Free The Mephistophelean House by Benjamin Carrico Page A

Hmmmmnnzzzzzzz. There are a lot of doors that need locking…”
    “How can I free my friends?”
    “First the Doctor. Then your friends.”
    “No."
    “You don’t get it, do you? Have you looked at yourself? There. Look,” the hulking giant pointed at the mirror.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Look!”
    I seized the hulking giant by the shoulders.
    “Help me!”
    “The Doctor keeps the key inside his cursed locked red box, but if you want to take it from him be the one that he forgot.”
    “But you’ve got to help me!”
    “You’ve got to go, you’ve got to try, you’ve got to take him out, pretty soon a weaker fever starts to set you out, you may try to run away but in the end you’ll be found out, for the Doctor never lingers over those who would cast doubt.”
    “Why don’t you help me?”
    “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
    “What don’t I know?”
    The hulking giant pulled a straightjacket from the locker and a bottle from his pocket. “Take this laudanum. I’ll expedite you to the Bolgia. You will not be forced to dwell upon the misfortunes of others although you’ll hear grisly screaming from ancient ghosts howling over their second death. The Doctor paints in pain. Look,” the hulking giant peeled the restraint, “the arm-locks have reverse catches. You can free yourself with a flick of your wrist. We'll try it out before we go.”
    “Tell me what you know.”
    “The Doctor and I went to school together. I was the pessimist. He, the optimist. I set out to prove what I believed. He set out to believe what he proved. Somehow, over time, our roles reversed. We meant to meet up in the middle, but ended up going our own way.”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “One day I looked into the mirror and beheld that which I feared.”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “For that which I feared possessed me. I saw It in the mirror. It was always there. To be conscious of It is to be cursed by consciousness. Free will is not an illusion. Free will takes over your life. You dream you are free. But you are not. Free of dreams you are not free at all. Free will is a paradox. Call it what you will. To Hell we must him send, or else this day will never end, things will always stay the same, it will never cease to rain.”
    And the hulking giant, Roland Andrews, pointed to the clock on the locker.
    “When did you arrive?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Has night come?”
    I rubbed my eyes.
    I couldn’t believe it was day.
    “And do you not grow fatigued?”
    “Yes.”
    “There’s only one left, now.”
    “One?”
    “One of 174.”
    “174?”
    “The last piece in the puzzle. The only thing standing in his way. One missing piece. 1 of 174.”
    The hulking giant offered the straightjacket.
    An icy twinge mid-lined my gut, the hulking giant’s face splintering in boils, eyes rolling back in his head, the boiler room bursting open, a cacophony of lightning and thunder.
    “Number 174.....number 174, have you found what it is you were looking for?”
    “What do you mean, number 174?”
    “Do you abhor, number 174, what it is, you’ll be made to account for?”
    “What can I do?” I screamed.
    “A surgeon’s knot, a secret plot, involving X which marks the spot, a hangman’s noose tied too loose by hands he used and then forgot."
    The peeling wall.
    The cot.
    The mirror.
    “Number 174, Number 174, are you sorry for the things that you left on the floor?”
    “Things? What things?”
    The broiler.
    The laudanum.
    The straightjacket.
    “What did I do?”
    Pebbles of hail bounced on the goblin-green grass, grape stumps, fern wedges, sitka and laurel, tanoaks with star shaped piths disemboguing an invulnerable wall of thorns. The red brick path was dirgelike through the careworn, waxy trees.
    “What reason do I have not to trust him? He could have just as easily delivered me to the Doctor. It doesn’t make any sense.”
    I looked down.
    There was blood on the grass.
    “If I can