The Room’s Teeth

Author's note: I genuinely hope you enjoy this story and I welcome any feedback, thank you.

It was a warm, humid Thursday evening. Me and Ma had just come in from a swim in the lake behind the house. From the kitchen window, I could see the indigo blue sky fading with the orange glow of the sun on the horizon. The cicadas and crickets sang outside, a shrill chirp carried in the faint breeze traveling inside.

I was probably no older than eight at the time, standing at the counter, sipping orange juice from a glass. The sour kick of the citric juice always seemed to calm and refresh me after being out in the heat.

The house was quiet. The only sound was the tick of the antique bird clock on the wall beside me, and Ma on the porch fluffing out our wet clothes to air dry.

All seemed peaceful. That was until a scream sliced through the air. It was a male scream, full of agony and terror. But just as soon as it started, it stopped.

Goosebumps ran down my spine, invisible cold fingers brushing my back gently. The tingle felt familiar, almost welcoming. Before, I would have been startled and run to Ma, but not anymore.

The screams were frequent enough that I wasn't scared anymore. Instead, the fear had shifted to curiosity.

Ma suddenly appeared at the threshold of the kitchen. She was breathless from running inside, her hair matted to her forehead from the drying water of the lake. She wore a dress that was damp, patterned with oranges and lemons.

"Tomas," she sighed, relieved, clutching her chest.

"I'm fine," I replied stoically. "It was another ghost."

My mother’s face grew pale and she approached me, placing a palm on my face. Her hand was wet, but warm from the heat outside. I leaned into it, relishing her comfort.

"Well, remember, they can scream all they want, but—"

"Don't let them out," I whispered so the ghost upstairs wouldn't hear.

My mother's eyes welled up with tears and she forced a smile. A smile that should have been comforting, but instead filled me with uneasiness.

"Don't ever let them out," she whispered back, and the tears began to stream down her face.

12 YEARS LATER

"And here, ladies and gentlemen, exclusive spicy video: the giant rear of Tomas as he... you know, I'm not exactly sure what he is doing, but it's cold and I've been waiting for ages."

I pause my rummaging in the backseat of the car and peek behind my shoulder to see James filming me.

"Funny, please delete that." I continue searching for the master keys to the home.

"Nah, think I'll save it for later." James laughs, lowering the camera. "Also can you tell me what you're looking for? Maybe I can help."

"Keys," I sigh, frustrated and peeking under the driver's seat.

"These?" I hear keys jangle behind me and when I turn around James holds a ring of keys. I guess from my expression James can see that I'm obviously pissed, and he begins to crack a smile.

"Really," I grunt, hopping out the truck and slinging my equipment backpack on my shoulder.

"What? How was I supposed to know?" He can barely contain his smile and tosses the keys to me.

"You're so fired after this," I laugh, closing the truck door.

"Right, then who exactly would you hire to go ghost hunting with?" James teases. "Surely, there's an employment line for this kind of work."

I laugh again and smile because he's right. No one would actually be sane enough to accept a job as a cameraman for a ghost hunter. And as cheesy as "ghost hunter" sounds, it's real, at least in my case. I'm not just a YouTuber, I'm the real deal.

I guess it started when I was younger. I could always feel something beckoning me. "A call for help" is what I phrased it; makes it easier to pitch to clients. And as I got older it was almost impossible to ignore, so I've been chasing the "call" for years. Ghosts, the afterlife, it's always there. An ethereal cord tugging me, guiding my intuition.

This cord has now led me back home. I haven't seen it for four years, ever since I moved out to become a "ghost hunter."

Standing in front of it now, it looks more sinister than the loving childhood home I remember.

"This where you grew up?" James asks, breaking me from the trance I was stuck in. Even without looking, I know the camera is glued on his shoulder capturing the moment.

I blink, nodding my head. "Yeah, it's actually what got me into ghost hunting."

"So it's haunted?"

The question pours over me like ice water. Paralyzing my body and causing me to stop breathing.

It's a question that I asked myself for the past twelve years.

Growing up, I believed one room in the house was haunted. There were always screams coming from it. Cries for help all through the night. The screeching and rumbling of furniture being dragged. Different voices whispering and talking. And yet, the door had never been opened since me and Ma moved in.

I thought it impossible that people could be in the room.

And I started to wonder if there were someone living in it before us that just decided to stay. Surviving on rats and moths, maybe water from a leaky ceiling.

But it's too far-fetched.

The most reasonable answer was: ghosts.

However, I can't help but question if it was a ghost or was someone trapped in the room. But it wouldn't make sense why some of the voices were female and others male.

So today is when I'll find out, hopefully. I mean it's been four years and the "ghost" could have moved on.

"Earth to Tomas." James is now in front of me, the camera close enough to my face that I can see the blinking red indicator.

