by Amy Cross
They'd find her father alive somewhere.
Maybe even her mother too.
A sliver of hope remained in her chest, urging her on, telling her not to give up.
“I'm going to make everything okay,” she whispered, trying to give herself a little more confidence. “I'm not giving up. I'm not letting this house -”
Suddenly she felt a section of the floor shift slightly beneath her right hand. She looked down, horrified as she saw that she'd activated another trap, and then she turned around, trying to work out where the danger would appear.
She looked up, but there were no holes in the ceiling.
She looked down, at the gaps between the floorboards.
She looked over at the wall, tense in case anything moved.
A moment later, she heard a rumbling clicking sound from over her shoulder, and she turned to see that something was moving on the desk. The old phonograph machine, the one that had so fascinated her father earlier, was now whirring to life, and the pale wax cylinder was starting to turn.
Jenna looked around, still waiting for a spike or a blade, but then she realized she could hear a new sound.
Turning back to look up at the phonograph, she listened to a scratchy hissing sound that seemed to be coming from the machine's large trumpet-like appendage.
A few seconds later, another sound was added to the mix.
A gasping, wheezing noise, as if someone struggling to breathe.
Jenna froze, staring at the machine, waiting to see what it would do next.
“If you are hearing this message,” a man's voice said suddenly, sounding impossibly frail and scratched, “then evidently you are in the study of my little house, and you have activated mechanism 41B on the floor.”
Jenna looked down at the depressed section of floorboard beneath her hand.
“If you have made it this far,” the voice continued, “and if this particular part of the system has been switched on, then you must already be aware of the house's nature. Let me, then, welcome you to my home, and congratulate you on your achievement. My name is Cesar -”
Suddenly there was the sound of an old man coughing on the recording. The cough seemed deep and rasping, as if there was fluid on his lungs.
Jenna pulled back, still looking around in case another trap had been activated.
“My name,” the man on the recording said after a moment, his voice sounding more hoarse than before, “is Cesar Edward Marchionne, and I am the architect of this magnificent construction. I designed it, and I built it with my own two hands. Every screw, every nail, every weight and pulley, was put in place by me, and by me alone. The calculations alone took three years. Three years of solitude, of sleeping only a few hours a day. I could not make a mistake, you understand. One error, and the entire house might have ground to a halt.”
For a few seconds, the voice fell silent again. The only sound from the wax cylinder was a constant, dirty hiss, interrupted occasionally by more brief coughs.
“This is the third cylinder,” the voice continued finally, “and therefore if my instructions have been carried out correctly, you must be hearing this message at some point in the early twenty-first century. If mankind has not torn itself apart by that point, anyway. The date today, for me, is Saturday the eighteenth of November, in the year of our Lord 1899. Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria is on the throne, and that bastard Cecil holds the office of Prime Minister. The war with the South Africans has still not been won, though I am sure that day will come soon, and we await the dawn of the twentieth century. I am not sure, though, that I will last long enough for that. My health...”
His voice faded for a moment.
Jenna stared, wide-eyed and in shock, as she heard more coughing on the recording. After a moment, she turned and looked through to the hallway, and she saw the framed photo of Cesar Marchionne still on the wall.
“The world worships men such as Edison and Marconi,” the voice sneered, “while ignoring the likes of Tesla and myself. This is an outrage, and I will not stand for such idolatry and -”
He began coughing again, and this time it sounded as if he was bringing up some kind of fluid.
Turning, Jenna crawled to the study's window and pulled the curtain aside. She immediately saw that the glass was reinforced.
“This house,” the old man's voice continued after a moment, “is my greatest creation. It is the house that will stand the test of time. I had thought once, in my naive youth, that the world would appreciate great achievements for their pure scientific value, and for their ability to help mankind. In my old age, however, I see the truth. The world values only those advancements that promote death and warfare and killing. If a man were to invent a machine that gave eternal happiness, he would be laughed into poverty. If he were to invent a machine that delivered pain and misery, an instrument of exquisite torture, he would be given all the riches of mankind, and worshiped as a genius. And so it is, that I deliver my house. My machine will now play a recording from the first cylinder, from the very first victims who died within these walls. By my estimation, they should have been killed some time around the fourth decade of the next century.”
Jenna turned and watched in horror as suddenly the wax cylinder was lifted up by a mechanical arm, while a second arm took another cylinder from the wall and loaded it into the phonograph. As with everything else in the house, the process was quick and carefully timed,with the various mechanisms seamlessly keeping out of one another's way.
Suddenly she heard a new recording, this time filled with terrified, frantic screams.
“Mama lost her head!” a girl's voice cried out. “Papa's still in bed! Mama lost her -”
The voice was broken by another, louder scream that seemed a little further off.
Jenna waited, staring with wide-open, shocked eyes as the recording continued to play.
