Neve Emek: Room 102 - Part 11 of ?

11

The drive back to Neve Emek went uneventful, at least for the most part. I spent about an hour at the bus stop, at which point the sun had already dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in the beautiful shades of twilight. So far, so good, right? I wished that would’ve been the case. But no. Wherever my eyes settled, strange things happened around me, as though I was being followed by a bloody curse or something.

This time, about halfway through the drive, we passed that dilapidated hut again. But only once. I started counting the moment we went by it, so I was pretty sure whatever happened last time wasn’t going to happen again. Still, seeing it put me on edge, and the image of that grotesque form too took space in my already distraught mind. One thing was sure, though. The hut was real, not something my brain came up with.

As these dire insights raced in my head in a never-ending loop, another thought crossed my mind and gave me goosebumps. Who was that guy, anyway? The caretaker or whatever he was. The solicitor clearly didn’t know him or have any knowledge of his existence. Bothered in ways no words could truly capture, I fetched up the legal document she gave me and skimmed through it until my eyes landed on that word again: caretaker. But if I were the caretaker, then who the fuck was that guy—

“Shit!”

I lurched forwards, the paperwork slipping from my grasp as the bus screeched to a stop. Crouching into the aisle to gather the scattered sheets, I froze when a child’s chuckle reached my ears and pulled me out of whatever demons were occupying my mind. I then followed the source of the noise across the aisle without being aware of it. There, near the driver’s seat, the porcelain doll sat with its arms folded over one another. It wore that grotesque smile too, the one that kept widening and morphing into a rictus. But it wasn’t the humanlike antics that arrested me or made me hold my breath. Its white gown was drenched in blooming crimson liquid, sprayed and splattered all over in broken patches.

The aisle stretched, impossibly so, as though the space itself had been pulled tight, long, and narrow. Even the overhead lights buzzed in an eerie beat, washing over the seats in dark hues that shifted with every damn flicker, shadows blurring at the edges and crawling and lengthening – until it felt as though the bus had no end at all. And yet, with every blink, the doll drew closer and moved down the aisle before I could catch it.

I tried to move to no avail, and in those harrowing moments, its blank eyes stared straight into mine like it had a soul of its own and was reading mine.

I gulped hard.

Each time my eyes closed, even for the briefest of seconds, the distance between us shortened further, and the doll… only drew closer.

And—closer.

I shut my eyes one final time.

Stopped breathing altogether now.

Then… silence. Just silence and nothing else.

When I dared to open my eyes again, the aisle looked normal. Too normal.

I heaved a deep sigh and relaxed my shoulders, letting my head fall back onto the seat. But each inhale was laboured, and the little relief I felt did nothing to soothe my galloping heart, while beads of cold sweat rolled down into the worn fabric. It took me a moment to calm down completely, at which point I gathered the papers against my chest, still panting like I had been running, before rising and turning around. But as I did that, something else unaccounted for happened. The lights flickered once and then—darkness.

I saw nothing but the murk, heard nothing but the sound of my own frantic heartbeat. That is, until then. That chuckle… It was so close now that I—

A rush of hot breath grazed my ear, whispering something low and hushed. Intelligible. I thought.

The flickering lights turned on and off. Repeatedly.

When my eyes adjusted to the flickering, I noticed that the doll was back on the aisle, this time closer to my row of seats. Its porcelain mouth had stretched wide in a blood-curdling grin, moving, whispering. What was it saying? Then the words made sense, slowly and steadily, the broken chant transforming into words I recognised. There it was again, that word etched onto the stone at Neve Emek.

Kāfir. But this word meant nothing to me. Nothing at all. But it meant something, did it not? And it seemed someone – or something – wanted me to figure out the true meaning of that word. But where to start? Where to go? The word itself hadn’t even been directed at me, that much I knew. Sure, I had no faith to talk about as an agnostic, but the word “kāfir” went deeper than the English equivalent word “heathen”. I never rejected the Qur’an, nor did I ever possess the knowledge to do so. But someone else must’ve. Or perhaps another… entity.

You read that right. Another entity.

The doll, the girl at the airport, every strange thing that had followed me like a second skin since the arrival of that darn letter – they all pointed to the same conclusion. Something otherworldly was reaching for me. Trying to reach me. I didn’t know its purpose, not yet, and couldn’t speculate. But I was convinced nonetheless: none of this was a coincidence or the way of fate. I either had to succumb to my beliefs and face it head-on or throw in the towel and leave this place before I lost my mind. I chose the former. I wanted to choose the former, and so I did.

Neve Emek was as desolate as the night I first arrived here.

The sun had fully given way to the gloom when I disembarked and started for the burial ground, but not a single soul was in sight. Still, their watchful eyes followed me from behind the boarded-up windows and drawn curtains billowing subtly to the cadence of the whistling wind making its entrance and chilling everything in its path. While somewhat hostile and just as on high alert as I was, something told me that these people meant no harm. I was an outsider after all, and perhaps they too sensed the curse clinging and feared what it might become. I knew I would if I were in their shoes.

