Kyle's Story ~ The Basement (1987)

Kyle’s Story ~ The Basement
by Amriel Simpson

    Upon the losing of my job, (for no reason other than lack of work) I needed to take up a place of residence.  My landlord had threatened to kick me out of my shambling apartment by the end of the week, for I owed two months of back rent already, and had no funds for future payment.  The apartment consisted of one room, and was little better than a roof over my head.  It was on the eighth floor of a large brick tenement building, dating back to the mid 1800’s.  The building itself was in a state of desuetude from periods of long disuse, and the manager had no intention of restoring the once pristine condition the building had in days of old.  It had been built as a final resting place for a rich business tycoon in 1857, and was later sold to a crime boss in the 1920’s, and had been converted to a tenement building in the late thirties.  It had remained so ever since, under different managers.

    I plodded down Baker Street upon departing from my now former occupation as a packer in a mail~order electronics company.  The air was becoming colder as the sun began to set, the autumn auburn leaves forming blankets on the lawns of the middle~class.  Children ran home as their mothers called from the porches of their warm, snug homes.  For them, a hot meal awaited.  For me, a desperate search for a roof over my head was necessary for survival.

    I reached the front door of the familiar tenement building.  The door was unlocked.  Someone must have forgotten to lock it when he left.  As I entered, the landlord’s ivory cat brushed against my legs.

    “So long Buster,” I reluctantly muttered as I knelt down to stroke the cat’s matted fur.

    I began the long ascension up the stairs to my apartment.  I used care not to disturb my now former neighbors with the creaking staircase.  I passed Old Widow Johnson on the second floor, listening to the word of God through her television set, as I had one hundred times before.  The young anarchists on the third floor I trod past also.  There were five of them in one room, sharing the cost to save money for drugs, no doubt.

    I was once like them, in my days of youth.  My mother and father were typical red~blooded American~type parents who supported the war.  I say “were” even though I suppose they are still alive.  I haven’t spoken with them since my father threw me out six years ago.  He had wanted me to join the army to defend democracy and give him something to draw pride from, but I wouldn’t give him that honor.  I could not see the logic in dying to preserve the freedoms of idiot red~necks like him.  Since then, I have drifted through dozens of low~paying jobs, each more tedious and menial than the last.

    I reached the familiar heavy, wooden front door and inserted the key to gain entrance.  Rats scattered into their dwellings behind the walls.  I needed only to grab my humble belongings before I departed.  A blanket, a comb, a flashlight, and some dental floss placed into a bag along with my most prized possession ~ my collection of a hundred or so Charlton horror comics from the mid~seventies.  I have always felt that comic books were never recognized for their true literary value.  I mean, all they are are stories with pictures ~ an illustrated novel, if you will.  There is no limit to the sophistication of the writing or the artistic rendering of the author’s visions.  I have always felt that, in this medium at least, Charltons (though not as prestigious [or costly, for that matter] as the EC’s of the fifties) ranked right up there with Rembrandts and the musical pieces of Tchaikovsky and Mozart.

    Soon, I was back on the unforgiving streets.  I had lived on them once before, and they had made me realize the true nature of existence.  We, (as people) live to multiply, then perish as all others previously have.  This is the only way to insure the survival of our species, though we may not have accomplished much.  Sure, televisions and radios are handy, but this technology has also brought us the Nuclear Age.  Like maggots on a slab of temporal meat, the human race feeds upon our world.  One could see the sheer pointlessness of it all.  Perhaps I need a religion to guide my thinking.  At least then, I would have hope through my suffering.

    It was cold and windy, and the dark, grey skies began to produce rain.  Some shelter I needed, from these sundry drops of moisture, before my only set of clothing was drenched.  I had, earlier, thought of spending this night in the basement of the tenement building.  I had been down there once before, with an old bum I once knew called Chester.  Chester was sort of a seventy~year~old hippie and quite mysterious.  He would spend days exploring the basement of ruined buildings with nothing to show for it but an old beer bottle.  I suppose I knew him as well as anybody, yet there was much about him that I did not know.  At any rate, the area beneath the building was dry and seemingly rodent~free, so I advanced toward the grate that was between me and my destination.  It required little effort to pull the black, rusted grate from its place at the bottom of the brick wall.  I squeezed feet~first through the narrow opening and landed with care on the stone floor within, at the core of the old building.

    I was now completely inside and safe from the rain, though I could hear it through the walls all around me.  It was deathly quiet and there was a rotting stench in the air.  The only light was that which could be seen through the porthole I had come in through.  The darkness was such that it was impossible to see beyond my present position.  I flicked my lighter and made my way to the back of the large, vacant room.  I then proceeded to unfold my woolen blanket and sit, with my back propped against the hard stone wall.

    I released the butane button and the lighter flickered out.  All was now complete darkness, such that the closing my eyes made nary a difference.  I began to fear the darkness, though I scarcely knew why.  I thought, as I rested, of something H.P. Lovecraft once said: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

    As I pondered this, I came to the realization that the fear of the unknown could possibly be the only fear that exists.  I sat, thinking of frightful situations and how they all spring from fear of the unknown.  I was not truly afraid of the darkness, for the darkness in itself is innocuous.  I feared only what possibly lay beyond the darkness, in the shadows and corners of that God for~saken crypt~like cellar.

    I pulled the woolen blanket tighter about me and tried, (unsuccessfully, I might add), to reassure myself that this place would really be no different than if it were brightly lit.  But, if it were brightly lit, fear would not have the unfair advantage of the unknown against me.

    I sat in the stillness, listening to the rainfall outside, doubtful that I would ever gain the ability to lose consciousness.

