The Room on the Third Floor
The Room on the Third Floor
By Earth-Boy
Disclaimers:
This story contains descriptions of sexual acts between young men of legal age. If this is not to your tastes, please leave now. If you are under 18 or it is illegal in your state or country to read or possess this material then it is in your own interests to leave now.
The story is copyright by the author. A copy has been placed in the Nifty archives for your enjoyment. Please do not distribute it to any other web sites without permission from the author. You may, however, send it to your friends as long as payment is neither requested nor received.
This story is fiction. Any resemblance to any individual, real or imagined, living or dead is purely coincidental.
No people or electrons were harmed in the production of this story. However, because it was written on a computer and you got it from the internet, the electricity needed to do this has probably made a minute contribution to global warming.
Author’s note
This story is set in the fictional city of Glendonald in the Maritimes region of Canada, population 48,000. There is a Glendonald in Victoria State, Australia, but it’s not this one.
I awoke from a dreamless sleep.
I think I woke up. Everything was dark grey. Not dark like a curtained room; a little lighter than that. Yet I could see no shapes in this mysterious place, nor any lights. I could feel I was lying on my back in bed … was it my bed? My bedroom?
Everything faded out.
✵ ✵ ✵
I woke up, again from a dreamless sleep.
But was I truly awake? The greyness was still there, and try though I might I could not penetrate it. I was still on my back, yet I could feel neither the mattress beneath me nor the covers on top.
I could hear no sounds.
And I thought, “Is this what waking up should be like?”
✵ ✵ ✵
I awoke from a dreamless sleep. Still grey, still no sound.
Where am I?
And then, Who am I?
I should know this. I concentrated, seeking, searching out my identity. A name appeared. Roger.
That was as far as I got.
✵ ✵ ✵
I woke up again. I knew I had been sleeping, for the grey seemed less deep now. And a sound! Just at the threshold of my hearing, a steady thump, thump, thump as if someone was beating a bass drum far away.
Roger … Herman … Sutherland. Was that my name? 1905. Was I born that year? How do I know I’m nineteen years old? So the year must be …
✵ ✵ ✵
Awake once more. The greyness was lighter now. I could make out shapes; vague shapes. Perhaps ceiling and walls.
What could I recall? Roger Sutherland. I guessed that was me. Born 1905. Nineteen years old. So it was 1924. I was lying on my back in bed. My bedroom, maybe, but I could not be sure. I could hear murmuring voices, but frustratingly only at the edge of my hearing.
Zzt! What was that? It felt like a mild chock of some sort, as if I had touched something metal on a winter day. Not harsh, but noticeable.
I ran what I thought were my hands up what should be my body. It took a long time, for my body was not cooperating very well. I felt nothing, neither skin nor clothing. All the big parts were where they should be. Legs. Torso. Arms. Neck. Head. But fingers, toes, and others? There was not enough definition to tell.
And every once in a while there was that zzt! Not regular, but it seemed like only a short time between them. Was there something wrong with the hydro in the house?
I would try to sleep as much as possible. Surely someone would be by to wake me up, tell me I’m all right, and give me something to eat.
Only … why wasn’t I hungry?
✵ ✵ ✵
I was improving. Today, if indeed it was a new day, there was a bit of contrast in the grey. I could see lines—faint, fuzzy ones. The edges of the walls of the room. The corners. And lines beside me and where my feet should be, marking my bed.
But it was quiet. What happened to those drums and the murmuring?
Roger Sutherland. And a friend, Floyd Michelson. It felt like it had been ages since I’d last seen him. Why should that be? He’s attending college with me here in Clandonald. So now I felt like I knew where I was. Had he visited at all while I’ve been ill?
The lines all around me started moving in waves. A little at first, then higher like an incoming tide. I closed my eyes.
✵ ✵ ✵
The room was more defined now. I could make out windows because grey was now white where light was coming through. It seemed like my room, but somehow different, because some of the windows were in the wrong places. Why had my bed been moved? I had set things up that way because they worked for me. There was no reason to change just because I had been sick for a few days.
Zzt! That mild shock again. Where was it coming from?
I heard someone breathing. Slowly, in and out. At times there was a rasping to it.
Snoring. Light snoring.
But I was awake, so someone else must be sleeping in my room. Was it Floyd? He was a true and loyal friend. All the more, if indeed he had stayed with me here all this time.
How long had I been ill? I had no idea. Last I remembered was the days were still warm and I’d just started college. That would have been September. But until my eyes got better I couldn’t see through the windows.
Floyd! He could tell me. Even if I couldn’t see, I could hear him.
I called out to Floyd, but there was no answer. I tired again, louder, but the regular breathing carried on without change.
I felt another zzt, then the room faded out once more.
✵ ✵ ✵
It was my room! The walls, the windows, and the ceiling were all what I remembered. Elated at my new-found sight, I tried to sit up in bed to look around more. But I was frozen in place. I tried again, but still could not. All I could do was roll my head a little to the left and right, and with great effort raise it briefly before it fell back to the pillow.
A pillow I strangely did not feel.
I could feel my fingers now. Starting with my legs, I slowly ran them as far up my body as I could. It took a lot of effort, but I was able to feel a roughness indicating I was wearing clothing. And between my legs: I was still a man. But no bed sheets? No comforter? I had no sensation of them at all.
“Floyd!” I shouted. “Floyd! I’m awake! Wake up Floyd! Tell me what’s happening!”
Nothing. I listened carefully and again heard the sound of breathing. The sun was shining in the windows. It might have been a Saturday or Sunday and Floyd was sleeping later than usual. Why was he not waking up to my calls?
There was little else to do but go back to sleep. My strength was slowly returning. Perhaps in another week or two I might be well enough to sit up in bed.
✵ ✵ ✵
Voices! I had been so long since I’d heard anyone talking. And now someone was in the room, and awake.
“I don’t get it, son,” an older man was saying. “I know the steam heating system’s old, but it’s been refurnished and has been working great ever since we moved in.”
I strained to look around, but my body refused to cooperate.
