The Basement

The Basement

The basement door creaked open as Wayne approached it. The kitchen was
dark except for a small amount of light that crept through the blinds
from the window above the sink. He was told never to go down there, but
tonight he stood alone in the dark; no mom to tell him "No".
He walked closer and closer. His heart pounded with anticipation. As he
reached for the doorknob, a chill engulfed his body and every hair
tingled with excitement. He was sweating now and his palms were wet.
Wayne was sure he wouldn't make it, almost like he was dreaming. His
fingertips touched the cold metal and he gripped it as firmly as
possible. Wayne felt torn between running in fear and whipping out his
imaginary sword to face the fire-breathing dragon. Bravery won and he
slung open the door with a quick jump backwards. Nothing happened. No
boogey man. No Pumpkin head. Not even one measly green light. He felt
cheated. All that for nothing. He shook it off.
He reached inside the doorway and felt around on the wall for the light
switch. As his fingers traced the outline of the cover, something began
to growl from deep inside the darkness. He froze just like in the
movies when someone hits the pause button. His heart skipped a beat. He
looked around, just to make sure it wasn't sneaking up behind him.
Would he shut the door and run screaming or should he remain motionless
in the doorway? Since fate plays cruel jokes, his feet were glued to
the floor by some unknown force. He peered into the shadows imagining a
mad snarling Rottweiler covered with blood and teeth that looked sharp
as knives.
A new sound came from the darkness now, it was silence. Where was it?
He wished it would growl or something. He just wanted to know where the
thing had gone. A part of him expected to feel it breathing down his
neck, but nothing. Five minutes must have passed and no sound. Wayne
couldn't believe it. He wouldn't be so scared it they had a family dog,
something to ease his mind, a plausible explanation.
Out of the blue something moved inside the shadows. The only thing he
could make out was two red dots that appeared. Could've been eyes,
Wayne supposed. This time the growl became more aggressive and it the
sound grew closer.
Wayne screamed bloody murder and took off up to his room. He slammed
the door behind him and locked it. The chair at his desk added extra
security when he rammed it under the doorknob. At least he thought it
would, he had seen it in the movies a hundred times. The far corner of
his room called his name and he cowered there with tears of fear
streaking down his cheeks.
The sound of footsteps filled the hallway up to Wayne's door. Then the
doorknob began to wiggle and immediately someone of something began to
bang on the door. He gathered his breathe long enough to say "Hello".
His voice shook as he spoke.
"Baby, are you ok? Open the door. Every thing is all right, it's
mommy."
Wayne felt relieved and he quickly crossed the room to the door. Just
to be on the safe side, since he had seen a movie or two, he peeked
through the keyhole. He could see the hallway and his parent's legs.
Then for some strange reason, they moved back away from the door. A new
sound echoed down out in hall now.
Suddenly Wayne's mom screamed and his dad yelled out some vulgarities
he couldn't understand. The next thing he saw was their bodies falling
limp to the floor. What was happening? What was he seeing? His brain
couldn't register was occurring.
From where he was, he wasn't able to see where they fell or what had
knocked them down and he wasn't quite sure he wanted to. A loud moaning
and groaning echoed from the other side of the door and a sick feeling
built in Wayne's stomach, he felt as though he might pass out. He was
too terrified to make a sound, so he stayed very still.
More unnerving sounds came from the hall. He couldn't listen to them so
he covered his ears with his hands. But he needed to see what was
happening, so he leaned as far as he could to the left and peered
through the keyhole again. The only thing he could see at first was a
long gray tail of some kind. It didn't look like any tail he had ever
seen though. There was also a dark fluid that covered the floor. It ran
across the floor and began to trickle down the stairs. He noticed that
the tail almost seemed to wag like a dog when it is being petted in
just the right spot. As it moved back and forth across the wood floor,
it made a scratching noise. The dark liquid now covered the floor and
the tail was dragging through it, spreading it and smearing it into the
cracks.
What was attached to that tail? He wandered. Would it come after him
next? Could it get to him?
Suddenly a disturbing thought crossed Wayne's mind. What about Tamara,
his little sister?
He squeezed his eyes tight and prayed she would just be quiet and maybe
it would go back to the basement.
Wayne tiptoed to the window and looked out. The morning light was
nowhere in sight. What could he do? He couldn't scream for help, no
neighbors for miles. The only hope would be to climb out onto the roof
and inch his way to his parent's room. He could call the police
then.
Wayne tugged and tugged at the window, trying to make as little noise
as possible, but it wouldn't budge. He needed to get to their room, but
how?
He crept back across the room and knelt down to peek through the
keyhole. The tail had disappeared and the dark stuff covered the floor
in smears and puddles. Panic set in when he spotted that there was an
obvious trail headed right for her room. This called for drastic
measures. But what? What could he do? He had to get to the phone in his
parent's room and in a hurry. There was only one problem with that, he
had to leave the safeguard of his room and enter into the hall of
dismay. He knew he could do it, he just wasn't sure if he had the
nerve. Life depended on his legs working and right now he was hardly
able to keep his eyes from closing much less run like hell. Well, no
time to waste, it's now or never.
At first, he cracked the door about an inch. He still couldn't see
anything, so he slowly opened the door enough to see down the hallway
to his parent's door. That must be the focus of his attention. If
wavered for even a moment, all could be lost.
He stepped out into the hallway. The dark liquid he could tell now was
blood was not only on the floor; it was on the ceiling and on the
walls. He swallowed hard and tried to overlook everything and focus on
the door. Wayne did observe that his parent's were not in the hall.
