The Broken Furnace

It was like any other normal day. Steven woke up at 6:00 sharp, got out of bed, and started his usual morning routine. Part of his morning routine was to simply look out his window, at the rising sun, kissing the land with it’s rays as it arose. That didn't happen today. It was cloudy, in fact, extremely cloudy, so that it was as if it were still the middle of the night. As it was the summer, this worried Steven, as he lived down in Florida, so he immediately assumed it was a storm, a coming hurricane, even.

He began to get out of his stiff pose by the window, and he walked over to his television, grabbed the remote, and turned it on, expecting a reporter to be speaking about whatever the current state of the weather was. Instead, his television was on channel 75, and nothing but a sudden static sound was heard. Steven jumped back and spilled his coffee, and cursed. After cleaning the mess and turning the channel to the local news network, he realized something, in the comfort of his sofa. He never really watched television, other than the local news.

Who the hell touched my TV? he had thought to himself.

Nobody else had been inside his home for a long time; when he would go out with friends, he’d always avoid going to his boring old place. Steven was the only one out of his group of friends to own a house instead of an apartment, and they all teased him about it sometimes, claiming that his home was “haunted” or that he would one day open his door to find a serial killer standing there, knife ready, thirsty for the very sight of blood. He of course had watched many scary movies and was sucker for being scared about such cliche topics, however, at night he always told himself that it wasn't real.

How could those movies be real? A guy in a hockey mask? Chainsaw wielding serial killer wearing someone’s face? Demons tormenting one’s family?

Steven laughed off all of these different movie plots as he climbed down his stairs, into his dark, damp, basement. He walked over into the laundry room, got his load of laundry he had left in his drier over night, and began to head toward the staircase, when the lights turned off abruptly. God dammit. He thought. His friends always had teased him about the lights in his basement, as they would randomly cut short, which would require Steven to walk all the way across his basement, and flip the switch off and then on again. And then something unexpected happened, the furnace, which had been in his home as long the previous owner had had it installed, started to act up.

There was a loud sort of rustling sound, and then a faint puff. After turning on the lights, Steven went to go look at the furnace, and noticed that, surprisingly, it had broken. Which didn't pose much of a problem, as it was summer, but still, the very idea of him having to pay for repairs ticked Steven off right away. Steven wasn’t the richest man in the world, and this was made clear by the

run down condition of his front porch, with fallen planks and rotting handrails. He called the nearest repair man, had stated it was an inner damage to the furnace, and that it would have to be replaced.

This made Steven cringe, as he didn’t really want to replace it. The man told him he really shouldn’t be even worried about it, but something was eating Steven on the inside, something that would make him want to replace the damned thing.

He never took in the fact he lived in Florida, and that it would be unreasonable. Yet, he just had to touch, or perhaps even crack it open a bit, to see what lay inside. He was, in basic terminology, going insane. He had to see what was inside. He had too. Everything was leading him to go down his stairs, and to the furnace room. The sun would never shine. Why go outside? His roof had a terrible leak. Why stay upstairs? He couldn't sit on his rotting front porch. His only option was to stay down stairs, with the burnt out light fuse, glaring at the open door to the room in which his furnace lied.

This routine went on for the whole day.

Then the whole week.

In the end, He had spent over a month living off leftover food, sitting in the basement, staring at the dreaded furnace room.

He didn't know why, but he began to change. He wanted to stay in his basement. He didn't want to go upstairs, even if the rainy weather had left. He, for some odd reason, he just began to stare at the furnace, as if it had some importance.

He began to relish every second of it, just sitting there, admiring it. He didn't understand why most people simply viewed it as a tool to heat their houses. He saw something more. A friend. At this point Steven had lost all his sanity, which had appeared to be drained by the very furnace he now admired as a human being. But the furnace was flawed, with it’s problem on the inside.

He had to help it. This inanimate thing felt like a friend to Steven, and Steven would do anything for his friends. He opened his little shed in the backyard, while the harsh sun burnt his fragile skin. He found it. He had found his axe, and spent all day sharpening it. Steven knew nothing about sharpening sharp objects, but he had to persevere, he had to help his new found friend.

It was pitch black when he had finished, but he was happy with the product. He giggled as he brought the axe with him inside, between his two, bruised and cut hands. He dragged the axe past his porch, and as he brought it inside, he stopped for a second. One would think he was realizing what he was doing, the damage he had done. He dropped the axe. He fell to his knees. What in God’s name was he doing? But his thoughts were almost immediately disrupted with a loud pounding at the door.

“Steven? Were in fuck’s sake have you been? Steven? Open the damn door!”

Steven instantly recognized the voice as his old friend, Martin. But it was too late to help him. Steven’s head filled up with the thought of the furnace, his good, new, friend, whom he had to help. He got up, picked up the blood-stained axe, and began to walk toward the stairs again. He dragged the axe down the stairs, and walked toward the furnace room. He heard his door get busted open.

“Steven, I heard you walk downstairs. I’m coming to help you, for Pete’s sake!”

Steven heard the yell of his friend. He knew Martin would get in the way of everything. Every single little thing he had set up would be ruined. Steven merely stood by the stairs.

“Steven?” Martin had blurted as he dashed down the stairs. He saw Steven and his blood covered hands, shirt, and face. But before Martin could say anything, he let out a shriek.

Steven lunged at Martin with his axe and chopped his arm clean off. Blood splattered everywhere, as though it were from some sort of gory horror movie. Except it was all real. And Steven was the serial killer.

Steven was finished with Martin, or what was left of him. He smiled. All of his different body parts were all cut off clean, and organized on the floor. He walked away from the pile happily, but then he realized why he was here. The furnace. He had to help the furnace.

He dragged the axe toward the room, quicker now, and once he reached the furnace, he smiled with great delight. He placed his hand on it, and instead of feeling cold, as it was broken, it felt warm. Steven disregarded this. He raised his axe and lashed at the furnace.

It was a perfect cut, and Steven laughed out loud at how precise he was. He could feel something in the air. It was getting harder to breathe. He felt a faint hiss. The gas from the furnace was leaking.

Steven disregarded this, and pulled the axe out. As it dragged across the metal of the furnace, it created a spark. Everything went downhill from there, all the gas caught fire, and Steven screamed.

All of the memories about the past week flashed past Steven’s mind, the Television, the cloudy sky, the sharpening of the axe, and most importantly, the broken furnace.

Steven smiled, as he had achieved his goal. He fixed the furnace, as he could feel the heat rushing from it. As he was consumed in flames, he let out one more giggle, simply to show that he was truly happy.

His giggle turned into a scream of agonizing pain, as the fire had finally begun to hurt him. His eyes began to widen, as he saw what was about to happen.

A gas explosion destroyed Steven’s home, and burnt down the rest in the process. All that remained of Martin and Steven was burnt to ashes.

Firefighters recognized the cause of the fire as an accident, or at least they assumed so, as they could barely find any sight of evidence through the remains of the home.

The home was soon forgotten. It was filled in with a field, and and soon, construction took place, and a hole was being dug.

Everything was going fine with the construction. The workers there had found an axe at the bottom, however, with what seemed to be some dried up red substance on it, which most just dismissed as paint. The workers simply dismissed the thing altogether, and continued construction.

After about five months, the new building was finished, and was ready for people to move in.

The building later fell to the ground in a gas explosion. The causes of the explosion were unknown, but a lone survivor claimed to have heard a loud shriek, and then a faint giggle downstairs.