Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

" The Door in the Basement "

Submitted by Partlysmith

Spring cleaning, a tiresome chore to some, but one that is all too necessary for someone such as myself. All the lazy residue of the holiday season had begun to pile up, and I figured it was about time I cleared some space.

I figured the best place to start would be packing away my winter clothes. After sealing all the coats and sweaters in a plastic tub, I brought them down to the basement. Something caught my eye when I reached the bottom of the stairs. A new door.

It was just a simple, unremarkable wooden door, just like every other one in the house, fixed into the concrete wall as if it had always been there. I didn't think much of it at the time. In fact, a surprisingly large part of me believed it had always been there. I gave the strange door a curious glance, but quickly shrugged it off and went back to cleaning.

I inexplicably found myself drawn to the basement the next day. I couldn't quite explain why; I simply took an absent-minded path down the stairs. Once I reached the floor, I tried to remember what brought me there to begin with. It felt like one of those moments where you knew you wanted to do something, only to forget almost instantly.

I was about to make my way back up, but then I saw it again: the door. This time I knew there was something wrong. Nothing had changed about the door, but it suddenly felt wrong.

I cautiously approached the door. I put my ear to its surface. Nothing. I found my hand inching towards the doorknob. My fingers wrapped around the knob. I can't tell you how long I stood there, feeling the urge to open the door. But I didn't. I told myself that my imagination was getting the better of me, and got back to my day.

I couldn't sleep that night. The door would not stop gnawing away at the back of my mind. I tossed and turned for hours before I decided that it was finally time to open the damn thing, just to give me piece of mind. I went back to the basement and made a line straight to the door. It was probably just some plumbing stuff in there. Something that I never needed to notice; something that would easily slip by me a million times because I never needed to notice.

Yeah...

When I finally opened the door, I was met with a long, narrow hallway, lined with what appeared to be rust-coated metal. There was lighting, as far as I could tell, and I could only see what could be revealed by the bare light bulb hanging from the basement ceiling.

And then I saw something. It was little more than a silhouette emerging from the black depths of the hallway. It had an awkward, half-limping, "knock-kneed" gait, and yet it still managed to move at a surprising speed. It came into the light faster than I would have expected. I slammed the door shut as soon as it was within a few feet of me. I wish I had done that earlier. I was unfortunate enough to see the thing. Not all of it, but enough.

It was far too human, or at least its armless torso was. Its "head" was a massive, almond-shaped thing covered in skin, and it was easily as big as its torso, and appeared to be twice the weight. It had no face, but there was no mistaking the atmosphere surrounding the thing. Nothing visual, but I knew, I knew...

It was filled with fear.