The Cellar Dweller

Since they had first moved into the house, John Collins had known that there was something terribly wrong with the cellar.

While they had made their first tour of the house, well over a year ago, John had been seven years old. Salem, Massachusetts, offered a wide variety of historical properties, many of which were studied and admired by professors and students. Groups of paranormal investigators made frequent visits to the ancient homes, hoping to catch midnight glimpses of the tortured souls that dwelled in the town. From the days of the Witch Hunt, Salem had never quite been able to shed its reputation of horrible bloodshed. Every year, missing animals and bizarre occurrences left the local authorities baffled. Recently a group of rebellious teenagers had taken to forming a gang known as Witchblood. The misguided “spirits,” as they called themselves, took pleasure in terrorizing the outskirts of the town on every occasion possible.

The real estate agent had chuckled when James Collins, John’s father, had brought up the issue.

“ Nothing more than a group of pranksters, really. My son goes to school with many of them. Oh sure, they dress up like ghosts and goblins and joke around with one another, but that’s all a part of growing up in a small town community.”

Sharon Collins had clutched at her husband. “ I don’t know, James. It’s been all over the newspapers the past few weeks. Pets are missing, people are angry. Do you think it’s safe for John?”

Before James could reply, the agent had cut in. “ Mrs. Collins, I assure you that whatever misgivings you might have about our town because of the long-ago witch trials are highly misplaced. Salem is a quaint community, and if anything, its history has served to enrich its value. You’ll find this a wonderful place to raise John.”

Little John had said nothing. His large brown eyes had roamed around the Victorian estate that was to become their new home. The cold winds of the coming winter had whipped up a hail of brown leaves from the forest of dead, gnarly trees scattered across the property. The grass had looked grey and sickly, although most of it had been covered by blankets of dying leaves. Even the driveway—a winding, quarter mile stretch up a hillside—had been buried beneath the sea of leaves.

Two weeks later, the house was theirs.

A day after that, their dog had gone missing.

James and Sharon Collins had spent all afternoon pacing the length of the property, calling for Max. They had taken John with them into town to put up flyers on all the lightpoles. They had even called up the neighbors and asked them to be on the lookout for a friendly chocolate Labrador.

“ Don’t worry son, we’ll find him,” James had repeated, over and over.

But John knew that they would never see Max again. During the night of the disappearance, he had heard the dog’s throaty growl coming from the kitchen, for his bed was directly above the room. Echoed across the tired boards of the house, he had heard Max’s footsteps padding across the kitchen, into the pantry, and then pausing at the cellar entrance.

Moments later there came a groan and a tiny squeak—the sound of a heavy door slowly opening.

Max’s little feet had padded down the wooden stairs, fading into the night, and John had then heard a click as the door swung shut.

The thing in the basement had taken Max. The Cellar Dweller.

Every night, when the Collins family would sit down in the kitchen for dinner, John would position himself so that he never had his back to the basement door. Thus, while his mother and father discussed the latest breakthrough in James’s lawsuits, John would sit and stare at the door in the pantry. He would imagined the huge oak frame bursting wide open and some fleshy hellhound bounding out of the darkness beyond.

Once, when his parents had gone out to dinner and left him with a babysitter, he had come downstairs for some water and found the door wide open. A darkness, vile and evil loomed from within, like the yearning jaws of a hell. Sheer terror had filled his body, gluing his feet to the cold floor. His eyes had dilated in the darkness of the chasm, and his vivid had imagination conjured the types of hungry boogeymen lurking below.

Then something had burst from the shadows, a starving face with yellow eyes, a head with too many teeth, snapping and shrieking.

It was gone before he started screaming.

James and Sharon Collins had done their best to calm down their son. Being a man of logic and a rigorous upbringing, James had quickly found his patience running out with John’s antics.

“ John, I won’t tolerate this behavior. Your mother and I have been down in that basement hundreds of times, and there is NOTHING there. I want you to stop this nonsense immediately!”

“ James, please,” Sharon had said, meekly. “ He’s just a boy.”

“ He’s eight years old now!” James roared. “ My father always taught me that you must face your fears to overcome them. Now this foolishness will end tonight, or by God, I will lock you in that cellar, John. Do you hear me?”

John had been terrified at the thought of being trapped in the basement. He had nodded frantically, crying and babbling, begging his father not to do it. He would be a good boy. No more stories about the cellar, he promised.

“ Good. Don’t let me hear about this again,” James had said.

Three more months had past. Now they had been living in Salem for nearly a year, but time had done nothing to allay John’s fear of the cellar. The nightmare monster haunted his dreams. He saw it sometimes in the mirror, once in a reflection in a pond, once in a window. They were brief, fleeting images, and to his young and confused mind, he had difficulties separating reality from fantasy.