I knocked on the caretaker’s door only once. Not sure why I did that after what happened the last time. Maybe the mystery of his identity overshadowed the fright that grew in the pit of my stomach? Honestly, more than anything, I just wanted answers and a name I could relay back to the solicitor. Anything, really. I needed to know more about him, this place too, before my unsound mind completely took over and made a fool of me. So, why the fuck wasn’t he answering the damn door!?

I was inches from striking the door a second time when it creaked open. The unexpected movement sent a jolt through me; I reeled back, the image of the hybrid creature flooding my mind and disturbing me to the core. Through the slender gap, however, I made out the outlines of a cramped hall that emptied into a doorless room. Everything beyond was swallowed in darkness. I saw no creature – nor the caretaker, for that matter.

“…Hello?”

I pressed my palm to the door and eased it wider before it slammed shut, letting my airy voice drift into the darkness. There was no answer. No movement, no breath, or sign of anyone at all. I didn’t even know the caretaker’s name, but I kept calling anyway, imagining him asleep somewhere just out of sight.

“Hi, uh, it’s me, again. Sami. Mind if I… come in?”

When I entered the hut, just one foot in, all sounds drowned out like I had passed a threshold into the past or a portal into another time. Almost like I was slowly descending underwater, the sound morphing and bending unnaturally. Even the floorboards beneath me groaned in ways I lacked the proper vocabulary to describe; all I knew was that each step caused my heart to pound louder.

 At the entryway stood a foyer table, antique and worn by the passage of time. On it was a framed photograph of the caretaker and what looked like his son, taken perhaps some ten years ago. What immediately arrested me was the smile. They wore the same smile. Too wide, too large… just off, in other words. Maybe something between a scream caught too short and a grin? Like the one that doll had?

I set the frame aside and let my attention drift to the half-open drawer. Inside lay a sheet of yellowed paper with old coffee stains. When I lifted it, the underside revealed a row of printed digits. Some kind of code? The second drawer resisted me entirely. I hooked my fingers under the edge and pulled, feeling the wood tremble but refuse. I tried again, harder this time, the faint scrape of swollen timber breaking the silence. Still nothing. Eventually, I let go and breathed out into the stale air, unsettled by how stubbornly it remained shut – just like the wardrobe in the guestroom.

The hall split into two directions, but only one led to an unlocked space, which I assumed had to be the living room, though it was probably used as a bedroom since a collapsed sofa had been folded out into a bed. The sheets were completely unmade, as if someone had left in a hurry or thrashed through the night. Across from it, a canapé sagged under its own weight, the upholstery torn open as though something sharp had stabbed straight through the fabric.

Against the wall, on the floor, stood what I first mistook for a tall, oval mirror draped with a sheet. I pulled the cloth away and laid it on the sofa, only to find the glass beneath broken into pieces from a brutal impact at the centre with thin fissures going outwards into the surface. Even the oriental rug was completely ruined; its colours were faded under layers of dark, stiff stains. Brown spots all over. The stains reminded me of those back in the guestroom. Had someone died here? That would surely explain these stains. But something did not add up. From the look of it, these stains were not only several years old but also a copious amount. And I don’t mean copious as in “someone had a heart attack and banged his head on something”, but more in the sense of “someone got murdered and was dismembered here.” No other plausible explanation could account for—

The front door slammed shut.

I rose from where I had crouched and whipped around.

But no one came. No footsteps reached my ear.

Instead, something else tugged at my attention as I let my eyes snap to the hallway. Another door. For a moment I stood there, feeling the locked door’s pull, as though whatever lay behind it expected me… or had been waiting for me all along. I frowned. Wait a second. Had it really always been there? Perhaps the darkness altered my perception? Who knew?

I stepped towards the door, drawn against my will. The air grew colder with each step, carrying a faint, stale scent that made my stomach twist. My hand hovered over the knob. It was ice-cold to the touch, far colder than the rest of the hut had been. A shiver ran down my spine as I tightened my grip.

Then twisted it. Thank goodness, it was locked.

I pressed my ear to the wood, not sure why. Was the caretaker inside the room? I wasn’t sure… and I couldn’t hear a damn thing, either. But no matter how long I listened or waited in front of the door, nothing out of the ordinary let itself be known to me. Still, the pull of the door didn’t fade. Why was it locked? My fingers itched to try the doorknob again, to see if persistence could pierce whatever barrier lay behind it. I couldn’t explain it – not then, not now – but something about the door intrigued me. I knew half of my questions would be answered if I managed to pry it open, but at the same time, I feared it. What if the truth I sought was ugly? What if I regretted knowing the truth when ignorance was bliss?