“It’s cold in here at night!” said a voice belonging to a young man. “I mean, it’s okay when I go to bed, but when I wake up in the morning I’m positively freezing!”
Who were these people? And why were they in my room talking about the temperature? It’s normal for houses to get cold at night.
Zzt! Those little shocks again! Did the other two feel them?
I said, “I’m not cold at all.”
The older man said, “Well, an extra blanket would help. And we could get a small space heater in here, but I don’t like the idea of having it running while you’re asleep.”
I had to see who these two people were. I called on all the strength I could to raise myself up just a little, but to no avail.
“Whoa!” cried the younger voice. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Like, the temperature must’ve dropped ten degrees just now!”
“I didn’t feel anything. Maybe you’re standing in a draft?”
“From what? The windows are closed.”
“Ask the maid to build a fire in the fireplace,” I said.
“Maybe you should see a doctor, son,” said the older man. “Sudden chills like this can be a sign of something.”
“I feel fine. But for some reason I get really cold in here in the morning.”
“I’ll look for a space heater at Canadian Tire,” said the older man. “And a timer so we can have it come on four or four-thirty.”
“Thanks, Dad. Gotta go; I need to get to class.”
What is a space heater? And why would the older man visit a tyre shop to buy one?
They left the room. Only a couple of minutes later everything faded out. And it seemed those annoying little shocks had gone away after they left.
✵ ✵ ✵
Waking up was easier now. I could see and hear, but moving around was still almost impossible. The room was semi-dark, like just before sunrise, and not grey as when all this had started.
And, yes … zzt! If nothing they were consistent. Was it me? My illness? Something in the room?
This time the sound of someone sleeping was more noticeable. And whoever it was sounded very close. Not on the floor, or even in another bed if that’s where Floyd would be if he was visiting.
I was still on my back, as I had been ever since this started. I knew it would take some effort to roll my head to one side, so I did it slowly to conserve my strength. To the right of me, only one side of the bedroom. Driving my uncooperative body hard, I managed to look up again, then with considerable effort finally managed to look left.
I saw the back of a head with long black hair resting on the pillow. Whoever was sleeping in my room was in my bed! This was impossible—surely this person would have seen me and chosen somewhere else to sleep. And yet there was someone fast asleep in my bed, seemingly unaware he was sharing it with someone else.
Zzt! I was getting used to these by now.
✵ ✵ ✵
Waking up this time, the room brighter now as the sun was rising.
I felt a tension down between by legs, something I hadn’t felt in some time. The breathing sounds were more rapid and pronounced. The young man was … doing something unmentionable! I knew boys would do it; even I did it. But for him to do it here so openly when I was with him was nearly unthinkable.
Except, as before he didn’t seem to know I was here. He had been sleeping in my bed oblivious to my presence, and now he was pleasuring himself. I could feel it!
Zzt! The little shocks were still here. But the young man didn’t pause. Maybe he couldn’t feel them.
I heard a gasp, then felt a rush as his goal was reached and passed.
And with it I felt a surge of energy. Effortlessly I raised my head and looked around. It confirmed what I knew: this was my room, but my bed was in the wrong place. My desk was there, too, but there were things on it I could not identify. Close by it was strangest chair I had ever seen. It looked so light and delicate that it should surely collapse if anyone sat down on it.
Zzt! My newfound strength weakened considerably and my head flopped back again. I turned it to the left, hoping to catch a glimpse of the person in my bed. I was rewarded when I saw a young man sit up, then get out of bed.
He was thin, tall, and quite pale. His hair was thin, too, straight and long, reaching down to his bare shoulders, and eerily black. He was dressed in only a tight garment that went from his waist to part way down his thighs. If that was all he wore in bed it was little wonder he was cold at night.
He left the room, then came back what seemed like a few minutes later. There were five of those zzts! while he was out. His hair was wet. He picked up a strange looking tool with a circular body, a handle, and a tube jutting out at a ninety degree angle from the handle. Suddenly the room was filled with noise as he pointed the tube at his wet black hair, blowing it all about while he combed it.
He was at it for several minutes, still so scantily clad he risked major embarrassment should someone come in unexpectedly.
Finally he dressed, but his clothing was almost as immodest as he had been when he woke up. He pulled on a pair of baggy black pants, then a long and rather oversized black shirt that he buttoned up but left hanging outside his trousers.
I wondered how his family could not be embarrassed of their son, the way he carried on. Yet yesterday’s conversation with his father seemed normal. Who were these odd people apparently living in our house?
✵ ✵ ✵
Strange though it was, after the young man’s self-pleasure it was easier for me to remain awake while he was out of the room. But I was still immobile, and could only move a little while he was in my room. And every time he came in those annoying little zzts! started up again.
Today there were two of them; the young man obviously had a friend over. And a second annoying zzzt, just a little bit longer but not quite so strong, showed up with him.
“Oh Kyle, this is so neat!” said a voice. “I mean, this is a rad house and everything, but this bedroom is like off the charts cool! It’s at the top of the corner tower, right?”
“Oh yeah. I mean, as soon as I saw the tower I knew I had to have the room up here,” said the young man whose voice I recognized from before. So his name was Kyle. “The door was locked when we moved in and we spent a couple hours getting it open. And when got it open it was like nobody’d been in it for ages!”
“Lotsa dust, eh?”
“Oh man, you wouldn’t believe! We had to do some cleanup ’cause the ceiling had fallen in. Dad got it fixed, and me and Mom spent like two more days washing the floor and walls and the desk over there. It was the only thing in here. Neat, isn’t it? Must be an antique by now.”
I heard a couple of drawers being opened and closed. “Wow,” said his friend, “it’s huge and built like a tank. Must’ve been fun getting it in here.”
“Maybe that’s why they left it behind. Maybe it got forgotten about.”
“So you like the room?”
“Oh yeah! It’s way cool being up here on the third floor. But weird things happen in here, man. Like, I’ve had a couple dreams like the walls and ceiling and everything are covered in wires and I’m locked inside. And every once in a while I get really chilled. I mean, one minute I’ll be fine and the next I’m freezing. And I wake up real cold every morning.”
