The Basement

19 March 2015: it's been years since I looked at this work and I plan to review and revise it in the near future.



Light washed into the dark basement as the door was roughly pushed open. The girl closed her eyes tightly against the light and against the figure moving through the doorway. The door closed and the keys jingled as the lock was turned. Heavy footsteps descended the stairs slowly and with each step the girl's heart beat faster. She could hear his breathing and smell his sweat.

He pulled the chain on the ceiling light, which was a bare bulb coated in dust and should have caught fire by now. The girl preferred to leave it off and not have to see anything outside of her own mind and memories. The man wanted to see her.

He stood over her as she lay on the mattress on the floor and his breathing grew deeper as he watched her and knew her terror. He reached down and caressed one leg. She twitched but had learned not to pull away. There was no escape and fighting would provoke more violence from him. There would be pain and blood, as always, but she would just have to let it happen or it would be much worse. He could so easily kill her.

He pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt and ran it over her legs, tracing the bloody lines that were just starting to heal from previous visits. She thought of her brother Aaron and the camping trip they had taken the summer before, when they had gotten lost in the woods and wandered around for hours. They had not been frightened, in fact they were enjoying it as an adventure. They saw deer and swam in a creek in their shorts and t-shirts, and let the sun dry them. She rarely got along with Aaron who, at three years younger than her, was generally more of a pain than anything. But on that day, they were friends. It was worth the panicked anger from their parents when they finally found their way back to camp.

The man was spent and he left the basement. She ran her finger along the fresh rivulets of blood and then curled up and fell asleep. Most of her days now were spent sleeping. She was sore from being cut and sore from lying on the hard mattress for so many hours. Being sore was now her normal state. She no longer felt human. She was just pain and numbing fear. When was he going to kill her already and get it over with?

In the beginning she had spent countless hours banging on walls and screaming for help until her hands and throat were bruised from the effort. She explored the basement, looking for an escape or a weapon, but finding little. It was a large basement, broken by a short wall into two separate areas.

The first area, below the stairs to the ground level of the house, had the only light: that one dim bulb. Beneath it was the dirty mattress on which she slept. Only sheer exhaustion allowed her to even touch the mattress as it was covered in unidentifiable stains and smelled like death. There was a large washtub against a near wall, with running water that was only cold and never quite clean, though she was forced to drink from it and try to wash her wounds with it. Next to that was a filthy toilet with no seat, over which she would squat delicately, managing somehow to avoid touching any part of it but the handle.

The second area was larger and was empty but for a large wardrobe with padlocked doors. On the floor in the center of this area was a drain, whose purpose she did not want to contemplate. From walking around the perimeter and feeling the walls, she was able to determine that there was a locked door.

There was nothing that she found useful.

Although she couldn't find a hiding place, she was also aware that she was never alone. Something crawled around in the darkness, scratching and making odd whishing noises. She was sure it was a rat and, though terrified of rats, tried desperately to discover how it got in and out (because surely it would starve to death down here if it couldn't get out to a place that had food).

As for her food, the man brought it in every few days on one of his visits. Bread mostly and sometimes cereal without milk and occasionally fruit or meat of some sort. Not enough to feel healthy or strong but enough to keep alive. In her mind, each dish was one of her favourites that her mother would make for her. This is not dry Cheerios; this is honey-garlic chicken with rice and corn. That's not a brown banana; it's warm apple pie with ice cream.

She sang to herself, though the echo of her voice frightened her and reminded her how alone she was. Unknown amounts of time crept by.

Strangely, things became routine. Sleeping, eating, remembering, getting hurt. That was her life now and she was frightened by how easily she was adapting to it. It took some time before her determination to do something about her situation would grow.

She went one day to the locked door on the far wall and felt around the edges for the hinges. A bolt of excitement shook her when her fingers grazed the one at the bottom. She grasped the top of the bolt and pulled but only lost her grip and fell over backwards. She repositioned herself and tried again with no more luck. She wondered if it was painted into the hinge or if the man would have even glued it together. She scraped around it with her short fingernails and she thought she could feel flakes of something come off so she kept at it, ignoring the nails that broke and the blood that trickled warmly down her fingers. Prying and scraping and trying to wiggle it like a loose tooth. Nothing much seemed to be happening but she thought it might take many hours and she was now prepared to devote herself to the attempt.

And then the rat appeared. It raced over her foot and off into a dark corner. She screamed and jumped backwards and then ran back into the other area and yanked on the light chain. In the dimness she scanned the walls, not wanting to see the beast but at the same time wanting to know where it was. She began to cry and hated herself for it. Crying doesn't help anything, as her mom always said. Grow up and find something that will help. Like what?

She didn't know. The rat had gone back into hiding and she collapsed onto the mattress, curled up into herself and sobbed until she fell asleep.

Hours later, she was awoken by the door opening. It was that time again and she suffered through the man's needs and eagerly accepted the box of crackers he left behind. Eating made her feel better again and she decided to go back to the door and resume work on the hinge. As she passed the wardrobe, she stopped and wondered what might be inside it. Perhaps the hinges there would be easier to work out.