Right then—

The front door swung open.

My eyes snapped down the hall, towards the living room, searching for cover. The sofa sagged too low, the rug offered nothing, and the curtains were flimsy at best. Then I spotted the canapé just far enough away from the wall to slip behind. Without thinking, I went for it, pressing my back against the hard surface, getting as close to the ground as was physically possible for someone of my build.

The footsteps grew heavier instantly, faster, reverberating over the thin floorboards. My heart slammed in my chest, threatening to rip through my skin. I waited for a few seconds without moving, barely breathing, then slid along the wall until I could peer into the living room, flattening myself further into the shadows, straining not to cough, not to breathe too loud. From this angle, however, I could only see the bottom of the entryway where the footsteps had come from.

I had never once been this scared in my adult life. Ever. It brought me back to my childhood, to the days were I feared the darkness that swept over my bedroom with the nightfall. But this kind of fear was different – more real. I could die. A single misstep, a breath too loud, and I could die, and no one would ever know.

Shit!

A pair of legs entered my view.

Boots. Mud had crusted at the edges and stained the leather as if they had trudged through wet soil. Coming closer. Into the open space. But I was too low to see further than the abdomen. It had to be a guy; I would have known if it were a woman by the way he flexed his calf muscles beneath his trousers.

The man stopped abruptly in the middle of the rug, breathing heavily, shifting his weight slightly as it seemed to me he was looking around the place. Was he looking for me? But how did he know I was here? But these thoughts soon faded and gave way to other kinds of thoughts – morbid thoughts – as my eyes drifted to the broken mirror on the floor and caught a glimpse of the stranger’s face. This wasn’t the caretaker but someone younger, more muscular, at the same time… eerily similar. The facial muscles, the way the brows were set low and—

I frowned as the framed photograph of the caretaker and his son, whom I assumed was his son, popped into my head. Could it really be? But why was this guy here? The caretaker didn’t say a word about having a son, not that he had to, but a brief heads-up would’ve been appreciated. The burial ground was, albeit not yet legally, my property! No one just went in and out without permission. To think I actually spent the entire night with those odd people…!

Despite everything going on around me, inside me, I tried my best to stay calm and not take hasty decisions. Whoever this guy was, it was now clear to me that he was waiting for me to make a mistake and give myself away. I was not about to make his day, trust me. Afraid? I sure as hell were. Suicidal? Right-fucking-now? Think not—

The boots shifted abruptly, turning my way.

I covered my mouth, frantically trying to calm my nerves and stop myself from making a sound and fleeing like a coward. But doing so was harder than it seemed. It was in the human instinct to either fight or flee in such situations, and I was no exception. Even so, I knew that the moment I moved, whoever was inching closer would catch me in the act. There was no escape in this room, no window that was not boarded up, and the only exit route was out of reach. My chances of survival, however slim, were higher behind the canapé.

For a heartbeat, I thought the figure would crouch, thought the next second would be the appearance of a hand along the canapé. But something else happened instead. The person, or whatever this was, retreated and crossed back towards the hallway. Seconds later, the front door groaned, and the lock turned with a click, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps fading into the night.

Relief washed over me as I let out the breath I’d been holding the whole time, gasping for air. My chest rose and fell in a frantic beat, nevertheless.

It took me a while to gather my thoughts and leave my hiding spot. But then something else caught my attention, something that hadn’t been there before. Near the rug, catching the moonlight, glinting. My eyes narrowed. An old key. It lay on its side, and the bow was wrought into filigree. The shaft was thick and squared, the teeth blunt and heavy. From the ring hung a single stamped plate: Room 102. Was this the key to that room in the gap in the wall?

My hand reached for it before my head caught up. As my fingers brushed the cold metal, I realised that it was heavier than it looked and left a faint, oily print on my skin. For a long moment, I simply held it and listened to the hut exhale as if it too were reacting to the strange events leading to this very moment.

What now? The caretaker said the building was basically a maze and that I would probably get lost if I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. But now that I was certain I had been brought here for a reason, I couldn’t ignore the voice in my head telling me to get to the bottom of whatever secret the burial ground guarded over – as well as that caretaker and the young guy that looked like him.

I still had three days to decide, but that same night I messaged the solicitor and said I wanted to sign the papers as soon as possible. If I was ever going to explore this place, truly explore it, navigate its maze and understand what hid beneath it, I needed more time. The six months required suddenly felt like the exact span this strange task demanded of me.

I knew I was playing with fire, that something hunted the burial ground. But instead of driving me away, it piqued my curiosity. I’d always wanted to write a book, and this place – this impossible situation I now found myself in – felt like the kind of premise that would hook any reader.

Or maybe I was walking straight into something I wouldn’t survive.

I suppose only time would tell. And it certainly did.

Continue.