Now let me tell you from experience that in my life I have only been this scared maybe three times. Once was way back when I was a kid. I was really sick and stuck in bed. I remember plain as day looking up at the wall and seeing the shadow of a man holding an axe. I screamed bloody murder which had my father and mother both tear ass up the steps with a crying Aaron and Angel hanging onto to each one of them. Of course when dad put the light on, the axe man disappeared but still to this day I swear to God he was there.
The second time was only a few years ago. I was in my house all alone and I could swear that I heard the sound of my bedroom window slowly opening as I quietly lay in bed. I remember searching for the phone in the dark and cursing myself out when I realized I had left it downstairs. I convinced myself I was going to die that night. Somehow a crazy fan had managed to get past my security and all my dogs and the next morning they’d find my body hacked to bits. Turned out it was only the wind and my over-active imagination playing tricks on me.
That brings us to time number three which was occurring right this second as I stood in a stanky ass basement where someone was most likely murdered, with AJ who was holding onto my arm so tightly I thought he was going to rip it right off.
“J, you’re hurting me.”
“Why do you think the lights went off?”
“I don’t know but dude…let go.” He eased up on my arm and I tried my best to breathe regularly instead of like a teenage girl after running into well…us I guess.
Of course being that we were in total darkness, my mind began to play tricks on me and I could swear I heard creaking coming from the small hallway I had just left. “If I die here because of you I am SO going to make you pay!” AJ whispered with so much venom in his voice it was almost comical. In fact if I weren’t ready to shit my pants from being scared to death I probably would have busted out laughing.
“Did you hear that?” I was afraid to ask because as long as I didn’t know the answer, we were safe. If he heard the same thing I did however; I was going to fucking freak the hell out.
“I think we should make our way back up the steps.” He said, deciding not to answer me.
I slowly moved to where I thought the steps would be, AJ stepping right beside me as if he was my Siamese twin. Once more I heard a creak coming from that hallway. There was no mistaking it this time. He heard it to because we both stopped at the same time.
“What the fuck was that?” He asked me. He had a nervous quiver in his voice.
“I have no fucking idea.” We kept walking closer to where we thought the steps would be, but this time I ended up walking right into the ping pong table, falling on top of it and making it collapse.
That’s it. We’re going to fucking be killed now because I had to fucking fall onto a fucking ping pong table of all fucking things! Luckily before I was able to say fuck in my head one more time, the lights went back on.
I looked up at AJ who was crouched down as if he was going to take a shit. One of his hands was reaching down for me while his other hand was on his mouth probably trying to prevent a scream from coming out. Boy, once those lights went on I wasted no time at all getting up and heading towards the stairs. We both ran as if we were being chased by the devil himself. The stairs creaked under my weight once more but I didn’t care as long as I got to that door before whatever was living in the basement killed me.
“Hurry…hurry…move…move…” this was AJ’s new mantra as we raced up the remaining steps.
It wasn’t until I put my hand on the actual doorknob that the thought occurred to me it might be locked. What if whatever bolted up the door leading down here decided to do the same now. Maybe they were waiting for someone stupid enough to venture down to a basement that had THREE locks on it, in hopes that whatever was down there would dine on a nice meal.
“Please open…” I begged as I put my hand on the knob. Before I could turn it though, the door flung open and I swear I almost fell backwards and would have if Kevin hadn’t grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up.
Since AJ was literally right on top of me he stumbled and fell onto the kitchen floor and kicked the door closed with his feet. “What the hell is going on?” Kevin asked…well okay he didn’t exactly ask, more like screamed at us.
“Kevin you have some serious fucking problems in this house!” AJ was out of breath as he said that.
“Like what? And why the hell is there paint all over the floor?”
AJ and I both looked at each other in disbelief. “Dude…your basement almost ate us!” Yeah wow…good one AJ, now he’ll believe what we have to say.
“Why were you even down there?” He was calming down as he gave me a helping hand to my feet.
“We were looking for Turpentine to clean up the paint AJ spilled all over the floor.” Yeah I ratted him out. I’m not proud but I’m not an idiot either. There was no way I was taking the blame for the paint.
“Dude there is some messed up shit going on down there.”
“Like what?” He was shaking his head at us both as if we were two of the stupidest people he had ever come into contact with. I was beginning to feel like that as well. Like a complete ignoramus.
“Well for one, there’s this…ping pong table.” Both Kevin and I looked over at AJ like he was an idiot and he is, so that look was justified.
“Wow a ping pong table….that IS scary.” Kevin said as sarcastically as possible. “What was the loud crash I heard down there?”
“That was the ping pong table.”
“Did it levitate off the ground?”
“No but Nick fell right on top of it!”
Ugh, okay so I ratted him out for the paint, I suppose it was only fair that he did the same with the table. Kevin glanced my way with that all too familiar look. “The lights suddenly went out Kev and I couldn’t see where I was going and I fell onto it. It’s not like you were going to use it right?”
“I didn’t even know there was one down there.” He admitted as he looked up and down my body. Uh… “You’re bleeding.” He said pointing to my knee where my jeans had torn. Damn, I loved these jeans!
“Yeah, that was another freaky thing. The lights went out and the door slammed shut.” AJ said now dusting himself off, making sure he hadn’t ripped anything.
“Well when I came home and saw the door opened a crack I closed it and shut off the lights.”
“How? There was no way you could have shut the lights off dude. They were downstairs.”
