Samuel hung up from his mother and sat down to think. Now he knew who he was dealing with. He just had to figure out how to make him go away. He started talking to him, but not in a kind way. He told him this was not his house any more, he couldn’t control his family any more, he wasn’t alive any more. Samuel got up and threw a vase that had been sitting on a table through the plate glass window. He was mad. He was going to destroy anything that made his family uncomfortable or unhappy. If that meant destroying this house one piece at a time, that is what he would do. He was going to destroy everything until his uncle of his own name left the house and his family.
All these years, they had lived in terror of the circumstances of this house. No more, this was the last night his uncle would live in this house as a spirit. He would do everything he could to make him leave. Samuel was also mad because no one had ever told him the secrets of this house. He could have avoided this whole thing and lived a normal life, like everyone else. But this is how it was going to end. It was a battle with a dead uncle, and he was going to win.
Samuel spent the next day talking to his dead uncle, and telling him to leave. He went through he house destroying things, making messes, breaking glass. He left everything just the way it was. He knew this is what made his uncle mad, but his uncle had to go. As this battle went on, his uncle fought back by try hurt Samuel. Samuel didn’t care though, he was willing to die to protect his family. He didn’t know his uncle very well before he died, and now he didn’t care for him at all. Samuel was ducking pictures as they flew off he walls, and trinkets that flew across the room. He would last this battle as long as his uncle wanted to fight. He was crazy with anger at the dead man.
Samuel avoided the kitchen and den, he knew he could be seriously injured by the potential weapons in those rooms. As the fight went on, he yelled at his uncle to leave, get out of his house and never return. The house was being destroyed. Holes were being punched in walls, and the floor was taking all the abuse of the falling objects. Samuels wife and children had spent so many hours keeping this house in perfect condition, and now it was torn apart. The rooms that had previously been set up in the most perfect places, were now in a state of total disarray.
Vanessa would be scared to death to see the house in this condition, but it made Samuel feel relieved. The more that was destroyed, the better he felt. He broke the other plate glass window, and watched the glass shatter to the ground on the outside. He would make sure no one else ever saw the horrible things that had been seen in these windows. No one would be scared of his family again. No one would feel threatened by what they saw when they looked in the windows of this house.
After tearing the house apart on the inside for more hours than he was aware of, Samuel finally felt exhausted. He was spent from fighting for so many days. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time and hadn’t ate since his wife and children left. Samuel sat down in the nearest chair that hadn’t been totally destroyed. He started to fall asleep, when the lamp came hurling across the room at him. He reach up and grabbed it with his last bit of energy, and threw it back in the direction it came from.
When he did this, he felt the energy leave the room. It went dark, and the room got cold. A loud wind seemed to blow through the whole house. Then the house went silent. Nothing moved, not Samuel or anything else in the house. It was still for the first time in many days. Samuel closed his eyes, just to get some rest for a moment, he was too tired to go any more. He decided if he was going to die in a battle with a dead man, he would go now, at least he knew his wife would never return to this house. Not if he died in it, and she would never have to know what went on while she was gone.
When Samuel opened his eyes again, it was dark and he didn’t know how long he had been asleep. He was surprised he even woke up, he thought for sure his uncle would have killed him while he slept. He looked at his watch, and realized it had been ten days since his wife had drove away with the children to a safe place. He missed them and wanted to call to say he was still alive, but didn’t want to take the chance of this quiet being a false alarm. He knew his uncle was a mean spirit and would stop at nothing to get his house back in order, the way he wanted it to be.
Samuel was bloody from being hit with the objects that adorned his once lovely home. These things that he and his wife had so carefully picked out from store shelves and tag sales. These same items are what was used to threaten him to return the house to its perfect condition, with each item in just the perfect spot, facing just the perfect direction, at all times. They all meant nothing now. They were just things that could be replaced, if they had to. He had to have his family back.
Samuel got up and went to the bathroom on the first floor to wash up. He was still leery of going into the kitchen where the knives were. He cleaned up as much as he could and walked out of the house and down the street to the deli in the shopping center. He didn’t know when the last time was that he ate, but he knew he was hungry. As he left the house, he could hear things start to move around inside the house again.
Samuel stopped when he heard this start again. He was insane with rage and hunger at the same time. He took a pack of matches out of his pocket, went back to the house, struck several matches and threw them at the base of the house, right by the gas main. Then he turned and walked away, one last time.
As he approach the deli, he heard a loud explosion and it almost knocked him to the ground. He was surprised it took this long for the house to explode, but he calmly walked into the deli and ordered a sandwich. He then went and picked up a soda and a bag of chips, and chose a table to wait. As he did this, he heard the sirens of the fire engines roaring past. He knew they were going to his house, and he hoped they would be too late to save the building. He wanted it burned to the ground, along with everything inside. Samuel sat and quietly ate his first food in days, while the local fire department tried to save his house.
After he ate, he called Vanessa and told her all that had gone on. He really didn’t remember everything, just that he thought the whole mess was solved, and now he had to go talk to the fire department. He would act like he didn’t know, start crying and say how many memories were lost in this house. Then he would have to start over. Buy a new home, new furniture, new memories. And he would do it happily. It would all be worth it to be rid of the torment they had endured for the last nine years. Samuel smiled as he turned and walked away from the charred mess that was his home.
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