"You're so annoying," I scoff, shoving the camera.

"Geez, what's up with you?" James is suddenly serious and the camera is no longer hoisted up.

"Sorry," I blurt, embarrassed now. James raises an eyebrow and I open my mouth to explain further but he cuts me off.

"Look, you wanted to come here, remember," he says. "We had that whole case in Missouri that could have landed us a Netflix Doc, but you turned it down for this."

Suddenly, I feel bad for dragging him across the world for this. Personal closure, that I've excused as more "content." Ever since I've met James he has been loyal and the best friend any guy can ask for. He doesn't deserve to be left in the dark like he has.

"Okay," I smile, lifting my hands trying to cut the tension. "I came here because there's a room that I think is haunted, that was never touched, never opened."

"Never? Why is this room so interesting that we traveled 27 miles for it?"

"I always heard voices, screams, cries coming from it," I say.

James looks compelled and peers up at the house behind him.

"Well, now I'm kinda curious." A mischievous smile spreads across his face, a contagious thrill that can't be resisted.

"I've been curious too, for the past 14 years of my life," I say, taking my first step towards the house.

The air inside is moist and filled with dust. I can't help but surrender to the fit of coughs that take control of my body. Through watery eyes, I can see the ceiling covered in mold, and the dust floating in the air.

"It reeks in here," James says from behind me. I hear the screech of curtain rods as he tears open a window by the front door.

Sunlight floods inside, revealing the staircase to my right leading upstairs. The light stops at the very last step to the top, as if it's scared to conquer the darkness of the hallway up there. Further down in front of me is the kitchen, and a sad tiny dining room set that looks like it can only seat toddlers. A screen door leading from the kitchen to the porch is torn, and a faint breeze drafts inside blowing dust and dirt across the checkerboard kitchen tile. To my left is the living room; dust covers everything from the red sofas to the antenna TV, like a fresh sprinkle of snow on grass.

I can't help but feel embarrassed. It's not exactly how I remember it. As a kid, everything seemed so much bigger, more full of life. My heart now aches for my mother who had to raise me here.

As if he can read my thoughts, James jokingly says, "Geez, feel sorry for the bloke who lived here."

My face flushes red and I'm thankful I'm facing away from the bright sun behind me.

"Yeah, he must have been miserable. Like you?" I snap back.

"Ouch, I deserve that one." James laughs off my remark and begins exploring the house.

I would follow him, go exploring the memories of the home. But it feels as if I left it only yesterday. I remember packing my school bag with the few clothes I owned. My mother watching me eerily calm, a sad smile on her face. I wanted her to be angry or to beg me to stay. Instead, she seemed happy. Not to have me gone, but for my escape.

As I paused at the front door to leave, running my unprepared decision through my brain, she came up beside me. We both stood there, watching the rain paint the windowpane of the front door. Streaks of water gliding down the dirty smeared glass, casting dark shadows that resembled tears on both our faces.

"You'll be back. And I'll be gone," she said randomly.

When I looked at her, I could see her eyes glazed over, staring lifelessly outside.

"Gone where?" I asked. I couldn't hold back the quiver in my voice.

"Just remember what you promised me..." she said, ignoring my question.

"Mom, gone where?" The tears started to leak from my eyes.

"What did you promise, Tomas?" Her eyes finally met mine and for a minute, I could see a spark of who my mother used to be.

"Never open the door," I cried before running into the night.

And that was the last time I saw my mom, standing like a ghost at the front door. But she was right, she would be gone. It's obvious from the condition of the place that she's been gone for years.

Suddenly a scream comes from upstairs and I'm snapped back to reality. I hear a glass break from the kitchen and James comes rushing to me.

"What the hell is that?" he says, fixing the camera on his shoulder to point up the staircase.

Goosebumps rush across the nape of my neck and the hair on my arms raises. I'm suddenly feeling the urge to turn around and leave, but my body resists me.

The scream stops.

"I'm going up there," I say.

"We don't know what or who that thing is," James lowers his camera and whispers. "I've never heard of a ghost sounding that real."

"I have to know," I say, but it's more to myself than to him.

"What?"

Before James can say another word, I'm rushing upstairs into the dark.

The hallway is pitch black, so I grab a flashlight from the side of my bag. White light illuminates the hall; I can see the faded green wallpaper peeling off the wall and the stained oak floorboards.

Footsteps rumble up the stairs behind me and James appears behind me, catching his breath.

"Don't we have a rule not to leave each other behind in a haunted house?" James scolds me, but I ignore him, fixing the beam of the flashlight on the door down the hall. Light reflects off the gleaming doorknob that surprisingly looks clean despite the dirty surroundings. In fact, the entire door is clean, not a smudge or smear on the white paint coating it.

