text: They had lived in the house for seven months before they found the room on the second floor. It was another two months before they talked about it with each other. They were sitting on the couch in the living room, quietly sharing the space in comfort. Dean was reading a book, while Sara was working on a crossword puzzle, idly wagging her foot. The motion annoyed him, but he did his best to ignore it. He set his book down, and looked at her. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. She sighed, softly, a sign of frustration he had long learned to ignore, and looked up from her work. “You know how we’ve wanted a library? I’ve been thinking about that spare room, upstairs. It’s a little small, but I think it would do nicely.” She stared at him for a moment. “I suppose. We’re not using it for anything else,” she said. “Mmm,” he answered, turning back to his book. After a moment, he looked up again. “Why aren’t we?” he asked. “‘Why aren’t we’, what?” Sara asked. He turned on the couch to face her. “Why aren’t we using that room for something else?” “I don’t know,” she said. “We just haven’t had a need for it, I guess.” “Well, that’s not true. We complained about the boxes we didn’t unpack for months. They were stacked in the hallway; we could have put them in that room, out of the way.” Sara shrugged. “I guess,” she said. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t have done that,” Dean said. After a moment, he chuckled. “Honestly, now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing that room when we were looking at the place, before we bought it.” Sara shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Of course we saw it. We just . . . never used it.” “Are you sure? I really don’t remember it.” Sara stood up. “Of course I’m sure, Dean. You don’t forget a room in your own house, and one certainly doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.” “I know that, Sara. But think about it. When we were touring the house the first time, remember? We saw the bedroom at the top of the stairs, then the bathroom down the hall. But the empty room is between them.” “So we saw it, then.” “No. I don’t think we did,” he said. “I remember commenting that the bathroom seemed small. Like there should have been a lot more room, considering how far down the hall it was. Even the realtor commented on it.” Sara was quiet for a moment. Then she turned to him with a frown. “That’s impossible. We’re just remembering it wrong, is all.” Dean stood up as well. “Are we, though? Do you remember ever going into that room?” She started to answer that of course she had, but stopped. “Yeah, me either,” he said. Without saying anything else, they both turned toward the stairs. They climbed them quickly at first, but as they approached the second floor they both slowed together, without really knowing why. Sara stopped first, three steps short of the second floor. Dean continued for two more, his foot hovering over the second floor landing, before he put it back down on the last step. He could see the door to the empty room, just down the hall. The door to the first room, which was designed as a bedroom but that they used as a small office, was open, and he could see the corner of his desk inside it. The bathroom door was open, as well, the sunlight streaming in through the window to spill out into the hall. The door they had come for stood firmly shut. Sara laughed quietly from her position behind him. The sound startled Dean, and he turned around to look at her. She looked up at him. “This is silly,” she said, and pushed past him. Even with her disdain, she hesitated to step up onto the second floor fully. Just a momentary pause, but Dean could see the clench of her jaw as she resolved herself to it. Once she placed her foot down, however, she moved quickly to the door. She was there before he left the stairs, and she waited for him. At the door, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that it was cold here, for some reason. Which was impossible, of course. They stared at the doorknob together, not saying anything, for several minutes. Both had their own thoughts about it, and couldn’t have explained them to anyone who asked, but they silently agreed, after several minutes, to reach out together. Their hands touched each other as they touched the knob, and they froze, looking at each other. She smiled nervously, and nodded at him. They turned the knob together, and pushed on the door. It swung open slowly, heavily, like the solid oak doors of a church. They turned, together, to look inside. The room was bare, with hardwood floors and wallpaper that was starting to peel. It didn’t match the rest of the house. The air smelled stale and dry, and dust motes danced in the light from the small window. The window was also mismatched to the rest of the house. Smaller, with heavier woodwork around it, it looked old. Much older than the house itself, somehow. There was no closet, at least that they could see from the hall, but the space was large enough to fill the void between the bedroom and bathroom which flanked the empty room. Dean and Sara stood in the hall, staring inside, for several minutes. Without saying anything, or really knowing why, Dean finally stepped inside quickly. He was completely inside before Sara reacted, reaching out a hand to stop him, though she would not have been able to say why. He moved to the center of the room and turned to the right, then froze. Sara watched him, seeing shock fill his expression, followed by fear. She stepped inside as well, to see what Dean was seeing. In the room, against the wall shared with the other bedroom, was . . . something. Sara’s mind immediately went to mushrooms, but that was too simple. It was definitely fungal in nature, but unlike anything she had ever seen. It looked constructed, somehow, like someone or something had built a structure of spores and gills, only to have it spread up the wall in a fan of life. It seemed, impossibly, to be *moving*. Crawling and shifting, pulling nutrients from the hardwood floors and carrying them like tree sap up the wall. It was subtle, and she could only see it from the corner of her eye, but it was definitely there. “What . . . what is that?” she whispered. Dean jumped, startled by the sound, as if he had forgotten she was there. “I don’t know,” he said, and stepped toward it. “Don’t,” she said, and grabbed his arm. He pulled away from her, and knelt down in front of the odd fungal structure. “Dean, don’t. Let’s just go downstairs. We’ll call a cleaner in the morning to come take care of it.” “Hang on,” he said. “There’s something here.” He reached his hands toward the bulk of the growth, and hesitated a moment before reaching inside. The sound was waxy, and reminded Sara of her teenage summers working at a cheesemaker’s, the way the heavy rolls of cheese would grind against each other with a plastic, low squeal. A cloud of spores burst up from Dean’s hands, and he turned his face away to avoid breathing them in. “Dean, honey, let’s just go, okay? Please?” Sara was scared, and didn’t care about showing it. Whatever was there, she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see it. She wanted to go back to not knowing about this room at all. She was backing toward the door. The sound grew louder, and she saw Dean struggling with something. “Hold on,” he said. “I almost have it.” Sara was back at the door to the room, panic filling her every breath. “Dean, please don’t. Just leave it, please, come on.” She backed out into the hall, her hand on the door ready to pull it shut. She heard something shift in the room, a heavy tearing sound, and she couldn’t help but let out a cry of her own to match. She saw Dean fall back to the floor, into view, his chest covered in dust and spores. It danced in the light from the window, and his hands were black with slime. He was staring at the wall, unmoving. “Dean? Come on, Dean. Let’s just go,” she said. She heard a wet thump from the now-hidden wall, followed by the sound of creaking wood. The air smelled thickly of old forest, loamy and warm, and she saw a heavy shape move into view, looming over Dean. Fear took over, then, and she screamed. The face that turned toward the sound was one she would never forget, hoary and malevolent, like the anger of ancient priests from some long-dead civilization. It opened a gaping mouth, and she slammed the door shut on her husband, not caring for anything other than closing away the sight of that face. She turned to the stairs and fled, Dean’s screams rising in waves behind her, still coming long after she left the house, far louder than could possibly come from any human lungs. She feared she would hear those screeches for the rest of her life, for they filled her ears even as she drove away, peeling out into the street in terror.