Nothing's What it Seems - Halloween Stories 2022

Grandma's Basement

🚨Warning🚨
This story contains some gore. Feel free to read some of my other stories from other years if you don't enjoy anything gory. However, if you don't mind a little bit of gore, please continue at your own discretion.
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After my grandma's passing in early September, I inherited her house. None of my relatives wanted the house, so it was passed on to me. I have been wanting a place of my own and this was my chance.

The house was built in the 1920s. Grandpa and grandma bought it in 1960. My grandparents loved the house's character, as well as, the 4 acres of land it was built on. It was perfect for their growing family; since they already had five children and one on the way.

Of course, they did some updates to the house to make it more their own and from then on, the house was a part of the family and saw many years of happiness and love.

Now that all the legal issues that follow with the death of a family member were sorted out, I was finally able to take possession of the house and move into it mid-October. It was now my turn to update it and make it my own.

One of the first things I wanted to do after moving in was check out the secrets of the basement.

My grandparents had always kept the basement door locked up, not letting anyone go down there. My mom and her siblings also remember not being allowed down there. My grandma would always say that it was grandpa's workshop and that there were tools down there that were dangerous to children.

Even after grandpa's death, grandma refused to let us grandkids use it as a play space. She would tell us that it was now her canning space and only she was allowed down there.

After a while we decided to not ask about it anymore and the door was always kept locked anyway so it wasn't like we were able to sneak a peek down there without her knowing.

It wasn't much to my surprise when I went to turn the knob of the basement door, I found that it was still locked. I wasn't sure where grandma had kept the key, I don't think any of my relatives knew either, and most of her belongings were removed from the house to make space for my stuff.

I ran my fingertips along the tops of every door frame, checking for the key. I searched every cabinet and flipped through all of remaining books of hers. The key wasn't anywhere I could think of as a possible hiding spot. The last spot I could think of was the mantle of the fireplace, which I hadn't checked yet. However, when I picked up grandpa's empty ern to move it aside, I heard something move around inside.

Curious, I opened the lid and turned it upside down over my hand. Out fell an old looking key. Excited, I carefully closed up the ern and set it gently back on the mantle, then ran to the basement door.

I inserted the key into the hey hole, twisted it and heard the familiar sound of a lock unlocking. I turned the knob and the door creaked open. I swung the door open the rest of the way and was greeted by darkness and an awful stench that was so strong I was surprised I hadn't smelled it before the door was opened.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a light switch at the top of the stairs so I reluctantly made my descent into the darkness. My next mission was to find the light switch.

The stench was stronger at the bottom of the steps and it made me want to gag. It smelled as if an animal had gotten stuck somewhere in the walls and died there and now the body was decomposing and stinking up the place.

When I finally found the light switch and turned on the lights, I was horrified to find that my thought wasn't too far from the truth. Grandma definitely canned things but what I found wasn't the usual fruits, veggies and jams you would normally find in a canning pantry. Instead, what I found on the shelves were jars filled with various organs and body parts such as eyeballs, tongues, kidneys, hearts, fingers, toes, and anything else that could fit in a jar. There were even jars of only blood. Every jar was labeled with the organ name along with a person's name and a date. All of the jars were organized neatly on the shelves. There were three different names I could spot from a quick glance.

My stomach was in knots, however, I slowly crept to the back room of the basement where the horrors continued. In the back room there was an old metal operating table stained with blood and two buckets sat on either side of the table along with a couple clear plastic tubes, all of which were also stained with blood. I didn't even want to attempt to imagine what those were used for.

I ran back upstairs, on the verge of throwing up. I called the police to report what I found and they sent a team down to investigate.

Long story short, grandma wasn't as sweet and innocent as I thought she was. In fact, the detectives discovered parts of twenty-nine different bodies which were later identified as being people that had gone missing over the past few decades.

To put it bluntly, my grandma was a serial killer and none of us knew it except grandpa.

Be careful, even the people closest to you might be more terrifying than they seem...

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That's all for this week's story!

I really hope you enjoyed. If you did, Please Vote and Comment.

Stay tuned for next weeks story. It'll sure have you questioning how many ghosts you've met without knowing it. 👻

🎃 If you would like to read more of my spooky content while you wait for the next story, feel free to read any of my stories from past years.
-Real or Legend? 2020
-31 Days of Halloween 2019
-Halloween Stories 2018

🦀creepycrab🦀