24 Feb The Basement Corpses

Part I

Stephen Coolidge woke up to the smell of decay.

Not the kind that lingered in garbage bins or clung to the pavement outside meat markets in July. This was something older, something wetter, like soil turned sour by the presence of something that shouldn’t have been buried.

The smell alone should have told him everything, but Stephen wasn’t a man who immediately listened to instinct. He was practical and methodical. His first assumption was that a pipe had burst in the basement, or worse, that some animal had crawled into the crawlspace and died there.

Lying in bed, staring at the hairline crack in the ceiling, he inhaled deeply and regretted it.

No. That wasn’t a pipe. That wasn’t a dead raccoon.

He threw off the blankets, sat up, and rubbed the grit from his eyes. It took effort to peel himself away from the weight of sleep—if that’s what it had been. He didn’t remember his dreams. Didn’t even remember the moment his body had gone still the night before. But that was normal for him. Lately, his nights had been voids, lost hours he barely registered.

With every step toward the basement door, the smell worsened.

He stopped at the threshold, hand hovering over the knob, and pressed his lips together. A deep, unsettled feeling gnawed at him, something he couldn’t rationalize. He forced himself to shake it off. The smell was coming from the basement, and standing around speculating wasn’t going to change that.

He turned the knob, swung the door open, and felt the air shift—stagnant and damp, curling up from the unseen depths below.

Stephen hesitated at the first step. He’d lived in this house for thirty-six years, and in all that time, he’d never once dreaded going into the basement. Not until now.

Halfway down, the smell became unbearable. For a moment, he was sure he would vomit. He brought his hand up, pinched his nose shut, and forced himself the rest of the way down, stepping onto cold concrete.

The light bulb overhead flickered as he pulled the chain.

At first, he didn’t see it.

The basement looked exactly as it had the day before—wooden shelves along the far wall, filled with boxes of old VHS tapes, canned goods, and tools he rarely used. The washer and dryer sat in their usual places, as did the water heater.

Then his gaze settled on the floor.

Stephen’s mind rejected the image at first, treating it like some foreign object placed in his reality by mistake.

A body.

It was just lying there, sprawled out a few feet from the base of the stairs.

It was a man’s. Late thirties, early forties. Average build. Face slack, eyes closed. Hands curled loosely at his sides, his body neither twisted nor rigid. He could have been sleeping.

But he wasn’t.

Stephen stayed where he was, staring at the corpse like it might sit up at any moment. His hands tightened at his sides.

How the hell did this happen?

His first thought was that it was some bizarre home invasion. Someone had broken in, only to drop dead before making it back out. A heart attack, maybe, or perhaps an overdose?

No, it couldn’t be. He had checked all of his locks and his security system last night.

Stephen’s throat felt dry. He turned his gaze toward the basement windows—still locked from the inside. The bulkhead door? No. The bolt was still in place.

The realization sent a sharp, uncomfortable feeling down his spine. Nobody had broken in.

So how had this body gotten here?

Stephen forced his feet forward, approaching the corpse with slow, measured steps. Up close, the details sharpened: dark hair, short and slightly unkempt. A plain gray T-shirt, jeans. Socks but no shoes.

Something about the feet unsettled him. The skin was clean. No dust, no dirt. If the man had walked here, there should have been something.

Bending down slightly, Stephen reached out, hesitated, and then pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. There was no pulse; the body was ice cold.

He pulled back. There was no bruising, and no blood, either. No foam around the mouth. The man simply looked dead—like he had just expired in the middle of the night.

Stephen’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. He should call the police. That was the right thing to do. But the thought of dialing 911 made him instantly ill.

They wouldn’t believe him. How could they? He had no explanation for why a corpse had manifested in his basement overnight. There were no signs of forced entry, and he had no connection to the dead man, as far as he knew. How do you explain that?

Stephen rose to his full height. There were only two options: call the police, or get rid of the body.

Minutes passed. The light bulb buzzed overhead, flickering slightly in its old fixture.

He made his decision.

* * * * * *

The tarp was heavy in his hands.

Stephen spread it out on the basement floor, hesitated, then crouched beside the corpse again. He braced himself, slid his hands under the body’s shoulders, and heaved.

It was too easy. The body had no stiffness, no rigor. It bent and moved as if it had only been dead for an hour, maybe less.

That wasn’t possible.

He didn’t think about it. He couldn’t afford to.

