The Room - By Carroll Bryant

It starts out the same every time. I am walking through the doors of a mansion, entering always through the kitchen. The ground level only has the big kitchen, a dining room and a study. There are steps that lead upstairs, but I take the stairs that lead down into the basement, but it's not really a basement. It strikes me more as a lower level section that appears more like a living room. It is grand in size.

My furniture is already there, waiting for me. Everything was delivered and placed into their proper rooms by the movers. Everything except my bedroom furniture. It was left in the living room. "What the hell?" I think to myself.

I am alone. My confusion as to why the movers did not take my bedroom furniture upstairs to the first floor is confounding to say the least. I clearly left instructions for them to place them in the first door to the left at the top of the stairs. How in the world am I going to be able to carry my dresser up there by myself?

I take in a heavy sigh before heading back up to the kitchen. I then head to the stairs that lead up to the first floor. Once I get to the top, I gaze down the long hallway. There are sixteen rooms on this level. I turn the knob of the door that was supposed to be my bedroom. I open it and look inside. Just as I thought, barren. "Damn it." I muttered.

I close the door and start to turn to head back down when I hear a noise. It sounded like someone turning a door knob. I turn back quickly only to notice that one of the doors had come ajar, and was slightly open. I tilt my head, then slowly walk to it, never taking my eyes off it.

When I look inside, I see stairs that go upward. How did I miss this when I first looked at this place? Oh wait, that's right, I did try to open this door once, but it was locked. The realtor must have found the key and unlocked it for me.

Out of curiosity, I slowly climb the stairs. They go up about 20 steps before turning to the left, and I take the last few steps before I find myself looking at another room, fully carpeted, and boxes all over the place along with stacks of magazines.

Even from where I stand, I can see what are in the boxes. More magazines. They're not your average kind of magazines, they are pornographic magazines. Just hundreds and hundreds of them.

I make my way slowly further into the room. I start to dig into a few boxes, and yes, more pornographic magazines. "What the hell?" I again softly utter in total and complete bewilderment. I finally make my way to the far end of the room, stepping around all these boxes. I come to another level where one step, and I am looking at more boxes except, inside of these boxes there are nothing but sex toys. All kinds of different colored dildos, and all different sizes. I can't figure this out. "Somebody had issues." I reasoned.

I then find myself looking at the window. It reminds me of a stained glass window you would see inside a church.

Suddenly, I get this uneasy feeling that I am being watched. Worse than that, I feel the presence of evil. I quickly become uncomfortable. I don't want to show my fear so I slowly begin to casually walk back to the steps. That evil feeling gets stronger. There is something definitely watching me.

Right about the time I get to the top of the steps to go down, something grabs me by my right ankle. I jerk my leg as hard as I can but whatever has me, won't let go. It begins to pull me back into the center of the room. I fall on my back and start struggling with it. I am using my left leg to kick at whatever it is, but there is nothing there for me to kick.

I quickly reach out, turning onto my stomach, and grabbing the edge of the top step to prevent this thing from pulling me. I fight hard to drag myself to the edge, still kicking at the air. Slowly but surely, I crawl down the stairs one step at a time, still with this unseen force pulling me by the ankle. I finally get halfway out the door when my ankle is released.

I roll myself out into the hallway, and quickly jump to my feet, and race down the hall to the other stairway. I hear the door to that room slam shut as I practically leap down to the kitchen.

I stand there, breathing heavy as I stare at the stairs that lead up to the first floor. "What in the hell is that?" I wondered.

The second time around, I find myself sitting in the living room. I am in my bed watching TV. I look to the stairs that lead up to the kitchen. I know now what is inside that room on the first floor. I don't want to go back up there, but my strange appeal to the room overrides all of my fears. I climb up the steps to the ground level and stand before the stairs that lead to the first floor hallway. I can feel the evil exuding from this distance. Without any true knowledge as to why, I climb the stairs again and find myself staring down the hall and at that door.

It was closed at first as I slowly begin to walk towards it. Halfway down the hall, it opens by itself, almost like it was expecting me to return.

Standing at the bottom of the steps that lead up back inside that dreaded room, the evil swells inside my body. I never felt such evil before. Damn it, I have to go back up there to that room. I don't why, I simply must.