“Mama lost her head,” the girl's voice continued finally, sounding more horrified and panicked than before. In the background of the recording, the house's familiar ticking could be heard, and a moment later there was the sound of something heavy slamming down. “Mama lost her head. Papa got cut up, and then Mama lost her head. Help me. Please help me. Mama lost her -”
Suddenly the girl screamed.
The recording cut out as the mechanical arm lifted the cylinder, and then another cylinder was put in its place.
Once again, there was the sound of a scratched, hiss-filled track. This time, Jenna realized she could hear fainter, more distant voices. She didn't dare go anywhere near the machine, but something about the voice seemed a little familiar, as if she'd heard them before somewhere.
“Dad!” she suddenly heard her own voice shouting. “Dad, please! Dad, you have to help! Please, you can't -”
The recording ended as the cylinder was lifted out of place, and the first cylinder was slipped back into position.
“I hope that my point has been made,” Cesar Marchionne's voice continued. “I have no way of knowing, of course, what you just heard, but I trust that my machine has preserved some record of the deaths that have occurred in this house. That is what the world wants, is it not? Pain, and death, and misery and torture and suffering? That is what mankind values most highly.”
Still Jenna waited, not daring to move as she heard the old man coughing again. After a moment, she turned and started examining the window again, searching for some weak spot she could exploit.
“I want the world to know one more thing about me,” Marchionne's voice continued. “I am not a monster. For the past twenty years, I have been working on a machine that delivers perpetual movement and energy. I was mocked and told that such a thing was not possible, but eventually I achieved success. I tested the machine extensively and proved beyond doubt that it works, and that it had the potential to solve all of humanity's problems. Mr. Tesla and Mr. Edison and Mr. Marconi would kneel in awe if they saw a demonstration of the device, but the world...” He seemed to pause for a moment. “The wor
ld was not interested,” he continued, sounding increasingly bitter. “No-one would pay me a penny for the final development work that the machine needed. It could have been used to end all suffering, all hunger and famine in the world, but too many men make their fortunes instead from misery and pain, so my genius was ignored. Finally I saw that I could fight the world no longer, so I destroyed the machine, and all the plans and documents associated with it. Once I die, which will happen soon, the world will lose the possibility of that device forever.”
There was another sound from the recording now, as if the old man was trying to laugh.
Finding a screw in the window, Jenna peered closer and began to wonder if there might be some way to disassemble the entire frame.
“But I leave this house instead,” the voice explained. “A machine designed to kill and torture. After all, that is what the world wants, is it not? Killers and murderers are lauded as geniuses, while men who seek to help are swiftly forgotten. I, Cesar Edward Marchionne, refuse to be forgotten. This, then, is my contribution and my legacy. I have no doubt that it will function as intended. Enjoy my killing machine. Perhaps now, the world will at last recognize my genius.”
The recording continue to crackle and hiss for a few more seconds, before the wax cylinder was slowly raised from the machine and slotted back into one of the wall cavities.
For a moment, all Jenna could do was turn and stare in wide-eyed horror as the machine fell still and silent. She was genuinely considering the possibility that she'd lost her mind, that somehow she was experiencing some kind of psychotic break and was actually imagining it all. Reaching down, she pinched her arm, hoping against hope that a flash of pain might suddenly wake her and prove that she was simply dreaming. When that failed to work, however, she turned and look toward the hallway.
“Mum?” she called out, almost too scared to move in case another trap was triggered. “Dad? Please...”
She waited, but all she heard was the constant ticking sound that filled the house.
Turning, she looked at the window and realized that she needed to find a screwdriver. After a moment, however, she realized that even if she knew where to find such a thing, she couldn't risk a journey to another part of the house. She stared at the glass for a moment, feeling a slowly growing sense of anger, before finally she got to her feet and took a couple of steps back. If she couldn't think her way out of the house, she figured, she might at least be able to use brute force. Holding up the broken baseball bat, she paused for a moment before smashing it against the pane, only for it to bounce off harmlessly.
“I can break this thing,” she said out loud, hoping to find some more strength.
This time, she aimed the bat at the very bottom corner of the window, but still she couldn't make so much as a scratch.
“I can break it,” she said again, before hitting the same spot.
Again the bat glanced off the glass.
Leaning closer, she examined the impact site and saw that there wasn't even a mark.
“I can break this window,” she said firmly, moving back slightly so that she could get a better swing. “I can do it. I'm strong enough.”
This time, she let out a cry of anger as she swung the bat at the glass, but once again she was unable to make any progress. Filled with a growing sense of fury, she tried again and again, each time hitting the glass as hard as she could manage but each time failing to make even the slightest dent. Unable to hold back, she slammed the bat against the window over and over, determined to break through, but the glass continued to hold.
“Let me out!” she screamed, hitting the glass again. “Let me out of this house!”
She kept trying, though, over and over and over until finally after a couple of minutes she slumped back, exhausted and frustrated. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at the glass, and then one final burst of anger pulsed through her chest and she launched another furious attack that yet again failed to make a mark.