Stephen rolled the body onto the tarp, careful not to let the arms flop too hard against the concrete. Then he wrapped the edges around it, making sure to cover everything.

The process should have been grueling, but it wasn’t. Something about it felt eerily familiar, though Stephen couldn’t recall ever having done it before.

He carried the body up the stairs—step by step, slow and careful. The weight was manageable. The man had been alive only hours ago, and yet here he was, reduced to an unresponsive mass in Stephen’s arms.

The truck’s backseat was lined with an old moving blanket. He placed the body inside, glancing toward his neighbor’s house as he shut the door.

Ms. Gladwell’s curtains twitched slightly. Stephen swallowed, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled out of the driveway.

The night was quiet. A late-summer heat still clung to the air, making the drive feel claustrophobic.

He knew exactly where to go.

The roads stretched out before him, a dark path leading toward the heavily wooded area beyond town. He turned off onto a dirt path, driving until he was far enough in that the trees swallowed the truck’s taillights.

He worked quickly. Digging the hole took time, but not enough time. When he was done, he dropped the body in, covered it, and packed the dirt down.

And then he drove home, the smell of decay still clinging to his clothes.

* * * * * *

Stephen woke up the next morning with the distinct feeling that something was off.

He sat up, ran a hand through his hair, and listened to the quiet of the house. His stomach turned as he suddenly filled with dread.

The atmosphere felt the same way it had the morning before.

His body moved before his mind caught up. He was already at the basement door, turning the knob and stepping down into the shadows, before he knew it.

The smell hit him before the sight did.

There was another body—lying exactly where the first had been. This time, it was a woman’s. Late forties, by the look of her, peaceful and intact.

Stephen stood at the foot of the stairs, his mouth opening slightly.

No, he thought, recoiling.  No, no, no. This wasn’t possible.

His hands curled into fists, and for the first time in his life, he felt true terror.

Part II

Stephen didn’t sleep the next night. Not because he thought staying awake would prevent another body from appearing—he had no illusions about that anymore—but because the weight of reality was beginning to settle over him.

He wasn’t losing time. He wasn’t blacking out and dragging corpses into his own basement. Someone—or something—was putting them there.

And they weren’t stopping.

The second body had been harder to bury than the first. Not physically—physically, it had been the same unnatural ease, the woman’s limbs just as loose as the man’s had been—but psychologically, it had been different. The first time, he had convinced himself that maybe it had been some kind of accident. Maybe there was an explanation.

By the second time, he knew better.

That knowledge was what had kept him awake, sitting at his kitchen table, hands curled around a half-empty cup of coffee.

At some point, the coffee had gone cold. He didn’t bother reheating it. Instead, he got up and went to the basement door.

The knob was cool under his fingers. His stomach twisted. He didn’t have to look. He already knew what he would see. But he looked anyway.

The smell was worse this time—stronger—maybe because the bodies were accumulating faster than he could make them disappear, or perhaps because he was finally beginning to understand the reality of his situation.

A third body lay on the basement floor. A man in his mid-fifties. His hair was graying, his face lined. He had the look of someone who had lived a hard life, only to have it end abruptly in the middle of Stephen’s house.

Stephen didn’t move for a long time.

Eventually, his fingers found the edge of the door, and he shut it. He went back to the kitchen and sat down. And finally—finally—he considered what he should have considered from the start: calling the police. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do.

Except… it wasn’t. He had no proof of anything. There were still no signs of forced entry. No camera footage of an intruder. No evidence that anyone had entered his home at all. All he had were the bodies, and that would be enough. Not for them, but for him. Because even if they didn’t believe he had killed these people, they would believe he was involved, and that he had knowledge he refused to share—or that he was hiding something.

And in a way, he was. No matter how much he denied it, no matter how much he pushed it away, there was a truth lurking beneath it all.

This wasn’t random. It was happening to him specifically. For whatever reason, he had been chosen. And if he didn’t figure out why, he was certain he would be next.

* * * * * *

Stephen spent the rest of the morning watching his neighbor, Ms. Gladwell, through the slats of his window blinds.

She was watching his house. It wasn’t obvious, in a way that would make anyone else suspicious, but every now and then, her gaze would linger a little too long and her lips would press together a little too tightly. Stephen wasn’t sure if she knew something or if she had just noticed the pattern—him leaving in the middle of the night, the way his truck had been dusted with soil the morning before, the fact that he hadn’t been seen at work in three days.

