CELLAR

 

 

 

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.