The Man in the Basement

When I first moved into my new house in Brooklyn, I always felt an eerie feeling; even at age 6. The most terrifying times were in the basement where all my life living there I felt cold, almost like my chest cavity was under a lot of pressure and something was telling me to get out of there the minute I'd reach the last step into the basement. From 6 years old to 15 every time I left the basement, I would leave in fear. My first experience was seeing the dark shadow of a man by the back basement door smoking a cigarette and looking over his shoulder at me. Another was having a line of hanging shirts thrown into me off the clothes line. Seeing the freezer door open and close slowly all on its own.

Always in the middle of the night I would wake up and hear music playing, a man laughing, and shadows moving under my bedroom door. I've seen angry faces through the darkness of the night, and even my own cat was frightened and would crawl under my blankets and sleep that way or meow loudly into the dark.

Fed up and only 13 years old, I decided to get the number from my mother of the previous owner. It was a middle aged Irish Catholic woman whom had sold the property for her deceased parents but have never lived there herself. Asking her about the history and what her parents were like, she told me almost too much of what I wanted to know.

Her mother was a strict Catholic woman and good to her faith. She passed away before her husband, right in the living room from a heart attack. The lady mentioned how even though her mom was gone her father would still sneak cigars and cigarettes out the back basement door.

She also told me how her troubled brother killed himself in the basement when he was only in his mid 20's, and her young sister had died in the basement of a brain aneurysm. She would play in the basment all the time due to the fact she was mentally handicapped and wasn't allowd to play outside for the fear she would become hurt.

After this shocking phone call I realized I had been living with another family since I was 6 in my own house. Except this family had already died, and moved in there 85 years before I had. Let's just say, I'm glad to have moved out of there!