The Basements Secret

Some family secrets don’t die. They wait, grow, and eventually get hungry.

By the time the county truck finally rumbled up the gravel drive, the house already seemed to lean away from Jeremy Holmes, as if it wanted nothing to do with the man sitting on its back steps.

He was wrapped in a blanket that smelled like someone else’s laundry soap, hands scraped raw, knuckles bruised, his jeans stiff with drying blood and something far worse. Morning light stretched across the hills of West Virginia, revealing birdsong and drifting mist, an ordinary world that felt obscene after what had happened below the house.

This was the aftermath. The part no one ever prepared you for.

~ ~ ~

When Jeremy was a child, the basement had been a rule without explanation. His grandparents never shouted about it; that somehow made it worse. They spoke softly, firmly, the way adults do when they know a thing is dangerous but don’t want to name it.

You don’t go down there, Jeremy.

Once, he asked why.

His grandmother’s smile faltered for half a second. His grandfather changed the subject.

Then came the falling out. Raised voices, accusations he didn’t understand, a slammed car door. After that, the visits stopped. The house became a place that existed only in memory.

~ ~ ~

Years later, his parents died in a car accident, and grief hollowed him out. He built a life from habit instead of intention. Work became his refuge, long hours, deadlines stacked on deadlines. Anything that kept his mind busy enough not to wander.

So when the letter arrived telling him the house was his, he packed up and moved without much thought. He told himself it would be temporary. He told himself a lot of things.

Inside the envelope was a second packet, brittle with age. His grandparents’ handwriting filled every page, looping and cramped, the words pressing hard into the paper as though they’d feared it might escape.

They confessed to the occult like people admitting a youthful indiscretion. They had been curious once. They had called something forth they did not understand and could not banish.

To keep it contained, they learned to feed it. Avocados. Asian rice. Female grasshoppers, at least 24 of them, crushed and mixed into a cake. The specificity bordered on absurd, and they acknowledged it with a weak attempt at humor. Two hundred and forty combinations, they wrote, before they found one that kept “it” from growing.

Do not miss a feeding, his grandmother wrote near the end. The ink wavered there.

Jeremy laughed when he first read it. A short, brittle sound. Grief did strange things to people. Old folks fixated on nonsense. That was all.

And besides, there was the basement.

He told himself he’d check it later. After he unpacked. After he got settled at work. After the next project wrapped up. Fear from childhood lingered like an old bruise, easy to ignore as long as nothing pressed on it. Days slid by. Emails piled up. He worked late, ate poorly, slept worse.

He forgot.

On the fifteenth day, the smell reminded him.

It crept through the house subtly at first, earthy, fermented, like damp soil left too long in a bucket. He blamed the plumbing. The age of the place. Anything, but the door at the end of the hall.

One night, sleep wouldn’t come. Childhood memories resurfaced with vicious clarity: the way his grandparents’ voices changed near the basement, how his grandfather always checked the locks before bed. How the floor near the door felt colder than the rest of the house.

At dawn, he took the packet back out and read it again. Every word landed heavier this time.

By mid-morning, Jeremy stood at the basement door, keys shaking in his hand. Unlocking it felt like breaking a vow made decades ago. One by one, the bolts slid free. The door creaked inward, releasing a wave of damp air that made his eyes sting.

The stairs groaned under his weight. The light flickered on, revealing stonewalls slick with moisture.

And then he saw it.

The thing occupied the far corner, a gelatinous mass pressed against the foundation like something that had grown there naturally. Its surface glistened, rippling in slow, deliberate motions. Colors churned beneath its skin, muddy greens, bruised purples, amber veins that pulsed faintly.

It moved.

Not fast. Never fast. But it reached, extended a portion of itself, withdrew, learned. The floor beneath it was etched smooth, stone eaten away over time.

Jeremy staggered back, heart hammering. His heel slipped, and something brushed his ankle.

He ran.

Panic carried him through the house, into the yard, gulping air like he’d been underwater. The packet’s words screamed in his mind.

He fed it that day.

Avocados mashed with shaking hands. Rice boiled too long. Catching grasshoppers left him nauseous, their fragile bodies snapping between his fingers. He crushed twenty-four, counted them twice, then again.

When he returned to the basement, the thing shifted toward him as though aware. It flowed over the offering, absorbing it slowly, reverently. When it receded, he collapsed against the wall, sobbing with relief.

For days, it worked.

Then work demanded more of him. A deadline slipped. A night turned into two. He told himself he’d feed it in the morning.

Morning came too late.

By the time he went down again, the thing had grown. It pressed against the stairs now, surface trembling with anticipation. When it surged forward, it wrapped around his leg, cold burning through his skin.

The beam gave way when he fell. Wood and stone crashed down, pinning the thing beneath rubble long enough for him to crawl free, screaming, broken, alive.

Now, as the county officials approached, Jeremy stared at the ruined house and wondered how long rubble could hold back something patient.

Because beneath the collapse, he could still feel it moving.

Slowly.

Waiting.


Word Count: 977
Written for: "The Writer's Cramp" 
Prompt: Evidently, avocados, Asian rice, and female grasshoppers all have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Write a story or poem featuring all three. Use Horror/Scary as your genre.