It was a dark and stormy night … Fuck you Edward Bulwer-Lytton, screw you Madeleine L’Engle, but most of all, piss off, Snoopy. It really was a dark and stormy night! And another thing, the use of the word “night” makes the use of the word “dark” redundant, but I’ll borrow your cheap phrase.
Anyway, I left the house in the early evening, casing anyplace that might have the medicines or chemicals that the research scientist pays me to steal and sell to him. I don’t know what the medicine is for, but it seems to be associated with older, retired people. I don’t have any idea what the chemicals are for. I don’t give a shit about it either. Just give me the green.
Why do all medications and most chemicals have odd names? Weird.
An hour or two later the sky darkened. More accurately the sky blackened, and the pewter rain clouds looked like gray, navy battle ships floating slowly across the black sky. The rain felt chilly and I had left the house not prepared for it. I should have worn that nice black raincoat that I stole. Black on black. Peek-a-boo. Can’t see me now.
As a bonified, light-fingered criminal, I have certain connections with some of the pharmacists – or anyone who has access to the pharmacy - in this town and the neighboring three towns. Just the morally defective individuals, of course. That’s a lot of morally defective people. Let’s face it, you’re either a recognized morally defective person, or you hide it well. You’ll never find a 100% honest person who always tells the truth. What nonsense. If you’re reading this, you know what I mean.
It’s the nicest of relationships. All us bad guys win without much risk and the only people I steal from get hurt and even those pathetic degenerates can get their doctors to write another prescription quickly. If the assholes are smart, they’ll ask the doctor to phone the prescription to a different pharmacy, or have the individual go to the pharmacy and wait for his prescription to get filled while he waits. Even if I find out, I won’t return to a house I already robbed for a long time. Maybe never. See? Low risk. The good guys always win? Such bullshit! Apparently, God wanted evil to exist. I exist to be evil. Funny stuff.
My thievery is low risk because I do it at night when all is quiet, dark and people are in a deep sleep, usually about two in the morning. You wouldn’t believe the mass of people who have a nice houses and poor locks that are easy for me to pick. I search the house’s bathrooms especially, then peek into the bedrooms. If I see a medicine bottle anywhere in the bedroom, then I rob the place when they are away from home. Sometimes I make the suckers leave their homes with phone calls telling them they have won five-hundred dollars in a lottery that both of them have to sign for (I know ahead of time whether there are one or two old people at home) and the money can be picked up at Wal-Mart or Target, or someplace that is far from home and gives me time to break into their home. This daytime risk is much more substantial, so I am exceedingly careful. If I get a bad feeling or see an anomaly I abort.
In a year or so of doing this job, I’ve only had one bad incident. That stupid fool of an old man got so angry that he came at me, was reaching for me. My hunter’s knife was handy, and I had to kill him. His wife, too. No witnesses. Can’t have witnesses picking out my picture from a cop’s photo book. I’d be in it for other crimes. A guy must protect himself, you know, and I had a no killing record too. No bad incidents for over a year until that fool came at me and his nosey wife came out of the bedroom instead of staying there so I would have to kill her. Two fuckheads. Well, they won’t need the meds now.
This job pays well, you know. Shit, man, I’ll be able to buy a new house and a new car soon. I could pay cash, but that would be too suspicious, so a mortgage will solve that problem. I may even go to Las Vegas and try my luck.
Right this minute I was going to the research laboratory to deliver the meds I stole yesterday and, of course, get paid. The lab was closed for the day, but I had the key to the back door that leads to the below ground level lab. When I entered the lab, I saw a note taped to the door window. The note told me that I should deliver the meds to the slot in the wall inside the Black Room. I had wondered what was in there but was never curious enough to ask. The note said my money was in there, too. Hot-diggity-dog. Paydays are wonderful. A fist full of dollars. That made me think of a Clint Eastwood movie. Gotta love that Clint. Cool dude.
That black door is usually closed and locked, but tonight it was wide open. I read the next line of the note. It said that the light would turn on when I closed the door. Must be an automatic sensor, I thought. But when the light came on, the door not only closed, it locked. My key was supposed to unlock the door from the inside. I dumped the meds into the slot then returned to the door with the key in hand. What the fuck! I thought, staring at the metal door where the doorknob should be. The inside of the metal door had no doorknob. The whole door was bare. I could only think, What the hell fool kind of prank is this? I rubbed my fingers across the door to find anything helpful, but my hand didn’t get far when I was painfully shocked enough to make me collapse to the floor
I tried to calm down. I took deep breaths through my nose and let the air out slowly through my mouth. Three times did the trick, but despite my heart’s rapid beating, I could think clearly. I thought, an electric sensor must be on the light. Immediately, I heard the door lock click. It wasn’t a wimpy type of click either. It was a solid, heavy slamming, dull noise, like a bolt. So, the door was open and when I walked in, with my mind distracted looking for the slot, the light turned on automatically as well as the automatic door lock mechanism, both electrically operated. That was bad news. I was stuck here. I’d been double-crossed. How long will it take to get rescued? my brain screamed at me. The internal scream came with pain, as if several banshees were puncturing my gray matter with red-hot ice picks.
