa.
Like I said, I didn’t return there for another day. I didn’t want to go sit in their living room and have to face the emotions and visitors dropping off food.
And God, I definitely didn’t want to face him.
My Papa.
I briefly wondered, four miles away, if they had turned off his oxygen machine yet. If that Schlunk—Hisssss had been silenced. Finally. Who knows.
However, twenty-four hours later, I got in the truck with my parents, and we headed to Nana and Papa’s.
Now just Nana’s, I guessed.
It wasn’t too bad. Even though a fog of confusion rested lightly across my mind. A gentle confusion. Because it was strange to sit on the couch and see Papa’s recliner empty. To know that he wasn’t going to walk through the doorway from the kitchen. To know that I wouldn’t hear the rattle of his walker in the hall.
Our whole family was there. But somebody was missing.
I dealt with it in my own way, if dealing with it was just shoving it to the back of your mind and playing with your nephew on the floor.
Everyone stayed in the living room. Nobody went down the hallway the whole night. Probably because no one wanted to go anywhere near that back bedroom, which had been converted into a small, 11’ by 11’ Hell for the past two days.
Like I said, nobody went back there.
Which is why my sister-in-law and I caught each other’s eye when we heard a door open. I don’t know which door it was. Could’ve been the office. Maybe the bathroom.
But I had a sneaking suspicion. A suspicion that tried to force itself to the front of my mind, only to be pushed back down again by rational thought.
The suspicion that it was the back bedroom door.
“Did anyone else hear that?” I asked. It had been a loud creak after all.
My sister-in-law nodded, and for the next thirty seconds, I noted the way she eyed the hallway closely, her brow furrowed in a somewhat accusatory way.
I stared for a few moments, unsure of what to say, but conversation sparked back up between a few older members of the family, and the creaking door in the hallway was suddenly forgotten. By everyone but me.
Hours passed. My sister-in-law and my brother left with my nephew. Eventually my aunt and uncle said their goodbyes too.
And at the end, as the night came to a close, I couldn’t hold it any longer; I had to go to the bathroom.
Which meant I had to pass the back bedroom.
Hell.
I did it bravely, standing up and walking with my shoulders back. I was not prepared for what I saw.
It was a short hallway. Only a handful of rooms branched off. I passed the dining room with bravado.
I challenged the office with flying colors.
I defeated the basement door with courage.
Then I lifted my eyes.
And confronted the back bedroom.
It was dark in there. Not a single light save for the streetlamp filtering in through the window, casting a square patch of silver across the bed.
But the shadows were so deep. So black. So bitter.
Tears welled in my eyes.
No longer was it the room with the big fluffy king size bed—the bed I had slept in and giggled in during my sleepovers as a child. No longer was it the bedroom where my Nana sat me on the bed and gave me her old pairs of earrings. No longer was it the bedroom where my Papa and I watched pirate movies on the TV. Or where my Nana read Heidi to me.
I stood there staring until the shadows hissed at me. Until that bed mocked me. Until it rumbled and shook and growled—some unseen monster hiding beneath it.
Until I slammed the bathroom door shut behind me and locked it.
As I moved about inside, washing my hands and drying them on my Nana’s green Easter towels, I ignored the creeping feeling. The feeling that something was standing on the other side of that door. That old, ancient cream-colored door.
When the time came to open it again, I sped back towards the brightly lit living room, sparing one glance back at the bedroom.
It was just as dark as before, and every little shadow took the shape of a tall, gangly man through my mind’s eye. No longer the man who held me and rocked me to sleep.
Even after I had seated myself back in my Nana’s wing chair, I did not feel safe. There was no door separating me from that back bedroom.
Because something had opened it.
Something that was still back there.
That night when I went home, I gave up on the idea of my house being haunted. Neither was my Nana’s.
It was a haunting in my own head. And it was not what I had bargained for.
Koren Kelly has been telling stories since before she could write and finds inspiration in anything from ghost stories to black coffee. This is her first time being published.
MUSEPAPER ESSAY PRIZE #78
* This is the author’s first literary award. *
* This will be the author’s first work to appear in print. *
JULY 25, 2023 / MUSEPAPER ESSAY PRIZE #78 / "THE BACK BEDROOM SHADOW" © 2023 KOREN KELLY