The Lads' Room

The door in the house had been sealed shut for years. He never really thought about it, but now his parents were gone and the house was his.

He grew up in this house, and he was sure that there was a room behind that door that had been there when he was a child, but there was something that nagged him about it, something wrong, something very, very wrong.

When he visited his parents, when they were still here, he noticed the door but never asked about it, but now he was wondering why the door had been painted shut, and the handle had been removed from it.

That was something to look into when he got settled in. If there were a room behind that door, then it would make the house bigger, and it could be a guest room, or a study, or an office. There was no point in wasting space if you had it to spare.

The day came when he decided to see what was behind the door. Outside of the house, there had been a window, but it was bricked up. He thought it was strange, but he had seen that in other houses in the area.

He got a large LED light because he knew that there was going to be no light in the room when he opened that door. He expected to be able to push it open, even though it was painted shut, but it would not give at all. He was going to need a hammer to get through the door into the room.

He had to go to the local tool shop to get the things he would need to get into the room and clean it out.

Then back to the house and the door that blocked his way into that forgotten room, and anything that was in it. He would have to replace the door, as well, but he just wanted to get inside that room now.

BANG!!

BANG!!

BANG!!

And the door was shattered and a mess, but he took the LED torch and shone it into the dusty darkness of the room, and then he screamed.

In the far corner was the skeleton of a small person, chained to a bar that ran from floor to ceiling.

And then it came back to him, he had a brother, and as children, they shared this room together.

Then his brother started to become violent, and his parents could not control him, so they chained him up in that room, and his brother started screaming, so they bricked up the window so nobody could hear anything untoward.

His brother was always screaming and refused to eat, and eventually the screams stopped. His brother was dead.

His parents did not know what to do, and then decided to seal the room, leaving his brother's body to rot.

He was devastated. How could he have let that go from his mind? How could he have forgotten that he had a brother?

He knew he could no longer live here, but he could not leave things like this.

He called the police and someone from social services. He recounted his brother's tragic story and gave statements on what had happened.

He took counselling and arranged for his brother to have a proper funeral, although he was the only one there.

The house was eventually sold and turned into student flats, but he now remembered all about the lads' room in his parents' house.

That was now in his past, and he would never go there again.

That part of his life was over.