I remembered yesterday when I had tried to move and he had come down with a sudden chill. With both young men in here, I felt I should try to raise my head again so I could see them. I concentrated … and raised it just enough to look across the room to my desk.
“Fuck man, you’re not kidding!” cried his friend. “That felt like winter’s blast from an open window. How’d you do that?”
“You felt it too?” exclaimed Kyle. “I only said it—I didn’t do anything to make it happen.”
Kyle’s friend was perhaps an inch shorter than he was and if anything looked even stranger. His shirt was the same black colour, and it looked like his hair had been dyed the same way but with streaks of white and silver. Even his lips were black. And a ring in his nose, and another one in his upper lip. Was my house now an insane asylum?
Zzt! And right after that, zzzt. The unexpected little shocks disoriented me enough that my head fell back down and I was again staring at the ceiling.
“Well, chills aside, I like that it’s up here all by its lonesome,” Kyle said. “The ’rents sleep in the master on the second floor far side. So it’s way more private than yours.”
“I’m sure that’s why you wanted it!” The smile in his friend’s voice was noticeable. “Hey, I’m gettin’ over that chill, so … do you wanna?”
“Oh yeah!”
I was still looking at the ceiling, but both boys suddenly came into view as they got onto my bed. This was so disconcerting; it mystified me no end how the two of us—now three—could all be in the same bed while they seemed so unaware of me.
One of them, Kyle, disappeared from view as he lay down, but his friend with the black lips and strange metal rings in his face was clearly visible. Then a pair of hands went across his back. From the way the arms were moving it was obvious Kyle was rubbing his friend’s back.
I heard two light but distinct moans. These two young men … they were … queer!
My mind reeled even as I watched Kyle’s hands start to button his friend’s shirt. The young man removed it himself, then it looked like he was doing the same for his friend. Kyle’s upper body came briefly into view as he removed his own shirt. Then they both lay back down on the bed, this time Kyle caressing his friend’s bare back while they moved against each other.
I could hear them murmuring and softly calling each other’s name.
”… Aaron …”
”… Kyle …”
After some repeats even that stopped; I assumed they were kissing each other. Just like Floyd and I would do.
And just like when I was with Floyd like this, I felt a stirring in my loins. I tried to move a hand there, but I was still more or less motionless.
“Let’s get our pants off before they rip open,” one of them said.
Aaron raised himself up to his knees and undid the belt buckle. Unlike the pants I was used to, his were held closed by a single button and a zipper. Swiftly he undid them and pushed both his pants and undergarment down. His manhood sprang out, stiff. Yet another surprise—he was uncircumcised! He struggled with his clothes for a moment, then rolled over on to his back to pull them off.
He should have crushed me, yet I felt nothing and apparently he didn’t either.
Finally he pulled off his socks. Now naked, he rolled back again to carry on with Kyle. From my position I could make out most of Aaron’s naked back, rear, and legs. The rear was moving around, a lot.
I could not feel any of the wild movement on the bed; only the monotonous zzt! and zzzt every once in a while, and hear the sounds of the pair on my bed.
One of them spoke again. “Sixty-nine for a bit, then finish each other off?”
“Oh yeah!”
Aaron went to his hands and knees, then swiftly turned around so his head was now closer to my feet, his bare posterior in full view. Kyle pushed himself down the bed, his erection coming into view. In moments Aaron had it in one hand and was working it with his mouth.
I shifted my eyes to the right, and, sure enough, Kyle was doing the same to Aaron. One hand was on his friend’s manhood while the other caressed his rear and back.
The pair kept it up for several minutes. I felt more zzts! and zzzts, and then sensations from my own member as I responded to the show literally in front of my face. But I was still immobile. It occurred to me that if I tried to move I would probably interrupt their activities by giving them a sudden chill. I didn’t want to do that. They were passionately enjoying themselves, the same as I had done with Floyd.
“I’m almost there!” I heard Kyle cry. “Do you want to take it yourself or rub it out for me?”
Kyle responded by sitting up, blocking my view of the action. But he was obviously now working Kyle with his hand. In moments I heard Kyle gasp as his pleasure hit.
I felt it, too—every spasm and wave as it coursed through both him and me. I cried out, too, but by now I was fairy certain I wouldn’t be heard.
Now Aaron turned around again, presenting his hard and quivering member to his friend. A hand went around it and started swiftly moving back and forth, the head of Kyle’s penis disappearing into his foreskin and reappearing almost instantly. It didn’t take long before Aaron cried out and white goo came flying. Some splattered on to Kyle’s stomach and then dribbled all over his hand.
Aaron’s orgasm washed over me, but nowhere near as noticeably as Kyle’s had. But there was no mistaking I had experienced it as well.
Aaron lowered himself on top of his friend. I heard them kissing.
Then I felt a tingling. It started in my fingers and crept into my hands, then my wrists, and slowly up my arms. It was like pins and needles one feels when circulation is restored to a limb that has been pressed and the weight removed. Next my toes seemed to wake up, and the sensations went through my feet and up my legs. In a minute my body was on fire as every part of it was consumed by the sensations. In a desperate attempt to get it under control, I sat up and frantically began rubbing my legs and arms.
And just like circulation being restored, the prickling and burning soon subsided, leaving me feeling cooler. Only then did I realize: I was actually sitting up in the bed! Whatever had been binding me had dissolved, freeing me of the encumbrance. I felt the all too familiar zzt! But instead of knocking me down, I absorbed it. As I did with the other zzzt that came shortly after.
I looked beside me: the two naked young men were still there, lying in a close hug, resting from their play.
I was wearing bedclothes. Gingerly I felt the area between my thighs, but felt no mess or stickiness. Carefully I swung my legs over the side of the bed, then even more carefully stood to my feet. I was steady, so I gingerly moved one foot forward. There was no uneasiness and I did not feel the need to grab hold of something to remain standing. Slowly I put the other foot forward, and my body moved forward with it.