"You ready?" I ask James, approaching the door. "There's still time to turn back and go film that Netflix doc."

"I'm sad that you believe my loyalty can be broken by a simple documentary," James replies, following. "I mean, it's a good offer but—"

I stop James when a shadow passing under the door catches my eye. The shadow flickers by then appears back a second later, standing right on the other side of the door.

"Hello?" A voice calls. It's hard to tell if it's male or female because it's muffled by the wood of the door. It almost sounds like a child.

James jumps and grips my forearm. "You heard that?"

I glance at him, shocked and confused. James hearing the ghost we encountered has never happened. Usually, it's only me. Something isn't right.

Millions of thoughts race through my head. The possibility that there is a living person in the room is now more than plausible, but the chance of them surviving twenty years in this room? Not possible.

Maybe there's a hidden passageway in the house?

Maybe they live here?

Could it be Mom?

A second passes. A minute. I stand terrified, breathing slowly. My heart beats so loudly, I can feel the pounding in my ears. James waits patiently beside me; I can feel the heat from his body rising. No doubt he's sweating from fear and the humidity of the trapped heat in the house.

"If you're—" My voice cracks and I clear my throat before speaking again. "What's your name?"

The shadow under the door shifts; I can hear the feet slide. Suddenly the shadow is no longer in front of the door.

"That's not a ghost," James whispers fearfully.

"What the hell is going on?"

"You grew up here, you tell me," James says accusingly.

He's right that I grew up here, but I never made direct contact with anyone or anything on the other side of the door. And the door has never been opened. The padlock on the latch of the door is still attached.

I raise the key ring in my hand, singling out a giant bronze key.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Tomas. Why don't we just leave?" James suggests, and I can tell he's scared, just as scared as me. But I can't leave without finding out some truth behind the years of "haunting" in the home.

The key goes in the latch and I pause a split minute before turning it and opening the door.

The door swings open, creaking obnoxiously in the tense quiet, revealing a clean room brightly lit by a circular window. Sunlight spills in revealing the spotless wood floor, painted a baby blue. A bed lies in the right corner, clean linen and a dark blue comforter resting on it. But other than the bed, there are no other items in the room. And certainly no person.

"I'm not going in there." James steps back. "You shouldn't either."

"It's just another haunted room," I tell him, feeling relieved. In some corner of my mind, I thought that my mother had held people captive in this room, but the relief that fills me to find it empty is great.

"I dunno, I mean..." James fidgets with his hand. "I never heard a ghost before. That really freaked me out. I've heard stuff break, seen messages written, but to hear it so clear, so r—"

"So real," I cut him off, nodding.

"Yeah." He sighs. "I just can't."

"I understand," I say, taking a step in the room.

Immediately stepping in, I'm struck with an overwhelming feeling of dread. My body feels ten times heavier and I have to force my eyes open as I sway, stumbling forward.

"Hey, you okay?" James asks from behind me, but his voice is cut off by the slam of the door.

JAMES

The door slams in my face, sending my head thrashing back. I try to steady myself but my hands slide off the wall and I collapse on the floor. The pain comes erupting from my right temple on my head; immediately I'm aware that there's blood.

"Tomas!" I yell out, sitting up and blinking to focus my eyes.

No answer.

Somehow I'm able to find my camera and I turn on the flash recorder, nearly blinding my already blurry eyes.

"Don't worry I'm coming," I mutter to myself. I stand on shaky legs and use the wall to keep my balance. My hands are wet with blood from my leaky nose and I nearly slide down again.

"Come on." I grit my teeth and reclaim the strength of my legs, standing tall. A cocky smile fills my face and I laugh wiping my face. But when I point the camera at the door, my laugh fades.

The latched lock is back on it and I don't have the keys.

"Let's go over it again." The sheriff swipes his face, annoyed, and leans back in his office chair.

"I already told you what happened." The composure I've maintained for the past two hours of the interview is almost gone, but I can't lose my cool. I refuse to look crazy to these pricks.

"Right." The sheriff smacks his lips, clicking a pen.

"Look, can we get my camera back? It has the footage on it." I laugh frustrated.

"My colleague is reviewing the footage," the sheriff says. "And if he finds any evidence that makes your story redeemable, then we will begin a search for your missing friend, okay?"

"Great," I say hopeful. "So, uh, yeah. Like I said, we went to that house, his house, and there was this room we opened. He went inside and the door slammed on my face when I got up to see what happened. It was locked and the lock was back on."

"He closed the door?" The sheriff asks again for the third time.

My thoughts are suddenly a wreck and I can't seem to recollect who the detective is referring to when he says "He."

I shake my head and rack my mind, when a name pops in my head.

"Yeah, Tomas. I mean, no, he didn't close the door. It closed on by itself."

