If Walls Could Talk

If walls could talk, we could tell you the happy times in our dwellings. However I will not be telling you a happy story. My story begins with Lenny and Bonnie Ackerman and their four children Lenny Jr., Baylee, James, and Alicia. When they first moved into my dwelling it was just Bonnie and Lenny Sr. They had the children in the bedroom upstairs on right it was painted bright blue, in 1955 and 1957. First in 1955 came James and Lenny Jr., then came the girls in 1957 Baylee and Alicia. Over the next few years it was very clear that Lenny Sr. was nicer to the girls than he was the boys. He would yell and scream at James and Jr., eventually they got old enough to yell back and that is when the beatings started. Sr. would take his belt, switches, paddles, and wooden spoons to the boys telling them they weren't good enough or that they were worthless. It honestly broke my heart every time it happened. You may be asking yourself where were Bonnie and the girls when this was happening...they were hiding down in the fruit cellar trying to protect themselves. I remember the final day of the family in my dwelling. It was a dark rainy day outside. Lenny Jr. and James were sixteen they had been hanging out with friends. they came into the house smelling heavily of weed, it seemed like it's smell forever seeped into my foundation, their eyes were blood shot and their pupils the size of saucers. Lenny Sr. came into the living room to see his sons and immediately flew into a rage and started wailing on James, before Bonnie and the girls could escape the house. Lenny Jr. jumped on his father's back and started wailing on him to protect his brother. James ran outside intending to run for help but instead went to the barn and grabbed a can of gasoline and his father's shotgun. James walked back inside and yelled for everyone to stop what they were doing. Bonnie and the girls were crying hysterically telling Lenny Jr. to stop beating on Lenny Sr. James had his parents and three siblings in the living room. "I am tired of us boys being your punching bag dad. Mom I am tired of you only caring to save the girls. Why didn't you protect us as well?" James said before shooting Bonnie in the chest, he then turned the gun on the girls, they were screaming as the bullets went into their foreheads silencing them instantly. Lenny Sr. tried to get to his daughters but Jr. smacked his father with the gas can. The boys then came over to Sr. and asked him. "Are we good enough now? Did we make you proud Pops?" They then shot their father in the chest and poured gasoline over my floors and the bodies. James turned to Lenny Jr. still holding the shotgun and said "We are free from Hell but we can never leave this house." James then shot Lenny Jr in the face. He then looked at the carnage left behind from their massacre lit a match from the matchbook that he carried in his pocket, dropped it onto the puddle of gasoline. It ignited on contact. He then put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger as the flames licked up my walls as the rain fell outside, I could only silently weep for the tragedy that had occurred. The flames seemed to burn for hours before the fire department got there to put them out. I watched the fire department and the police come in and out of the house after the fire was out. Everyone in town remembers the tragedy of the Ackerman family, but nobody was brave enough to try to stop it.