She was old, but she wasn’t stupid.

Stephen let the blinds fall shut. He needed to be careful. He wasn’t the only one paying attention.

Across town, a man named Danny Klein was hunched over his laptop, scrolling through local missing persons reports. His fingers tapped against the desk as he read through the details: Three disappearances in the last two weeks. No connections. Different backgrounds, different ages, different last known locations.

Except for one thing: All three had last been seen near Stephen Coolidge’s house.

Danny leaned back in his chair, considering the implications. It wasn’t enough to prove anything—not yet. But it was enough to make him curious.

* * * * * *

Stephen wasn’t surprised when Kristoff Dreger knocked on his door that afternoon.

His neighbor had never been the kind to keep his nose out of other people’s business. In another life, Stephen might have called him a friend—they had grown up together, after all—but that life was long gone.

Now, Kristoff was just another problem.

Stephen opened the door halfway, blocking the view inside. “Something you need?”

Kristoff shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “You look like hell.”

Stephen didn’t respond.

Kristoff shifted his weight. “You’ve been acting weird, man. People are starting to notice.”

Stephen kept his expression neutral. “People?”

“Gladwell. Some of the other neighbors. Me.” Kristoff’s gaze flicked past Stephen’s shoulder. “You haven’t been to work, either.”

Stephen shrugged.

Kristoff tilted his head slightly. “You mind if I step inside?”

Yes, Stephen thought. Yes, he did. He absolutely did.

But no wasn’t an option. If he said no, Kristoff would think something was wrong. If he thought something was wrong, he would dig.

So Stephen stepped aside, and Kristoff walked in.

His gaze moved over the living room, scanning for something. He didn’t seem to find it.

Stephen shut the door, heartbeat slow and steady. “I’ve just been sick.”

Kristoff turned to him. “Sick, huh?”

Stephen nodded. Kristoff studied him for a moment, then let out a slow breath.

He didn’t believe him. Stephen could tell. But he also wasn’t pushing. Not yet, anyway.

“I gotta go,” Kristoff said finally. “Just… take care of yourself, alright?”

Stephen nodded again.

Kristoff left, and Stephen locked the door behind him.

* * * * * *

The cameras went up that night. Stephen installed them at every entrance. The windows. The bulkhead. The hallway leading to the basement. He was done with this. He was going to see who was bringing the bodies in, and put a stop to it.

Stephen sat at his kitchen table, eyes locked on the laptop screen. The camera feeds were clear.

He didn’t move or let himself fall asleep. This time, he would know. The truth was within his grasp, so close he could practically taste it.

The next morning, Stephen woke up in bed, and his stomach dropped. He scrambled upright, hands gripping the sheets.

No, he thought, his thoughts racing. He had been awake, watching. Hadn’t he?

His feet hit the floor. His body moved before his mind caught up. The laptop was still open on the kitchen table. He grabbed it, fingers cold as he scrolled back through the footage.

The feeds were clear… that is, until 3:37 a.m. At that time, everything went to static, and for exactly six minutes, the screens showed nothing. And then, at 3:43 a.m., the basement feed flickered back to life—and a new body lay on the floor.

Stephen closed his laptop, his stomach twisting. It wasn’t possible—but against all logic, it was happening.

Part III

Stephen sat in the dark with the laptop sat open in front of him, the grainy black-and-white footage of his basement frozen on the screen.

The new body appeared at exactly 3:43 a.m. In one frame, the floor was bare. In the next, a corpse lay in the same spot as all the others. There was no transition to speak of, and no movement. The body simply materialized, as if from thin air.

Stephen dragged a hand down his face, barely feeling the skin against his palm. He had been watching. He had forced himself to stay awake. But sometime after three, he had lost time again. Not sleep—lost time.

His stomach churned. This wasn’t human. It wasn’t a person sneaking in and dumping bodies while he wasn’t looking. It was something else—and that something had been in his house for longer than he cared to consider.

By noon, he had forced himself out of the chair. His body felt leaden, exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with sleep deprivation. He made coffee, sat at the kitchen table, and stared at the door leading to the basement.

The smell was worse now. It wasn’t exactly overwhelming, but it was sharper, like rot seeping into the wood.

His stomach tightened. There were too many bodies. He hadn’t even managed to bury the last one yet. He had barely even looked at it.

Something about this one felt worse. Different.