The sheriff eyes me curiously and leans forward in the chair. He's a big burly man with a thick rough mustache and two beady brown eyes.

"Are you feeling okay?" He asks, but nothing in his voice mimics concern.

"I'm fine." My face flushes with anger and I look away from him.

"I only ask because we searched the whole house." The sheriff shrugs. "No sign of this friend of yours."

"You're lying." My blood begins to boil, causing the bruise on my face to ache and I sneer at the sheriff.

"We searched that room you mentioned. No lock by the way."

I clench my hands under the desk, digging my nails in my palm.

"Liar."

The office door opens saving me from what I felt was leading to obvious anger-inducing bait. A Latina woman steps in, her hair in a clean bun and wearing a green jacket.

"Amanda, took you long enough." The sheriff sighs, standing up.

Amanda looks at me, her eyes wide with fear, before turning to the sheriff, handing him my camera and rushing out.

"Hey, that's mine," I say, reaching for it, but the sheriff ignores me, opening the camera and clicking through it.

"I'm a liar, you're the one looking like a liar, son, and believe me when I say that there are serious charges to not only breaking and entering property, but falsifying missing per—" The sheriff's voice trails off as he stops to watch something on the camera. I can hear faint audio coming from it before it switches, then switches again, and again.

"Do you believe me now?" I scoff, watching his fat thumbs navigate my camera, eyes fixated on the video.

He scrolls for a while and I listen to the clicks and audio from videos captured over our ghost hunting ventures. About ten minutes pass before he sets the camera down and sighs deeply.

"I believe you, kid." He smiles nervously. "I'm going to get my team and we will walk through the next steps to begin a search, maybe run through that story again."

The way he talks and smiles awkwardly worries me, but I play into it, smiling back.

"Great." I nod.

"Cool, uh, I'll be right back." The sheriff hurries out the room and I hear the door lock behind him.

Something isn't right.

I grab the camera from the desk in front of me, and the first image I see turns my blood cold.

It's a picture of what should be Me and...

Me and TOMAS!

That's his name.

He should be there, but he's not.

Instead, it's a selfie picture of only me seated alone inside a diner. The image is angled to fit someone else.

I click to the next photo and it's the same.

Me posed in front of a lake, doing bunny ears to what should be Tomas.

All videos are me just walking alone through homes, through woods and talking to myself.

I laugh hysterically.

This can't be happening.

I switch to the most recent date, to the video when we arrived at the house.

"This where you grew up?" I say on the video, but I'm filming nothing but my van and the open empty door.

Whoever I was supposed to be filming is gone, like a ghost. A name I can no longer remember.

TOMAS?

Time doesn't work the same in the room.

Outside is sunny one second, when I blink it rains, when I awake from sleep, it snows.

And all I can do is stare out the circular window, watching the people come and go from the home.

Families spanning from different decades, different lives.

Somedays I scream for help, sometimes I cry.

But I can never leave.

The door remains shut.

Some ask, "What do you want from me?" "Why do you haunt this place?"

Haunt? I'm trapped! I'm alive! Let me out!

It's not fair.

There's anger writhing in me, and the others in the room. Others trapped just like me. Spirits lured and collected like mice in a trap. I hear them sometimes, even see them. They see me too. We talk about how the room swallowed us up and killed us. They never stay long, the room won't let them. It tosses them through time, through life to death, to whatever hell we are in.

The room changes every minute, second. Different rooms, different people.

One day, I hear two sets of voices.

"Hello?" I call.

There's no response, until I hear, "What's your name?"

I don't remember my name. I can't. I back away from the door and suddenly it opens. I see them, two men, one with a camera, another a flashlight.

I want to warn them. I have to, but they don't seem to see or hear me screaming. One enters and I run to slam the door before the other does.

Another day, the door opens. A woman stands at the threshold in a dress patterned in oranges and lemons. I cry for her not to enter, but she does and the room claims her soul, just like it claimed mine.

She doesn't seem to understand and holds me. I realize I'm a child and I can't recollect why I'm in this room. I just know it's bad. But it's too late for both of us. She cries and carries me out the room.

"My sweet baby Tomas." She sobs into me.

I'm free. Finally. From this room that held me captive. Joy fills me as this woman carries me outside the room. But little did I know, I would be back. For the room to claim my soul.

A temporary second chance before moving on to the afterlife? Or maybe bait to lure more souls for the room?

No one will ever know.

Not James who now lives in a mental ward, driven to prove the existence of a boy he met four years ago. Certainly not this woman who clings to her lost child, who drowned in the lake behind the home. And certainly not Tomas, whose real body lies in a cemetery, a boy who died at eight, a ghost that grew to twenty. And a soul trapped in the room's teeth forever.