He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
I’ve been living in this house for about four months now, and I’ve never been up to the storage area in the attic. I climbed the stairs up there once, while Cece was taking a nap, but the door was locked, so I turned back. Andy says it’s just a bunch of papers. Nothing too exciting.
And the truth is, I don’t love going up there. I don’t have any crazy phobias about attics, but the staircase leading up there is kind of creepy. It’s dark, and the stairs creak with every step. As I follow Andy up the staircase, I stay close to him.
When we get to the top of the stairs, Andy leads me down the small hallway to the locked door at the end. He gets out his set of keys and fits one of the small ones into the lock. Then he throws the door open and tugs on a cord to turn on the light.
I blink as my eyes adjust to the light and I take in my surroundings. This is not a storage closet like I thought it would be. It’s more like a tiny room, with a cot pushed up into one corner. There’s even a little dresser and a mini-fridge. There’s a single tiny window at the far end of the room.
“Oh.” I scratch my chin. “This is a room. I thought it would just be junk and storage stuff.”
“Well, I store everything in the closet over there,” he explains, pointing to the closet near the bed.
I walk over to the closet and peer inside. There’s nothing inside except a blue bucket. There are no papers at all, much less enough for searching through them to be a two-person job. I don’t quite understand what he would like me to do.
Then I hear a door slam shut.
I lift my head and turn around. Suddenly, I’m all alone in this tiny room. Andy has left the room and shut the door behind him.
“Andy?” I call out.
I cross the room in two strides and reach for the doorknob. But it doesn’t turn. I try harder, throwing my weight into it, but still no luck. The doorknob doesn’t budge even an inch.
It’s locked.
“Andy?” I call out again. No answer. “Andy!”
What the hell is going on here?
Maybe he went downstairs to get something and the door blew shut. But that doesn’t explain why there aren’t any papers in this room when he said that’s what we were coming up here to get.
I pound on the door with my fist. “Andy!”
Still no answer.
I press my ear against the door. I hear footsteps, but they’re not coming closer. They’re getting further away, disappearing down the stairwell.
He must not hear me. That’s the only explanation. I pat my pockets, but my phone is in the bedroom. There’s no way to call him.
Damn it.
My eyes fall on the window. There’s one tiny little window in the corner of the room. I walk over and look outside, realizing that the window looks out on to the backyard. So there’s no way to get anybody’s attention outside. I’m stuck here until Andy returns.
I’m not exactly claustrophobic, but this room is very small with a low ceiling that slants over the bed. And the idea that I’m locked in here is starting to freak me out. Yes, Andy will come back shortly, but I don’t like this enclosed space. My breathing quickens and my fingertips start to tingle.
I’ve got to get that window open.
I push against the bottom of the window, but the window doesn’t budge. Not even a millimeter. For a moment, I think maybe it swings out, but it doesn’t. What the hell is wrong with the stupid window? I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I look closer at the window and…
It’s painted shut.
When Andy comes back up here, I am going to give it to him. I consider myself pretty even-tempered, but I do not like being locked in this room. We’ve got to do something about this lock on the door, to make sure it doesn’t lock automatically again. I mean, what if both of us had been in here? We would’ve really been stuck.
I go back to pounding on the door. “Andy!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Andy!”
After fifteen minutes, my voice is hoarse from screaming. Why hasn’t he come back? Even if he can’t hear me, he must’ve realized I’m still in the attic. What could I possibly be doing up here by myself? I don’t even know what papers he wants.
I mean, was he walking down the stairs, tripped, then fell the rest of the way down the stairs, and is now lying unconscious in a pool of blood at the bottom? Because that’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
Thirty minutes later, I’m about to go out of my mind. My throat aches and my fists are red from pounding on the door. I want to burst into tears. Where is Andy? What is going on here?