Tonight he was in the kitchen, gazing at the cellar door with the same dreadful fascination that had possessed him all year long. James Collins was staying late at work, and Sharon Collins was busy in the laundry room.

He could almost see a steady pulsing in body of the door. A faintly rasping breath seemed to emerge from the crack beneath. Unable to stop himself, he stared at the bar of blackness beneath the wooden portal. It whispered to him.

A small yellow eye appeared in the space, large and sickly. It blinked.

John looked at it, hypnotized. A steady creaking sound broke the silence of the room—the rusty door handle slowly turning. With a groan, the door began swinging outwards. It opened to its entirely and thudded against the wall.

From the darkness came panting. A smacking of lips.

And suddenly John had control back over his body. He was on his feet, running, screaming, wrenching at the painful pounding of his heart. Around the corner he went, flying out of the kitchen, past the laundry room, past his bewildered mother, past the bathroom, past the stairs…

…and directly into James Collins. The lawyer’s briefcase and papers went scattering in the open door of the house. In half a second the wind had taken half the documents out into the inky darkness of the sky.

John sat crumbled on the floor, dizzy and sick with fear. A shadow loomed over him.

Large hands were grabbing him roughly by the shoulders, shaking him, battering him. Voices were screaming at him, arguing, shouting, yelling. He felt himself being dragged back down the hall into the kitchen, felt himself being yanked into the pantry, where the gaping darkness waited eagerly. Felt the brittle wood of the cellar stairs on his rear as he was forcefully sat down.

The door slammed behind him, hard enough to shake the house. Moments later there was pounding—nails against wood.

“ You will stay down there until you realize that goddamn thing eats you alive!” James screamed.

Sharon was crying.

John blinked in the blackness around him. He could find no air for his lungs; his muscles spasmed in fear. All senses drowned out of him as he crossed over the absolute threshold of horror. A large knot formed in his throat, choking him, as his heart struggled to burst free from its bony cage.

He waited.

Time passed, maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour. James and Sharon’s voices had disappeared from the pantry, leaving him alone with the silence of the cellar.

And still he waited. But not much longer.

From the bottom of the stairs came hyena laughter. Then the sound of something running up towards him, nails scraping the wooden steps, panting breath mixed with snapping jaws.

It stopped, no more than two feet below him. He could neither feel any warmth from its body, nor could he smell its rank breath, nor could he hear its breathing anymore.

For a moment, he wondered if it had all just been his imagination.

Very tenderly, he stretched out one hand into the darkness, feeling through the soft velvety air. With each inch, a flicker of the faintest hope started to grow. Perhaps there was nothing actually there. Could it be possible that his imagination had created the Cellar Dweller? Was there even a chance that nothing lived down here except for his childish fear?

He touched something cold and wet.

XXXXXX

James Collins was sitting in the den with his wife, staring at the clock on the wall. It was nine thirty; nearly an hour had elapsed since he had locked John in the cellar.

Sharon’s eyes and nose were raw from crying, and her voice quivered when she said, “ It’s time.”

Almost mechanically, James stood up and walked back into the kitchen to the basement door. With rhythmic motions, he pried out each of the nails, tearing away the boards from the frame. A pile of debris grew at his feet.

At last he slid the key into the lock and placed his hands on the knob. It felt unusually warm.

“ John?” He called out even as he was pushing open the door.

No response.

The first four steps were empty, melting away into the darkness of the cellar. There was no sign of John.

James squinted for sight, uneasy tension blossoming in his chest. “ Son, it’s alright. You can come up now.”

Sharon’s faulty voice joined his. “ John? Come upstairs, honey.”

Still nothing. Outside, the wind howled and shook the house, but the cellar was as quiet as a cemetery.

Without turning to look at her, James instructed his wife to go get a flashlight. He then proceeded to put his foot down on the first step. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next.

About halfway down, he was suddenly possessed by a spirit of unexplainable horror. Something felt extremely wrong. He was terrified for his son, and for himself.

“ John, enough games. Answer me.”

The door to the pantry suddenly slammed shut. James stood frozen, staring at the dim crack of light above him. After a difficult struggle, he found his voice. Weak, shaky, almost a whisper.

“ Sharon? Honey? John? Where are you?”

And from in front of him, he heard breathing, something running across the cellar floor, nails clacking on the cement, racing up the stairs.

A clammy hand wrapped around his wrists, long nails impaling his skin, and he was yanked down the stairs. He slammed into the ground, unable to breath, a bone in his arm snapping cleanly in two. More claws dug under his ribs, and thus he was dragged across the cement floor, frozen in shock, into a region where he knew there should have been a wall.

As he was pulled along into an eternal darkness, James Collins began to cry.