Chapter 5: The Scream of Demolition

For two days, the house was quiet. The orange phone hung on the kitchen wall, a silent, garish tumor. There were no late-night rings, no whispers coiling out of the static. The silence was a fragile truce, and it did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves. If anything, it was worse. The anticipation was a constant, low-grade hum beneath the surface of my life.

Thomas was my shadow. He’d given up his late-night gaming sessions, instead camping out on the living room couch, insisting he just "liked falling asleep to the TV." But I knew the truth. He was standing watch. My fear was now his fear, a shared burden that was both a comfort and a terrible guilt. The entity had known my name, and in doing so, it had dragged my brother into the dark with me.

Saturday morning dawned bright and painfully normal. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen, glinting off the stainless-steel appliances and making the dust motes dance in the air. The scent of coffee and toasted bagels filled the room. It was a perfect picture of suburban peace, a scene from a life I no longer felt a part of.

My mom bustled in, her cell phone pressed to her ear. "Oh, that's a shame, but probably for the best," she was saying, her voice bright. "It was getting to be a real eyesore. Okay, talk soon, Carol. Bye!"

She hung up and poured herself a mug of coffee, turning to us with a look of nostalgic finality. "Well, boys, it's the end of an era. That was your Aunt Carol. She said the demolition crew is at the Big House right now. They're finally tearing it down today."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Thomas, who was leaning against the counter, straightened up, his eyes locking with mine. The Big House. The source. The place where the long hallway stretched into infinity and the shadows had fingers. A wild, desperate hope flared in my chest. If the house was destroyed, would the ghost be destroyed with it? Could it be that simple? Could this all finally be over?

We didn't have to wait long for an answer.

As if summoned by the very mention of its former home, the phone let out a single, deafening ring.

BRRRING!

It was 9:15 AM. The sun was high in the sky. This wasn't a surreptitious late-night call. This was a declaration. My mom jumped, sloshing coffee onto the counter. "Good heavens, that thing!" she exclaimed, fumbling for a paper towel.

Thomas and I just stared at it. The timing was impossible, undeniable. This was a response.

"Don't you dare answer that, Liam," my mom warned, her back to us as she wiped the counter. "Your father thinks it's a short in the wall. He's going to take it down this afternoon."

But her words were distant, meaningless. There was no short in the wall. There was only a presence on the other end of the line, and it was demanding an audience. I looked at Thomas. His face was pale, but he gave a short, sharp nod. We had to know.

I walked towards the phone, my legs feeling like they were moving through water. Thomas was right behind me, his hand resting on my shoulder, a small, solid point of contact in a world that was tilting off its axis. My hand closed around the heavy, cold receiver. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the whisper of my name.

I lifted it to my ear.

What came out of the phone was not a whisper.

It was a sound forged in the deepest pits of agony and rage. A blood-curdling, soul-shattering scream. It was the sound of grinding, tearing metal, of splintering wood, of a throat being ripped raw, all twisted together into one prolonged, electronic shriek of torment.

It wasn't just in my ear. It was a physical force that exploded into the room. The sheer volume was immense, a wave of pure sonic violence. I cried out, dropping the receiver and stumbling back, clapping my hands over my ears. The receiver swung on its cord, still broadcasting the unholy noise.

Thomas had recoiled, his face a mask of white-hot terror. "Make it stop!" he yelled, his voice barely audible over the shrieking.

My dad came running in from the garage, a wrench still in his hand. "What is that? What's going on?" he shouted.

The scream filled every corner of the kitchen, vibrating through the floor, rattling the glasses in the cupboards. It was a sound of absolute violation, of something being violently, brutally torn apart.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

The silence that crashed down in its wake was absolute, deafening. The only sound was my own ragged breathing. The receiver dangled from its cord, swaying gently.

"I heard it," Thomas whispered, his eyes wide with shock and horror. He was looking at me, but I knew he was speaking for our parents, for anyone who would listen. "I heard it. It wasn't just static."

My dad stared, bewildered, from the phone to our terrified faces. "What was that? A feedback loop? Did it connect to the radio?"

Before anyone could answer, my mom, who had been frozen by the door, looked down at her cell phone as it buzzed again. She answered it numbly. "Carol? What is it? Slow down…"

She listened, her face draining of all color. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the phone. "Oh, my God," she whispered. She looked up at us, her eyes wide and unfocused, seeing something far beyond our sunlit kitchen.

"That was Carol again," she said, her voice a hollow echo. "She was watching from her window. She said… at the exact same moment we heard that noise… the main support beam gave way. The whole house… it just collapsed in on itself. She said it was the most horrible, grinding scream she's ever heard in her life."

She looked at the microwave clock, which read 9:16 AM.

The air in the room grew thick and cold. My dad’s facile explanations about wiring and feedback loops died on his lips. The wrench slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. This was no coincidence. This was proof. A terrifying, supernatural confirmation that tied our home to the violent death of another.

They all looked shaken, trying to process the impossible. They thought they had just witnessed a bizarre, terrifying end. A final, ghostly cry from a house that was no more.

But as I looked at the Orange Anomaly, hanging so innocently on the wall, a far more terrifying understanding settled into my bones. The scream hadn't been an end. It was the sound of a lock breaking. The shriek of a chain snapping.

Destroying the house hadn't destroyed the entity. It had just evicted it.

That agonizing scream wasn't a cry of death. It was the cry of birth into a new, more mobile form. The ghost was no longer an echo bound to peeling wallpaper and a dark, oppressive hallway. It was untethered. It was free.

And we had just hung its brand-new home on our kitchen wall.