Scary Blog 2

I will post something more creative that explains my current lack of creativity soon. For today, yet another adventure from my loony life. I swear that every word of this entry is true (pictures exempt from that promise as they are likely to get me in copyright trouble). I apologize for its length; there was no way to tell the story in a succinct manner.

My apartment was without power last night. Due to the recent heat wave, Roomie and I decided to stay the night at the nearest air-conditioned home with spare beds. The owner was absent, but more than willing to permit entry. No wonder. I’ll bet that house hasn’t had fresh victims in years. It was by far the creepiest domicile I have ever entered.

In a redefinition of California Ranch Style, the house was a windowed entry to a great room. From the outside, all you can see is that one huge room. Walking past the great room, I entered Serial Killer Alley. The white walls glared as I stared down the long hall, seemingly made for a white chalk outline. At least 15 doors lined the way, all closed, all eerily beckoning. Roomie told me to “find a bed,” which meant exploring that ominous hallway.

I opened the first door into a room obviously housing two young boys. I saw normal youngster fare – skateboard paraphernalia, sports jerseys, and an absence of knick knacks. Amidst the normalcy glared 5 doors. The re-emergence of the white doors filled me with curiosity. I opened the first. It led to the patio on the other side of the house. I opened the second to discover a closet. The third led to an adjoining bathroom while the fourth took me to a girl’s room. The fifth opened on a crawl space.

I jumped visibly. I had never seen an accessible crawl space before. I could smell the outdoors. There was no lock on the white door. It terrified me to know there was easy access to the room of these children.

The girl’s room had a similar plethora of doors that led to equally strange locations, including one that opened to an empty space roughly the size of the boy’s room but that had no apparent purpose. I wondered if I had stumbled upon one of the house’s secrets.

After several more attempts, I discovered that there was no room that didn’t have an unlocked access point and at least one door leading nowhere at all. Due to paranoia that I might be stabbed to death in my sleep, none of the bedrooms were acceptable. I gave up on that search, deciding to sleep on the couch in the great room. I prefer to be murdered in the open. Never fancied myself the running down the hallway type, and I’m certainly no spunky heroine diving in and out of doors.

The bathroom had an expectedly strange design. Each piece of the bathroom had its own separating wall so that the toilet was isolated from the sink and the shower was completely out of view from either. And, you guessed it, there were 3 doors. One led to the garage, one to an adjoining room, and one….

I turned the knob slowly, aware by this point that I was asking to be attacked. As the knob turned, I felt opposing pressure. SOMETHING WAS PUSHING THE DOOR FROM THE OTHER SIDE! I shrieked my best “I’m-the-friend-who-gets-murdered-un-memorably-in-the-second-scene” scream and threw my body against the door. It shut. I jammed the trash can against the door, illogically telling myself that it would topple over and alert us to the monster’s entrance. Only later did it occur to me that if Roomie hadn’t heard me scream, I had nil chance of hearing a plastic garbage can tip.

The next door rediscovered Roomie. She had found the kitchen and was happily making brownies. “After all, if your power was shut off on the hottest day of the year, you deserve a little extra fat.” I ate. I needed the comfort food.

Wisely, I fell asleep in the great room while Roomie watched TV. Hours later something bright caressed my eyelids. It was the sun, kissing me hello. I had never been so shocked to open my eyes. I jumped up, eager to meet the day….until I had to enter that hallway. “Who needs to shower?” I asked myself. I grabbed my bag and ran from the house. In Europe, it’s common not to bathe daily. I suppose if anyone asks about my lack of hygiene, I’ll tell them I was channeling the EuroRail and didn’t feel the need to bathe. Any which way you look at it, there was no way I was going back into that bathroom.