Trapped

I pulled up to the old broken frame of a house in my car and got out. My best friend, Matt was waiting for me, as promised, “You were really vague on the phone.” I said, “So tell me why did I just drive thirty miles out of town to your Grammy’s old house?” As I eyed the house I fought the urge to shiver. As I scanned the structure, what was left of it anyways my eyes were drawn to the door. It was the only part of the house that didn’t quite fit.

I heard Matt sigh, “They died in the basement when one of the support beams and part of the main floor fell on them sixty years ago.”

Idly, I asked, “Who died?” I narrowed my eyes as I scrutinized the door.

“Grammy’s brother and sister, my great uncle and aunt,” I heard him kick something, a rock probably, “No one knows why, they um…” I heard him scratch the back of his neck before going on, “my grandmother said that they wouldn’t let anyone in, not even to dig out their bodies.”

I snapped my head around to look at him, and studied his face for a moment before sighing, I knew he was serious from his tone of voice, but I’d been hoping that I was wrong and that he was actually kidding. Alas, no luck on that front.

I turned my attention back to the house. I was again struck by the appearance of the door. After a moment I realized what was bugging me about the stupid door. I shivered, it was still pristine. The paint was unchipped and it didn’t have a layer of mold growing on it. After another moment of gazing at the door I turned to face him again, I had to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun to look up into his familiar dark brown eyes, “and what exactly do you think I can do about it?”

He swallowed and said, “Well… you’re into all this meta-physical stuff. I thought maybe you could do a séance or something…”

I groaned and punched my friend’s shoulder, “I am not. All I do is Rei Ki you idiot. Healing, I don’t mess around with ghosts, I freaking know better! I don’t wanna die for the vengeance of some long dead someone or other. I’ll stick firmly to the land of the living, thank you very much.”

“Please, there’s no one else I can ask for help.” He gave me his best puppy eyes look.

I groaned and turned away crossing my arms, “I hate you. Please don’t make me do this, Matt.”

Matt looked down, “They’ve been trapped in that house for sixty-odd years, my grandmother wants her brother and sister to be able to move on before she dies.” He looked back up at me, “I wouldn’t ask for myself, but you know how much she means to me. Please.”

Heaving a deep sigh I nodded once, “For your Grammy then, I’ll try. But really I don’t know anything about this, frankly, I don’t know anyone who does.”

“I thought maybe we could try talking to them.”

I rolled my eyes, “Sixty some years of going over their deaths and you think talking to them is going to help?” I sighed and focused in the house again, “But fine, we’ll try it your way first.” I motioned toward the house, “lead on, Matt. They’re your family after all…”

Matt swallowed and started walking purposefully to the front door, after a moment I followed him. He reached for the doorknob slowly acting as if he was afraid that it would burn him. When he touched the knob he grunted in surprise and commented, “Cold.”

I eyed the door warily, it was bathed in the morning sunlight. That door knob should not be cold, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I whispered.

Matt shook his head mutely, and resolutely turned the knob. I saw his arm muscles strain and he pushed the door open, as though someone was pushing against the other side trying to keep us out. I bit my lip, every instinct in my body was screaming at me not to enter that house as Matt succeeded in opening the door and took his first step into the house. I closed my eyes tight and stepped in behind him.

When I opened my eyes two steps later to look around I was surprised, the house, though dusty and run down, was fairly normal though there were knick-knacks scattered around and a broken vase on the floor next to the coffee table. The old style couch was oddly angled, it didn’t face the television squarely. As Matt walked forward I grabbed his hand for comfort despite the homey nature of his old family room, I knew I feared what else was in this house.

The two of us walked forward, Matt leading and I forcing myself to follow. This wasn’t just for his grandmother anymore, there was a persistent pain here that I found myself drawn to heal and terrified as I was I couldn’t just walk away.

The stairs to the basement were in the back of the kitchen slowly we walked through the family room with its old Television and dusty green couch.  As Matt stepped into the threshold between the kitchen and the family room the floor squeaked. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees and I shivered. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I heard a distant series of clicks and gasped as I jumped. My breath frosted in the air and I shivered again.

“Matt…” I whispered and instantly wished I hadn’t, the clicks were back and went on longer before it stopped again. Matt squeezed my hand and stepped forward again. I gulped and followed closely behind him.

The kitchen floor creaked with every step we took. The clicking noise was more frequent and did not stop. For some reason that noise made me shiver even more then the cold in that abandoned house. I wanted to cry I was so scared but I couldn’t turn and run as every instinct in my body screamed to, I could not leave alone Matt in that house and I knew he would never leave now.

We skirted the hole in the kitchen floor by as wide a margin as we could manage, sliding along the far wall sideways our eyes on the black maw that had eaten most of the kitchen and it’s furnishings. We never let go of each other’s hands though it was all the comfort we could give, by unspoken mutual consent neither of us wanted to speak again as we finally reached the stair to the basement.

We stood side by side still holding hands staring down in to the blackness. Matt took a small flashlight out of his pocket and shined down the stairwell. The clicking noise, which had been growing gradually louder as we skirt the hole, sped up.

I don’t know how long we stood the looking down the stairs when there was a flash of white at the corner of the cone of light and I had to bite my lip to keep from gasping in surprise. I’d barely mustered the wits to that muse about the white sheet thing just being a Halloween joke when the white thing I’d seen stepped into the light and Matt dropped the flash light. I screamed.