“What the hell is this thing made of?” she shouted, trying one final time before tossing the bat aside and leaning closer to the window. She was starting to feel impotent, as if all her rage and fury might never be enough.
Placing her fingertips on the edge of the frame, she began to search for some sign of weakness, maybe a crack or a small gap that she could exploit.
“I'm not trapped,” she said breathlessly, hoping to find some more confidence from somewhere. “There has to be some damage. I'm going to get out of here -”
Stopping, she realized she could see a very faint line in the wood at the corner. She couldn't be sure, but she quickly told herself that it might be the first sign that her barrage of blows had worked. Keeping her left hand on the frame, she turned and reached for the bat.
“So much for -”
Suddenly she heard a clicking sound, followed by what seemed to be metal sliding down. A fraction of a second later, she realized she could feel the window-frame shuddering.
She turned, just as the blade slammed down and sliced off the fingertips of her left hand.
“No!” she screamed, pulling back as she felt a burst of pain. Staring at her hand, she saw that the top quarter-inch of each finger, excluding her thumb, had been sliced clean away. The blade had cut straight through the nails, and she could just about make out white stubs of bone poking out through the bloody, meaty stumps.
Frozen by the sight, she stared helplessly for a moment as beads of blood began to run down her fingers.
Turning to look at the window, she saw that the blade was now covering the glass pane. At the very bottom of the blade, there was a small streak of blood. A couple of seconds later, the blade began to rise and she saw her four fleshy little fingertips resting on the sill.
“No,” she stammered, as the stinging pain became unbearable. “Please, please no...”
Staggering to her feet, she looked down at her fingers and then started wrapping them in the fabric of her t-shirt. The pain was getting worse and worse, and after a moment she realized she could feel blood soaking through the shirt and reaching her bare belly beneath. Filled with panic, she tried to work out what to do next, before quickly realizing that even if there was an emergency kit in the bathroom, she couldn't risk going back up there to search.
Taking a step back, she watched as the blade disappeared into a slit at the top of the window.
“Oh God,” she whispered, trying to wrap her damaged hand tighter and tighter into the fabric of her t-shirt, before finally pulling it free and staring at the four damaged fingertips.
For a moment, her hand trembled as she watched blood dribbling down onto her palm. As her sense of shock began to fade, however, she felt anger bursting through her chest, until finally she grabbed the remains of the baseball bat and made her way over to the phonograph machine.
“You want to be remembered for something?” she asked, staring at the wax cylinders and thinking back to the ghostly voice that she'd heard just a few minutes ago. “Try this!”
She raised the bat high and then swung it down, smashing the side of the machine and sending the amplifier crashing to the floor. Whereas she'd been unable to damage the window, she had no trouble wrecking the phonograph, and each blow sent more and more pieces of machinery clattering to the floor until all that remained was the metal base that was bolted to the table. Still she didn't stop hitting the device, though, venting her frustration and anger as the wax cylinders were sent crashing across the room.
Finally, breaking into a sudden series of sobs, she took a step away. She was out of breath now and still in pain, but the sight of the wrecked machine at least made her feel as if she'd been able to strike back.
She paused for a moment, but fresh anger was already starting to bubble up through her chest as she heard the constant ticking sound behind the walls.
“You want to hurt my family?” she whispered, feeling as if she had to let her anger out. Anger, at least, was better than pain. “No way. No goddamn way, you psychopa
th!”
With that, she raised the broken bat and started smashing it against the nearest wall, hitting the wood again and again until cracks and splits began to run through the panel. For the next few minutes, she launched into a furious rage, smashing the wall harder and harder, finally ripping sections of plaster and wood away and sending them flying across the room. Nothing could satisfy her, but the sense of pure anger in her heart was enough to push her onward, trashing the wall and revealing more and more of the complex mechanism beneath.
With another cry, she tore away the next part of the wall, uncovering more of the gears, pulleys and other systems that had for so long been hidden away.
Stepping back, exhausted by her efforts, she took a series of deep breaths as she watched a set of blades trundling past the exposed gap in the wall, as if the house's giant mechanism was moving them to another location. A moment later she spotted a long metal spike with blood smeared on its side, and she realized with a slow sense of horror that she'd found one of the spikes that had been launched up through the stairs earlier into her mother's chest.
Edging closer, she examined the mechanism and saw a set of tightly-coiled springs at the spike's base, along with a bronze wedge that seemed to be keeping the spike in place. Several thick wires ran through to other parts of the wall, no doubt part of the system that would activate the spike if someone pressed on the right step at the right time. Making her way to the doorway, she leaned through and looked up the stairs, and sure enough she realized that the spike – if activated – would shoot out through a hole at the edge of the sixth step.
Right where her mother had pushed her aside earlier.
Where her mother had thrown her own body in the way.
For a moment, Jenna simply stared at the empty step, before looking down at the floor and seeing the blood trail. Finally she made her way back into the study and saw the spot where the trail abruptly ended.
“Where are you?” she muttered, looking around the room. “Where did you go? Did you crawl away, or...”