Upon hearing AJ’s question he walked over to a switch located right beside the door and flipped it up, making his eyes grow wide and ending with a gasp of surprise. Wow, I have to give him credit, no one did smart ass like Kevin. He escalated it to a whole new art form.
“Oh…see Nicky? I told you there was nothing to be afraid of. He was totally freaking out down there Kevin.” AJ pat my shoulder as if to confirm I was terrified. I only rolled my eyes and shook my head at him.
“Did you at least find anything to take that paint off the floor?” Kevin grabbed my arm and led me to the kitchen sink as if I was a small child. “And you need to clean that off before it gets infected.” He said putting the water on for me and handing me a paper towel, “I should have thought to bring my first aide kit with the two of you being out here. Only you guys can make painting into a contact sport.”
I laughed at him as I rubbed at my boo boo. It stung!
“I think I might have band aides in my glove compartment.” He said putting his hand on my back after I frowned at the pain.
“Of course you do, doesn’t everybody?” AJ asked sarcastically.
“Why don’t you run out and get them for us smartass.” Kevin whipped his car keys at AJ who surprisingly caught them. “And while you’re in there check my trunk to see if I have anything that can clean the floor you just ruined.”
“Yes sir!” AJ saluted our friend and ran out the door. I think he was grateful just to be out of the house. It’s weird but I wasn’t really all that scared anymore, just curious.
“I can’t believe the two of you. Can I not leave you alone for an hour or so without any type of drama ensuing?”
I shrugged at him, “We just like to keep you on your toes…where did you go by the way?”
“I had some paperwork to fill out and I wanted to do it before I forgot. I did yell in to you guys but I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“Sorry we didn’t get more done Kevin.” I suddenly felt the need to apologize to him. Not even sure why. Maybe it was because of the loving way he was tending to my huge gaping hole in my leg or just his overall concern for our constant well being. Whatever the case, I felt back that I wasn’t making this as important to me as it clearly was to him.
“It’s okay…I kind of knew you’d both lollygag around.”
“Oh…really?” I raised one eyebrow at him and he laughed at me.
“You had an entire box of band aides in your glove compartment dude…Winnie the Pooh ones!”
“Oh lord not again…”
“And why on earth do you have a toothbrush in there?”
“AJ, don’t even go there with him.” I warned.
AJ handed me the box of band aides and I couldn’t help getting a sense of déjà vu as I opened them up. “Baylee again?” I asked him slyly.
“No, I decided to buy another batch of Pooh Aides just for you.” He ruffled my hair and moved back into the dining room to look at all the paint on the floor.
“You okay?” AJ asked me as he looked down at my leg. Okay maybe I exaggerated about the gaping hole, but it was also a little worse than a scrape. I mean the hole surrounding my injury was covered in blood and it needed three pooh band aides to cover it properly.
“Yeah I’ll live. What about you? Still freaked out?”
“Uh…I’m not going down there ever again. What do you suppose was that sound we heard? It sounded an awful lot like footsteps didn’t it?”
“Yeah it did, but I think it was just the dark playing tricks on us.”
“I don’t know dude…that was scary.”
“I thought I was the one that was scared.” I raised my eyebrow at him and gave him a wink.
“I have a reputation to protect.”
“Riight, well your secret is safe with me tough guy.” I gave him a friendly punch on his arm to which he groaned as if I hurt him. What a wuss!
“So I take it I had nothing in my trunk to clean that up huh J?” Kevin came back in as he ran his hand through his hair.
“Nope, sorry Kevin.”
“I guess I’ll go out and buy some turpentine.”
“I feel bad; I’ll go if you want.” I smiled because I knew AJ just wanted the heck out of the house.
“No, that’s okay you have no idea where to go and I’m not giving you my car. I’ll be back.”
“Maybe we can all go, it’ll be nice to get out and get some fresh air. Get away from the paint smell.” Once again AJ trying his best to not just flat out beg for Kevin not to leave us alone in the house from hell.
“Okay…let’s go though, at this rate we won’t get anything done today.”
“Actually I think I’m going to stay.” They both looked over at me as if I was crazy and in a way maybe I was.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” AJ asked me.
“Yeah, you guys go. I don’t want to go into a store looking like this anyway. I’m just going to hang out here maybe go look around upstairs.”
“Nick, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Relax AJ; he’s 26 I think we can leave him alone without worrying about him setting the place on fire…right Nick?”
“Right, you guys go.”
I gave AJ a knowing nod. I thought it was nice he was worried for my safety. Maybe I should have been worried too, but I wasn’t. Isn’t that odd? I mean this place was as creepy as it got but for some reason I was just drawn to it. I wanted to know more and this would give me the opportunity to snoop around for a little bit.
“We’ll be back soon buddy.” Kevin came over and wrapped me into a warm hug. “Try not to break anything else.”
AJ then walked over to me and whispered, “Please don’t go back down there Nick.”
“I won’t.” And I wasn’t planning on it. Not yet anyway.
“Good...because I won’t be there to save you this time.”
“Good bye Bone.” I shook my head at him and laughed.
Once the car was gone I sat on the newly fixed front porch steps’ wondering to myself what was it about this place that pulled me in. Maybe I would go back up to Belle’s room and check things out, or maybe I’d try to find Tommy’s room if it still existed, unless that tiny door in the basement WAS Tommy’s room.
I stood up and made my way back inside, thinking about whether to go up or down.
