The Secret Passageway by Daniel Edward St-Jean

Jerry’s new house, that he was currently moving into, was a rental. The landlord was shifty. It was in a remote—nearly deserted—location. The house represented an emblem of Gothic architecture with its stone foundation and thick walls. It was small, but had an expansive view over the lake. It blended the past and present with its construction and he now had a few acres at his disposal.

It was the perfect place for him to get some writing done.

When the movers finished with the furniture, Maybe state in the opening paragraph that he’s moving in. Jerry wiped his sweating brow. His throat was tight and his face radiated with heat. The sunlight assaulted his senses.

Jerry had helped move, even after his muscles hurt. Rage, rage against the dying of the light—as Dylan Thomas had said. He applied this principle not to death, but to life. If it could be fought, it was worth fighting for: to fight was to live and to live was to fight.

One of the movers came up beside him. “Everything's all right there, boss?”

Jerry smiled, slicking his wet hair back. “Creative brain,” he said. “The madder the mind,” he took a breath. “—the merrier the output.”

The mover nodded. “Whatever you say boss.”

Jerry went into his office and sat down. His first novel had been published after great efforts. The reviews had been positive, but the sales had not been.

He sighed: they were outright pitiful.

The publisher had dropped him at the last installment of his royalties. Now, it felt like he was starting fresh. It was not over.

Sometimes, if you could dream it then you could be it.

Jerry was going to try. His entire life he’d been financially supported by his father, who nonetheless hadn’t read his work, but considered Jerry smart enough to know what he was doing.

Jerry took a look at the last manuscript that he had worked on after his publishing credit. It wasn’t what the publisher wanted, but he was still proud of it.

In the hallway, he heard the movers bump into the wall and then curse, carrying on. It interrupted his concentration and reminded him that he needed complete silence to write.

He needed the life of a writer, to tell story after story. Jerry didn’t care about anything else. It made him focus and then the details, defeats, and disgraces of existence were pushed away when he wrote. It enchanted things with celestial energy that made him feel like he was living a sublime, purposeful destiny. The process bathed the world in mystical purity that guided him along his path. It was Jerry’s muse, mistress, and enchantress—the poetic sentimentality of creation.

The journey itself was the reward.

Jerry also wanted to make his father proud while he was still around. His father had honoured Jerry’s pursuit with his money, which was his time. For Jerry, to honour him was his duty as a son.

He moved forward with the impetus on his fingers with every word, line, paragraph, and page that he wrote. He needed to push himself, and he did so—harder and harder. Every day, he woke up feeling like he must accomplish something. Jerry had read that Joyce had, some days, worked with a single sentence trying to get the words down perfectly.

A mover tapped on the office door. “All done, sir. Nothing was damaged.”

Jerry reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenties, one for each mover.. There were two movers. “Here you go. A little extra to take home.”

He took the money. “Thank you, sir.”

Jerry nodded. “You guys did a good job.”

They cleared out.

Finally! He had been anxious about the movers being there. It felt as if they were impeding his writing process and that he could not get his thoughts in order.

He needed to create something for people to enjoy. Jerry had realized, a long time ago, that he was never going to have kids. In spite of this, he wanted to leave a legacy behind: his writing.

It was his master plan.

Jerry knew he wasn’t going to go back to things like selling insurance, copywriting, or working at that god damned convenience store. Jerry couldn’t do that anymore. To do so was admitting, in defeat, that his dreams were not important enough. He was not willing to compromise.

His typewriter was on the center of his desk in the room.

Foregone and past days were the substance of his work. The days that flowed through your fingers, like sand, were the ones that he would remember. The best ones were the beautiful, fleeting clouds that migrated with the horizon.

Jerry sat at his desk and inserted a piece of paper into the typewriter. Then, he craned his neck, arched his back, and cracked his fingernails: all essential working parts.

Five minutes later, he was still looking at the same blank page.

It was not coming to him.

Focus, Jerry. It’s just a little bit of a block. You can work through it. You always do. Just remember that no writing needs to be perfect. Wasn’t it Hemingway that said that all first drafts were shit?

Still: nothing. Here he was, with all his amenities and couldn’t come up with anything.

You cannot wait for it. You must begin to write.

The typewriter keys clattered and, when finished, Jerry looked at his work.

It was the worst thing that he had ever written.

Jerry tore off the sheet, crumpled it up, and threw it across the room—not even aiming for the garbage can.

I need some exercise.

For Jerry, exercise usually had the effect of allowing him to relax and stem ideas. It refreshed and revitalized him when he was feeling stressed. It was worth a shot, anyway.

Jerry went down to the basement. He eyed his dumbbells and tested one for the weight.

This might do.

He was lifting another one when he saw something, off to the side, that was out of place. Jerry frowned, walking over to it.

If that doesn’t do it….

A part of the wall, of to Rephrase: off to the side, looked dislodged. Did they damage it? Jerry fooled with it until t it came loose entirely and he pushed it off to the side.

Inside, there was a long dark passageway.

“What the…?” Jerry mumbled. He reached into his pocket, pulling his cell phone out and turned on a flashlight app. He stepped inside, but then doubled back. For a minute, he made sure the door could not close behind him.

You’ve watched too many movies, Jerry.

The door would only be able to be moved by a person and there was clearly no one else here. Still, Jerry took a few extra precautions. He doubled back upstairs and locked all the doors. The last thing I wanted was to be sealed into a tomb. Who knew what would happen then?

The Cask of Amontillado.

