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Walls

Sometimes secrets are better left unsaid

By Jeff NewmanPublished about a year ago 17 min read
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If walls could talk, would they?

That is the eternal question that all humankind passing through my halls has wondered at one point in time. I, alone, know the answer to that burning question, and the answer is, quite simply, we wouldn’t. Instead, the walls that make up my persona will forever stay silent to the awaiting ears of my inhabitants. I thrive on watching the melodramas in my corridors. I gasp with excitement when I hear scintillating details and gossip, especially when it’s dark gossip, you know, the kind that is muttered under hushed tones while the target is in another room.

Yes, I see all and, more importantly, hear all.

My silent voice holds the secrets of what lies within myself, secrets that have ruined more than one life in the hundred and twenty years I have stood adjacent sentry to the cemetery. My creator had been thorough in his design. He meticulously toiled in my creation for a year, erecting each wall with care. My original purpose had been a simple, modernized, for the time undertaker’s home. But that had been over a century ago, and times have long since changed. What had been modern in those times slowly grew ancient and was replaced.

None of that destroyed me or the secrets I held.

When my life grew to six scores, I welcomed a new couple into my bosom. The wife clearly shivered at the thought of not just purchasing a home that had a sordid past but literally had been erected as a stone and wood guardian of the cemetery. My exteriors have spent many days and nights providing a watchful eye over the deceased that were properly laid to rest in unhallowed ground. The many faded headstones provided the backdrop to the side yard with a wraparound to unmarked graves in the once-upon-a-time potter’s field towards my rear.

Yes, the wife displayed apprehension, while the husband seemed gung-ho to buy the home at a rock-bottom price. Oh, what fools people are with their money. This was not the first time I had seen this same scene play out. Instead, this piece of drama served as the first salvo in what would assuredly become my next great amusement.

The realtor kept herself close to the front door, for she did not have the courage to wander further into the home. That hesitancy should have been a tipping clue to the naïve husband, but all he saw were the small dollar signs wafting in front of his eyes. The wife, I believe her name had been Nancy, took note and implored the realtor to show them around more.

“No, please, go ahead and look around. Open all the doors. Look in every cabinet. There is nothing to hide,” the woman with the blue blazer bearing the crest of her agency encouraged. Raising a hand, she continued, “Really, it’s ok. This is how I prefer to show a house.” The strained emphasis on the word "prefer" almost gave her hand away. A poor poker player she would have made.

“Come on, Nance, let’s go exploring,” the husband, I believe his name had been J. R. prodded.

I watched from all angles as J. R. grabbed his wife’s hand that day and led her further into my center. They explored room after room, leaving no proverbial stone unturned. The sizeable ornate sitting room caught Nancy’s eye. I could tell she started to have ideas and, for the first time, could start to, perhaps, see herself living within me. Only if she knew that the very place she stood had once been the viewing area where hundreds, if not thousands, of dead people had been placed for mournful vigilant watches. There would be no way for her to know that in my early days, I could have warned the families that came to watch over their loved ones if I knew that they might still be alive, albeit barely, but I never did. I figured, why spoil the fun?

J. R. and Nancy continued to move through me. I felt a growing tingle as they made their way to the sliding double pocket doors that opened into my creator’s office. Just beyond those stood a stone wall that covered up the start of my greatest secret.

When my usefulness as a mortuary had run its course, and the subsequent owners decided that residential real estate made more sense, they covered the elevator and stairway that led to my secondary basement. In that basement, my creator had installed a furnace, one that could burn so hot that flesh and bone stood little chance.

I loved the furnace. The intoxicating smell of flesh being eviscerated and the punch of bone turning to dust filled my insides. At first, I will admit it seemed cruel and harsh, but my creator often lamented that money for proper burials during the Spanish Flu outbreak just wasn’t what it once had been. No, times were tight, and those that could afford proper burials did so while others were left to my creator’s whims.

Initially, he dug shallow graves in the potter’s field section of the cemetery and tossed bodies in, sometimes two at a time. But that work grew tedious and had expenses that could never be recovered. Not to mention when the hot summer months rolled around, the stench from bodies without a shroud of wood around them in the shallow graves began to seep out, causing an even bigger stink.

That was when my creator turned to an investment that had been made a decade or more prior but had seldom been used.

The furnace was the county’s only crematorium during those days. Folks bringing their deceased loved ones to my creator could hardly fathom burning their friends and relatives' corpses. From my vantage point, I understood and, to some extent, sympathized.

Folks in the county considered themselves to be of the utmost religious order, Christians through and through. Praise be to God had been a typical response from the audience during the funeral rights held on my main floor.

But that would only be for those lucky enough to find themselves in that wooden box with the destination six feet under. A different fate awaited others, especially during those dark days of the outbreak.

Into the hot fire, the sliding slab would carry a corpse. The intense heat could melt the flesh and bone within twenty to thirty minutes. The contents that came out of the furnace fit neatly into little jars my creator called urns. Those jars were supposed to be the end of it. From ash people once came and ash they shall return, or something like that. Fancy words read from the Bible on the pulpit restored faith in people that their loved ones would find a new home in a better place.

