Chips of old mortar seemed to explode towards him. He stopped and pulled his tee up over his nose before he resumed his assault. Soon he had freed a brick from the inside of a double layer of bricks. He removed a few more interior bricks before he started on those which should be all that kept him from the outside and fresh air. The mortar used on the outside was more difficult to chip away at, but he managed to make some holes in the corners of the block of bricks he was working on. He stopped, turned around, and searched through the wreckage that fell with him. He smiled as he unearthed a piece of a two-by-four that he could handle. He took the piece of wood, placed it in the middle of the bricks, took a deep breath, and hammered on his end with all his might. He was rewarded with the mortar crumbling.
Burt rested a moment. He felt sick and rushed to a corner and puked. “Burt, you’ve got a concussion,” he told himself. “Rest a moment.”
His words were mostly absorbed into the moldering wall pads.
Burt walked over to his pack and pulled out one of the quart-sized water bottles and opened it. He sipped the water slowly, hoping he would be able to keep the water inside long enough for it to be absorbed in his cells. After, he returned to his project, summoning the vilest, angriest thoughts he could manage and wailed on the end of the two-by-four with the hammer. Just before it split into two, a brick cracked under the pressure, cracked in pieces, and fell outwards.
Burt tossed the wood down and stared at the small opening. He could see daylight. He used the screwdriver to chisel out a few more bricks, and when they dropped outside, he listened for them hitting the ground. When he had entered the building, he had walked up one floor when he caught sight of the shadow he followed to the facility. He had hoped this room was on the ground level. But as the second brick fell, he timed the drop and estimated that before he heard it ping off of something below, it had fallen two stories. He removed another brick, and he not only confirmed his estimation, but an added splash occurring another few stories after the ping of the ricocheting brick worried him.
The building must have been built on a hillside. He removed enough bricks to be able to extend his arm outside the wall. He took a mirror he had liberated from his mother’s junk drawer and held it in his hand. He watched as he slowly moved it around, and his heart sank as his fears were confirmed. He was in a room that overlooked the Smoky Hill River. If he tried to escape from this room, the likelihood of falling to death by first hitting the rocks on the cliffside and then drowning in the river was almost certain.
“Well, I have fresh air. Let me regroup before I use up all my energy on a fruitless endeavor.”
Burt extended his salt-line protection to reach the window. He placed a line on the sill in order to seal the protection circle. He cleared out a space, tossing into the far corner anything he couldn’t find a use for during his internment. He hadn’t given up on being able to escape out the hole he fell though, but without knowledge of the whereabouts of the ghost who attacked him in the room, he thought this was foolhardy. Burt set out all the supplies he managed to secure before he slipped out of the house yesterday morning. He mentally patted himself on the back for using a blanket to wrap around his old cassette recorder. He patted his pockets and grinned as he hadn’t lost the batteries he purchased at the gas station.
Feeling ill, he made a hard decision. He needed to rest. But while he rested, he needed to leave a record for what happened to him if he perished before he was found. After he loaded the recorder with batteries, Burt unwrapped a new plastic-cased cassette tape. He pulled out the cassette and settled it in the machine. He tested it to make sure it was recording. He pulled out the cardboard inside the case and wrote: “Important! Please get this to Mia Cooper, daughter of Charles Cooper PhD, Big Bear Lake, Illinois.” He settled it in the case, took a small drink of water, and pressed record.
“Mia, I felt you were the best one to give this to. If you’re listening to it without me with you, I’m just assuming I died in an isolation room in the Smoky Hill Home for the Criminally Disturbed. More on why I’m here later.
“I woke up three AM Tuesday morning in my bedroom in my childhood home. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but as I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, I knew something extraordinary had happened to me. I was a teenager again. Gone was my extra weight - or love handles as you were always so kind to tell me you appreciated. I backtracked to my room and picked up my Casio watch. I looked at the date and did a quick calculation. I had traveled back in time twenty years. But how?
“I stole through the house and peeked into my parents’ and my sister’s room. They were also twenty years younger. If my body hadn’t been transformed too, I would have thought perhaps I had inadvertently walked through a portal, like the ones He-who-walks-through-time makes. But here I was, Burt Hicks high school senior. I needed to see if anyone else had made the time jump, so I made plans to go down and visit Mike. Together, I thought we could piece this mess together. I’m
