Cellar of Solitude

I had the creepiest dream last night! It was so good and so scary that I decided to turn it into a short story. Some elements have been added to make it a good story, but I lived through most of it in my dream. So I guess you could say that it is based on a true story because I actually experienced it. Here it is.


Cellar of Solitude

It was a dark and stormy night. I know, that is really cliché, but it was. It was the darkest and stormiest night of my life.

I used to be a firefighter, and the weird twenty-four-hour shifts would always throw off my schedule. So when I took a week of vacation last summer, I spent many nights without sleep. One night was particularly bad and I wasn’t tired at all, so I decided to go on a walk.

I put on my shoes and jacket and I and headed outside. As I walked up the hill and away from the streetlights it got darker and darker, so I turned on my flashlight. I let the beam play lazily along the deserted sidewalk as I trudged to the top.

When I got to the crest of the hill, I looked to my right. I was near the old forest that was scheduled for development, but it had been that way for five years. It didn’t seem like anything would be built there anytime soon. My friend worked for the developers, and they had heard some weird things about the forest – that it was haunted or something. I didn’t believe it at all, which was my first mistake.

For some reason, I decided to walk into the forest. After stumbling around for a while, I found a house. It was really old, and kind of creepy. The outside was covered with moss and gargoyles, and the front door was big and heavy with a large brass knocker on it.
I decided to go inside. I have no idea why I did. Maybe I was just curious. Maybe I had something I needed to prove. Or maybe it was fate – drawing me in to my destiny.

I opened the door and entered the house. It had no electricity – it was built long before that – so I relied on my flashlight to see. It seemed like any ordinary old house. There were paintings on the wall, lots of antique furniture, and a large staircase going upstairs. But something didn’t feel quite right. I was unsettled from the very moment I walked in the door.

I looked through most of the rooms on the main floor and found some really interesting things. Someone could make a lot of money selling all the stuff. It felt like I had jumped into the past, and the only thing disturbing the illusion was my flashlight.

I was getting kind of hungry, so I decided to look in the basement for some food. I knew that there wouldn’t be any fresh food safe to eat, but I just wanted to see if there was anything. As I walked down the stairs I noticed that the basement was very dark. The moonlight that faintly bathed everything outside with light was no longer present. It was pitch black.

The basement was filled with stacks of office supplies, food and bottled water. It all looked new and very out of place. Curiosity spurred me on.

As I reached the middle of the room, my flashlight beam fell on a body lying on the ground. I halted. I wanted to scream, but I was in too much shock. For what seemed like an eternity, I couldn’t move at all. Then, after a few seconds (it felt like days), the body’s eyes opened.

“Could you point that thing somewhere else?” It was a woman’s voice, and it sounded like it hadn’t been used in a while. I must have looked dumbfounded because she said, “Your flashlight. It’s hurting my eyes. After so long in the dark they don’t work too well anymore.”

“Wh-Who are you?” I finally managed to speak, although shakily. I pointed the flashlight behind me at the opposite side of the room. She was still grimacing though, as if the residual light in the room caused her physical pain.

“My name is Teresa. My great-grandmother used to own this place. They’re all dead now, so I guess I’ve inherited it.” She was young and beautiful, although her clothes were tattered and dirty. It didn’t seem like she was going to volunteer any more information, and I was really curious as to why she was in the basement.

“Why are you down here?” I asked.

“I can’t leave. I can’t ever leave,” she said with a wicked grin.

“What! Why not? Are you too depressed to live and are spending your last days here before you kill yourself?”

“Ha! No, nothing like that. You see, there’s something else down here. He doesn’t want me to leave.”

“This is idiotic.” I seriously thought that she was crazy. But I soon saw how wrong I was. “Do whatever you like, but I’m out of here.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” she said in a playful tone. I didn’t listen. I turned around and started back towards the staircase. I was starting to get really spooked, and I was ready to leave that house behind me forever.

Suddenly, I saw a flash of motion and then my flashlight winked out. The room was plunged into total darkness. I thought I heard Teresa chuckling behind me, and I wanted to turn around and tell her to stop, but before I could something hit me hard in the back of the head. I could feel myself falling forward, and then a crunch as my face hit the floor. Then there was nothing.

*____ * ____*

I awoke to excruciating pain. My face felt like it had been pressed against a meat grinder. I reached my hand up towards my face to feel what was left, but I felt another hand grab mine.

