Free Me
Stan stared at the brick wall before him. The faded red, orange, and brown colors, with grey mortar keeping them from falling apart, stared back at him from behind his demolished wall. The torn apart drywall was only the first layer to feel the wrath of his determination. The gap he had made looked like he had ripped a hole through the universe and into another time. The brick and mortar looked as old as life itself, walled up long ago during a time he couldn’t even fathom. He knew his house was old, but this wall looked like it was at least a century old.
The brick wall was hopefully the last layer before his ultimate goal, to attain whatever was sealed inside. It called out to him, the voice from within. It was so close; he could feel it just on the other side.
“Honey, you want anything while you’re working down there?” It was his wife’s voice, coming from the main level of the house.
“No, I’m fine,” yelled back Stan. His mind was transfixed by the walled up layer set up in front of him. It was only one more obstacle, and hopefully the last, before he would obtain his treasure.
“Are you sure? You’ve been down there for quite a while. What are you doing?”
“I’m just checking out a few things pertaining to the structural foundation,” Stan replied to his wife. It wasn’t the truth, but it was a valid excuse for his behavior.
“You’re doing what?” Mary was starting to come down the basement stairs, curious as to what her husband was spending all of his Sunday on. She was about halfway down before Stan stopped her.
“You’re probably not going to want to see this,” he said. He almost shouted for her to stop, but he knew yelling at her would only make her more intrusive than she already was. “I had to tear a hole in one of the basement walls. After seeing that episode on the news about shoddy construction in the local area, I found out our basement walls weren’t properly made.”
“Oh, my God.” She sounded genuinely concerned as she continued to make her way down the stairs. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything is fine,” he said, quickly assuring her of her safety. “I’m going to reinforce some of the walls, though, just in case.”
“But you’re sure everything is fine? The house isn’t going to come crashing down on us or anything?”
“No, no, no. We’re fine. The house is fine. Everything is fine.”
“Are you sure? Do you need anything?”
“Yes, everything is okay. Why don’t you start making dinner? It’s getting kind of late in the afternoon. What were you going to make for supper?” He tried to keep her mind preoccupied with something other than what he was doing, and dinner was only a couple of hours away.
“I’m making a homemade sausage pizza. It’s in the oven now.”
“Sounds delicious, honey. I’ll be up in an hour or so, okay?”
“Alright, don’t hurt yourself down there.”
“I won’t, Mary. You have my word. Make sure Benny is working on his homework.”
Stan’s wife was heading up the stairs as she called back down to her husband. “Oh, he’s busy working hard on his Social Studies project. I told him he couldn’t have dinner until he’s done.”
Stan ignored what his pathetic wife had to say, focusing on the more important task before him. With her ramblings soon forgotten, he glared at the brick wall with eagerness. He was so close.
He turned up the volume of the radio he had on; it was some station playing old 80s-style music. He wanted to make sure what he did next wasn’t so loud to disturb Mary and his son upstairs.
Picking up the sledgehammer leaning against the wall to his right, he prepared himself for an intense workout. He raised the heavy weight over his head and brought it down against the bricks with all of the force he could muster. A few chips flew off the aging structure, with several of them striking his face. Stan grinned to himself, noticing the wall wasn’t as sturdy and secure as it looked.
He would soon break into the sealed chamber, freeing the voice that called out to him. The voice that made him ache with sorrow for the woman that screamed and wailed into his thoughts. She haunted his dreams and every waking hour of his life. Her cries could be heard from miles away. There was no escaping the woman trapped in Stan’s basement. Her voice was constant. It wouldn’t stop until she was finally free.
It started a week ago, when an earthquake in a nearby town rattled the local community for several seconds. Stan and his family didn’t receive any physical damage to their house, but it disturbed a presence formally silent for close to three hundred years. Awakened, but trapped like a prisoner, the voice called out to whoever could hear it. He heard it as soon as the earthquake stopped, invading his dreams like a bug slowly eating away at his brain. It screamed at him during the day, while keeping him up at night. After two days of receiving no sleep, he followed the woman into the basement. Pressing his head up against the wall located under the stairs, he could plainly hear the trapped soul imprisoned behind.
Free me.
The brick wall was slowly diminishing behind Stan’s determined hammering. It wasn’t soon before a small, fist-sized hole was punched through the barrier. He set his sledgehammer down and leaned in close to look through the puncture. Old, musty air escaped through the darkness inside, blowing into his face as he tried to peer through the hole. It was too dark and dusty to see anything exciting, so he picked up his tool and kept at his project.
Using as much strength as he could muster, he focused his attention on the small opening he had created. After several more blows, larger chunks and whole bricks began to fall. When the hole was big enough for him to climb through, he stopped his destructive pounding, not wanting to chance the structural support of the aging chamber.