Still not trusting myself not to take a nasty fall, I slowly turned around so I faced the bed again. What should I do now? The boys would probably be waking up soon, and it would be a terrible shock for them to see me standing here looking at them. I should probably hide out of sight on this side of the bed until they got up. The door to my room was on their side, so with luck they could get clean and dressed without even noticing me. I turned ninety degrees and lowered myself to the floor, then moved so I could lay back and hopefully remain out of sight.
The pair rested for a few minutes more before one of them—I think it was Kyle—asked, “Shower?”
“Sure,” the other replied. There was a brief rustling while I guessed they were putting something on, then footsteps as they left the room. The annoying occasional buzzes were still there, though, so I decided to remain hidden.
They returned a few minutes later. “What do you wanna do now?” one of them asked.
“There ’s still time before dinner,” the other replied. “I’ve got my Eris Challengebox unpacked and set up in one of the other bedrooms on the second floor, so how about a round or two of Volsköll Warriors until it’s time for you to leave?”
“Why don’t you have it up here?”
“Man, I’d love to but the wiring’s not up to it. Dad says we’ll have to run a couple more circuits before I can plug in more than just a light and a couple other things. That extension cord there runs to a plug on the second floor so I’ll have some something for charging my phone and laptop.”
Yet more confusion. What’s a “Eris Challengebox?” What on earth was a laptop and why would it need to be charged? And “his” phone? There was only one telephone in the house, downstairs on the main floor.
As soon as I heard them leave, I got to my feet to look around. It was the first time I’d been mobile since I woke up from whatever I’d been suffering from. Had it been a week? A month, perhaps?
My room had changed from what I remembered. The only things still there that I recognized were the fireplace and my desk. But my bed was completely different, its mattress far higher from the ground than mine had been. And there was no indication of a second bed or even a cot where Floyd would have slept while looking after me.
I moved to a window and looked outside. What leaves that were left on the trees had turned, so it was late fall heading into winter. October, probably. My last memory was early September, so I guessed I’d been ill for about six weeks. Yet during that time my family had for some reason brought in a new bed and re-arranged the furniture. It didn’t really make sense.
Checking my desk, there was a lamp on it in a style I’d never seen before, and some papers and books, but none from the courses I was taking at Glendonald College. I reached out to pick up a book titled Psychology: An Introduction to the Science of Mind and Behaviour, and to my utter amazement could not!
Several minutes of confusion and investigation later, I was none the wiser. The bed, the desk and the chair were solid: I had to go around them because they blocked me from movement. Yet I couldn’t really touch them, nor feel them, nor even move them. Not even the papers on the desk. It was like I was wearing heavy gloves and everything was glued down.
So now I had a lot of questions, but also some time. Perhaps I should use it to check the rest of the house and see if anything else had changed. The bedroom door was open, but as I approached it I was abruptly stopped by an invisible wall. More checking revealed every available exit—the doors and the three windows—was blocked by an unseen force. Unless I could find out what was causing it and somehow work around it, I was trapped!
I staggered to the bed and sat down. What on Earth was happening to me? I was awake—or at least I thought I was—but a prisoner in what seemed to be my room and yet somehow was not.
✵ ✵ ✵
I was lying down on my bed—well, the bed, for it wasn’t the one I remembered—when Kyle came into the room. I panicked: I hadn’t covered myself with the duvet, so I was completely visible. He put what looked like a fancy rucksack onto the bed, pulled a book from it and headed to the desk where he sat down to read. I could not understand how he had failed to notice me.
The mild zzts! had reappeared with his presence. After what seemed like half an hour or so, a more general disturbance seemed to run through me and I heard a chime of some sort. Kyle pulled something from his pocket, rectangular in shape, the size of his hand and about as thick. Its face lit up and Kyle looked at it. Then he started rapidly tapping both his thumbs on the bottom half of the device.
I finally realized that to now no one had ever noticed my presence. I decided I could safely rise from the bed and go over to watch. Standing behind him, I could clearly see the strange thing he held in his hands. Its face glowed and I could read words on it, enclosed in rectangular shapes:
A: sup, fu?
Reading. Prof Capetillo has a heavy list
A: so i heard. u up 4 zombbie rebellion l8r?
Well, they looked like words, but the language was unfamiliar. I watched as Kyle used his thumbs to press on squares on the bottom of the device showing the alphabet, and through some magic I could not fathom letters and then words appeared on the box’s lit-up face. He touched a symbol. Another mild disturbance, and Kyle’s text appeared in a rectangle.
Sure. About 9?
After a pause, I felt yet another disturbance. To my amazement, the rectangle that held Kyle’s message changed position on the device and another one appeared below it:
A: k c u then
Whatever it was Kyle held in his hand, it was extraordinary. I knew about telegraphs, and it appeared Kyle and whoever he was talking to had something like it. Except it didn’t use Morse code, and instead of a paper telegram being delivered hours later by a messenger boy, this thing had a glowing glass that instantly displayed them. Where had they found such an amazing machine?
Half an hour later I felt another strange tingling. I heard some music, and saw Kyle pick up the magic box again. He looked at it, then touched something on it. He held it to his ear and said, “Hello.”
Through the tinglings I could feel as much as hear another voice. “Hey, Kyle, Dad here. I’m driving home but I’m stuck in traffic at Maplewood Road thanks to a train. Can you let Mom know I’ll be a few minutes late for dinner? I tried calling her but it went to voicemail.”
“Yeah, she probably left it in her purse and can’t hear it. I’ll tell her.”
“Thanks. See you when I get home. Bye.”
“Bye!”
So this magic box was a telephone as well as a telegraph! But it was like no telephone I had ever seen. Ours had a dial and a handset, and sat on a table downstairs. It could be moved around a little, but was wired into the wall. The one Kyle was talking on was so much smaller and had no wires at all. My mind reeled. Such a thing was simply not possible in 1924.
Just what year was I in now? And how had I managed to miss such a passage of time?
Kyle put the box on the desk and left the room, presumably to let his mother know about his father’s late arrival. I looked at the box. Its face showed the current time and “Thu October 24″ but no year. There were also some vibrantly coloured circular shapes with tiny words under them like Messages, Calendar, and Clock. I expected I couldn’t pick it up—after all, I could not even move a sheet of paper—but I imitated what I’d seen Kyle do by touching one of the symbols almost at random, which looked like a clock.
