Today's offering, called "The Cellar: A True Story," is taken from my first book entitled "Tales of Dark Romance and Horror." This selection however, is a bit different from my other pieces because it is a true account of occurrences that took place in my childhood home once my father, at my urging, revealed some terrifying family secrets to me. Please keep in mind that what I relate in this story comes from a child's perspective many years ago. Yet, I still believe that the things described in this piece transpired as I relate them. You the reader, can be the judge.
It was a dark and dreary night
Around the campfire bright
The captain said Antonio
Tell us your most fearful story
And Antonio, he began
I still remember the dreary afternoon upon which I relentlessly pressed my father to reveal the secrets—to speak to me of the unexplainable occurrences of which I had inkling.
“If I tell you it will frighten you,” he would say.
“No! No it won’t scare me. I’m not afraid of that stuff.”
“It was a dark and dreary night…around the campfire bright…” he responded.
This process kept repeating itself; my frustration with it growing.
“It was a dark and dreary night…”
Why does he keep repeating that poem? I thought to myself, it doesn’t go anywhere!
“It was a dark and dreary night…around the campfire bright…”
“Why do you keep repeating that poem Dad? Can’t you just tell me?”
Then…he suddenly…RELENTED!
I listened to the stories as, one after the other, they spoke of things more horrible than I had ever imagined. Perhaps they were horrible because they were real. How could they not be? Had I not been relentless in pressing my dad to tell them? Had he not been reluctant to speak of them?
Where do I even begin to describe the horrors—the otherworldly phantoms that assaulted me from some dark and forbidden place? How do I relate the feeling one gets knowing that something kept walking up Aunt Elsie’s stairwell—that kept attempting to open her door—ALL NIGHT LONG!
Then there was the priest with a horse’s hoof instead of a foot—a priest that was standing in a closet when someone tried to open the door!
As my father continued on with his telling of these tales, I remained transfixed. I learned of the clock that no longer worked, yet chimed just at midnight one Christmas Eve.
“Someone is going to die within the next year,” it was proclaimed, and someone did. The following Christmas Eve the non functional clock, as if arising from its own death, struck twelve once again. That was when my great grandfather, who had once lived in the same cellar that I was now sitting in—that’s when he departed from this world.
Most hideous and unnerving of all however, was the alarm clock. Oh yes, the alarm clock. It wasn’t my alarm clock—the one that woke me for school most mornings. No, it was the one of which my father spoke—the one that rang without being asked to—the one that also didn’t function! I didn’t know who that hellish clock belonged to or where it was physically located, but I understood its power—ITS POWER TO TERRIFY! It haunted me in my dreams—ringing and spinning—ringing and spinning on some unknown ledge as it hurled its spine-tingling waves of terror at my very soul. Still, even that repellent clock, with all the evil it could cast, was not the worst of it.
Once I learned the secrets my world changed. My nights alone—those nights when my folks would go out-- they became fearsome things. On those nights I would hear objects moving around in the darkness of the cellar. Something would slide; there would be a crash. I intuited that the sounds came from the wooden flats, upon which mason jars filled with nails, screws and washers stood. These would slide and crash—slide and crash. Yet, whenever my father next returned to his shop NOTHING WOULD BE OUT OF PLACE—NOTHIN
Well, that about does it for this week's selection. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you'd like to learn more about this story or how to purchase my books, please feel free to visit my website, which is listed on the right, a bit closer to the top.
Until next time then, keep it spooky!
Photo Source: Gothic Pictures Gallery
Author unknown
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