As the dust settled, he set down his sledgehammer and turned off the radio. He picked up the flashlight he had brought down from the garage and turned it on, shining the large beam through his hole. He still couldn’t see much on the other side of the brick wall, so he cautiously stepped into the room that hadn’t held a living person for hundreds of years.
Stan cast his light back and forth across the narrow, but deep, room. It was only four feet across, but when he shined his light farther down the room he could see it went at least fifteen feet in from where he was standing. The floor and walls were covered in a thin layer of dust. An ancient scent of death and mystery filled his nostrils as the familiar voice echoed through his brain.
Free me.
And then he saw her.
Stan walked deeper into the tomb, keeping his flashlight fixed on the figure so he could get a better look. There she was, propped up against the back wall like a creepy marionette puppet. The body was nothing but dried-up skin wrapped tightly around a skeletal frame. Dark, scraggly hair protruded from her scalp, blocking any view of the dead woman’s face. Clothes that hung from the body were nothing but tattered, old rags. Her arms were raised above her head, with her hands concealed behind strange casings that were chained to the wall above.
A sight like this would normally frighten him, but the feeling he got from being so close to the woman just made him anxious to release her. Her voice was so loud and strong, now.
Free me!
He carefully crept closer to the decayed form, never moving his light from her body. He half expected the figure to jump at him from her chained hands, like so many horror movies he had seen in the past. But he knew she would never harm him.
Inching closer, Stan peered at the chains that held the woman in place. They looked intricate; whoever made them did not want the person to have any use of their hands. Rusted casings completely covered her hands, looking like reddish-brown metal ones had replaced them. The chains looked frail, but not frail enough to pry loose with his bare hands. He would need the sledgehammer to break them.
Walking back to the wall he had destroyed, he paused for a minute to listen. He could faintly hear the television upstairs, most likely his son watching cartoons, and the sounds of Mary walking back and forth in the kitchen. After making sure no one was curious about his business, he grabbed his tool and disappeared back into the prison.
He placed his light on the floor, leaning it against the wall so it pointed up at the chains. Raising the heavy sledgehammer above his head, Stan brought it down against the cuffs. With a loud clanking sound, they loosened a little but still held together. With two more swings, the chains broke and shattered to the floor.
She was finally free.
Stan reached his hands out to touch her, feeling himself being drawn in by her magnificent powers. Once his fingers touched her fingers, her body twitched and suddenly bolted upright, arching forward in a backbreaking position. Her head snapped back, revealing her hideous decayed face. Black, empty eye sockets stared at the ceiling while her mouth stretched open in a silent scream.
Fear quickly replaced Stan’s excited feelings. He wanted to run, but his body felt heavy and rigid like a stone statue. He tried to pull away from the reanimated corpse, but his fingers wouldn’t budge from her fingers. Life was draining from him, transferring itself into the woman who was quickly changing before his eyes.
Before everything went black, the woman radiated a light of beauty and youth that violently exploded outward in all directions.
Antoinette could feel the power coarse through her body, restoring her life and giving her the energy she had been denied for hundreds of years. Years she would never get back from being trapped in isolation. Time that had chipped away at her consciousness, trying to destroy her soul. But she was stronger than her captors thought. Her anger fueled her restoration, and as soon as she was whole, she sent the overflowing power outward, destroying anything and everything around her.
When she was done, Antoinette opened her eyes to look at her surroundings. A large crater surrounded her, created from the powerful explosion of her awakening. Smoldering ruins lay at the edge of the crater, the only remains that made up the prison she was unjustly caged in. As smoke billowed around her, she used her hands to clear a path through the smell of firewood and burnt flesh that came with the structure she had just incinerated.
Walking away from her destruction, she came along a dark, hard surface laid out in front of her. Knowing it was a road, from the recently acquired memories of the late Stan, she felt the rough surface against her bare feet. A cool breeze, something she hadn’t felt in ages, brushed against her skin. Gasps and startled chatter drew her gaze to people and families walking out of nearby homes, rattled and terrified over their neighbor’s house exploding.
Noticing she was almost completely naked, she realized how silly and odd she must look standing in front of a burning hole in the ground. Casting a spell with her hands, Antoinette vanished from the people’s eyes. She was still there, of course, but the invisibility cloak would last long enough to let her casually walk away without drawing any further attention.
Feeling the fresh air enter her lungs, Antoinette grinned to herself, knowing she was finally free. She was once again free to do as she wished. She was free to use her powers however she saw fit. But most importantly, she was finally free to exact revenge on the descendants of those who wronged her. Still invisible to the gathering crowd around her, she made her way down the street, feeling the re-energized power pulsate through her body. Her revenge would be sweet.
