My Basement Has A Memory

It would have been more pleasant to awaken with a slap. At least a sting in my cheek would be something I could understand, fight against, follow-up and put a stop to so it wouldn't happen again the next night. But I didn't wake up to a slap; I woke up with a gasp, ripping from my throat and leaving me airless as if I had fallen into an icy river. My skin rolled with goose-bumps. I stared at my ceiling, lungs burning. The streetlight that bled through my curtains cut Brutalist geometry across it in a gray paler than the dim shadows around it in the dark night. I locked onto it, following the edges of coffee-colored stains caused by roof leaks and the nightly smoking ritual of the renter of the house before me. My aching eyes were pulled towards the alarm clock slowly but inevitably, like a car sliding off a crumbling free way bridge into the rubble below. I didn't want to see what time it was, I didn't need to look, I knew what time it was.

3:13 am. Not again. Not again. I'd done so much different. I went to bed two hours later. I'd chewed like five melatonin gummies. I'd meditated, even though it was sooo boring. I closed my eyes and held my pillow against my ears. I wouldn't hear it tonight. I couldn't hear it tonight-

A muffled scream from below. Again. 

This had been happening all week.

The first time I called the cops, but they'd found nothing. The second time I'd called the cops and played vigilante, trying to follow the sound myself, but somehow it seemed to be coming from my own basement and I knew nothing was down there. I sent the cops in anyway and they found no one screaming, but they did find my weed I'd carelessly left out next to my gaming consoles. The fine had not been fun and I was too afraid to call the cops now.

Tonight, the screams kept going. 

Fine. Fine. FINE.

Without announcing myself, I rolled off the bed and swept a tennis racket into my hands. I crept downstairs with a ninja-like run. 

At the basement door, I still heard screams. Brilliant light poured out the gap along the bottom as if someone were holding a floodlight from a parking lot on the top stair. Even seeing only a sliver of it made my eyes water. I turned the cold, sturdy knob slowly so it wouldn't bounce around. I eased the door open. The light was a wall and I was blinded as it washed over me. I clenched by eyes shut and staggered forward, feet feeling out the warped wood of the first step. Even though it was so bright degrees dropped like dying flies. 

The red behind my eyelids faded to purple, and I squinted warily. The light was gone, reduced from a floor to ceiling canvas to the dim reflected beams from the pathetic, buzzing, decades old bulb dangling listlessly from the ceiling. The screams were quieter now, not because they'd moved further away but because whoever was screaming was running out of air. Strangled gasps overtook the scene.

I froze. My racket shook in my clenched fingers. The voice sounded real now. Not supernatural, not otherworldly, but like it was made of phlegm and puffs of carbon monoxide. I stumbled down one more step, and the ceiling gave way just enough for me to see a pair of dark black boots planted on the unfinished floor. The scream stopped. The left boot lifted, taking a step towards me. I whimpered, dropped my tennis racket, turned, and ran back up the stairs. I slammed the basement door shut behind me. I saw light spill around my ankles like waves on the beach, before rolling back under the door and fading. 

I yanked a set of drawers in front of the door. The dainty glass picture frames I'd arranged on the top spilled to the floor and shattered. I bolted out to the lawn, then crossed the street and hid behind the neighbors bushes for good measure. I told 911 four times there was a man in my basement before they could understand me between all the noises I was making.

The cops investigated, but found nothing. I stayed the night with a friend for two days and slept through the night on her sofa, but by the third I had worn out my welcome.

 I swapped out the lock on the door for a new one and installed locks on the basement door and my bedroom. I even popped a camera system onto my lawn to keep any trespassers from getting in. I went to sleep that night sure I would make it though until morning...

Until 3:13 ripped me from sleep. 

Screams. Screams and I knew soon they would peter out because the person screaming would run out of breath. I rolled over and checked my security camera showing the basement. I'd turned on the light before bed and it showed the room empty. My laundry sat on the dryer, in the hamper, unfolded. It showed no one there; but I still heard screaming.

Mace in hand, I snuck down to the basement. Like before, light danced under the opening of the door. Like before, screams belted through the air. This time I went in ready and willing to stop it. My eyes were clenched shut and I bolted down the first few steps blind with memory of how they felt on my feet. When I reached the bottom and the brightness faded, I saw the source of the screams.

Strong hands clad in gardener's gloves pinched a child around the neck. The man doing it didn't look like the child at all. He was pale; the child was dark. My knees locked up in terror but I tore through the paralysis with a primal hoot. The man dropped the kid as I ran at him. I pressed down on the mace button; I missed. I looked down at the device to see if I'd forgotten where the trigger was, but my hands were just shaking so much my finger couldn't get a solid grip.

Stars exploded in my vision. His strong fist knocked me into the drier. Not my pretty electronic singing ruby red drier. Cheap. Old and white; I left a dent in the metal door. I tried to stand up but those big boots came down on my stomach. Not to pin; but to crush. Hundreds of pounds of force drove down and something inside of me squelched open. Sickness ran through me. My hands scrabbled at the unfinished concrete floor; the boy was sobbing but not running. Why wasn't the stupid brat running?  

A boot to my ear crashed me to the concrete. My teeth came loose. Again. Again. So much pain it stopped hurting; like how I'd grown warm that time I stayed too long in the snow and mom wouldn't stop crying. 

But now I was crying.

Me and the kid.

The man with the boots called me a bitch, again and again until the word became incomprehensibly gurgled due to the blood in my ears. 

Blackness.

Blackness.

Blackness.

Birds singing.

I opened my eyes. Ears clean, not clogged, I could hear the birds singing. No pain; memories of pain but no pain. The concrete was my soft comforter; the basement was my bedroom. I sat up and looked at my alarm clock.  It was the next day. I wasn't dead, but I knew this wasn't over. I 

shook. I'd have to try again tonight.

Oh god.

I'd have to try again tonight.