Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (3 page)

The aging farmhouse sat atop a much tighter space than Tom had realized. The darkness, combined with an oppressive odor, created its own unique brand of claustrophobia. If the temperature hadn’t been like a meat locker, he wasn’t sure he could have handled it.

He now realized exactly why the plumbers he had hired previously had insisted on raising their rates halfway through the job. He had always held the grudging thought that it was because the Lexus in his driveway had made him an easy mark for blue-collared types. He knew better now, though, as he stared into the horrid space underneath his house. He had no doubt that those plumbers had earned every penny, regardless of how much they had charged him.

There was little room to maneuver between the cold, muddy ground below and the rough wooden beams above. He rolled onto his side and turned on the flashlight, panning the light back and forth to scope out the area in which he would be working.

The ground underneath the house was fairly level, from end to end and side to side. No spot he could see offered more comfort than any other – it was all one big soggy, subterranean field of mud, punctuated with supports at regular intervals.

The beams above him were so low that he had no hope of achieving an upright sitting position anywhere beneath the house. He realized, to his dismay, that he would be spending the entire day in a slightly elevated low-crawl, at best. He could move across the ground without completely dragging his body through the mud, but not by much.

He attempted to raise himself onto his hands and knees, and hit his head on a crossbeam in the process; not hard, but painful enough to get the job off to a bad start and fully illustrate the physical limitations the task would impose.

Knees and elbows were going to be the best he could manage to keep himself off the ground. It was such a tight fit he couldn’t even lift his head up enough to look ahead. To look in any particular direction, he had to turn his entire upper body, head cocked to the side. Contorting himself into awkward positions all day was going to be a serious pain in the neck, he thought - pun intended.

The small flashlight didn’t help much. Tom hoped an increase in the amount of light would make his cramped situation more bearable, so he turned his attention to finding the bulb.

He located it quickly. The glass bulb reflected the beam of his flashlight like a buoy bobbing in the middle of the ocean during a starless night.

Tom grabbed a roll of plastic and positioned it in front of him. He ran his fingers around the roll, found the loose edge of the sheeting and clamped it to the ground with his palm, rolling the plastic out ahead of him with his other hand. A dry pathway unfurled before him, as he crawled towards the dormant light bulb. The low crawl towards his target was slow going, and required more effort than he had imagined.

He was halfway to his destination in the center of the house when his back snagged hard on something. He was hooked, stuck on a low crossbeam, unable to move in any direction. Panic pushed the air from his lungs and he couldn’t breathe.

He was held immobile between the house and the earth, his body wedged like a hatchet in a piece of dried kindling. Every attempt he made to free himself only served to ensnare him further. He visualized in fast forward what would happen next – his futile struggle, reaching the point of exhaustion while his strength and hope faded.

Fear sent his imagination into overdrive. In his mind’s eye, Tom pictured rats creeping from their dens in the darkness beneath his house, one at first, timidly – then others, emboldened by his helplessness. He imagined the vermin gathering by the dozens around his face, curious darting black eyes observing him calmly, before they charged him and devoured the skin from his face.

Tom closed his eyes and became still, his body locked in a half-crawling, half-lying position on his knees and elbows.

There are no rats,
he reassured himself. An exterminator had thoroughly inspected the property before he purchased it, and it had been given a clean bill of health, as far as pests were concerned. He tried to remind himself of this fact, although in his current state it brought him little comfort.

After a few minutes, the paralyzing panic that had gripped him passed. His breath began to come more easily, and soon he was once again drawing in the sour air freely.

“Fuck.” Tom muttered, once he realized that the absence of pain meant that it was only his shirt that was stuck, not his actual body.

He unbuttoned his shirt and wriggled out of it, left arm first, then the other.

Once out of it, he was free. He was now naked from the waist up, and the cold air bit at his exposed flesh as viciously as the pack of rats he had imagined seconds before.

Tom saw that his shirt had snagged on a rusty nail sticking out from a crossbeam. He realized how lucky it was that the nail had only hooked his shirt, and not dug deep into the meat of his back. He pushed the offending nail out of the way with his thumb and made a mental note to keep a closer look out for hazards.

He squirmed his way back into his shirt and got down to business, rolling his way towards the light bulb like a man possessed, as though at any moment the ground beneath him might give way and swallow him whole if he dared linger too long in any one spot.

Then, there it was: the light bulb, only inches in front of his face. He turned his body awkwardly to the left, head to the side to look back towards from where he had come.

The crawlspace entrance looked a lot smaller from here, and it seemed further away than he knew it really was. It occurred to him that his feelings about that opening had completely changed, now that it had become an exit, now that he was on the inside.

When he had looked at the entrance from the outside, it had been foreboding, threatening in its dark gloom; but from his new vantage point, deep in the belly of the beast, that same opening had assumed a different meaning entirely. It now shone with radiant light, beckoning him to hurry to it, to thrust himself into the glorious sunlit wonders that lay beyond.

It’s all a matter of perspective
, Tom thought, and smiled.

His fingers found the light’s drawstring; as he grasped the small ball-bearing-like beads, he suddenly realized he should have brought a spare bulb along, in case this one was burned out.

He rolled onto his back underneath the bulb, the clearance so low that he could barely roll over. He gave the chain a gentle tug, and the light popped on with a scratchy but reassuring “click”.

Thank God.

For the better part of two minutes Tom lay flat on his back underneath the increasingly warm bulb, eyes closed against its hot brilliance. The exertion required to get the plastic rolled out even this far had been a lot more than he had anticipated.

Eyes closed, he imagined himself back in his comfy bed, with his goose down comforter pulled up to his neck, warm sunshine streaming through the window onto his face and the soft warmth of Miranda snuggled up beside him.

Tomorrow can’t get here soon enough,
he thought.

