Short Thriller/Horror Stories

Story 1: The Basement

Spinning, the whole room was spinning. At least that’s what it felt like through the foggy vision. Tried to sit up but failed, falling back to the ground. Spinning. Just nothing but spinning. Before the world went black again a loud throaty, cracking, banging noise was heard followed by a thump, like dropping a two 50 pound bag of dog food kind of thump.

Some time later waking up again but this time the world was clear vision whys and only swaying slightly. Head throbbing, violently, leaning up placing hands over your eyes to try to see if the pain even goes away. It feels like an eternity before the headache is lessened enough to even think decent enough. Trying to speak but your mouth feels so dry and like you could pull a cotton ball out. In fact you actually try but just taste dirt off your finger.

Looking at the ground at your feet you finally become aware that there is a chain wrapped around your ankle rather crudely, like it was done so in a hurry. Eyeing the chain until it meets the wall. Something is not right about the chain though, head still throbbing so it's hard to concentrate on it but for some reason the chain seems familiar. After a few more minutes the throbbing is less now then when you first woke up thankfully. 

You place your hand at the back of your head where the pain really is. Wet. Matted wetness. Your head and hair get more wet the more you mess with it trying to figure it out. It takes a minute to realize that you are reopening a wound. Stopping and looking at your hand now covered in your own blood you start to freak out and look around the room only to freeze in fear.

It is not a room. But a cage.

Panic starts to grip you. Moving you remember the chain. Pulling and clawing at your ankle. The chain breaks your nails causing jagged edges causing you to cut at your skin as well. Realizing you can’t get free you scramble to the wall to try and pull the chain out.

Freezing in fear when you see that you can’t pull the chain off the wall for it is in the wall. 

Trying to keep yourself from hyperventilating you try to take account of the room. Following the wall a few feet to the right you come to a curved corner. The wall is made from concrete one could get from a home improvement store. The corner is crudely slabbed together like the person was having a hard time with it but wanted to make sure it stayed. It stops at the ceiling or what would be the ceiling but it's a fence. Taking in the rest of the room now that wondering fear has covered over hyperventilating fear for now, you notice that the wall with the chain and this one are the same but the other two are not. The cement only goes half way up as if to act as a half dividing wall. You are in a fenced cage half covered in cement. You start to hyperventilate, kneeling on the ground you try to steady yourself but the world is going dark and foggy again. Somehow managed to steady yourself just before you passed out, again.

Having calmed down enough to not only remember the pain in your head but to realize the pain from your ankle from clawing at it. Spotting a water bottle near the door you scramble to it. You are in such a hurry for something to drink you don't even notice that it has already been opened before. With having an empty stomach it doesn't take long for the drugs to kick in. The sudden fullness in your stomach makes you feel sick and find yourself on all fours on the ground yet again. Feeling woozy you lay on your side with your back against the wall. You feel calm, passive even. Not even noticing that you had knocked over the water you only drank half off.

Laying there just staring at the fence door for a while before looking around again. It is an outdoor dog kennel with half cement “walls”. Feeling the floor it's also made of the same cement. It feels like the cool side of a pillow, you can't help but lay down more and feel the coolness of the ground. There is no natural light so you have no idea what time of day it is. Only light is coming from a hanging light bulb on the other side of the half walled fence without the door. Under a house popped into your head, taking a minute to remember the word basement in your current state of mind.

You lay there on the cool ground, slowly sliding around with the coolness. Hours have gone by but you don't notice let alone know since there are no windows or clock anywhere to indicate time of day. Good thing about this state of mind is that you do not feel any pain. Focused on the cool ground and the seemingly never ending sound of nothingness. The drugs finally started to wear off.

Nothingness? It dawns on you that you haven't heard anything since been down here, but maybe the sound of something before you blacked out. At the thought of that your stomach makes a noise, very angry hungry noise. Mouth once again feels like a cotton ball is stuffed in it.

Looking over at the area where you found the water you see a few feet away is an ornate wood tray. Flipping it over you see no traces of food but do find a pill. It’s a multivitamin you have seen in a TV commercial a few times. How you can remember that but not how you got here is beyond you. Pocketing the vitamin for now. Turning around to require yourself with the “room” you spot the water bottle that is now mostly empty since it had fallen on its side. Spewing fowl words to yourself since you have no idea when you get water again, or anything for that matter.

Looking past the fence all you can see is a table and comfy looking chair that is semi below the light. Another table with bulk snack food items and cases of water. But sadly it’s across the room far from you.