Slowly, Stephen pushed back from the table. He left his coffee untouched and went to the basement door. He didn’t hesitate this time. He opened it, stepped inside, and went down.

The body was male. He was in his mid-forties and had thinning blond hair. He was wearing a button-down shirt and khakis. The kind of man who looked like he had left the office on a Friday and never made it home.

But that wasn’t what caught Stephen’s attention. Rather, it was the face. The dead man’s expression wasn’t blank like the others. His mouth was slightly open, like he had been trying to say something before he died. His eyes were open just a sliver, showing a glimpse of unfocused whites.

Stephen took a slow, measured breath. Then he noticed something else—a shadow where there shouldn’t be one. It was just out of the corner of his eye, a patch of black lingering in the farthest part of the basement. At first, he thought it was just the usual dimness, the lightbulb overhead failing to reach every corner.

Then it moved, slowly, as if shifting into place. When Stephen forced himself to focus, the darkness was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

He needed answers, to understand why. The house had been in his family for generations. His father had lived here before him, and his grandfather before that. The basement had always been just a basement. Hadn’t it?

Stephen locked the bulkhead doors and the basement door behind him, and started searching the house. He didn’t even know what he was looking for, not at first. But something inside him—the same part of him that had known the moment he saw the second body that this wasn’t going to stop—was telling him that there was something hidden in this house. Something his father had never told him.

* * * * * *

He found the journal in the attic, buried in an old wooden chest, tucked beneath yellowed newspaper clippings and water-damaged books. His father’s handwriting was unmistakable—sharp, uneven strokes, the kind that made the letters look like they had been etched into the paper instead of written.

Stephen took it downstairs, and sat at the kitchen table. He turned on the lamp and began to read.

The entries started normally enough, documenting day-to-day accounts of life in the house. Mentions of his mother, of finances, of fixing the basement door.

Then, three months before his father died, the tone changed, and the handwriting grew more frantic. The sentences stopped making sense.

“The debt must be paid,” it read. “The gift of silence is the only thing keeping them at bay.”

“The walls breathe at night. I hear them,” it continued. “They whisper when they think I’m not listening. I should have told him. I should have told Stephen. But I can’t… I can’t.”

Stephen’s breath caught in his throat as he continued reading. As the dates progressed, the words became more erratic. The last few pages were crossed out entirely.

Stephen flipped through the ruined pages. Then, just before the end, he found one last entry: a single line.

“A door that cannot be opened does not mean there is nothing behind it.”

Stephen went cold. His father had known. He’d known everything, for years.

* * * * * *

He didn’t want to go back to the basement—but he did.

He left the journal on the table and grabbed a flashlight, even though he didn’t need it, and went down. The body was still there.

Stephen forced himself to move past it, to the farthest wall, where the shadow had been. There was nothing there, just cement, but something about it felt off. Like the space was thinner than the rest of the basement, like something was behind it.

His fingers skimmed the surface. The concrete was inexplicably frigid.

And then—he heard a sound. A dull, rhythmic thump, emanating from the other side.

Stephen pressed his palm flat against the wall—and the sound stopped.

Then something pressed back.

Stephen staggered away.

No, he thought. No, no, no. This wasn’t a wall. It was a door.

He went back upstairs, shut the basement door behind him, and locked it. He didn’t know what was behind that wall, but he knew it wasn’t supposed to get out. And whatever this thing was, it had been down there for generations. His father had kept it locked away.

Now, the question was—could he? Because if the bodies were appearing in the basement, it meant something was already seeping through, that something had changed. And Stephen wasn’t sure how much time he had left.

* * * * * *

By midnight, Danny Klein had everything he needed, including a full map and timeline of every missing person in the last two weeks.

Every disappearance shared one common factor: Stephen Coolidge.

Danny sat in his car, gripping the wheel, staring at the darkened house through the windshield. His gut told him he was right. He just had to prove it.

And if the police wouldn’t listen? Well—he’d figure something out.

Meanwhile, Stephen sat at his kitchen table, totally oblivious to Danny’s presence. He hadn’t moved in over an hour. The journal sat open in front of him, illuminated by lamplight, the words burned into his mind.

The bodies kept appearing, the thing behind the wall was awake, and Stephen was starting to understand something horrible—something his father had known before him. The debt his family owed wasn’t money. It wasn’t a metaphor. It was something else entirely—and if it wasn’t paid, the bodies wouldn’t stop. They would only get worse.

