This story came up from a thought about what could make you pee your pants. You know those parts of movies or books that just freak you out. Sometimes it can be an intense scene (such as the end of Oldboy) or it can be something that makes you jump (usually a haunted house type of scare). I think the jump scares are good for those late night movies that you watch in a dark basement, but the intense scenes are perfect for books. You are stuck reading it, stuck living each second of the horror that is happening, only hoping that the scare ends with the chapter. Some of Stephen King's stories can wrap you up in that type of horror. When Danny Torrance is running through the halls of the Overlook with his father chasing after him carrying a croquet mallet, you are stuck running with him, hoping the alcoholic father doesn't catch up with you.
Anyway, this short story is something that would totally make me pee my pants. It's a little rough, I wrote it quickly and then freaked myself out. Enjoy...
It was a long and exhausting day cleaning up my grandmother's house
after she passed away. My dad had my brother and I working all day
throwing things away in the basement. She was a bit of packrat, so the
basement was packed with her sewing kits, cooking utensils, and general
crap that collects in house owned by a family for forty years. It felt
like we were working in a mine, there were only a couple of windows, all
covered with dirty white lace curtains, and the lighting was a couple
of fluorescent lights beneath yellowed plastic tiles hung in the drop
ceiling.
Near the end of the day my brother was upstairs getting a drink when I
found the room. The room was behind a door that matched the paneling
that covered the walls of the basement, the only way I knew it was a
door was from the thin metal ring that hung from it. I touched that
ring and the hairs on the back of my neck instantly stood up. Whatever
was behind this door, my senses were telling me not to open it. We had
been down here tons of times in the past and I guess we never noticed
this door, there had to be a reason it was hidden, maybe my grandparents
had a lot of money or they had some secret tunnel? My
fourteen-year-old mind jumped to all of the treasures I was sure to
find. My other thought was to hide in the room and jump out at my
younger brother.
I ignored the hairs on my neck and pulled the ring opening the door.
It was dark, except for the bit of starlight reflecting from something I
couldn't see, something small and glass, these stars were in pairs and
all through the room. I reached for a light switch and couldn't find
one. There must have been a pull string somewhere in the room, and
against every piece of my being I walked into that dark room. I was
just outside of the triangle of light coming from the open door when I
brushed up against the frayed piece of string that was connected to the
light. I pulled it.
All along the walls were shelves of porcelain dolls, all looking at
me. Their dead glass eyes reflecting the horror on my face. I went to
run out of the room when an old broom handle fell in front of me and I
tripped right into one of those shelves, knocking it and all of the
dolls down and on me. The shelf was long and when it fell, knocked some
of the shelves on the other side of the room off the wall, spilling
more of those porcelain demons on to the floor. I tried getting up, but
something was on my leg. I went to call out but no one could hear me.
I guess the light was old because it flashed and went out. I was stuck
in the dark with these things all over me. Struggling to get to the
door, I swore I felt something move. With the whisper of a voice and
caress of small fingers on my back I passed out.
It wasn't till the next day that my dad found me in an empty room that was spotless.
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