Fortunately for us, Matt had the cord around his wrist and was able to get the light up again quickly. Distantly, I heard myself whimper as I saw that now there were two skeletons in the ring of light. They seemed to be looking at us, though it was hard to tell with those empty eye sockets. The one in front cocked it’s head to the side. It’ bone jaw worked as a rasping boy’s voice asked, “What do you want?”

I heard Matt swallow before he said, “To free you.”

The skeletons shook and cold rasping laughter rang out, as the boy’s skeleton told us, “You can’t free us without coming down here.” I shivered as the unspoken ‘And if you do that, I’ll kill you,’ hung in the air like mist.

Matt stepped onto the top step, “Matt!” I hissed frantically.

Matt shook his head at me without looking around before he said to the skeletons, “Your big sister is my grandmother. She’s dying and she asked me to help you.”

The skeletons were silent. Matt must have been encouraged by this because he moved to the next step down, I tried to pull him back but he was stronger than me. When I gave up and stopped trying to pull him back up the stairs, he tried to pry his fingers from my grip. I wouldn’t let him, which told me all I need to know, despite my fear I wouldn’t leave my best friend alone in this, even if it meant my own death. Slowly shaking from head to foot I stepped down to the next step.

The second skeleton’s jaw moved as she asked, “Susan’s dying?”

Matt nodded, “She’s seventy-nine.”

After a short pause, the second skeleton asked, “We’ve been trapped down here for sixty- two years?”

Matt nodded again and the skeletons were silent again staring at us with their empty eyes. Matt took another step down the stairs.

“Did she tell you what happened to us, how we got trapped down here?”

“She said that your parents took her out for diner because it was her birthday and there was an earthquake,” Matt said.

“That’s right,” the girl said.

“They came home that night and we scared them away,” the boy skeleton said.

“We didn’t mean to, we didn’t know any better,” the girl skeleton said.

“I didn’t want them here anymore, and when the fire men came I didn’t let them find our bodies.” The boy skeleton said.

With the first trace of emotion the girl skeleton said sadly, “I wish you hadn’t. That’s why I think we’re stuck here, if you’d just let them find us we wouldn’t be here anymore.”

Matt took another two steps down the stairs and I followed. The skeletons focused on us again and the girl skeleton said, “You can’t free us, its sixty years too late for that.”

“Leave now,” the boy skeleton said. There was a dark edge to his voice that made me start to shiver again. I tugged on Matt’s hand.

“Let us help you,” Matt pleaded.

The skeletons were silent again for long enough that Matt took two more steps down. I didn’t immediately follow him down this time. I thought that the boy didn’t seem to mind being trapped in a skeleton in the basement of his childhood home. Matt squeezed my hand and reluctantly I stepped down. When the skeletons just stood there watching us Matt took the last four steps down and stepped onto the dirty carpet of the basement floor.

When I stepped down behind Matt my breath began to frost in the air again. The boy skeleton turned his empty eye sockets to me and I flinched. I’d barely closed my eyes for a second but when I opened them again the boy was less than a foot from me and staring up me, “You’re not family, why are you here?”

I gasp and stepped back as the boy skeleton put his hands up and stepped towards me again. On instinct I pulled my hand out of Matt’s and stepped back to try and protect myself. The boy skeleton’s eerie laugh rang out again. Before I could do anything he was holding me by the throat and I could barely breathe.

“Stop it!” the girl screamed.

“No!” Matt cried at the same time. My vision was diming but I saw Matt reach for me but his hand stopped in midair like he’d hit glass.

Acting on instinct again I reached my hands up to touch the bone hand clutching my throat.  The boy screamed and let me go. I fell to my knees gasping and coughing holding my throat. After a moment the pain lessened and I sighed and looked up at the boy skeleton. He hadn’t stopped screaming.

He was holding his hands out in front of his empty eye sockets, apparently watching as the bones of his fingers turned to dust. As his wrist started to collapse he looked at me and asked terrified, “What did you do to me? It burns!”

The girl skeleton stepped forward and frantically grabbed the boys shoulders as his elbows and upper arms turned to dust. The boy stopped screaming as his shoulders disappeared under the girls hands. Her hands dropped to her sides as the boy’s skull disintegrated.

Matt knelt behind me and put a hand on my shoulder as the boy skeleton slowly turned to dust. The girl skeleton turned back toward us then and I braced, “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. I only wanted to thank you. I was supposed to watch my brother that night,” her voice was fading as her skeleton began to turn to dust, “so I was trapped as long as he was.” The girl’s skeleton was gone a few moments later.

After a few moments Matt stood and offered me a hand up, I took it and stood. I was staring at the piles of dust when Matt cleared his throat, when I looked at him he asked, “What exactly did you do to the boy?”

I shook my head and smiled slightly, “I used my Rei Ki to heal him.”

Matt’s eyes widened and he blinked, “That was healing?”

I half laughed and shook my head again, “He’d held on to his fear and pain for so long that he didn’t know how else to be, that’s why he fought the Rei Ki so hard.” I turned back to the piles of dust, “It happens sometimes when someone holds on to their pain for a long time. Sometimes people fight the healing. It's really change they fear.”