Don't Look in the Basement

Chapter 2

 Thanks to all of you who commented and read what I have so far!!!

  I covered my mouth with one shaky hand, before stepping back and sitting down on the bottom step of the stairs. He continued to stare at me as I stared back at him, still in total shock. Next to "Oh my God," the other thoughts running through my head included, “My parents are insane!!!", and "What to do now?”. Well the obvious thing I had to do now was to free the person who was chained up in our basement, but the toughest thing that I knew I was going to have to do was to call the police. On my own parents.

   The flashlight that I had dropped on the concrete floor, was now broken and useless, so taking a deep breath, I stood up again and flipped on the light switch. Dim light flooded the room, and I was able to get a better look at the boy. His hair wasn't black as I had originally thought, but more of a dark brown, and underneath his eyes were dark circles that I could tell came from a lack of sleep. His entire face looked gaunt and extremely pale, as if he hadn't been fed in a while, and his arms were pulled up behind his back, and chained to one of the pipes that was connected to our furnace. Over in a corner, I saw a dirty old mattress, where he must have slept, and in the other corner I saw a table covered with medical instruments and different vials that contained liquids of many different colors.

    So this is what my parents had been experimenting on. Well, more like who my parents had been experimenting on. This explained the screams I had been hearing every night. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach.

"Please help me." he said again, and this time he tried to lean forward even though he was restrained.

 I snapped out of whatever state of shock I was in, and ran forward until I was about an arm's length away from him.

  "I'm going to get you out of here," I tried to say reassuringly even though I had no idea how I was going to get him free. With a closer look at the chains, I saw they appeared to be made out steel or something else really strong, that I wouldn't be able to find a saw to cut through. Besides I didn't have time to find a saw, my parents no doubt were going to be back soon.

   “There’s a key..." he managed to say only half the sentence, but he nodded his head weakly, over to a glass case on the other side of the room.

   I left him, and ran over to the other side. I saw that in order to get one of the four keys that were inside of it, I would have to have another key to open it. No time. I grabbed one of the hammer-like looking instruments, off the table that was a few feet away and smashed the glass seconds later. Carefully reaching inside so I wouldn't cut myself on the tiny shards left over, I grabbed the four small keys. Running back to him, I then held up the keys in front of him.

  "It’s the silver one. “he said looking at the third one I held in my right hand.

   I dropped the other ones on the floor, and held on only to the one that was needed. Looking above him, I saw that shackles were attached to the chains and surrounded his wrists. Standing up on my tiptoes, I saw where the key needed to go, and reaching my arms up behind him, I started to twist the key into the tiny slot. His breath was cold, against the side of my face and I could tell he was having trouble getting enough oxygen. I managed to free his wrist from the first shackle and his arm dropped limply to his side.

   "How long have they kept you here?" I managed to ask as I started to free his other arm.

 "I'm not sure exactly, “he replied slowly, “your their daughter aren't you?" he asked, and I couldn't help but notice the icy contempt in his voice. I couldn't blame him.

  "Yes." I replied softly, and for the first time in my life, I was ashamed to be who I was.

  He didn't say anything else after that, but I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my face. A minute later his other arm was free, and he staggered back, trying to regain his balance. I saw that he was fairly tall, maybe about 6'3 or 6'4, and he towered over me, while staring me down with his eyes.

"Where did they go?" he referred to my parents.

"I. I’m not sure; they mentioned finding another doctor from what I could hear." I told him the truth, but I felt intimidated, even though I could tell he was hurt and weak.

"You don't know why they kept me here do you?" he questioned in a raspy voice.

   I shook my head and I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out the answer. Finding out that my parents were crazy and tortured captive people in my basement, was already more than I could handle. It looked like I wasn't going to get an answer though, because he started to cough violently, and he fell to his knees. I stepped back and watched until he finally stopped, before he shuddered and looked back up at me. His eyes were tinged red and almost appeared demon-like.

"You need help." I told him starting to become even more afraid. Especially since he was starting to look like death himself. Besides my parents most likely were now going to face jail time, they didn't need first degree murder added to their sentence. Starting to become teary eyed at the thought of what I now had to do, I turned to head upstairs to find a phone and call 911.

 "Wait," his voice stopped me and I turned back around to where he was crumpled up on the floor, “don’t leave me yet.” he pleaded.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I walked back towards him.

"I need to call an ambulance," I knelt down to his eye level.

He stared up at me for a second, with those eyes of his that were still ringed red, before saying something that caught me off guard.

"Alice, help me up." he said it more like it was a demand then a request.

 What was even scarier was that he knew my name.

'How do you kn-"

"Alice. Help. Me. Up." he cut me off and said it again this time more forcefully, while continuing to look up at me.

  My mind went blank for a second, and everything felt all jumbled up inside my head. The only thing I knew for a fact, was that I had to do whatever he said. So I wrapped my arms around his waist and started to pull him up, trying to use all of the strength I possessed. It was nearly impossible to do so because he was so heavy, and my muscles were screaming at me to stop but I couldn't let myself. He continued to look into my eyes as I was pulling him up, and his lips had a knowing smile on them, as if he had just figured out something that maybe he had forgotten how to do.

 Somehow I managed to get him standing somewhat upright again, but his face was now nestled in my hair and against my neck, which made me feel uncomfortable.

"Hey you need to get to a hospital." I reminded him trying to pull away, as he nuzzled his face against my throat.

'I'm afraid right now that won't be necessary." he replied and before I could even blink again, something sharp and painful tore into my neck causing me to scream and scream.