To my surprise the entire face of the box changed completely. It now had 6:30 on it in large print and under it the text Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri - Wakeup Alarm. The magic box could do other things as well! But how could I get it back to where it was? I touched the space reading 6:30, but all that did was change what was showing there. So I touched another part of the screen, but nothing happened.
I felt another zzt! Whatever was causing them, it wasn’t Kyle, for he was out of the room.
I noticed more symbols at the bottom with the words: Alarm, Clock, Timer, Stopwatch. I touched Alarm but nothing changed. So I touched Clock, and the picture changed to a clock showing the current time, and again “Thu, Oct 24.” I concluded the date was October 24. That made sense, given what I’d seen outside earlier.
Kyle returned. Not surprisingly, he showed no indication he saw me. He looked at his magic box, then picked it up while wearing puzzled expression. I noticed him touching something at the bottom of its face. The clock disappeared, replaced with coloured circles I’d seen earlier. Then he put it onto the desk again and returned to his reading until his father called upstairs saying it was time for dinner.
Kyle took the magic box with him, and the periodic zzts! seemed to go away as well. Maybe they were being caused by the box.
✵ ✵ ✵
“I’m beginning to think my phone’s possessed,” Kyle said.
Kyle’s close friend Aaron was visiting again. It had been four days since I’d been freed from my bonds, but try as I might I could not leave the room. By now I knew I was invisible to everyone now living in the house.
Aaron grinned. “I’ve heard tech nerds complain printers have demons in them, but not phones. Why you think that?”
“Well, if I leave it on the desk without locking it and leave the room for a few minutes, whenever I come back in the screen’s changed. Sometimes the clock’s there, other times it’s my calendar. One time one of the calendar entries had been opened and it looked like some extra text had been added.”
I had spent some time trying to learn what Kyle’s magic box could do, but opportunities were frustratingly rare. It looked like Kyle had to press a button on its side to turn it on, but given my inability to move so much as a speck of dust I simply couldn’t do it. On the odd occasion he would put it down on the desk without turning it off I was able to play around with the lit-up face. But all too often I would end up on an unfamiliar page and couldn’t get back. Then the face would darken and try as I might I couldn’t get the box to do anything more.
I had also figured out the zzts! were being caused by the box. Aaron probably had one, too, for as soon as he came into the room I felt a second zzzt that disturbed me every couple of minutes.
I still had no idea what year it was, or if Floyd was still alive. I had no way of contacting him and he hadn’t called around to the house at all.
“Maybe it’s haunted?” asked Aaron.
“Or the room is!” Kyle exclaimed. “Maybe that’s why it had been locked for so long.”
“And those cold drafts you keep feeling.”
“And the weird dreams. They all started the same time I moved in.”
“I know!” said Aaron. “I’ll call Grandma. She was born here in Glendonald and knows a lot of its history.”
He fished something out of a pocket that looked very similar to Kyle’s magic box. Its face lit up and he tapped it a few times with a finger. Then he held it up to his ear.
More mild disturbances ran through me as his call connected.
“Hi Grandma? This is Aaron. Hey, I’m visiting my friend Kyle at the house his family just bought. Do you know the old brick house on the corner of 4th Avenue and Otter—the one with the round tower at one corner? Do you know anything about it?”
As he was talking, I felt a slight tingling all over, and a couple of zzzts in a row, of the second variety. Then I heard—or more like felt through the strange tinglings—a female voice, answering Aaron’s question.
“Oh, I know it all right. That’s the old Sutherland House. It was built in the early 1900s by Roger Sutherland, a businessman and politician. You know the Sutherland warehouse down by tracks that’s now an apartment block? He built that, too. Now his house, it has a bit of a reputation.”
“What do you mean by ‘reputation’?” asked Aaron.
“Well, apparently it’s haunted. You see, Mr. Sutherland’s eldest son, also called Roger, disappeared mysteriously in 1924. There were—“
“Hang on, Grandma. I’ll put this on speaker. I think Kyle should hear this too.”
He tapped the front of the box a couple of times with a finger, then put it on the desk. He asked, “Now, what was that you said about haunted?”
Now I could hear the lady’s voice. It appeared to be coming from the box. Zzzt. Those little disturbances were more frequent now.
“Well, like I said, young Roger Sutherland disappeared in 1924. He was a young man at the time, maybe nineteen or twenty, and had just started attending classes at Glendonald College. Apparently rumours flew like wildfire. The family said Roger had transferred to a more prestigious university in Ontario, claiming his acceptance letter had been delayed in the mail and they had received it only a few days before. So they spent the weekend packing and put him on a train out west.”
“That sounds plausible,” said Kyle.
“Except he never said good-bye to anyone, not even his best friend. And he never returned to Glendonald. The family said he’d married a young lady from an old money American family and had moved south. Then in the late 1930s an obituary was published in the Star-Recorder announcing his death from cancer in Philadelphia.”
“That’s sad,” Aaron said, “but why the all the suspicion?”
“The rumours were Roger and his best friend were more than friends … they were … intimate.”
“You mean Roger was gay?” asked an astonished Kyle.
“Yes. And if it was true it would have been a huge scandal at the time. It was whispered around town they had locked Roger in the third floor tower room and tried to cure him; exorcise the demons and the like. But according to the rumours he died somehow. It’s said his ghost is still there in that room.”
“Wow!” cried Kyle. “That’s now my bedroom!”
And mine, too! I’m Roger Sutherland II. How long had I been here? I called out, “What year is it?”
All I got was another zzzt.
Aaron’s grandmother continued. “The truth came out years later. In the mid 1970s someone called up a reporter from the Star-Recorder with his story. He was Roger’s close friend from the time Roger disappeared. He was very sick and his time was short. He confirmed they had been more than just friends. The two had been discovered in Roger’s bedroom, but in what condition he declined to say. He was ordered to leave the house and never return. He never saw Roger after that. And although he didn’t buy the story he had been sent to a university out west, he nonetheless spent years in a fruitless search of college records trying to find him. There was no indication he ever got married in Ontario, and nothing about him dying in in Philadelphia.
