CELLAR
By Randy Romero
Donald Brackett checked
his gold watch, a retirement gift from his former employer. The watch was a
symbol of his hard work and dedication. A reward for all those years he put in
at the plant. He appreciated the gesture, but it took him time to adapt. He had
never been a watch guy. At first, he considered pawning it. But Shelly had
pleaded with him to keep it.
And Donald always
listened to his wife. That was, as Donald would gladly tell anyone who asked,
the secret to a successful marriage. Always listen to your wife. And remember
that she’s always right, even when she’s wrong. That last part usually got a
good laugh from his buddies at the plant.
Donald had kept the watch
at Shelly’s behest. And he was glad that he had. While Donald did own a cell
phone, he rarely had any use for it. He had nobody to call, and nobody was
calling him. So he seldom carried his phone around with him. The watch helped
him keep track of time. After all, he had a schedule to keep.
It was almost nine o’clock.
Almost feeding time.
Donald was a simple man.
A blue-collar guy who enjoyed the little things in life like an ice-cold beer
or a Monday night football game or a steak char grilled to perfection. You
didn’t need to call him Mr. Brackett. Donald or Don would suffice. Just so long
as you didn’t call him Donnie. He hated it with a searing passion. Possibly
because it reminded him of the folly of his youth. His friends used to call him
Donnie back then. And Donnie had been a “bad apple” in those days. He had been
a drinker, a partier, and a troublemaker.
Not anymore. Don turned
his life around after high school. He was a hard worker and a straight shooter.
What you saw was what you got. But even the most earnest and sincere
individuals can harbor the darkest of secrets. Donald’s secret was currently
living underneath his feet.
Don went to the
refrigerator and got himself a beer. He had certainly changed a lot over the
years, but one thing that hadn’t changed was his love for a cold beer. He popped
the top and the can opened with a loud hiss. He emptied the entire can into a
clear glass mug. A thick layer of foam formed on top. He let it settle before
he took the first sip and sighed. A sigh of adulation, of reverence. This was
as good as his night was going to get.
The crooked calendar
tacked to the back wall of the kitchen served as a grim reminder of his wife’s
anniversary. It would be three years next Wednesday. The word anniversary
didn’t sit right with him. Anniversaries were supposed to be a special
occasion, a celebration. But death was not something to be celebrated.
Don enjoyed his beer in
silence. The kitchen had a retro aesthetic, which really meant it hadn’t been
updated or remodeled in decades. Wooden floorboards creaked underfoot every
time he took a step. There was a tiny kitchen island made of white Formica that
separated the stove from the kitchen table and the refrigerator. Adjacent to
the island was a grey threadbare carpet that seemed oddly out of place.
Don finished his beer,
retrieved a galvanized pail from his fridge, and walked to the back of the
kitchen area. He pulled back the grey carpet, revealing a trapdoor underneath,
padlocked. Though they were muffled, he could still hear the most awful sounds
emanating from below. Inhuman, unnatural sounds. He fished the key from his
pocket and unlocked the trapdoor, flung it open and peered down into the
cellar.
Crawling around in the
dark was the thing that had killed his wife. The pulsating, membranous mass of
flesh that used to be their son.
He emptied the contents
of the bucket. A storm of blood, organs, and viscera rained down into the
cellar. He watched in terror as his son consumed it all. He didn’t know how
much longer he could keep this up. Shelly’s death had been an accident. The
others were not. The others had been sacrifices.
The guilt had gnawed away
at his insides. An experienced hunter, Don had tried animals at first. Deer,
squirrels, possums, anything he could shoot with his rifle and cart back to the
house. But the animals hadn’t been enough to satisfy the creature in the
cellar. Its appetite could not be sated. So Don had taken extreme measures to
ensure his son’s survival. He didn’t understand why. He assumed it was his
natural paternal instincts. He had lost Shelly, but some semblance of his son
still remained behind that monstrous façade. So he had kept it alive, kept it
hidden, kept it well fed.
He slammed the trapdoor
and padlocked it. He needed another drink. A little liquid courage for what he
was considering next.
Don retired at sixty-five,
a year before his son’s gruesome transformation into the creature that dwelled beneath
him. That was the year he lost Shelly. Now, at age sixty-nine, Don had very
little gas left in his tank.
He was old, tired, miserable.
He missed Shelly more than anything. And the guilt of his sins was slowly
killing him. In attempting to keep this monster alive, Don had turned into a
monster himself, sacrificing innocent strangers to his only child. He couldn’t
do it anymore. He couldn’t kill another innocent soul. He had to stop it, to
break the cycle.
What if the monster in
the cellar simply stopped feeding? How long would it survive? Days, weeks? No
matter how long, Donald knew it couldn’t live forever. So he would give it one
final meal and say his farewells. Then time would finish the job for him.
He finished his beer,
fetched another one. And another after that. He said a silent prayer and
unlocked the trapdoor. He opened the hatch and took a deep, soul cleansing
breath.
“Shelly, I’ll be seeing
you soon,” he said before he leapt into the abyss.