It took some effort but they did come out and the heavy door fell onto her outstretched arms, nearly knocking her off her feet but she managed to hold steady and lean it against the wardrobe wall. The light was too far away to make the wardrobe's contents clear but she could make out some shapes and she reached in to take an inventory.

What she found on the shelves was a bag of potting soil, a flashlight with dead batteries, a mousetrap, and a small chunk of 4x4 lumber. And in a taller slot beside the shelves was a shovel. She laughed out loud at her luck; now she had options.

She picked up the piece of wood and looked at it thoughtfully. She knew what had to come first. The man would not be back again for a couple of days. She knew how unlikely it was that she could overpower him. She might be able to use some of these items to get one of the doors open and hopefully it would lead outside to freedom. But first, she had to deal with her other fear. She had to rid herself of the rat.

She had learned to be patient sitting alone in this basement for so long. She went back to where the rat had found her at the door and crouched with the wood and waited. Fear and disgust knotted her stomach but her mind was sharp with a new sense of purpose. She waited.

A few years earlier, she had gone to her friend Valerie's house to play. The two girls sat in the grass in the backyard and gossiped about their classmates and played cards. Valerie's mother brought them cherry Kool-Aid and cookies. The sun was bright and warm and crickets chirped around them. Two things happened that afternoon that contributed to who she was as she crouched, armed and waiting, on the floor of a dark basement. First, Valerie decided to tell her fortune.

"I can use these cards as Tarot cards," she proclaimed.

"What are Tarot cards?"

"They're used to read the future. Here, take five cards randomly from the deck."

Valerie placed the deck on the grass and then set each chosen card face up in a line and stared at them intently for several long moments. Finally she said, "Okay, you are going to have a long life and lots of kids. Here, you are going to become a teacher, just like you want. You will first marry Brian Righter." The girls giggle. "But then you will divorce him and find your true love."

And then, the other thing happened. Something was tossed over the fence into the yard and landed beside her. She looked down and was horrified to see a rat twitching in the grass. Both girls screamed and jumped up and the rat managed to find its feet and began to run wildly around the yard, looking for an exit. The girls danced around, trying to stay clear of its path and, when it was safe enough, they darted to the door and the safety of the house. Valerie's father came out and he beat the rat to death with a baseball bat, which her mother promptly forced him to throw into the garbage, along with the carcass. It was discovered later that two boys from school were responsible and, though they apologized and were punished, she was left with the fear and nightmares of the creature's violent death.

As she crouched, she thought about these things. Some part of her childish self believed the future as it was told to her that day and she knew in her heart that she would make it out of this alive. She couldn't die before the predictions came true. She laughed at herself for fearing that she would. Confidence grew within her. And anger towards the boys and their prank. It was time she got over her fear of rats and she knew it was possible to beat one to death; she'd seen it before. There was no doubt that she would succeed and when she finally heard the rat scuffling around in the darkness, all of her being was focused on its presence. She made no move and barely breathed, willing it to approach her, all of her senses alive like a wild animal. And when it did, there was no hesitation. The first blow struck its head and it froze and swiftly she brought the wood down on it over and over until her arm could no longer move and she was sure that its life had been crushed. She stood and felt like screaming out her victory. Primal feelings of having survived and proven herself overwhelmed her. She'd done it; she could do anything.

She let the wood drop onto the floor and went to her mattress to rest. The adrenaline rush had stopped and she was suddenly exhausted. She'd just sleep for a little while and then she'd find a way to get the door open with her newfound tools. Just a little while.

The man woke her again. He'd noticed the wood on the floor and saw the wardrobe standing open. He grabbed the neck of her t-shirt and pulled her off the mattress, yelling obscenities at her. She cringed and he swung a backhand across her face, releasing an unbearable streak of pain through her cheek and mouth. She coughed and blood sprayed onto the man's shirt. He hit her again and then pulled his knife from its sheath and pressed it against her throat.

"You've been getting into mischief," he whispered at her. "You don't want to know what happens to little girls who misbehave."

He pushed her, hard, and she fell onto the mattress. Immediately, she jumped back up and darted around him and into the other area of the basement. She desperately tried to remember where she had left the shovel. He was right behind her and so she only had time for one attempt to find it and she felt the handle with relief leaning against the wall. She grabbed it and whirled around to face him. With two hands, she swung it at his torso but he jumped back in time and it swished harmlessly through the air. He laughed and she swung again but he was ready and he grabbed it and plucked it from her easily. She just had time to realize it was over before he swung it back at her. She heard it bong against her head and then all was dark.

Some time later, light washed into the dark basement as the door was roughly kicked open. The girl was thrust from the light and she fell to her knees on the platform, barely missing the edge of the stairs and a long tumble down. The door closed behind her and she heard a key in the lock. She heard the man say before he walked away, "You'd better be good. You don't want to know what happens to little girls who misbehave."