Only the Dark

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The darkness flowed into the basement stairwell as Jon opened the door to the hallway. He frowned, listening.

Silence.

Shit!

He stood there a moment, feeling a little silly that he was upset his parents went to bed before he could get to his room. I’m seventeen. Old enough to stay up past midnight. Too goddamn old to be afraid of the dark. He pulled himself up tall and stepped into the hallway, then turned to flip off the light to the finished basement.

The bright fluorescent lights tempted him back down. His below-ground hangout was comfortable, with a full-size sofa and a TV. His mom would chastise him endlessly for days if he slept down there. She feared he’d succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning, even though there was nothing in the house that made it.

He flipped the switch.

Shit! Blinded by afterimages from the basement light, the darkness crawled over him. He backed up and closed the door as gently as he could. The click and turn of the knob clanged through the silence, and a part of him wished it had woken up his mom.

A tiny night-light under the telephone table lit the ground beneath it, but only in a small, dim circle. Rather than light the way, it served as a reminder of how quickly the darkness swallowed up anything in it.

He darted down the short path that took him through the hallway and around the corner. The floor stopped creaking when he stopped moving in the doorway of the dining room. Across the room, he saw the doorway leading to the stairwell. The tenebrous yellow light at the top of the stairs offered nothing more than a dreadful marker of direction.

Tap. Creak.

The sounds came from behind him. He stepped into the dining room, forcing himself to reach out in front lest he tumble over a chair left out, or his little sister’s footstool that he’d tripped over many times, especially in the dining room and even during the day.

Nothing to be afraid of, he thought. It’s just my house at night. Old houses made sounds, his father had told him through a mischievous grin. The man feared nothing. Jon feared only the dark, and only the dark in his house that swallowed up light.

Stay calm, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Creeeak.

He dashed across the room, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Grabbing the finial at the end of the banister, he pulled himself up the first two steps. Diffuse yellow light spilled down the stairs, bathing him in rotten, sulfuric air. Both hands gripped the railing. His feet were too heavy to lift. They slid backwards as if stuck in sand when the tide was going out.

Tink, tink, thud.

He heaved himself up, each step a little easier than the last. His eyes focused on the light fixture at the top, willing the putrid yellow to get stronger, brighter.

It flickered.

Cold wrapped around his ankle. Engulfed his foot. Raced up his leg.

He tripped. His elbow hit the wood, pain shattering the frozen sensation inside him.

God no!

A dark mist appeared in front of him, swirling around until the light was gone.

“Jon? Are you alright?”

He looked up to see his mother at the top of the stairs. “Yeah. I just tripped.”

Rushing down to him, she said, “It sounded awful! You’re lucky your father could sleep through a tornado!” She poked, rubbed and prodded his head and arms for injuries.

“What happened?” His little sister asked, rubbing her eye. Ansel, a well-loved wolf with blue eyes and pointy ears that used to be Jon’s, hung over one arm.

“It’s okay, sweetie. Jon just took a tumble. Go back to bed.”

The girl stayed where she was.

Jon groaned, shook his mother off, and went up the steps.

“Jon-Jon?” His sister whispered, leaning toward him.

She pulled back when he topped the steps, buried her head in Ansel, and charged back to her room. A muffled cry came through the closed door.

“I swear, that girl gets stranger every day. Soon she’ll be as strange as the rest of us, eh, Jon?” His mother reached out to touch his shoulder.

He stepped back towards his room.

Her face dropped before a smile returned. “Goodnight, Jon.”

“Goodnight.”

His parent’s door closed with a click.

He flipped off the hall light.

I wrote this story using the prompt ‘stairs’. It didn’t take me long to come up with the idea as it revolves around a very vivid, and recurring, nightmare. There was one time I was in the hospital, drugged with pain meds, and I dreamt (or hallucinated) that I was trying to go up a stairwell, the kind in hospitals that wind round and round surrounded by concrete. The level below me was dark, and getting darker. I knew if the darkness caught me I’d die. I couldn’t run, my feet were heavy and I could barely lift them. There was something in the darkness pulling me. It wanted to consume me.

I woke up before it got me. I’d write it off as a silly drug-induced fever dream of some sort except it echoed many I’ve had since childhood. Not often. But vivid and memorable.

I’m not sure what that says about my psychology, but I’m afraid of something I guess. The most confusing part is, I love dark nights. It’s the only time you can see the stars.

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