Part IV

The sound woke him. Not the usual muffled hum of the house settling, or the distant rumble of a truck passing on the highway. This was different. This was inside.

Stephen sat up too fast, the movement sending a jolt of nausea through him. His body felt sluggish, exhaustion seeping into his bones, but the sound coming from the basement cut through it.

He clenched his sheets as the low, rhythmic thump filled the air. It had never been this loud before.

His father’s words pressed into his skull: “A door that cannot be opened does not mean there is nothing behind it.”

Stephen swung his legs over the side of the bed and forced himself to stand. The room tilted slightly. His body was rejecting the reality of this, the same way his mind had been trying to. But it wasn’t a dream—this was no delusion. And whatever was down there, it was getting closer.

The basement door loomed at the end of the hall, the wood grain barely visible in the dim light.

Stephen hesitated, a deep, gnawing certainty growing inside of him. If he opened that door, if he went down there, he knew something awful was going to happen. But what choice did he have?

He stepped forward, gripped the knob, and turned it.

The smell hit him immediately. Not just rot anymore. Not just the sickly-sweet stench of bodies that had never belonged there. This was the odor of something older, something ancient.

The air was damp, and the stairs creaked under his weight as he descended. The pull-chain light swayed slightly, casting erratic shadows against the concrete walls. The newest body was there, of course, lying where they always did. But Stephen barely looked at it, because beyond it—at the farthest point of the basement—the cement wall had split.

Thin fractures spiderwebbed across the surface, deep enough that he could see something moving between them.

The sound was louder now—a dull, wet thump—like something writhing inside of a coffin.

It wanted out. It had always wanted out—and his father had kept it in.

Stephen took a slow step forward, his hand hovering over the cracks.

The moment his fingertips grazed the concrete, the basement light went out—and darkness swallowed him whole.

The room felt wrong—like it had folded inward, leaving him trapped in a space he couldn’t escape, and which shouldn’t exist.

Then, suddenly, a voice rose from the abyss, not spoken aloud, but rather, impressed into his mind, like an idea forming in real-time.

“The debt must be paid.”

Stephen’s fingers twitched at his sides, and he swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.”

A moment passed before a reply echoed in his head. ”You will.”

The air shifted. Suddenly, there was a pressure at his back, a presence just behind him—and something touched his shoulder.

Stephen spun around. The light flickered back to life—and he was alone.

But the cracks in the wall had widened.

* * * * * *

The knock at the door came an hour later. Stephen didn’t answer at first. He just stood in the hallway, staring at the front door, at the outline of a figure standing on the other side.

Whoever it was knocked again—three firm, deliberate raps. Stephen exhaled slowly, pulled the door open an inch, and froze.

Detective Valerie Henricks stood on his porch. Stephen’s grip on the doorframe tightened.

“Mr. Coolidge,” she said, “may I come in?”

He wanted to say no. Every bone in his bone screamed at him to send her away—but he stepped back anyway, as if compelled.

She didn’t sit. She stood just inside the doorway, sharp eyes scanning the house. “You’ve been home the last few nights,” she said. She wasn’t asking him a question; she was stating facts.

Stephen nodded once.

“There have been some… concerns,” she continued. “Neighbors have noticed unusual behavior. You leaving at odd hours. Dirt on your clothes.”

Stephen said nothing. Henricks studied him a moment. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the disappearances.”

Stephen let the silence stretch before replying, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Henricks didn’t react. “We have reason to believe that’s not entirely true.”

His jaw tightened. “Meaning?”

She reached into her coat, pulled out a photograph, and held it up. Stephen’s stomach turned to ice. He recognized the face that appeared in it, not because he had ever met the man.

But because he had buried him.

“I think you should leave,” Stephen said.

“Alright, Mr. Coolidge,” Henricks said with a nod. “If you insist. But I’ll be back.”

Stephen shut the door and locked it.

Then he turned and ran.

The basement. The cracks in the wall. He didn’t know what he was doing or why, but his body moved on instinct. Something in him had finally understood. This wasn’t about him—it was about his father. About his family. A debt had been passed down for years, a price that remained unpaid. And now—now, it was his responsibility.

Stephen reached the base of the stairs. The wall was open—not completely, but enough. There was a gap, just wide enough for him to see something beyond it. Something vast and endless, watching him.

The voice pressed into his skull again. “The debt must be paid.”

