Victorian Dreams Pt. 02

Removing the clothing she had worn to town, she stood only in her panties as she slipped the T-shirt on over her head. She looked in the mirror, and noted that though she had used a different color T-shirt, there was no mistaking the outline of her breasts under the wet fabric. Her nipples had hardened again as they had the first time the cool fabric had come in contact with them, but the deadly serious nature of what she was doing precluded a blush this time or even more than a casual notation in her mind as to her bodies reaction and lushness clearly revealed under the wet fabric.

She slipped on her coveralls and pulled the vestment around her shoulders as before, safety pinning the garment in place.

She made a mental inventory of her preparations and looking in the mirror, she felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character must have felt as he prepared to do battle with the Predator or more likely how Sigourney Weaver’s ‘Ripley’ character must have felt each time she prepared to do battle with the Zenomorph in each of the Alien movies.

She returned to the kitchen and checked the level of the Holy Water in the humidifier. It hadn’t even really started to drop yet, so she thought it would be Ok for the limited amount of time she planned to spend in the chamber.

The instructions that had come with the device said a single filling of the reservoir was good for approximately 18 hours, so Haley felt ok with the usage rate on the atomizer. She grabbed her cleaning supplies and a flashlight and headed down into the chamber. As she passed by the humidifier again, she stood in front of the mist to allow a little of the safe spray to coat the legs of her overalls, giving her a bit of ‘protection’ on her lower body, then proceeded on down into the evil abyss.

Chapter 56

As before, little light penetrated the room, though there was a slight improvement now that the vines had been ‘Holy Water pruned’. Haley went the place below the window and set her bucket of ‘holy cleaning’ solution on the floor, along with the regular ‘non-holy’ preparation. It was a stretch for her to reach the window, so she dragged the table over to where she stood and placed her buckets on the table and crawled up on to its surface. She sloshed a little of the water onto the table top and the reaction was immediate.

A smolder began to rise from the surface, though it quickly dissipated.

She scrubbed the interior surfaces of the window, and saw a combination of cleaning and reaction to the holy water by the evil residue on the surface. She scrubbed for several minutes and it appeared the interior surfaces were as clean as they would ever be and she started trying to open the window to clean the exterior. The window latch was at the top of the window, and the window was hinged at the bottom, meaning it would probably tilt inward and make for easy cleaning. Haley couldn’t budge the window though the latch was completely disengaging from the housing it slipped into when latched. The window was clearly stuck closed.

It didn’t help that Haley only had a small loop of metal latch to grasp with her fingers. The design was one that allowed for easy opening from the floor with a metal hook affixed to the end of a pole, but Haley couldn’t get enough of a hold on it to pull even if she had enough strength. She briefly scanned the room trying to locate the latch pole she hoped existed, but to no avail. After several minutes of tugging she was about to decide she would have to clean the exterior of the window from outside, and contend with the vines, when another idea came to mind.

She climbed down off the table and went upstairs. Going to her small stash of tools, she found the little crow bar she had used in her attempt to pry the boards off the doorframe and returned to the basement chamber. She stopped at the humidifier as she walked by and stood in its mist as she again checked the level of the Holy Water in the reservoir.

Again it appeared the level had hardly been reduced. She continued back down into the chamber. Returning to the table against the wall under the window, she climbed back up on to its surface and slid the crowbar through the loop in the latch and grasped it with both hands one on either side of where it came through the latch. She tugged against the latch and the window groaned, but did not open.

She tugged again on the crowbar and again the window groaned but didn’t open.

Once more she tugged on the crowbar, this time she threw her weight backwards and the window groaned and broke loose from its stuck position years of settling in and never having been opened had sealed. As the window began to break free, Haley caught herself, but not before the window broke free and flew back toward the woman. The latch and crowbar, struck her in the forehead. Haley’s saw stars and her body immediately went limp and fell backwards onto the table and rolled to the floor below, out cold. The force of the blow to her forehead as the window broke free had knocked the woman unconscious. She lay there out like a prize fighter after a successful right hook had landed on his cheekbone.

Haley lay there throughout the afternoon, the sun continuing its relentless trek across the sky and headed for its resting place on the western horizon. She had knocked herself out good, her fall to the floor adding to the efficacy of the blow she had given herself when the window broke free.

As she awoke, she noted the light had grown brighter in the room, though it was going down now, so the light in the room was really no greater than it had been when Haley had first entered the chamber with the window closed early that day. As she rolled over onto her back and sat up, her hand went to her head and she felt the goose egg she had created when she had broke the window free.

Her head was clearing now so she started to look around to take stock in her surroundings.

The bricks that usually blocked the portal lay in a heap on the floor. The common concubines were already chained to the wall where they were described in Clarice’ diary. As Haley stood, the raven-haired concubine was standing a few feet away, and began to speak.

“I see you have decided to come to the Master. You are a wise girl, but you will need to remove those hideous, objectionable garments, my dear.”

Her presence in the chamber was likely interpreted as submission on her part. She reacted quickly, or at least as quickly as her trauma beaten mind could. She was still woozy from the blows to her head and stood a moment in an attempt to regain her sense of balance and bearing.

The raven-haired concubine drifted closer to the girl, but kept a respectable distance since Haley wore the alter vestment like a shawl around her shoulders.

Composed now, Haley reacted to her approach “I will never join you.” She hissed as she turned to run to the stairs and her escape. As she did she spied what must have been the ogre creatures, Clarice had mentioned in her diary. They were muscular, hairy creatures with hooved feet, and worse yet, they were coming through the hole in the wall at that very moment.

She broke for the stairs, and the raven-haired concubine retreated out of her path, obviously repelled by the religious items of clothing and the essence of the Holy Water soaked shirt, though the shirt was all but dry, by now. She wouldn’t have been able to stop her as a vaporous form at any rate. As Haley swept past, she heard the raven-haired lady exclaim to the ogre-creations.

“Get her my children. Get her and hold her until the Master arrives.”

The ogres were in motion immediately.

The next segment continues Haley's fight against the evil in her basement.