You try the door but fall rather short cause you somehow forgot about the chain around your ankle. With food across the room being a huge goal you forget about your headache and study the chain. Looks like part of it was rusted away and a few links broken off. There were a couple of rusted links still near the lock. Unlike earlier, you are trying to get it off in a more calm, less frenzy way. Fingers hurting too much you give up trying to use your hands and start kicking at it with your other foot. Lots of rust dust kept falling off enough you think you have a chance but you are starting to hurt your chained ankle now. 

With a heavy sigh you stop. A new kind of panic kicks in. Not the panic of being trapped anymore but the panic of being alone. You are trapped and alone and don’t know for how long or why. You sit there, internally panicking and at some point start praying and saying you’ll correct any wrong you can once you can  remember it if you get free. 

Sitting there passively trying to think of anything that might help you even in the slightest. Every part of your body hurts though. Head from who knows what. Hands from clawing at the chains, ankle from being kicked at the chains, and back from laying on the floor for a very long time. The more you release everything hurts the harder it becomes to concentrate. 

Eventually spotting the area or rust dust and dirt from you shoe from kicking at the chain earlier you get an idea. Scrambling over and making a pile as much as you can, sadly it’s not much. Remembering multivitamin from earlier you crush it up and it to the pile. It feels grained now like it might work but now how to use it. Spotting your shoes you take out the laces and twist them together and loop them through the rustiest looking part of one of the links on the train. Sprinkling some of your dirt pile onto the area you start “sawing” but doesn’t really move. Needs something that kinda lubes it. Swearing at load to no one in particular you remember the last little bit of water that you have. Remembering that there is more water once free you pour the water onto the pile once you rebuild it so it becomes almost a paste. This time it works and can see small rust dust coming off the chain link. It’s slow and kinda painful on the hands but it means freedom and food!

It took over 30 mins to free the link and manage to get the chain off. Once off you don’t even bother with your shoes, you get up and run to the fence door.

It won’t open. There is a clip. Not a lock but like a climbers clip. It’s on the other side but not hard to get to. Using your shoelaces again you manage to get the clip open in no time.

Rushing over to the table of food and water. You open a bottle of water and chug half of it before moving to a box of protein bars and just destroying the box trying to get to a bar. Rotating between taking a bit or a protein bar and a glob of water you don’t even bother to finish looking around. Not until you throw up everything because your stomach couldn’t handle the sudden intake of food after almost 48hrs of nothing. Not that you know it’s been 48 but it sure does.

When you throw up off to the side of the table using it to hold yourself up, that's when you discover something that just makes you throw up even more. A body! With a large whole in its chest. You fall to the ground backwards, no longer hungry. You just stare at the body mentally swearing and screaming asking what hell hole you are in!

Eventually you notice the body is at the foot of a set of stairs. Escape! You can escape finally! You can get help, but first you have to get past the body. Slowly getting up on your feet you try to tip toe over the body but sadly you step into still wet blood and fall onto the stairs. A loud throaty bang like before when out above your head and tiny wall chunks went flying all at once. Scared you slowly look up the stair to see a closed door and father up a twin barrel shotgun rigged. Following the cables it goes to the second stair step. It was a trap!

Creepy basement, cage, body, and gun! This time you have a full on panic attack. You fly up the stairs on all four and run around the house not taking anything in to try and get outside. You find the front door and bolt out. Spotting some high schoolers walking home from school you run to them yelling for help. You only scare them with how you look and are acting and they run. A guy who was walking to his car heard all the noise and looked up to see what was going on. He called out to the kids and yourself. The kids kept running while you went to the guy.

You try to explain everything but it doesn’t really come out right. Eventually he gets you to calm down enough for you to say you woke up chained in a basement and don’t know who you are and that there is a body in the basement. Cops show up before the man has a chance to call because the teenagers had already called.

You relay the info to the cops and they go check out the house. The guy and a cop stay with you while a couple other cops investigate the house. Looking around it looks like just a normal cookie cutter neighborhood so how did you end up here and why. One of the cops comes back with a wallet and asks if it is yours. You say you don’t know or remember. The officer opens the wallet and shows you the driver's license saying it looks like you and it’s address is the same as the house you came running out of.

The memories flood back to you. It is your house! It is your basement! It’s your creation room for your writing. You are an author and have then kidnapping  people to gain material for your books. You try to run but don’t make it far before you feel pain ripple through your body. The world goes black before you hit the ground.