“Don’t touch it. You’re nose is broken, but I wrapped it up. I’m glad you’re awake.”

“How did you–“

“–wrap it in the dark? I’ve been down here a while. I’ve learned how to get by without my eyes.” I sat up. I couldn’t see anything. A very dark, choking presence seemed to fill the room. I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold.

“How do you survive down here?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of food. He brings everything I need as long as I stay here, well except for a flashlight. Yours broke when you fell. We could have used that. Oh well.” She paused. “I have lots of time to think down here, so I pass the time by writing. I’ve filled books and books with everything I think. Maybe they’ll be discovered someday. They’re probably impossible to read though. I can’t tell.”

“You’re very odd.” I said.

“I know.”

We sat there in silence for a few minutes. We both had so much we wanted to ask each other. Teresa hadn’t talked to anyone in a very long time, and I was scared to death, but we didn’t know where to start.

“I guess I never introduced myself.” I finally said. “My name is John.”

“Hello John,” she said cheerfully. “John. John. It rolls of the tongue quite easily. Sounds very exotic – kind of has a certain…zest to it.”

“Are you making fun of my name?” I asked, incredulous that anyone could be joking at such a perilous time.

“Well, yeah,” she said sheepishly. “I have to stay positive somehow, or else I’ll go insane.”

“Have you ever tried to escape before?”

“Of course. Nineteen times to be exact. And every time ended just like your attempt did. After a while, I got tired of all the broken bones. I finally realized that I couldn’t escape without some new factor in play.”

“Like me?”

“If you’re up to it. I would understand if you wanted to sit here and rot for the rest of your life. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Of course not!” The situation seemed hopeless, but maybe, just maybe there was a way out. “I want to escape, but how?”

“Teamwork, planning, and this!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“What is it? I can’t see anything.”

“Oh yeah. It’s a glowstick. He can’t turn it off like he can turn off a flashlight. He doesn’t like to be seen, so with two of us we might be able to escape. I’ve been saving this for a long time. It’s our only chance.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“It will, if we work together. Are you ready?”

“What about the planning part?”

“I have a plan,” she said confidently. I definitely was not ready, but I trusted Teresa. If anyone could get us out, she could. She activated the glowstick and the room filled with a meager light. “Here, take my hands,” she said. We stood facing each other, hands held tightly with the glowstick in our grasp. We watched over each other’s shoulders for any movement, but we could see none.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“To make it up as we go along! Isn’t this fun?”

“What kind of plan is that?” I could feel something starting to stir in the air around me.

“You feel that?” she asked. “He’s getting angry. It’s time to move!” We shuffled as fast as we could to the stairs, always looking past each other. I felt more and more desperate as we quickened our pace.

We made it to the stairs without an incident. I took the glowstick and faced backwards while Teresa started up the stairs. I began to back up the stairs after her, when I felt the glowstick wrenched from my grasp. The room plunged into darkness and an arm grabbed my neck. It started pulling me back into the room. I feared I would be lost forever.

Then I heard Teresa scream, “No you don’t, you slimy monster!” She started hitting it and kicking it, and the grip on my neck was slackened. I broke free and started running up the stairs.

About halfway up, I realized that Teresa wasn’t following me. I turned around and shouted her name. In a slightly muffled scream, she shouted, “Go! There’s nothing you can do! Save yourself!”

In that moment, I was faced with a tremendous decision. I had to get out of there, but I also had to save Teresa. I had so much pressure pushing on me from both ways that the strain was almost too much for me. I knew that I had to make a decision right away, or my decision would be made for me. So I made a choice. I made a choice that I would regret for the rest of my life.

I ran.

*____ *____ *

Someone found me hours later collapsed by the side of the road. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I was fixed up quickly and returned home. When anyone asked me what had happened, I just said that I had tripped on a tree root. It was a lame excuse, but no one would believe the truth.

I went looking for the house in the forest several times at daytime, and even once at night, and I could never find it. It was like it didn’t exist. As the weeks went by, the experience seemed to fade away like a dream. My doubts increased and I started to believe that it had never happened. It became forgotten under the load of cares and worries that filled my life.

But every now and then, I will wake up in the middle of the night and feel someone calling me from far away. I will remember the forest, the house and its beast. I will remember that fateful night and the horrors it held. And most of all, I will remember Teresa and her brilliant spirit.

I’m so sorry Teresa.