The only thing black about this room was both sides of the metal door. The walls were brightly painted with disturbing swirls of psychedelic designs that hurt my eyes. It was like a place for 1960s drug users for an alternate reality, a mind-blowing kind of thing you might expect from a room built by Timothy Leary and his LSD crowd. Just what I needed, sandpaper eyes and stabbing brain pain. I sat in the corner, closed my eyes, rested my head on my pulled-up knees and fell apart, rage and fury engulfing me. What am I going to do? Then my head shot up, banging the corner, and I remembered the boxes. The lab had plenty of large boxes at the back of the room. They weren’t there the last time I came. What were they for? I stared at the low-wattage light, rubbed my temples, and tried to remember if there was any writing on those boxes. I saw red, red that formed patterns, the patterns formed letters, the letters became red-colored words. A vision came out as a blur, moving toward me, getting closer, then clarity. ACE MOVING CO. That was what one box said. Holy shit! The lab was moving to another location. “Fucking hell!” I screamed.
I thought that all I had to do was not panic and wait for the researchers to show up for work. Then I would pound on the door and one of them would open it for me. Wait. Oh, shit. The moving company would send workers to pack the boxes and move them onto their truck. One of those guys would open the door for me.
But I was still bothered by being locked in this room. Why? That lab rat and I had an almost perfect relationship. I never tried to cheat, steal, blackmail, or even intimidate him. Why would I? By my thinking, I was getting the better of the deal or, at least, I thought I was. But there isn’t much doubt now that I was locked in here intentionally.
I had a long and hard night, sleeping on the floor or against a wall. Luckily, my watch told me the time, or I would not have known what time it was. It was about ten o’clock when I felt the floor vibrate and saw dust bunnies shake off the walls. I stood still. I listened. The light bulb vibrated. I slammed and kicked the door, absorbing the electric shocks to make noise, but nothing happened. I had pounded so hard and kicked so furiously that I thought I had broken my hand and sprained an ankle. One look at my hand and I could see scorch marks in the red skin. No one came, though I thought the moving company people were out there. Depression and anger set in when I realized that this was a sound-proof room, even the door had soundproofing built into it.
I had no food or water. I knew I would not last long, though I didn’t know how long. I was now on the third day, getting weaker, losing weight, suffering from dehydration (I had already drunk my urine from cupped hands), but each day I tried to find a way out of the door or walls. I tried to kick holes in the walls but quickly found that they were reenforced with metal mesh. Each day I was shocked, sometimes making my arm numb, and chest muscles hurt.
The sixth morning, I staggered to the door and took my shock. I’d gotten used to my fate when touching the door. I was bent over from the shock I had just endured and slowly walked, bent over and weak, when I noticed a piece of lined writing-paper lying on the floor, under the wall slot. It said:
Dear Murderer, I found out that you were the
one who killed my parents. You were told,
in advance, never to go near their residence.
I even wrote the address down for you. I
informed you that my father was at a stage
of senility where he is cranky and aggressive.
You had to kill my mother, too? I don’t want
to be a killer like you, so you have one chance
of escaping the Black Room and the clue is
“ Pavlov.” Pavlov is your savior. That’s a better
chance than you gave my parents. Bastard!
After reading the message, I mumbled, “What fuckin’ nonsense is this?” I forgot and lost that reminder note. Christ almighty, that was a couple of months ago. Not my fault, and even if it was, it was because of your damn fool dad. Don’t blame me for that fool’s actions.”
Anger overcame me. My face contorted and I crumpled up the note. I threw it at the opposite wall, but it never got that far. My arm and chest hurt from that little and wasted energy. My lips were chapped, my mouth was dry, and my body so weak I could hardly stand. Christ! Even my eyes felt dry, like I had sand in them. “Who the fuck is Pavlov?” I screamed. I lost my balance, staggered backward, and fell against the door. Again, the agony of the electric shock. Later I thought I felt blisters formed on my back. I wanted to suck them, knowing they were filled with body fluid, but I couldn’t reach them. I fainted and woke up on the floor by the door.
The seventh morning I woke up to darkness. Either the light bulb blew, or the lab no longer had power. Was the power shut off? Would an electrician and other workers arrive to save me? Then I remembered that during the night, I heard a bang noise come from the door, or was I dreaming? My thought had become confused. I’ll just wait for the electricians or for the new business to move into the lab space. I needed to rest. I lay down. I didn’t want to, nor could I touch the door anymore. I tried to stand but couldn’t, so I let my body collapse to the floor. I lay there semi-conscious, staring at the door.
