"In the Room" (2013)

I had never heard of Bentley Little before reading this impressive story, but I see he's had a prolific and accomplished career, with lots of nominations and awards. He's also something of a recluse and prefers to call his work "horror" instead of "suspense" or "supernatural fiction." All these things make me like him more but it started with this story, which must have hit me just right. "In the Room" is not even mentioned as one of Little's stories on Wikipedia, let alone getting its own article. It makes me think some of his other stories might be even better. The strongest feature here feels inspired and profoundly uncanny, but it's just a simple phrase that is repeated with some variations: "In the room, I do my dance." They're the last words his father says to the first-person narrator before he disappears—abandons his family. I would be interested in hearing more about the genesis of this story. It reminds me of an episode of the TV show Six Feet Under where Nate discovers that his father secretly rented a studio apartment where he goes to hang out, smoke dope, and play records—his father's secret place of freedom. In this story lots of people have secrets, or seem to, or at least seem to know secrets exist. "In the Room" starts strange and harrowing. We get the abandonment story first, and then it gets more strange and more harrowing. People go mad. They disappear. They behave in ways that don't make sense. The father leaves when the narrator is 10. When he is in high school a girl invites him to a Sadie Hawkins dance. He says he can't dance but she says she will show him. "In the room, I do my dance," she says, and it works on us nearly as much as on our guy. At the dance, the girl goes mad, and the narrator never sees her again. In college, he gets an English degree and wants to be a writer. His day job is teaching school. One day, shopping for supplies, a woman he does not know tries to get his attention. He ignores her but she finally catches up with him at his car:

"Can I help you?" I asked.
"In the room," she said softly, "you can write your story."

It piles on from there, all thoughtfully layered, until finally we actually arrive at the room. His father is in there, his Sadie Hawkins date, many others. It feels crowded in this dreamscape. Someone suggests, "In the room, you can kill your father." "In the Room" is a remarkably good, remarkably effective horror story and I love it for exactly that. Even the phrase itself now feels haunted. I listen for people saying "in the room." I want to hear it again and know what they mean.

Cemetery Dance #71
Turn Down the Lights, ed. Richard Chizmar

Story not available online.