The Secret Manuscript

by Edward Mullen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fall arrived and with that came the start of a new school semester. Kyle had earned a scholarship, enabling him to continue his studies. He was pursing his Master’s degree at the University of Calgary, and spent most of his time on campus either working in the lab, or attending classes.

  Ben awoke to an empty house, which was exactly what he needed to start the day writing. He went downstairs, made a pot of coffee, and sat in front of his computer. His writer’s block had ended. When his fingers hit the keyboard, words emerged on the screen.

  The rough concept of the story was to describe a character, similar in nature to himself — a misanthropic orphan riddled with issues. He used the name Ben as a placeholder, but vowed to change it to something else later. Ben had not really outlined the plot, but decided to start writing anyway and hope some bolt of creativity would continue to come down from the muses and inspire him until the end.

  At one point in the afternoon, Ben decided to walk around the house to increase his blood flow. Now that the house had electricity, the basement was not so dark and scary. Other than the first exploration down there, he had yet to return. However, with the courage of a brave soldier, Ben marched down into the cold and eerie basement once again. Looking around from the midway point of the staircase, he envisioned what the basement would look like if it were completely renovated.

  He sauntered around the basement without an agenda. He headed down the narrow corridor and into each bedroom. The breadth of the rooms still bothered him. He walked into one of the rooms and pounded his fist on the far wall. There was a hollow echo, indicating it was not concrete on the other side. Without having a fully formulated hypothesis, he casually walked into the neighbouring room and again pounded his fist on the far wall. It emitted the same hollow sound.

  He looked around, but did not see anything unusual so he exited the room. On his way out, he flicked the light switch off and proceeded down the corridor the same way he came in. Once at the end of the corridor, he stopped and turned around. Something unusual caught his eye that he had taken for granted before. At the far end of the corridor, there was a large cabinet nestled against the wall. It was peculiar indeed since the rest of basement was devoid of any furnishings. Had there been any other furniture down there, he would not have thought anything of it, but on its own, it stuck out. Given that Mr. Gringer was known for his occasional odd behaviour, Ben was especially perceptive to spot any oddities.

  Ben walked down the corridor to take a closer look at the cabinet. Upon inspection, he did not notice anything particularly unusual about it. There were no strange markings, nothing in the drawers, and nothing underneath it. There it was, on its own, without any indication to what it was doing abandoned at the end of a lonely hallway in the basement.

  Ben casually tried to move the cabinet, but it would not budge. He tried again, this time using both hands and was able to move it about a foot away from the wall, allowing him the space to inspect all around it. He was not sure what to expect; he was merely satisfying his curiosity. The wall behind the cabinet was bare. Similarly, the back of the cabinet was devoid of anything of interest.

  When he had seen enough, he shoved the cabinet back into place. With one mighty push, the unit hit the wall behind it, emitting the same hollow echo as the other walls. It was obvious the walls were built in front of the concrete retaining wall, but why? In a house this small, it would not make a lot of sense to do that since it would decrease the square footage. Ben struggled with this mystery, but came up with no viable explanations. He walked into the main room and started checking the rest of the walls. He pounded his fist against each one and they all made a solid thud sound.

  Very peculiar, he thought.

  He convinced himself it was nothing more than his imagination and dismissed the investigation completely. He went back upstairs and did not give the issue another serious thought.