Jerry moved forward. The passage appeared from a different time entirely. From the exterior, it looked somewhat modern, but it had been remodeled through the ages.

His phone lit up the walls and he ran his fingers over them. They were completely made of faded brown stonework that looked like it dated back to some of the first houses constructed in the area. Jerry didn’t know why this had not been mentioned.

How did the home inspection miss this? Is there something wrong with the structure of my house?

Furthermore, what was inside? Were there bats and other animals?

He checked his battery—nearly fully charged, and decided to venture inside. It was HIS house; he had signed the deed, even though his father was paying for it. It was going to be here whether or not he explored it.

I might as well gander.

Surely, nothing could go wrong?

Famous last words, a voice inside him said. But then, another voice said: don’t be afraid. No risk, no gain.

Jerry pressed forward into the passageway.

There were designs on the walls now, symbols that looked like a mix of ancient Greek, Latin, and other dead languages—trailing down the wall and towards the darkness. It looked like they belonged to some arcane language Jerry knew he could not decipher. He supposed that he could call someone in, but that would open a whole other bag of worms. They would probably want to start an archeological dig to unearth everything that this secret passageway sought to hide from the prying eyes of humanity. Jerry would rather have it a secret until he decided to reveal it. This inspired him, and he jotted some quick notes on his phone notepad: dig, archaeologist, mysterious discovery, home, Gothic-era.

Jerry ventured inwards, holding his phone at head level. The writing on the wall grew smaller and smaller as ventured forward and the passage began to narrow. He took a few pictures, knowing it would come into good use later, sometimes retracing his steps to try and get a record of what he was seeing.

Then, he saw a glow. When he approached, he realized he was staring at dimly lit torches, along the walls, that were bathing the passage in an eerie glow.

He frowned.

Is someone here? How can the torches be lit?

Part of him wanted to retreat, to head back to his house, seal the doorway, and call someone who would know better, but something stopped him. He wanted to be the first one to uncover it. Surely, there were not people living down here, were there? These thoughts knotted his stomach, but he was determined to keep going.

Jerry was not about to give up so easily.

He peered above him. There were stone carvings of large symbols, one after the other, that were pointing deeper into the passageway. They looked to be a different form of writing than the ones on the walls.

Questions loomed in his mind, like clouds in a darkened sky, but there was no light to see them through to the answers.

They will come. There are explanations and reasons for everything. Nothing is left out when you know what you are dealing with. Give it time.

Jerry realized he had gone quite far. He doubled back to the entrance, retracing his steps. That was when panic gripped him.

“No,” he uttered. “No way!”

It was sealed with a gigantic stone block.

Jerry tried to move it, even an inch, but it was to no avail. It would need a Hercules to do so.

Damn it. Wait: your phone.

When “No Service” flashed on his screen, and then the low battery icon appeared in the corner, despite the fact that it had been fine moments before.

Jerry’s heart thumped, delete “began thumping”began thumping in his chest. “Oh shit,” he murmured.

The only thing, he knew, that he could do was to follow the passage to the end. Things weren’t making sense, but he did not want to remain trapped down here. In retrospect, Jerry realized that he had requested that people not bother him for a few days. Even if they did arrive, he wasn’t likely to be heard judging by the stone block—even if he spent days yelling and crying out.

Jerry rushed through the passageway, swifter and faster now. Maybe, mention what the ground was like, dusty? hard? what did it feel like underfoot? He considered trying to save his phone battery, just in-case the signal came back, but then disregarded it.

In every place that there is an entrance, there must be an exit. Right?

Step after step, echoing in his head, he moved down the passageway. Things passed by his sightlines, left and right, but he barely had time to register them. It didn’t matter; he did not have the time. Jerry wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, anything inside be damned! There was only one direction to go. He pushed himself, sweating once more and feeling his throat dry up—urging himself towards his destination.

Then, he reached the end.

There was an altar draped in a flowing, embroidered velvet. It was glittering and giving off a golden kind of light. Additionally, there was a black hole that looked endless behind it on the wall. It looked like an entrance to another place: a vortex. It seemed just as much moving in one direction as the other and flowed, while swirling, like when droplets of water were added to a basin or pool.

Even worse and more disturbing was that there was a gigantic hooded figure, probably nine feet tall, in crimson robes.

“What the….?” Jerry mouthed.

“Time pays with blood,” the figure whispered, just loud enough for Jerry to hear. “Blood paves the way for time.”

“Where am I?” Jerry’s voice sounded weak.

The voice was measured, deep, guttural, and dark. “You are at the end. That is all you need to know. Nothing can hear you down here.” It paused. “You are alone with me. There is no escape. Every passageway is a journey towards something. You were right about that. However,” the figure undraped its hood. “—this one leads to the depths of The Unknown.”

The figure’s head was that of a goat, replete with burning black eyes and sharp horns. The nostrils flared and thin lines of fire came out of them. The beast looked at Jerry and its arms moved out, lightning fast.—gripping him. “Some of you humans come quietly into the dark, others don’t. This is a journey, and can be great rewards as well as dangerous risks. Some rise to the occasion, others fall. Which one will you be?”

Jerry wanted to scream, to fight, but something prevented him from doing so. Instead, he shook his head. “I will follow.”

“A wise decision,” the beast said, putting his hood back into place. An arm shot out from the robes and gripped Jerry’s. “It is time to go.”

Jerry was drawn, and then disappeared, into the black portal at the end of the secret passageway.