I knew better.

My omnipotent watch could see the corpses that came into my creator’s awaiting parlor had more than just flesh attached to their skeleton. It always looked tiny, but a small orb would straddle the body. How my creator never saw it escaped any knowledge I may have picked up over the years. Perhaps, he did see it and just didn’t care. I saw it and recognized it for what it was – the person’s soul.

Over my time, I formulated a theory that even when one of the human meat puppets drops dead, their soul has a hard time letting go. I used to watch as the soul fought to re-enter the body, to re-animate it. Sometimes, if the soul got lucky, it could cause the body to twitch or spasm – even when in the coffin. The soul fought to come back every step of the way during the funeral process right up until the moment they lowered the casket into the ground. There must have been something about the earth, for it caused the orb to say its final goodbyes to the body and drift away.

From everything I had learned, this should have been the standard way of things.

But the fire changed it all.

When it first started happening, I grew appalled that my creator didn’t realize what was happening. I tried to raise my voice to ask how he could not hear the tortured screams emanating from within the furnace. My words fell on deaf ears, and after several attempts, I realized my voice wasn’t suited for human consumption.

Day after day, I could hear the wailing and gnashing from within the furnace. As it rode alongside the body into the fiery grave, the soul still clutched at the hope that redemption and another shot at life could be made. Oh, those stupid, naïve souls.

When my creator flung open the doors to the furnace, after the fires had settled and the deed carried out, what remained of the soul had blackened. It wafted in an unseen black haze and settled into me. They found solace in my plaster, wood, stone, and nails. They built a new home there, one they never could leave.

As the years grew in age, the souls I collected darkened more. Bound to an earthly plane that no longer suited them, they grew angry and malevolent. Once again, my creator did not notice. The random attack on a glass jar or the subtle push in his back down the stairs never phased him.

But those darkened spirits unionized.

Discovering they could work better in tandem, they waged war against the man that had prevented them from reaching the promised land. Oh, if they had only known clinging onto life would cost them the perfect afterlife—poor, stupid, naïve souls.

For my part, I sheltered them; it truly was the least I could do. Forever stuck on earth, forever trapped in their own private hell, I fancied myself as their protector. As they grew stronger and escalated their attacks on my creator, I turned a blind eye. That blind eye only served to fuel an unknown bloodlust.

Did I want my master killed?

Of course not. But none of that was for me to direct; the spirits had formed their own judge and jury.

When the time came for execution, they waited until the moment when my master had been loading a fresh corpse onto the sliding slab. Having decided that the fitting punishment would be death and permanent membership in their union, the blackened souls oozed from the stone walls surrounding the furnace. They slithered into position behind my creator; he never was aware. Joining together, they turned legion and pushed my creator onto that slab at just the right moment before he could pull back.

Into the furnace he went, and out from the furnace came not only the screams of a living man being burned alive but also the disintegration of his soul.

More years passed, and my creator became a permanent fixture in the union. He rose to the top of their order. I felt pride at how far he had come. Their organization preyed on every person that dared enter my front doors. Every owner over the subsequent decades succumbed to death in one grisly manner or another.

Through it all, my bloodlust never grew satiated. I always wanted more. I supposed my soul had been built on the principle of death. Being able to witness and house it, perhaps even wield it, was true power.

Each of my potential buyers knew various levels of details on my sordid past. Some cared and fled, while others couldn’t pass up what they considered a shrewd deal. The ink on the mortgage papers seldom dried fast enough before my legion started to work.

And so, the story goes for J. R. and Nancy.

On the moving-in day, my legion started to make their presence known. My creator had instructed his followers to move in slowly, for he wanted to take his time with this couple. My guess is he had grown obsessed with Nancy since she reminded him of his wife, whom he lost in the years prior to building me.

Was I jealous? Well, maybe a little. I often fancied myself as my creator’s masterpiece, the one love of his life. To watch him lurk at her from within my walls didn’t set right. The first few weeks, he would stare at her from the tiled shower as she undressed and bathed; his unseen hands reaching up behind her and caressing her breasts. For her part, Nancy never paid much attention; she chalked it up to a strange gust of chilled air that penetrated the stream of hot water from the shower head.

I knew differently.

Could I have warned her? Absolutely.

Did I want to? No.

As Nancy lay next to her husband, J. R., my creator would slip into bed beside her. He could imagine himself entering her much like he had done with his wife so long ago. This drove a mix of emotions on my part, for I loved the drama and the comedy of sex, but I felt enraged that he could want her more than he wanted me. I could read his emotions. He would gladly give up everything he had just to be mortal again and spend a night with her.

This could not stand.

The legion grew restless under this slow approach. Nancy and J. R. had now lived in the house for more than three years and had grown complacent. The minor annoyances of the haunting barely registered. Meanwhile, my creator’s infatuation with Nancy morphed into an obsession. He waited within the walls by the front door whenever she left home like a lost puppy. He lost interest in torturing the couple, much to the dismay of the legion.

That’s when I had to take matters into my own hands.

One day, when Nancy was off at work, and J. R. stayed behind, I instigated a coup against my creator and his wishes. The legion, equally eager for blood as I had been, jumped at the chance.