That thing must have done something with them. He thought. A loud noise
came from the other end of the hall by Tamara's room and Wayne took
off. He just ran as fast as he could. He reached the door and quickly
ran into the room, shut the door, and locked it. The phone was across
the room by the bed.
"The phone. Where is it?" he said in a soft yet frantic voice. The
phone wasn't on the charger, one thing he hadn't anticipated. However
he knew he could push the pager button on the charger and find it, but
would that thing find him first?
Since he had no other choice, he pushed the pager button and he could
hear it. It sounded like it was upstairs, but where? The phone was
beeping and he heard a shuffling coming from down the hall. A loud roar
bellowed through the night. The longer the beeping, the louder it
roared. It seemed to roar in pain. Was the ringing hurting it or just
really pissing it off?
His parent's door didn't have a keyhole so he pressed his ear against
the door in an attempt to hear better. Something was scampering around
like it was looking for something. Was it looking for him?
Losing the advantage of looking through the keyhole made him feel like
a caged animal. He really appreciated the expression, stuck between
rock and a hard place, a real damn hard place. So far he had been able
to fight back the tears, but the reality of the situation kicked in,
and so did the tear factory. He slid to the floor in an exhausted
surrender, his entire being racing at the speed of light.
Would he be stuck here? Would this ever end? What was that thing? How
will he escape? Could he escape?
Wayne knew he had to be strong, but where would he get this superman
like strength.
The phone was still beeping and the thing in the hallway seemed to be
becoming more irritable at the sound. Between all that and his crying,
concentration wasn't even a concept. He was absolutely positively
scared to death. Wayne feared that he would be stuck in this room
forever.
The phone stopped beeping and in the same instant the thing stopped
wailing. He managed to gather his thoughts long enough to remember that
the bathroom had a door that opened up into the game room by the back
stairs that led to the kitchen.
Living in a new house always threw him off. They had lived in different
house each year and only been here two weeks.
He ran through the bathroom and to the door. The door opened easily.
The game room was dad's palace. Wayne reached for the light and cut it
on, realizing too late what he had done. The lights and everything came
on. It was loud. He quickly flipped off the switch. He was sure that
thing heard him and was coming for him. In here it wouldn't matter
because the door was locked from the inside, so the kids couldn't get
in and mess with things. That's what dad always said, anyway. Well this
time he wasn't worried about touching anything except the door on the
other side of the room. The door opened at the top of the stairs. A few
steps from the goal.
Once he reached the phone in the kitchen, he could call for help. He
was not at all excited about walking in the hall where that thing was,
but he was too close to give up now. He could still hear the occasional
grunt or growl coming from the hall, but it never got in sight. He
hoped it never would. That meant that he would also be in sight and
then things would take a bad turn, he thought. He knew that he couldn't
just stay; there was only one way to end this madness.
The door to the hallway drug a little on the carpet as Wayne pulled it
open. The backstairs were only four or five steps away, but the absence
of light called for great caution. Once the door was completely open,
Wayne stepped out. He could see a large shadow at the other end of the
hallway.
The adrenaline in his body drove him on. He pressed his body up against
the wall and slid down it to the top of the staircase. Only a few more
steps, he thought. I know I can make! Strangely enough he was reminded
of a book his mom used to read him when he was younger. The Little
Engine That Could. Now he was that little engine.
He tiptoed down the steps, one by one. Breathing took a lot of effort
and it was getting more demanding with every second. The bottom two
steps were lit from the light in the kitchen. The lights of heaven, he
thought and almost giggled out loud with enthusiasm. A more beautiful
sight had never been seen. As Wayne moved closer to the light, he could
see in the kitchen. The phone hung on the wall like a beacon. Running
for it crossed his mind, but he slowly crept on, terrified even to
breathe real loud.
The bottom step creaked a bit as he put his weight on it. He stopped in
mid-step. Being ever so quiet, he listened, but only silence filled his
ears. Instant relief should have been what he felt, but instead his
body felt overwhelmed with dread. It's that feeling of dread you get
when you realize you are not alone or that tingling you get in your
stomach when something is not right. He would need to move quickly, but
quietly.
His bare feet touched the cold linoleum and he felt a liberation he
thought he would never feel again. The movies portrayal of slow motion
didn't compare to this. It seemed like life was put on some kind of
slide show. The telephone appeared to be moving away from him. In
reality he knew it wasn't. Before it was in reach, Wayne had his arms
stretched out to grab the receiver. And that's exactly what he did; he
grabbed it and dialed 911.
But before anyone answered, Wayne heard something shuffle around on the
linoleum. He turned to see and his hand remained in the same position
holding the phone. With all his heart, he prayed and squeezed his eyes
shut. He didn't want to see. He was too young to die. Wayne sensed a
presence approaching and felt the warmth of breath as it neared his
frozen body. A touch on his shoulder quickly woke him. Wayne opened his
eyes to see mom and dad leaning over him.
"Wayne, baby. It's just a bad dream." His mom said.
"Yeah, buddy. No biggie." Dad said as he pulled the covers back up over
his chest.
"Now you just relax and try to get some sleep", mom kissed his
forehead.
The moment was interrupted when a familiar sound crept up from the
corner of the room behind his mom and dad. Something began to growl and
he could hear the shuffling noise he heard earlier in his dream or in
the hall. He didn't know, he was so confused. Concern set in when he
realized that his parents didn't hear the noise behind them. Was he
dreaming again? He sure wished he would wake up, but everything seemed
so real.
Something lunged from the dark corner and his mom shrieked and dad
collapsed to the floor.