This is the unsettling story of the summer I spent in the my father's new two story house and what I found there.
My parents got divorced when I was nine years old. My dad spent several years renting one tiny place after another. However, his law practice was starting to take off and by the time I was fourteen he was just about to buy a brand new two story house. This house actually had an elevator in it, which seemed crazy to me since there were only two floors. There was, however, a third floor button on the elevator that remained unlit.
The house itself was huge, being close to 5000 square feet, and it had an exceptionally large downstairs living room. There was a bathroom and a small study on either side of the front door, and a little farther down the hallway was the dull grey entrance to the elevator. There were two downstairs bedrooms in the back. Upstairs was the master bedroom , a large bathroom with a bidet in it, and a small TV room. There were also a myriad of closets wherever you looked.
I would often get into fights with my dad and stepmom. They thought I was irresponsible, and I thought they were a couple of jerks. I had always wished that my mom hadn't divorced my dad and it was easy to blame him for it. So I spent a lot of time walking around the house in my own world, and exploring one part or another. One day while exploring a random closet in the master bedroom I noticed that stuffed behind the rack of old winter coats that the previous owner had left was a rather conspicuous stack of cardboard boxes. They were stacked almost head high, and upon moving them I noticed a small handle to what appeared to be another closet door. Another closet door hidden behind a stack of boxes behind a rack of coats inside the closet in the master bedroom.
"What is this doing here?" I scratched my head. Turning the handle did nothing. It wouldn't budge. It must be painted shut. I went out in search of a screwdriver and found one in a drawer in the kitchen. Starting at the top of the stubborn door I crammed the screwdriver into a small opening and sliced down the line of the doorway, hoping to remove the offending paint. This time I tried the handle again and pulled hard. With a loud snap and a creek the door swung open. Inside was a carpeted winding staircase leading up. It wasn't just the staircase that was carpeted but also the walls and ceiling. It was a shaggy green material. Taking my first step I was overwhelmed by a very dank musky smell descending heavily from above the staircase.
End of Part 1