The assault launched itself with a smattering of destructive events. The light bulbs burst. Kitchen dishes flung themselves from cabinets and smashed on the floor. Faucets turned on, and the running water turned to blood. The TV that J. R. loved so much was ripped from the wall and thrown toward his head.

I basked in the fear that sprang forth from the human man. That sensation warmed me and my legion.

My creator, on the other hand, dictated that we stop the madness. When the directive failed to land, he implored and begged us to stop. But our bloodlust needed to be satiated, not stymied.

The legion moved in on J. R. as his hands fumbled with the phone. We all knew who he would call and could not let that happen. Instead, the legion caused the device to emit an electric shock; J. R. dropped it to the floor, where it shattered into a useless hunk of plastic.

In a blinding instant, J. R. could feel his feet being swept from beneath him. His arms splayed out to his sides. His mind fought to come to grips with what was happening, but the human mind cannot process what it cannot see very well.

The legion of blackened souls dragged J. R. from the room that had once been my viewing parlor and back through the sliding pocket doors. The stone still covered the entranceway to the furnace, but the legion didn’t need to unearth the former death chamber to complete the job at hand.

J. R. was thrust against the stone repeatedly by an unseen force much too great for him to fight against. Over and over, he felt his body slam into my stone walls. His skin ripped and bled. His bones broke, at first in his face and then rippling through his anterior. The thickness of my walls muffled his groans and screams of pain.

The legion took pleasure in beating the life out of J. R. Even if the furnace had been available, I would never have let them use it. Witnessing a murder of this magnitude provided a higher level of satisfaction, and besides, if they had burned him, he would have been trapped in my walls. I could never allow that, for I hated J. R.

When Nancy entered the front door, part of the legion held my creator back. Oh, he fought hard to rush to her, to warn her, but we could not let him. She had to discover J. R. on her own.

I always suspected the self-centeredness of the woman. Sure, she called for him when she first crossed the threshold, but that had been the extent of it. When her husband failed to answer, Nancy went about her usual routine. Oh, the nerve of that woman to try to spoil my fun.

If I had to guess, I would say it took close to an hour before she finally sensed something was amiss. Moving from room to room, she searched for her husband. After discovering the shattered remnants of his phone, she truly grew concerned.

That was when she noticed the slightly ajar sliding pocket doors.

Gingerly walking over to the doors, I could feel her heart rate increase and her blood pumping echoed throughout me. Oh, the fear felt marvelous.

Inch by inch, she strode to the doors and, upon reaching them, drew them apart slowly. She let out a gasp that bordered on a death rattle when she saw J. R. slumped against my stone wall, his blood splattered and gathering in pools.

We watched as she rushed to his side and tried to revive him. We laughed when she called for emergency help. There would be no bringing J. R. back, no matter how hard she tried or how many attempts his soul made to regain entry.

I cringed when I saw my creator emerge from the stone wall and kneel beside her. Her back twitched and shivered hard when his hand laid softly on her shoulder. At that moment, if I could have, I would have ripped her head off and smeared my creator with her blood. But, alas, my wood and stone were immovable.

The legion gathered around the room, hovering behind the protective veneer of my walls. They waited for my command to spring forth, for they were prepared to do my bidding.

My creator turned his undivided attention to me for the first time in years. He begged for her soul. He promised to lead the legion against others who dared cross my thresholds. All I had to do was grant him one final wish.

Considering the matter, I weighed my options. On the one hand, I had an army of souls that had been burned, tortured, and held from their destiny at my disposal. On the other, I had my creator. Where would I be without him?

They say sentiment gets you nowhere in life, that only the cruel, hard decisions spur you into an immortal legend. But those rules applied to humanity. I was not made of flesh and bone but instead of wood, stone, and metal. I was made to stand the test of time, to outlive all others. Only my legion and I would be immortal. Man’s legend can come and go, but I could stand for thousands of years.

Still, where would I be without my creator?

Turning to my legion, I gave the command.

Away they rushed towards my creator and Nancy, their target clearly marked. I watched as my creator grabbed hold of Nancy and shoved her out of the way. Rising, he stood to face the rolling tide of darkness that she could not see.

But my creator was not their target.

Summoning up their entire force, they blasted through the stone covering the elevator and the furnace steps. The shock to my inner self stunned me momentarily so that I did not witness them fulfilling the second half of the order.

I regained control of my faculties in time to hear Nancy’s screams emanating from within the furnace. My creator would be forever united with the darkened soul of the woman he attached himself to. I sincerely hope it will not backfire on him.

In the end, could I have warned the couple of their impending fate? Absolutely.

Did I want to? No.

If my walls could talk to the next couple to walk through my doors and tell them all my dark secrets, would they? Absolutely not. Some things are just better left unsaid.

urban legendsupernaturalpsychologicalmonsterinterview
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About the Creator

Jeff Newman

I am reading and writing enthusiast with a wide variety of interests ranging from history to horror and anything in between. I am a guitarist, self published author, movie buff, travel enthusiast, and cat dad to 13 awesome fur babies.

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