                            II

“Sunrise, I greet you,
The beauty of your light!
So warm and tender,
Was never the night.” ~ Leif Edling, Nightfall 

    I suppose eventually I must have fallen asleep, for it was well past eleven when I awoke to greet the sunlight streaming in through the grate~hole.

    I stood up, thankful to have survived the night, knowing full well that I would face it again soon.  My thoughts then were of nourishment, and how it could be obtained.

    The rainclouds must have dispersed, for the sun shone with radiance, and I at last could view the large basement in its entirety.

    The basement stretched for maybe 200 feet ahead of me to the grate~hole, and its width I could not determine because of the maze of pipes that adorned the wretched place.  Not caring to venture further in my quest for a dwelling for the nonce, I decided to do a little exploring.  When I was down there previously with Chester, I never went any further left nor right of the imaginary line drawn between the grate~hole and the back wall.

    Taking my flashlight from my pack, I chose to go right, and after barely squeezing through the jungle of pipes, reached the far wall.  Curious inscriptions, almost hieroglyphic, ornamented the dull, grey bricks.  The carvings were hard to describe.  Some took the form of hideous, mythical beasts, the likes of which to this day remain unconceived in the minds of mortal men.  How Chester would have loved to have seen those inscriptions!

    It was while studying these indentations that I noticed an irregularity in the brick pattern.  There was an area roughly five feet high and two feet wide that was composed of darker~shaded bricks.  Upon examining these darker~hued, grey bricks, I noticed that they were not mortared together and pulled out with considerable ease.  I began to remove these bricks and doing so created a black portal in the wall.

  “Curiouser and curiouser said a girl named Alice,” I mused.

    Shining my flashlight into the hole, I saw that it stretched back to form a tunnel for maybe fifteen feet, then widened out into what appeared to be a room beyond.

    My curiosity getting the better of me, I crawled on my hands and knees through the damp tunnel, with flashlight in mouth, in an effort to see what lay beyond.  Reaching the other end of the tunnel, I saw (after a flashlight scan) that the “room” was about ten feet high but nary larger than a closet space.  I stood up in this room felling restricted and wondering what purpose the room was created for.  At my feet was a round manhole~like wooden disk that was sunk into the concrete floor.  Attempting to pry the lid up with my fingers proved futile so I began to jump repeatedly upon it.  The rotting wood soon gave way and I was peering into a larger chamber about ten feet below.  After considerable thought, I decided to risk the fall to gain entrance to this new~found cryptic chamber.

    This room was considerably larger than the one above.  I was so far away from any light source that I knew if my flashlight failed, I would never find my way out ~ never see sunlight again ~ never smell clear air or taste real food again.

    In the center of this larger room, my flashlight, piercing the pitch blackness, revealed an ancient brass podium upon which a very thick and ancient tome rested.  Closely examining the face of the book, I noticed that it was leather~bound, with inscriptions upon it, akin to those I found earlier on the bricks guarding the entrance to this forbidden place.  Reading the Greek letters of the title yielded the words: NECRONOMICONUS LIBRIS EX MORTIS or, “The Book of the Dead.”

    Many an hour had I spent pondering the possibility that such a book could exist after reading a tale of Lovecraft’s, but never did I have probable cause to believe it did exist in actuality.  Numerous “false Necronomicons” had been printed, including a paperback version, and each claimed to be the fabled Necronomicon of old.  I wondered if this were merely another hoax, but secretly, I only wished that it were, for the evil possibilities of the true Book of the Dead knew no bounds.

    Focusing the flashlight on the book, so that nothing else in the room was visible, I lifted the cover and turned to the first page.  The pages were composed of parchment, with various crimson symbols written in what appeared to be the blood of a sacrificial goat or other creature.

    As I viewed the symbols, they began to distort and transmogrify, forming pictures in my mind.  All of a sudden, I felt as though I understood the meaning of all existence.  This feeling soon passed; however, and I found myself staring up at two pillars, surrounded by a mist that seemed at first blue, then grey, then green.  The pillars were set into heavy rock on an island surrounded by an eternal ocean, whose sides fell into oblivion.  Above the pillars I gazed upon the most horrifying sight any mortal has ever dared observe.  For miles, it seemed, above the pillars, a creature stood, one leg on each pillar, gazing down at me, as if I were the most insignificant microbe in comparison to the largest galaxy.

    The creature, if it could be described, was large and scaly, with great wings and tentacle~like protrusions from its head~like appendage.

    As I continued to gaze, unable to look away, I wanted this creature to enter our world.  I was to be the gateway to our dimension that this creature would pass through.

    Suddenly, from beyond, I heard a voice that was familiar, but the words were alien to me.  I was able at least to look away from the book responsible for my delusions and I fell to the floor.

    Chester loomed above me, his long orange~grey hair and beard pointing disapprovingly downward at me.  He was chanting a spell that would close the gateway I had unintentionally opened.  The book slammed shut and Chester looked at me with disgust and bitter dismay.

  “Mortal fool!” he shouted.  “Meddle not with that of which you have no understanding!  A spawn of chaos nearly took possession of your soul to enter this world!  Another second and I would have been powerless to present it from occurring!  Go now!  Begone, and forget this place exists if you care at all for the future of mankind!”

    Needless to say, I ran like a man possessed from that wretched place.  I have since moved southward to a small town where I work as a packer in a pear company.  It may seem a miserable life to some, but to one who has endured horrors beyond imagining, I am quite content.

    I haven’t opened a book since then, and I wonder if I ever shall. What I experienced down there in that cellar should never be repeated by any man, no matter how sane he be.  I only hope that I can warn others in time, not to dabble in things they know nothing about, for our world is not as safe as we may be led to believe.