Chapter 4- The Basement Door
1430 Words
I wait for a sound—a groan, a scream, the scrape of his shoes against the basement floor. Anything.
For a minute, I think I’ve gone deaf. The silence is so absolute.
Then I hear a ragged, shredding sound and realize it is coming from me—wet sobs tearing themselves from my chest.
I press a trembling hand to my mouth, trying to stifle the erratic sobs and strain to hear any movement beyond them. Another long stretch of silence that is somehow more deafening than the altercation that just happened.
"Daniel?"
It escapes my mouth before I can stop it. Panic races through my veins like ice water all over again as I brace to see him come charging back through the door to finish what he had set out to do in the first place. I flinch, expecting to see two pale hands strike at me out of the darkness to wrap around my throat and silence me forever.
But there is nothing in the doorway.
There is no sound creeping up the stairs from the basement below.
It is dark.
Silent.
Still.
“Daniel!” I call again, louder this time.
The silence feels more dangerous than his shouting ever did. I can feel him waiting in the darkness, coiled and ready to strike the moment I get too close.
If I could only hear him—his breathing, the scrape of his shoe, anything—I might know where the next attack is coming from.
But he doesn’t respond.
He just keeps waiting in the dark, wearing that Cheshire-cat grin, its razor-wire teeth gleaming as though they are hungry for more of my blood.
I keep my eyes locked on the darkness inside the basement entryway as I force myself to crawl, stiffly and painfully, toward the doorjamb. Gripping the molding around the archway, I drag myself to my feet, still shaking violently.
I pause and listen.
Nothing.
“Daniel?” I whimper. Pain and fear strangle my voice until it cracks with desperation.
“I’m sorry…”
The words come automatically. They always do.
They float weightlessly into the darkness, but nothing answers them. Nothing loosens the growing knot of unease and dread tightening inside my chest.
He's never remained silent for this long after a fight. Against my better judgment, I step into the basement. I find the first step easily, blindly grasping for the pull-string to switch on the light as I carefully creep my way down to the next step. Then the next. I jump when I feel the cord to the basement light brush against my hand like a spider's leg. Taking a shallow breath, I grip the string and give it a pull. At first, the light doesn't respond, but then it blinks and lazily lights up, orange and dull, like the waking eye of a sleepy black cat.
In the faint glow of the dying lightbulb where it sways carelessly from the ceiling, shadows whirl on the walls. I freeze again, scanning each one for signs of him.
None of the shadows grin or grimace back at me. They just continue to follow the dancing patterns of the flickering bulb. I proceed further down the stairs until I am able to finally see him.
He isn’t glaring at me from around a corner. He isn’t crouched beneath the bottom stairs, waiting for me to pass overhead before grabbing me through the slats.
He isn’t standing proudly with his arms crossed, smiling smugly as he gloats about his superiority.
He isn’t on his knees with his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs as he begs me to forgive him for the last six years.
He isn’t doing any of that.
Daniel is lying on his side.
One shoe is missing. One arm is bent in too many places, each at the wrong angle. Something dark pools beneath his head. His nose and mouth are still painted red from earlier, but fresh blood now drips freely from between his lips.
Then I reach his eyes, and a scream tears from my throat.
They are open.
He is staring directly at me.
Daniel doesn’t move when I scream. Not even a twitch.
He lies perfectly still.
I hold my breath, waiting for him to say something.
Do you see what you’ve done?
His voice echoes around me as though it is emanating from the walls themselves.
Look what you did to me, Lucy-Goosey.
His favorite nickname for me. I used to find it endearing in the beginning. The last few times he said it, though, it was always edged with malice and condescension.
“I didn’t mean to…” My voice burns in my throat as fresh tears spill from my eyes.
I stumble toward him with my hands held out, as though he might let me close enough to tend to his injuries without punishing me for it.
Then I notice something is wrong.
His mouth isn’t moving.
His chest isn’t rising and falling with the steady rhythm of breathing—not even with the jagged gasps of someone injured as badly as he is.
He isn’t breathing at all.
Look what you did to me, Daniel’s body says again without moving.
Perfectly still.
No, my mind answers.
No.
“No!”
The word tears out of me as I race to his side and drop to my knees. I grab his shoulder and shake him, crying out his name. I don’t care if he becomes angry. I don’t care if he screams at me again.
I just want him to wake up.
“Wake up,” I wail through my sobs. “Daniel!”
I shake him harder.
“Daniel, please wake up!”
I push against his shoulder, trying to roll him onto his back.
That’s when I see it.
His neck is twisted at a sickening angle, the skin drawn taut over something sharp and terribly out of place. As his head lolls to the side, a wet, brittle crunch sounds from somewhere beneath the skin.
I jerk my hands away. The thoughts begin to race in my head, colliding with reality.
This can't be happening.
"But it is," the air whispers back.
Daniel can't be dead.
He is.
I didn't mean to hurt him.
You killed him.
The last sentence drops through me like a lead weight.
Dead.
Killed.
Murderer.
I'm a murderer.
I'm... I think I'm going to be sick.
Just then my stomach twists and I fall to my knees, gagging on bile until I'm a shivering mess of sobs and dry heaves.
I have to find my phone, I have to call 911.
I scramble on my knees up the stairs until I find it, the cracked screen lights up showing a picture of Daniel and I from the very beginning of our relationship.
It was from our first date, at the state fair. He had won me a teddy bear from one of those carnival games where you throw a ball at a tower of milk bottles. Daniel's softened eyes stare back at me from the screen, no glimpse of the person he truly was anywhere in sight.
I shake my head furiously, I have to focus. Make the call.
I unlock the phone and start to dial.
Nine.
One.
One.
I press the phone up to my ear and press my fist against my mouth to quiet my cries.
They answer after the second ring.
"9-1-1, what is the address of your emergency?"
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
The dispatcher clears her throat. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
Through the darkness, I can feel Daniel's glassy eyes staring at me from the bottom of the stairs.
"P-please..." I whisper.
"I can hear you, miss," the dispatcher confirms. "Can you tell me where you are?"
Where I am.
Daniel Ashford’s house. With Daniel Ashford’s body. Daniel Ashford—the state attorney’s son—dead in the basement.
The dispatcher’s voice softens.
“Did someone hurt you?”
A sob catches in my throat.
“He—”
I stop.
The line is recording me.
Every word is becoming evidence.
Evidence to used to bury me.
“Ma’am, stay with me. Are you in immediate danger?”
I peer into the basement— Daniel's feet in my field of vision— unmoving. I recall his twisted neck, the sick sound of bone grinding on bone when his head moved.
No.
I'm not in danger.
Not anymore.
I end the call.
- Writer