“The reporter tracked down and interviewed Roger’s oldest sister, who was then in her seventies and living in Charlottetown. She confirmed the basic details of the friend’s story. She said she didn’t know what happened in that room, only that there were lots of comings and goings over many days. She also didn’t believe Roger had gone to university in Ontario. There was no celebration over an acceptance letter, nor did she and her other brothers and sisters see him off at the train station. And he never wrote letters home. Finally the room he occupied was locked and everyone in the family told they should never go in there. And they should never talk about it.”
All the while they were talking on the magic box I felt this strange tingling all over me, about the only thing I could feel other than my body. Maybe it was affecting me. And maybe I could affect it.
“Wow, what a story,” Aaron said.
Kyle spoke up. “This is crazy, man! We’re in that room now. It’s my bedroom. But when we bought the house the door was locked, and when we finally got it open it looked like no-one had been in it for ages. How could that happen?”
Feeling around the tinglings, I discovered I could subtly manipulate them. Doing so, I thought I might be able to affect on the voice coming from the box.
Aaron’s grandmother thought for a bit, then said, “The house remained in the Sutherland” —and here the voice dropped out for a moment while I played with the tingling effect— “… mid 1950s when old Roger died. His only other son had been killed in World War II and his daughters were all married, so the estate sold the house. The room had been sealed off all that time. I think the house was bought by an older couple who probably weren’t that curious about the third floor. Maybe they were afraid of disturbing the ghost, if they believed the stories.
“It changed hands a couple more times, but the last owner didn’t maintain it very well. It was considered run-down and the city eventually took it over for taxes. It sat empty for almost twenty years when a developer bought it and fixed it up.”
“But not even the developer went into that room?” asked Aaron.
“Maybe he was doing a” —and here things got a little garbled as I played with the tingling again— “gliddle voxddom doe dob” —and cleared up again— “work and was leaving that room for last, and your friend’s family bought it before he got that far.”
“So we’re the first ones in here in a hundred years?” Kyle asked.
A hundred years? So that meant the year was now … I tried shifting around the tingling as if to ask, “You mean it’s 2024?”
There came an odd sound from the small box and its face lit up.
“That’s strange,” Aaron said. “The call dropped.”
✵ ✵ ✵
So apparently the year was 2024. I’d been dead a hundred years. Floyd was dead, too, having passed away over forty years ago. My sisters as well, surely, unless by some miracle Louise was still alive at 108.
It had been a terrible shock, certainly, to my parents to discover I preferred the company of men to women. I remembered now how my father was furious like nothing I’d ever seen before. He had bodily thrown Floyd out of the room, roaring at him never to darken our door again.
Memories came flooding back: in my bed while various men came and went. Some gave me patent medicines, while others said prayers and performed arcane rituals. Through it all my father was glowering at me, boiling at the shame I had brought upon the family. My mother was more stoic, expressing her deep sorrow and a hope I could be reformed and restored to the family’s graces.
The last medicine I was given had a sickly, sweet flavour to it. Less than a day later I was deathly ill, sweating and vomiting, getting ever weaker. Perhaps that’s what had caused my demise. And then I’d slept for a century until Kyle moved into the room.
I was amazed, and dare I say disappointed, at the lengths to which my father had gone to cover up my death. I remembered him as a conventional man, busy with his business and who for the most part had left raising his children to my mother. But he wasn’t cruel or overbearing, and on occasion had found time to spend with his family. I recalled many trips to Moncton and Halifax, and a wonderful summer one year spent on Bras d’Or on Cape Breton.
But discovering my preference for males had bought out something in him I’d never seen. To preserve the family name he had fabricated a story about me going to university in central Canada, then marrying an American and moving to Philadelphia. He had even published a fake obituary saying I’d died there in my thirties. Had he mourned my passing at nineteen, or had he written me off as unworthy of being his son and heir? Unless any of my nephews and nieces and their children or grandchildren knew about this, I could think of no way I would ever know the answers.
✵ ✵ ✵
After a quick call-back to his grandmother to explain the unexpected disconnection, Aaron and Kyle set to talking.
Aaron stated the obvious. “So it really sounds like there’s a ghost in here.”
“For sure. And we even have a name for him: Roger. Poor guy—it sounds like his family killed him because he was gay!”
“No wonder his ghost is haunting the house. It’s probably really mad and is out for revenge.”
Kyle had a more nuanced approach. “Or maybe it doesn’t know it’s dead and is still wondering what’s been happening all this time. I wonder if there’s a way we could talk to it?”
“Your phone?” asked Aaron.
“That’s crazy talk! The ghost’s been dead for a century. It probably has no idea what a smartphone is or how to use it.”
“But you told me you think it’s possessed because the screen keeps changing on its own if you leave it unlocked.”
“Yeah, you’re right! Hey, it’s worth a try.”
He pulled his magic box from a pocket and pressed a button on its side. The face lit up like normal and he put it on the desk.
“Okay, ghost, if you’re here, do something with my phone.”
So the phone they were talking about and the magic box were the same thing. I knew I could do something with it by touching one of the round symbols on its face. Like I had done earlier, I touched the clock.
“Holy shit!” they both exclaimed when the picture on the face changed. The language might have been coarse but it certainly conveyed their surprise.
“We have a real ghost in here!” Kyle cried. “And it can hear us! Now what?”
“We’ll have to play twenty questions,” said Aaron. “If we can teach it to press the clock for ‘yes’ and the phone for ‘no’ we can ask it a bunch of questions.”
“Hey, that can work!” Kyle pressed something at the bottom of the face and the familiar coloured circles appeared. He pointed to the clock. “This is the clock,” he said. “Touch it now.”
I did, and the clock page reappeared.
“Fucking wow!” He pressed the button to make the circles reappear, then pointed to a symbol that looked a bit like the handset on a telephone. “Touch this one now.”
I touched it, and the face changed to show a list of people’s names.
Aaron jumped in. “Are you Roger? Touch the clock if you are, or the phone if you aren’t.”
