The Basement

That demonic shriek. That soul wrenching feeling.
Feeling your stomach sink an inch. I’d felt it that night, felt it every night
and feel it this present moment as well as every time I look back to what
happened.
Long story short, as a teen I would
take any kind of insipid job offer, from mowing lawns to washing cars in the
neighborhood, just to earn a little extra cash of my own. This one time a married
couple from the neighboring street offered me 25 bucks for me to babysit their 8-year-old
boy Kevin for a night, as they went out to celebrate their 10th
wedding anniversary.
I
thought fair enough and took the offer. Initially things were nothing to write
home about, since as it turned out the little brat was actually a rather kind
mannered and well-behaved lad, so it wasn’t a huge challenge to keep him
entertained. It’s a natural talent of mine – I know this comes off a tad
braggart, but it’s true –, I’ve never found it particularly difficult to
captivate children’s attention, but I really only have my father to thank,
as I inherited his unparallel talent to entertain the younglings. God rest his
soul.
After about the 10th
round of Uno, watching the SpongeBob SquarePants movie and causing him major mental
fatigue with my world class mindfreak logic games, he asked me if we can play a
simple game of hide and seek before it was bedtime, to which I obliged. I was
it first, and as he sought a hiding place, I – instead of counting back from 100,
like I promised – called my girlfriend at the time to come pay me a visit for
the night.
I started the search, exclaiming “Ready
or not, here I come!” as soon as I got off the phone. I checked behind every armchair
and couch in the living room, checked both his and the master bedroom, but
there was no sign of the boy. The basement was the only area left to explore, towards
which lead a simple staircase through a door between Kevin’s room and a home
office. I tried turning on the lights, but apparently two of the three bulbs
connected to that switch burned out, leaving the vast majority of the staircase
bleak, the basement slightly dim in a yellow shade. ‘Shit, he could have fallen
and hurt himself under this shitty lighting’ – I thought to myself. 
Underneath the spandrel of the stairs, there seemed to
be a figure reminiscent of a young child, so I called out “Gotcha!” and told
him to follow me upstairs to the kitchen for round two. We were halfway up the stairs
when an ear piercing, despairing, guttural howl of a child spread from the downstairs
area. I stopped dead in my tracks. My heart skipped a beat as chills ran
down my spine… 
After
that initial second of shock, I instantly looked over my shoulder only to not
actually see anything as I blacked out instantaneously. I was found by my
girlfriend an hour from that point on, along with half a dozen police officers
investigating the scene. 
To this day some things remain
constant. Firstly, 8-year-old Kevin Watts remains a missing person, the parents
remain heartbroken, and I still cannot recall what I saw then and there. Every
night I wake up in cold sweat, at that part there, before I have time to
process the… thing I saw. I do know for certain however, that whatever it was, it wasn’t
human… surely not.  
Category:Disappearances