A little teenaged vigor wins the day when Freddie comes onto the bolt and eventually gets it unstuck and working. The classic click-klatch-clack sound echoes in the nearly empty corridor, then the boy is pulling the door open. The smell that comes from the room is unsettling. Not putrid or rancid, but so stale and musty... with some faint smell of the different people who must have been kept isolated in this room, years ago. It's a hard smell to place, but it's one they won't soon forget.
Lights held up from the threshold verify Zach's claim: there's the old bedframe with it's rusted springs and metal slats, there are plainly decorated ceramic sherds on the floor in the middle of the room, and there's the tangle of partly rotten fabric and leather. When the explorers get closer, walking quietly into the room, it does look like some kind of old straightjacket or restraining harness, but a heavy one, something much more robust than a jacket with sleeves that fasten behind the back. For example, this garment appears to have once had headgear as well, based on the remains.