Stephen’s fingers twitched at his sides—and he stepped forward.

* * * * * *

Danny Klein had been watching the house all night. When he saw Stephen disappear into the basement, he made up his mind.

Danny got out of the car. He crossed the street, his sneakers scuffing against the pavement. He paused at the home’s porch steps, staring up at the door, a prickle of unease running down his spine. The lights were still on inside. Stephen had to be in there.

Danny swallowed hard, pushed forward, and tried the knob. It was unlocked. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, but he stepped inside anyway, his pulse slow and steady.

“Hello?” he called out. No one replied.

The living room was still, the kitchen untouched. The air felt stale, thick with the lingering scent of something foul, like damp earth and rot. Danny’s fingers twitched at his sides.

Then, from below, he heard a sound—a distinctive thump, dull and rhythmic, coming from the basement—and he froze. Danny’s instincts screamed at him to turn back, but his curiosity—the same curiosity that had brought him here in the first place—got the better of him.

He moved through the hallway cautiously. The basement door loomed ahead, slightly ajar, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. Danny hesitated a moment. Then, carefully, he reached for the knob.

The moment his fingers touched the wood—the door yawned open on its own. A breath of cold air spilled out, carrying with it a whisper of something inhuman.

Danny’s pulse spiked and his mouth went dry, but there was no turning back now. He had to know what was going on. He suspected foul play, and if there was any chance he could save a life, he had to try.

Danny stepped forward, into the darkness, and descended into the basement.

And Danny screamed, and screamed.

* * * * * *

The next morning, Valerie Henricks arrived with a warrant.

She found the door unlocked and stepped inside. The house was empty.

She moved through the kitchen and the hallway—and stopped at the basement door. It was wide open.

She padded to the top of the stairs, looked down, and saw nothing.

No bodies. No signs of violence. Just an empty basement—and a single, gaping hole in the farthest wall, a space where something had once been trapped… and was now gone.

And Stephen Coolidge was never seen or heard from again.

Part V

A month later, Harrison Lutz moved into the house with his family.

That night, the smell of something strange woke him.

It was faint at first, not strong enough to trigger immediate alarm, but noticeable. Beneath the usual scents of dust and old wood, something damp and cloying seeped up from the floorboards.

Harrison sat up slowly, his wife Renee’s steady breathing beside him barely registering as his mind shook off sleep. The room was dark, save for the slanted light from the streetlamp outside.

He listened. The house was quiet. Initially, everything seemed fine, but he couldn’t ignore the smell.

Harrison swung his legs over the side of the bed, the wooden floor cold beneath his feet. He pushed up and moved toward the bedroom door, careful not to wake his spouse. Their two kids were asleep in the next room. If there was something wrong, he needed to handle it before either of them woke up.

He crept down the hall, down the stairs, following the scent as it thickened in the back of his throat. By the time he reached the basement door, his sense of dread was palpable. He knew it instinctively—something was wrong.

The house was new to him. His family had moved in only days ago. Boxes remained still stacked in the living room, furniture barely settled into place. But in spite of the novelty of their living arrangements, Harrison felt there was something out of place. It wasn’t just the odor; he’d been noticing oddities for a while already.

The realtor had said it had been vacant for months. Now, Harrison wasn’t so sure. In fact, he was certain he’d been lied to. There had been a few signs that somewhat was amiss, including the seller’s eagerness, but the rock-bottom price was too good to pass up, and the promise of a better future for his family had overridden his logic.

The doorknob was cool beneath his palm. Slowly, he turned it and stepped inside.

The basement was still. The old bulb overhead flickered as it warmed, pushing back the shadows in broken patches. The air was heavy and humid, pressing in around him.

And at the base of the stairs—there was a body.

Harrison gasped and froze. For a long moment, his mind refused to process what he was looking at.

The corpse was sprawled out on its back, arms slack at its sides, with its head turned just slightly to the right. It appeared to be that of a man in his late forties, garbed in unremarkable clothing. Its facial expression was far too peaceful for what it was.

Harrison’s body locked up. What the hell was this?

His gut, like Stephen’s before him, told him this had to be the result of a home invasion gone wrong. A failed break-in. And yet, there were no signs of forced entry. The locks were still intact, the windows hadn’t been disturbed, and the basement door had been shut. There was no way someone had gotten inside.