Before I knew it, I was standing at the top and once again, found myself looking at the magazines and the sex toys. I sat down on the floor and started looking through some of the pages of some of the magazines. They were arousing me. I then hear the door below slam shut. I was trapped. I jumped to my feet and raced down the steps but couldn't get the door open. Something had grabbed my right ankle again and tried to pull me back up. I got halfway when I was able to somehow break free from the grip and bull rushed myself through the door.

It flung open and I toppled onto the floor in the hallway. I got up and ran back down to the kitchen, listening once again to the door slamming shut behind me.

"I'm never going up to that room again." I heard myself say. "In fact, I am never going up to the hallway ever again." I swore even more vigorously.

The third time, I found myself once again in the living room entertaining a friend. "Nice place." He complimented. "Why do you sleep down here though? Don't you have sixteen rooms upstairs on the first floor?"

"I don't want to talk about it." I replied.

"Come on dude," He pleads, "take me on a tour. I want to see the rest of the house."

"I don't want to." I said. "There's something not right going on up there."

He looked at me intensely. "What do you mean?"

I then figured that maybe I would be safe from the evil entity if I had someone else with me. I also thought that whatever it was, maybe it wouldn't show itself if I had someone else with me. I decided to accommodate him and so I led the way.

We found ourselves looking into the rooms one by one. My friend quickly noticed the obvious. "Dude, you have absolutely no furniture in any of these rooms."

I shrugged my shoulders.

Then we found ourselves standing in front of that door. It was closed. My friend took a hold of the knob and turned it. He pulled the door open. "Where do these stairs lead?" He asked.

"Another room." I answered.

His curiosity got the better of him. I followed closely behind. We made it to the top and he stopped dead in his tracks. "The mother lode." He whispered. "Holy shit, dude, are these your magazines?"

"They were here when I moved in." I explained. I don't think he believed me.

He looked like a kid in a candy store as he made his way to the middle of the room. I lingered behind. He placed himself on the floor and started digging into the boxes and looking at the magazines. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." I warned.

He paid me no attention. Before long, he got back to his feet and wandered over to the back end and up on the other level and started pulling out the dildos. "That has got to hurt." He reasoned, holding up a huge one to display with a smile on his face. "Have you used any of them yet?" He questioned.

"Dude!" I exclaimed. "Get real."

I knew he was only joking, but still, it was a nasty joke.

Then I felt it again, that evil presence. Within moments, I could see on his face a look that told me he was feeling it too. "I want to leave." He spoke nervously, placing the dildo back into the box as he started to make his way towards me.

All of a sudden, he screams in total horror. "Help me!"

Something had grabbed him by the ankle. I raced over to take his out stretched hand and I pulled with all my strength. By the time I dragged him to the top of the steps, the entity released him and he and I both stumbled down the stairs and out into the hall. Clear of the door, we laid there and watched the door close by itself.

My friend jumped to his feet and took off like a lightning bolt. I was close behind him. I watched as he ran out the kitchen door. "Good luck with that!" He cried out, getting into his car and vanishing into the distance.

These dreams began about 15 years ago. I have had about nine more since. In every one of the dreams after that third one, I have never gone back up into that room. I know when I am in this dream that I am in it, and I know what waits up there. Some kind of evil.

I have, on a few other occasions, made it back up to the hallway, and stood there looking at the door. Every time, it is closed when I look at it and then it opens, almost like it is inviting me back up. I never accept the invitation.

In the dream, my friend has never returned to visit. I can't say I blame him.

I don't know what that evil entity is. I often think that perhaps it is Satan himself. This confuses me because I am a Pantheist. I don't believe in heaven and hell or God and Satan in the same context as most religious people do. I simply believe in energy. Good and bad. And that good and bad energy exists in us all at the same time. But whatever is residing in that room of porn, is nothing but a bad energy. A really bad energy.

I don't believe that energy wants to harm me, but it is still evil. I can feel it. Sometimes I think I should just go back into that room and see it through. Maybe then I would discover what that entity is and what it wants from me. Maybe it just wants to have sex with me, I don't know. Then sometimes, I wish these dreams would just stop.

Oh, how I dread that dream.