Kyle made the circles show up again, and I pressed the clock.
Now the questions came rapid-fire.
“Do you know it’s now 2024?”
Yes.
“Do you know anything about what’s happened in the last hundred years?”
No.
“Do you know about World War II?”
No.
“Do you know about the attack on the Word Trade Centre on September 11?”
No.
“Do you know what the internet is?”
No.
“Have you been bored all this time?”
No.
“Were you even awake?”
No.
“Did you wake up when I started using this room for my bedroom?”
Yes.
“Did you die in this room?”
Yes.
“Did your father kill you?”
No.
“Was he mad about your relationship with your boyfriend?”
Yes.
“Are you mad at him for what he did to you?”
That one was hard to answer. I had only now remembered his anger and subsequent attempts to “cure” me. I was still processing the fact he’d covered up my death. Both were cause enough for me to be angry with him. But my many good memories of him as a dad won out. I pressed the phone to say No.
“Are you stuck in here?”
Yes.
Kyle looked at Aaron. “It really looks like the ghost—I mean Roger—died here and can’t get out. I wonder if we can help him?”
“We’ll need more information,” Aaron answered. “I think we should ask Olivia to put together a séance for us.”
✵ ✵ ✵
It took three days to find a free evening in everyone’s schedules for the séance. On October 31 Kyle and Aaron were joined in his (our?) room by two young college-aged ladies that Aaron introduced as Olivia and Julie. Olivia was heavyset and the shortest of the group, while Julie was almost as tall as Aaron. Like the boys, the girls had unusually dyed hair and wore dark clothing. They also had piercings and strange jewelry. By the standards of 1924 they were dressed rather simply, but it stood to reason that fashions had changed a fair bit since then, just as they had in the time after the 1820s.
They had brought in a small table and four chairs. “Normally we’d put the two guys opposite each other and the same for us gals,” Olivia said, “but because you and Aaron are together and me and Julie are partners, we’ll sit so we can be holding one of our partner’s hands. Energies will be stronger that way.”
By now someone had realized that if I could touch the coloured circles on the phone then I could also touch the little black squares of the keyboard that appeared on the phone’s face from time to time, or the “screen” as Kyle called it. He added something called a “notes app” to his phone and showed how it could be used to type out messages. The layout of the keys was actually familiar, for I had used a typewriter when I was alive.
They sat down, one on each side of the table: Olivia, Julie, Aaron and Kyle. His phone was on the table, the notes app on the screen and the keyboard ready.
Despite the modern touch, the four young people started the séance in the traditional fashion. They turned off the electric lights and lit a candle. Obviously in charge of the proceeding, Olivia rang a small bell and asked everyone to join hands.
“We gather here to commune with the ghost of Roger Sutherland,” she said in formal tone. “Roger, if you are here, give us a sign.”
I typed on the screen, I am Roger.
The two ladies looked at each other, visibly surprised.
“Why are you haunting this house?” Julie asked.
Kyle jumped in. “That’s obvious. He died here after being imprisoned in this room when his family discovered he was gay.”
Meanwhile I was typing into the notes app, hoping finally to get an answer to something that had been bugging me for days.
I feel mild disturbances every couple of minutes. They seem to come from the phones. I can feel Kyles phone and Aarons and I think the ladies have phones too because I can feel two new disturbances now. They have been bothering me ever since I woke up.
“Any ideas?” Aaron asked.
“I’ll ask Lilium Chat,” said Kyle.
He picked up his phone and opened another app. I watched as he typed in, “Assume I’m in a seance with a ghost and we’re using a smartphone to talk to it. Ghost says it feels mild disturbances every 2 minutes and they’re coming from the phones. There are 4 different ones because there are 4 phones. What’s causing them?”
An answer came back, which Kyle read aloud:
“That’s an interesting question. Based on what you said, it’s likely the ghost is feeling electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by the smartphones. Smartphones emit EMFs in the form of radio frequency (RF) radiation, which they use for communication like making calls, sending texts, and accessing the internet.
“With four phones present, and the ghost feeling four brief disturbances every couple of minutes, they could be due to one of the following:
“• The phones are receiving text messages
“• The phones are receiving calls but they’re going to voice mail because they’re on silent mode for the séance
“• The phones are periodically pinging the local cell to remain in contact with the system.
“Whatever the cause, perhaps the other phones should be turned off or put into Airplane Mode to avoid unduly disturbing the ghost.”
There was a brief commotion as the others found their phones.
“I don’t have any new calls,” Aaron reported.
“And no new text messages,” Olivia said.
“Me neither,” added Julie.
“Then it’s probably the last one,” said Kyle. “Poor Roger. It sounds like my phone’s been zapping him every couple of minutes when it tells a cell tower ‘I’m here!’“
Aaron added, “And mine, too, whenever I’ve been over.”
Aside from Kyle, they all turned their phones off. Kyle found something on his called “Airplane Mode” and tapped it. What that meant or did I had no idea.
“We’ll return to the séance now,” Olivia announced. “Hold hands again and concentrate on the ghost of Roger. It will assist him with coming up with the answers we need to help him.”
She paused momentarily, then asked, “Roger, are you confined to this room?”
Yes. There is an invisible force blocking the door and windows
“And do you wish to leave?”
Certainly. I do not want to be stuck here forever.
“What binds you here?”
I do not know
Julie said, “Let’s figure out what happened when you died. You said your father did not kill you. Do you know what happened?”
I was given many medicines, and the last one made me very sick and i think it poisoned me.
“Do you think it was deliberate?” asked Aaron.
No. My father was most angry over my relationship with floyd, but he didn’t strike me or beat me. He only threatened disown me if the treatments he was giving me did not work. He wanted to make me into a better man and a good son.
“Sad that not much has changed in a hundred years,” said Julie.
“Actually, it’s a lot better now,” Kyle answered. “Pretty much nobody cares that you and Olivia are a couple, and most people I know are okay with me and Aaron.”
Olivia agreed. “Yes, things are better. But there are still families out there that will try to make a gay girl or boy straight, and even kick them out.”