Unless…

Harrison swallowed hard, forcing himself to move closer. He crouched beside the body, his stomach twisting into knots. Reluctantly, he reached out a hand and made contact with the corpse. The man’s skin was cool. It wasn’t stiff or bloated. Alarmingly, it looked and felt as if he had just died.

He noted there was no bruising or blood. No outward signs of violence or foul play.

And yet, the man was dead. In his basement.

Harrison’s fingers curled against his palms. He knew he had to call the police. After all, it was the right thing to do—the only thing to do.

But as he turned, a shadow shifted, just out of reach of the flickering light.

The farthest wall of the basement seemed thinner than it should be, the dimensions subtly off.  Harrison’s stomach lurched. Fighting back the urge to vomit, he took a slow, careful step forward, his fingers skimming the surface.

The concrete was cold. And behind it—he heard a dull, rhythmic thump.

Harrison backed away, his skin crawling.  The air shifted slightly. The bulb overhead flickered once.

He swallowed hard, forcing himself to turn, preparing to leave. His foot hit the first step, and from behind him, he heard an unfamiliar voice.

“The debt must be paid,” it said. The words weren’t spoken. They were in his head.

Harrison’s hands shook. He bolted for the basement door, climbing the stairs furiously, and slammed the door shut behind him, never looking back.

He didn’t sleep that night. He woke Renee, and he called the police.

* * * * * *

The officers arrived just after dawn. Two uniformed men stepped out of the squad car—Officers Brandt and Lemoine, their names pinned to their chests beneath sun-faded badges.

Harrison met them at the door. “There’s a body in my basement,” he told them hoarsely.

Brandt glanced at Lemoine, then back to Harrison. “You found it this morning?”

Harrison nodded. “It wasn’t there yesterday.”

The officers exchanged another glance. That was the first moment Harrison knew—really knew—that they had heard this all before. All of a sudden, he felt like the world’s biggest fool.

They pushed past him and moved through the house with quiet, measured steps. When they reached the basement door, Harrison lingered behind them, his arms crossed tight over his chest. The doorknob was still cold. Brandt twisted it, stepping inside first. Lemoine followed.

The smell hit them immediately. Lemoine covered his nose with his sleeve. “Christ.”

Harrison didn’t step inside. He didn’t need to. He had already seen enough.

Brandt crouched beside the corpse. His face remained neutral, as if none of this surprised him. For a long moment, neither officer spoke.

Then, without looking up, Brandt muttered, “Lemoine, call it in.”

* * * * * *

Harrison moved out the next day. It didn’t matter that they had no explanation for the body. It didn’t matter that the officers had asked questions but offered no answers. Harrison didn’t care. He didn’t want answers. He just wanted his family out.

Realtors tried to convince him otherwise. “A tragedy, sure,” one of them had said over the phone. “But why abandon a perfectly good home? It’s just one of those things, Mr. Lutz. These things happen.”

These things happen.

Harrison scoffed. That was all the confirmation he needed that this wasn’t the first time. This house had been vacant for a reason—and it would be vacant again, because he wasn’t leaving it behind for someone else to walk into the same nightmare.

No. He was going to end it.

The demolition permit took three weeks to process. During that time, Harrison rented a house two towns over, signing the lease before Renee could even suggest they stay with family.

He kept his mouth shut. When his wife asked him why, he just told her, “It’s done. We’re never talking about it again.”

And that was the truth. Because even if she didn’t believe him, even if she thought he was being irrational—she didn’t see what was behind that wall. She didn’t hear the voice.

* * * * * *

The wrecking crew arrived on a Monday morning, just before eight. Harrison parked down the street, staying just far enough away to watch.

The lot had already been cleared of evidence. The police had made sure of that. And now, the house sat empty and quiet—waiting.

By noon, the walls had come down. By evening, there was nothing left but rubble. And by nightfall, the first foundation markers had already been staked into the ground.

A new house was coming. A fresh start—clean and untouched. No one would ever know what had been buried beneath it.

Harrison sat in his car for a long time, staring at the ruins of the place that had almost swallowed him whole.

And then, he put the car in drive and left, for good.

Two months later, the first family moved in—a young couple expecting their first child. That night, the father woke up to a strange smell. It was faint, at first, barely noticeable, the scent of something damp and cloying, seeping up from the floorboards.

He sat up slowly and listened. Downstairs, somewhere in the dark, a slow, rhythmic thump echoed from the bowels of the foundation.