He took a deep breath. Rest time was over. He had to get this done as fast as possible. He rolled back onto his belly, again squeezing his body as he turned in the tight space.

The shining brightness of the light bulb brought a new warmth and semblance of comfort to this terrible place. This job might not be so bad after all, Tom thought – especially if he didn’t have to crawl around with a flashlight the entire time.

The sole downside to the improved lighting was that it revealed that the crawlspace was even more filthy and disgusting than the flashlight’s narrow beam had cared to show.

Decades of abandoned cobwebs drooped overhead, weighted with hundreds of long-hollowed shells, insect corpses that waited for his unwitting face to brush them free from where they dangled, in eternal slumber, as he crawled by. Tom wondered how many of these cobwebs were already stuck to the back of his head and shivered at the thought.

Further away, towards the far end of the house opposite the crawlspace door, the ground had a glossy green sheen, probably moss – even though he couldn’t imagine how it could grow here, deprived of even the slightest sliver of sunlight. Maybe leaving the crawlspace door open for the last week had been enough to allow it to take hold?

Tom scrunched his nose in displeasure and realization hit him – how much he had lost with his job, how much he missed his freshly pressed suit and his fine office, where the air was always a pleasant mix of coffee and corporate sanitation. This is what he had been reduced to: crawling around in the dark, alone.

He rotated around to face the crawlspace exit again, trying his best to stay atop the narrow plastic path he had laid. Every wayward knee or elbow that slid off the plastic meant another part of him that was wet, muddy, and most importantly - freezing cold. The temperature had dropped since he started and he had let the sweat on his body cool too much.

Tom fought the urge to shiver as he struggled to catch a glimpse of sunlight coming through the open crawlspace door, the same portal that had glowed with such transcendence a few minutes before. The brilliant incandescent glare of the light bulb behind his head cast sharp shadows that stretched out along the ground in front of him.

He looked intently from right to left, but could see nothing beyond the bright ring of light in which he was immersed.

A sudden urge to stand, to stretch, to breathe fresh air possessed him, and Tom scooted along the plastic path toward the crawlspace exit as fast as he could.

The light bulb revealed the limitations of its reach, as Tom quickly found himself submerged again in an inky darkness as he approached the periphery of the house.
Where the hell was the opening?
It should have been in full view by now.

He fumbled in his pocket for the flashlight he had stowed only a few minutes earlier, thinking he would not need it any longer.

He propped himself up on both elbows and clicked the light on, illuminating the area in front of him.

He was startled to see the inside of the crawlspace door a couple of feet in front of his face, concentric circles of light reflecting off its rusty steel surface. Happy to be so close to the exit, Tom let out a sigh of relief.

Then it hit him. The door was closed.

He had difficulty processing it. His mind began to spit out possible explanations, like coins from a slot machine. He sorted through the numerous options and settled on the most likely explanation as to why the crawlspace door he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt had been firmly propped open with a crowbar was closed: the wind must’ve blown it shut.

He crawled forward and gently pulled at it with one hand, hoping it would swing open, but it didn’t budge.

He pulled again, harder, but still the door refused to give.

Maybe someone had passed by and seen the door ajar and decided to close it? He had been in this house almost a year and had yet to see a single neighbor set foot on his property, but he supposed it was possible.

“Hey!” Tom yelled. “Anybody there?”

He waited. Silence.

“Hello?” he called again, more urgent this time, louder. “There’s someone working under the house. Please open the door!”

Again he listened, half expecting to hear snickers of laughter; maybe teenage boys had cut through the yard, seen the door open with his materials beside it and thought this would be one hell of a prank.

He held his breath and listened for any sound from the world on the other side of the door.

Nothing.

“Fuck this,” he said and twisted himself around, ignoring the plastic sheeting he had so carefully spread on the ground beneath him. It wound around his knees as he turned, rolling onto his back. He stuck his knee into a sludgy puddle; cold water seeped into his jeans and up his bare back chilling him to the bone. He placed the soles of his boots solidly against the steel door; the heavy rubber tread gripped the rusty surface nicely.

He took a deep breath and kicked with all his might. The shock of the impact traveled like electricity up his legs and into the base of his spine, but the door didn’t budge in the slightest.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Tom screamed, grasping at his legs but unable to bend his body enough to reach them.

“God damn it, open the motherfucking door!” He screamed so hard it felt as though his throat was turning inside out.

“Open the door! Open the door! Open the motherfucking door!” his voice started out strong and demanding, but the sound of desperation in his voice was growing more prominent.

He planted his feet against the door and kicked two, three, four times more, with the strength of his entire being, but to no effect.

He lay still, panting. His backside was soaked, his jacket slathered in mud, the freezing cold held at bay only slightly by the heat of his exertion.

After a few moments, Tom worked his way around to face the door again, and cupped a single naked ear against the door’s frozen metal, listening intently.

The silence beyond the door was complete. In a hoarse whisper, he began to plead earnestly to anyone who might be within earshot on the other side of the door.

“Look, this isn’t funny anymore.” His voice was barely more than a whimper. “Please open the door. I promise I won’t be mad. I promise there won’t be any trouble.”

He grew still and listened again.

No reply. Not a sound.

He glanced up at the floor of the house above. It felt as though the weight of the entire structure was pressing down on him, crushing him into the mud. He had to summon every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep from descending into a full-blown freak-out.

He listened for sounds coming from above – hoping to hear someone walking around inside. He listened for thirty seconds, perhaps forty, but his ears detected no movement, nothing but the sound of his own labored breathing, his adrenalized heart pulsing in his chest. He realized then that there would be no muffled footfalls from above unless the person who had trapped him here had broken into the house and was robbing him blind. If that were the case, he doubted they would be keen on letting him out when they were finished.