* * * * ** * * * * * *
A month later another business leased the laboratory space. One of the men from the ACE MOVING CO., who helped move the science lab away, was on the crew that was moving the new business into the space that the science lab once occupied. He, Mr. Adams, had been curious, five weeks before, as to what was behind that black door when he helped move the science lab to its new destination. He smiled and walked to the door. The mover looked around the room. Nobody to stop him so he grabbed the doorknob and easily opened the Black Room door. He gagged when the fetid smell hit him like a putrid washcloth in the face. He choked, covering his mouth and desperately trying not to vomit. He stared at the dead man’s putrefying body. It looked as if he were reaching for the door but couldn’t make it. Now he lay there in his own body fluids. He left the room quickly, gagging with every step. He called the police. When they arrived, they asked him a plethora of questions, asked for ID, then let him go, which he was in a hurry to do.
The police arrived within five minutes.
“Mr. Adams said the door wasn’t locked, he opened it easily, but he had been here before, with the moving company, and knew that the door had an electric lock built into it,” officer O’Dell said to his partner.
Officer Danford thought about that, then she replied, “So why didn’t he crawl out? And why was he there when the place was empty?”
“Don’t know, but Mr. Adams said that he was informed about the electricity having been turned off four weeks ago.”
Danford asked, “So that means the victim was in there for about five weeks. Maybe the door was locked for the first week, then became unlocked. This is confusing.”
“That’s possible, because the door would automatically unlock when the storm knocked out the electricity, and that happened a month ago.”
Danford grinned. “So out of being in there five weeks, the last four weeks the door was unlocked? Is that what you’re hinting at?”
“Yes,” O’Dell answered. I guess, but if it were you wouldn’t you keep trying to open the door somehow? He had four weeks when he could have walked or crawled out of that room.”
“Not unless the door stayed unlocked. What happened when the electricity was turned back on? Did the door lock again, or stay unlocked? Also, did you notice that there’s no doorknob on the inside of the room?”
“Well, yeah, but the door opens outward into the lab space. All he had to do was push the door open. Even in a weakened state he could do that easily. Just fall, roll, or push the door since it swung outward.”
“What do you make of the burn marks on his hands, forearm, and the blisters on his back, too?” Danford mumbled.
O’Dell added, “And on the outer doorknob were indications of burned paint. The door must have been electrified, so when he touched it, he got shocked. And he must have been shocked a few times, indicated by the quantity of burns.”
Officer Danford held out the crumpled paper that was found on the floor inside the room. “What’s this about Pavlov? Seems like I’ve heard that name before.”
“Yeah. Me too. In science class maybe … No, in a college psych class? Yeah, Ivan Pavlov, the Russian psychologist who did many experiments related to Classic Conditioning.”
“Oh yes, I remember now. He rang a bell every time the dog was about to be fed. Then one day he rang the bell and did not feed the dog. The dog started salivating in quantity because he was expecting to get fed. He had been conditioned to know what happens after the bell rings. But how’s that important?”
O’Dell chuckled, rubbed his hand across his lower lip and said, “Well, how does this sound? This guy killed someone’s parents. So, the perp set up this room so that the door locked when the guy — O’Dell pointed to the dead guy by making a pistol shape with his hand and fingers — went inside. Then he is left there to starve, die, whatever. But he can’t get out because the door is locked and electrified. Now the note mentions Pavlov. The classical conditioning comes in when the guy keeps getting shocked. Let’s speculate that he was shocked every time he touches the door for the first week. Then when the electricity is cut off and he can push the door open and simply walk out, he doesn’t do it because he has been classically conditioned not to touch that door. So, he doesn’t know the door has been unlocked because he won’t touch it anymore.”
Danford blurted excitedly, “Yeah. So, he’s extremely weak, starving and dehydrated to the maximum, so he just gives up and dies while in his last effort to reach the door. Of course, we don’t know when he died during the last four weeks. Maybe he died the first of those four weeks, or the second, or the third, or the fourth. The coroner will have to determine that.”
“Shit!” O’Dell cursed. “ It’s possible, that we figured it out, or part of it, or we could be entirely wrong. Maybe we missed something, or a lot of somethings. We’ll have to let the detectives determine what they think happened, then try to prove it. You think anyone could be as stupid as that? You know, staying in an unlocked room and dying when the room isn’t locked?”
“Sure I do. You do too. When we leave, look out the window at all the moral misfits, desperate homeless people, druggies, and crazies. Count the ones who you think may be stupid enough to do something like that. You won’t be able to stop counting,” Danford stated.
The idea for this story came from a poem that I wrote in 1970.
THE DOOR
Light shined through the crack
Of the slightly open door,
Brightening his room of black
With color and nature’s sweet odor.
As he slowly rose
With wildness in his eyes,
The door would always close
Followed by his frantic cries.
Soon he just waited
For the crack in the door,
Not knowing he was being baited,
Approaching the door no more.
If the doorknob is ever turned,
It will be quite a shock,
To have finally learned
That the door had no lock.
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