The Basement Door

I was 15 when I figured out how to unlock the basement door in my grandfather's home. See I've had this obsession with the thing for years. Late nights during my childhood were plagued with strange moans and distant pounding from the pit under the house.. I'd hear my grandfather make his way up and down those creaky wooden steps quite often when I'd spend summer nights there.. being a world war II vet, he had his beliefs and his strictness to him, but the basement door? If you wanted the key? It was off limits.

I'd ask him sometimes what he'd be doing down there. The response? "God's work, someone has to stand between us and them."

Them? Who the fuck were "them"?

He passed away the latter end of my 12th year and for awhile the quest to get the basement door open and discover where these horrid sounds were birthed, died away.

Until the escrow settled, my father's elder brother Norman inherited the house whilst Dad and the grandchildren (myself included) inherited nothing. But my father persisted; and after 2-3 years of arguments my father bought the house from Norman.

So first thing? I picked the lock. It wasn't an easy thing either. I tried softly at first, a Bobby pin, an old arcade card in the latch, even a flat head screwdriver and a hammer.

But in the end brute force prevailed. I broke the handle off with a sledgehammer that had seen better days from grandpa's shed.

You know what was in the basement?

Paperwork..

Paperwork, in German. Sketches of faces, big, erratic German words scratched into the pages. The whole place smelled of saw dust and char. The floor was covered in strange symbols. Real pagan shit.

Anyway the entire thing was a bust.. I was expecting the corpse of a demon or maybe some dead person. Because ya know.. a teen's mind does funny shit like that..

I guess Grandpa was just losing his grip on reality.

At least I thought he was..

There wasn't anything super disturbing down there and definitely nothing alive or dead. Just those documents. But then things.. happened..

The fleeting glimpses, shadows in the corners moving around just beyond vision.. scratching in the walls at night.. to loud to be the rats, like nails trying to dig through..

The worst part though? The moans started again.. the wails of pain in the distance from down below my bed when the darkness masked it.. and when curiosity forced my hand? When I crept downstairs one night and cringed the now unlocked door wide open? The twisted face that glared up at me out of the darkness.. the wicked distorted grin and those teeth.. I froze in pure terror. Until it's twisted body went from perfectly still to a lightning fast spider crawl up the stairs. I slammed the door shut and ran straight to my room.

Nothing stands between us and them anymore..

Sorry grandpa..