Really Scary TRUE Stories

The basement

My house sitting story. Two months after my brother and his wife bought a new house, they had to go out of town and needed their cats fed. Their house and my office are both a good drive from my apartment, but only a few minutes away from each other. My brother said if I wanted, I could just stay over in the guest room rather than driving among the three places. So I got the keys and instructions. I was staying there three nights: Mon-Wed.

Monday evening was uneventful until about midnight. I was lying on the living room couch, watching Conan, with a cat lying on my chest. I started to drift off to sleep. The next thing I knew, I was standing in pitch black darkness. I completely freaked out, I had no idea where I was. I felt around in the dark and felt nothing. Finally I realized there actually was a faint blue light coming from above. I moved toward it and then understood where I was. I was in the fucking basement! The light was coming through the basement door at the top of the stairs, which leads to the kitchen. Just enough moonlight apparently made it through from a window elsewhere in the kitchen. I bolted up the stairs, turned on the kitchen light, and closed the basement door. I was terrified until I calmed down enough to come to the conclusion you probably already came to–I had sleepwalked all the way down the stairs (after opening the basement door, which I know was closed).

A couple things are important to the story. First, the basement. The house was very nice—actually, more than they should have been able to afford. The only exception was the basement. I had only seen the basement once, when I first got the tour. It was totally unfinished and was the one major thing they wanted to fix up. All they had down there was some boxes and the washer/dryer. I had no reason to want to go down there and had kind of forgotten it existed.

The other point is that sleepwalking is kind of a thing in my family, almost an inside joke. My brother talked in his sleep constantly, and would sleepwalk sometimes, and it always scared the hell out of me. The idea of people doing things in their sleep just creeps me out to the core (still does). My brother knew this and would tease me about it, so it was known in my family that I had this phobia. But as far as I know, I had never, ever sleepwalked until that night. The image kept playing in my mind, over and over, of me, asleep, getting up from the couch, walking to the kitchen, opening the basement door, and shuffling down the stairs into total darkness. Creepy as all hell.

Anyway, I saw the TV was still on in the living room, playing Wedding Crashers. I watched the rest of the movie, trying to laugh and think of the sleepwalking as a funny story to tell my brother. When I went upstairs to go to sleep in the guest room, I stayed asleep. That was night one.

The next morning, in the light of day, it didn't seem that scary. I texted my brother about it and joked around. All day I wasn't bothered one bit. But as I'm walking out of my office to my car, I'm overcome with this sense of dread. All of a sudden, the thought of going to sleep in that house — and maybe sleepwalking again — is scaring me. So I had a plan. I stop at the hardware store and pick up one of those rubber door-stopper wedges. At the house, I jam this into the crack under the basement door, and kick it in until it's as far as it can go. I test out trying to open the door, and it won't budge. Perfect.

Later, I go upstairs and fall asleep. When I wake up, I swear to god I think I'm dreaming. I was standing in darkness again, but this time I know exactly where I am. The smell is the same. The concrete floor under my feet is the same. I look around for the light from upstairs, and it take me longer to find it because it's farther away. Last night I was only a couple of feet from the stairs, this night it was maybe ten feet. I run up and turn on the kitchen lights. I see the rubber wedge on on the floor, a couple of feet away, as if tossed there. Again, I can't stop picturing myself sleepwalking. Out of the bedroom, down the stairs, trying to open the basement door. Bending down and yanking out the wedge. And then, again, slowly down into the darkness.