It was astonishing to hear that “the love that dare not speak its name” when Floyd and I were together seemed to be accepted now, if not by everyone.
Kyle asked, “What’s the last thing you remember from 1924 before you woke up this year?”
I think my parents were afraid I was dying from the bad medicine. My mother and father were in the room and looking very worried, and a priest as well. He was reading from a book in Latin.
“Prayers?” asked Julie.
Yes, I think they were prayers. But then he went to a different book. When he started reading from it, I saw something like chicken wire creep all over the walls of the room.
“What’s ‘chicken wire’?” Kyle asked.
“It’s like a hex grid made out of wire,” Aaron answered. “It’s used for making pens and chicken coops, and also for holding plaster to walls. I saw it when we had the house re-stuccoed a few years back.”
While they were talking I continued typing. The priest read something else and it felt like I was being tied down. I remember nothing after that.
“What?” I heard an astonished Kyle say. “The priest says prayers to save the kid’s soul and then puts a curse on him?”
“Maybe not that drastic,” Julie answered. “He may have been trying to prevent Roger from being dragged down to hell when he died.”
Aaron added, “Or to stop demons from invading the room and snatching his soul.”
Olivia said, “Roger’s stuck here now unless we can find a way to free him. We know he’s not bound any more because he can affect Kyle’s phone. Anyone have any ideas?”
“None here,” said Kyle. “I just want Roger to be free.”
“Same,” Aaron echoed. “Okay, a ghost is really interesting, but not one that’s being held against its will.”
“We’ll need to find a counter-spell,” said Olivia. “This can take a while, probably more time than we have right now.”
Julie added, “Or a ritual of release. For that we’ll need a new moon, some aromatic oils, and maybe a crystal or two to help undo the spell.”
I asked, Anyone have a pair of celestial wire cutters
Kyle read that and grinned. “I don’t know if Roger’s making a joke or if he’s asking a real question.”
Olivia answered. “Maybe both. His description of chicken wire enclosing the room is probably a metaphor for what the spell actually did, which was to turn the room into a cage. And of course with wire cutters you can cut a hole in it.”
“Wow, there’s a thought!” Kyle said. “It’s usually easier to break something that it is to build it.”
Aaron added, “Yeah, like a piece of pottery. Can take days to make, but someone with a hammer can smash it to pieces in seconds.”
“And injure your hand if it’s in the way,” Olivia noted. “If we’re going to try and literally break the spell, Roger could get hurt.”
“I say it’s worth a try,” said Julie. “Like, don’t go all-out in the first go, just a bit to see if we have an effect.”
Olivia thought for several seconds. “Alright, let’s try it. Roger, move as far away from the door as you can. Everyone, hold hands and concentrate on the door. Think forcefully about breaking through the barrier put up by the priest and cutting through the wire. But don’t throw everything you have at it in case the spell implodes. Oh—Kyle, set a countdown timer for ten seconds.”
I hid behind the bed and watched as Kyle picked up his phone and tapped it a few times.
“Ready.”
“Start the timer, then close the circle by taking Aaron’s hand again. When he does, everyone concentrate on the making a hole at the door until the timer runs out. The ghost can tell us if it had any effect.”
Kyle tapped once on the screen and immediately took Aaron’s hand. After three seconds a grid of what looked like thin wires covering the floor, walls and ceiling began glowing dimly. I watched, fascinated, as part of it by the door grew brighter and brighter. The wires there appeared to melt. Brilliant light streamed in through a fist-sized hole left behind.
Kyle’s phone sounded ding-ding ding-ding as the timer expired. The four must have stopped concentrating because the glowing wires swiftly faded out. But the hole remained and light still came in through it.
Quickly Kyle opened the notes apps. “Roger, did anything happen?” he asked urgently.
Yes. You made a hole in the wire and light is coming in. I will see if I can go through.
Feeling stronger as light flowed into the room, I ran to the door, stopping short lest I run head-long into the barrier. Carefully I reached out with my hand into the light. It went in freely, as far as I could reach. But the hole was only large enough for my arm. The rest of the barrier was still there. I tried looking into the light, but it was so bright I could see nothing beyond it.
You made a hole I can put my arm through and there is light coming in. Can you make it bigger
Olivia said, “We’ll do thirty seconds this time and put more force into it. Kyle, set the timer and we’ll do it again.”
Kyle obliged, making a quick adjustment on his phone. The students made their circle again. The grid lit up once more, brighter this time, and swiftly the small hole at the door grew.
And grew. And grew some more, until suddenly the wires blinked out and instantly the room was awash in light. The walls vanished and I found myself in a space so vast it defied comprehension. Everywhere were gossamer forms in a great array of colours, spirits of millions who had gone on before. As far as I could see—ahead, above, and below—they floated, flew, or paused in pairs and groups. Music like none I had ever heard filled by hearing.
Somehow the tabletop with Kyle’s phone on it was still there in front of me. I typed one last message.
Cage is gone, now free. Astral plane and spirits await. Thank you all and farewell.
I heard a chorus of cheers that quickly faded out along with the table. A new journey was starting. It was time to find Floyd.
Endnotes
This story was an entry in Nifty’s 2024 Halloween contest.
Thanks to Gamin Paramour for proof-reading and making valuable suggestions.
In case anyone is wondering how Roger’s ghost could press buttons on a smartphone when he was unable to move anything else, it’s due to the way they work: the phones detect a change in capacitance when the screen is touched. That’s electrical in nature and not physical. Many believers in the paranormal claim ghosts can use and generate electromagnetic forces, and Roger was able to use that ability to interact with the phone.
In keeping with my preference when writing, I used fictional devices to stand in for real world ones. Hence “Eris Challengebox” instead of any real gaming console, and “Lilium Chat” instead of better known AI chat bots. If you remove the vowels from “Lilium” you get “LLM,” which stands for “Large Language Model.” This is a better description of the technology than “AI” (Artificial Intelligence.) Studies have shown these chat programs do not display real intelligence.
Comments are welcome at earth-boy-2755@proton.me, and constructive criticism as well.
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Created on 2024 October 28 at 00:52