This is my first weird creepy story, which I decided to post to this blog. I don't know whether it is any good, but I was recently inspired to write it as I remembered some of my childhood in Eastern Europe and living in a block of flats with a very big, dark and dusty basement, where my family stored all kinds of old things. It should be noted that all of this story and its characters are purely fiction and any resemblance to real people is unintentional.
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As a child I used to enjoy visiting the basement of my apartment block. It was dark and chilly but my family used to store all kinds of interesting old things in their compartment. I found many books there, as well as old radios, tools and ceramic dishes. What made me most curious though was a cupboard, which my mother always told me to stay away from. Once while she looked away, I peeked inside to see a pile of thick fur coats, which smelled a bit odd. ‘What are these coats for?’ – I asked. Sooner or later she would find me going through the cupboard anyway. My mother quickly turned around, ran up to me and shut it. ‘These clothes belonged to your grandparents’ – she said – ‘they are memories and I cannot get rid of them. But I don’t want you getting all the dust out and making a mess by rearranging things, as you always do’.
That was a fair point. I was always a messy kid, but it wasn’t enough to kill my curiosity and several weeks later, while my family went shopping and I was on my own, I found the keys to the basement and climbed down there. It was dark and looked abandoned as usual, but I could hear a scraping sound around the corner. I was worried it was Mr Joseph, the weird neighbour, who once threatened me with an axe for coming too close to his basement compartment. I feared him, so slowly I walked towards the source of the sound trying to make the minimum amount of noise. I took a quick look and I screamed as I saw a giant rat, the size of a cat, scratching the floor with its claws. It was vomiting, likely having ingested some of the orange rat poison placed in several locations within the basement. I walked away from the dying animal, disgusted.
I was still thinking of the horrible rat as I got to my family’s basement compartment. I unlocked the door and entered, closing it behind me, but not locking it. I figured that I wouldn’t spend too long there once my curiosity was satisfied. I opened the cupboard and once again I was hit with the strange smell. I assumed that’s what my grandparents smelled like while they were still alive. After all, elderly people always seemed to smell a bit funny.
I frowned as I lifted up the uppermost fur coat and noticed that the furry garments underneath were not arranged as neatly as my mother usually liked. There was a fox fur scarf placed on top, with the dead fox’s head preserved and still present. It felt soft as I stroked it and wrapped it around my neck. Suddenly I jumped as I realised something fell on the floor while I was lifting up another coat. I picked up the object, studying it and being unsure what to make of it. It was a set of dentures with realistic-looking gums inside a plastic bag, which appeared to have been filled with a clear, viscous solution. I put the item aside, feeling slightly disturbed, but nonetheless carried on going through the cupboard. I could see something yellowy-white at the back but could not quite make out what it was, and it felt a bit heavy as I tried to untangle it, since it seemed stuck. Hence, I decided to take the final fur coat out of the cupboard. It felt a bit heavy and as I was removing it, another yellowy-white object fell to the ground, making a loud cracking noise.
I froze panicking, thinking that I broke a bowl or a plate, which always made my parents mad whenever it happened. However, as I crouched down to pick it up, I realised that in fact I cracked a skull and all of its teeth fell out. As I picked them up, I realised there were only 4 of them. I looked back at the dentures and realised that 4 teeth were missing there too. I wrapped the skull and dentures back in the coat, a cold shiver running through me.
As I was about to put the bundle back in the cupboard and get the hell out of the basement, I realised that there was another skull there, as well as what appeared to be a jar in a plastic bag. I was freaked out, but still curious. I took out the jar and unwrapped it carefully. I screamed as four eyeballs appeared to stare straight at me through the formaldehyde. I put the jar down, and sat on the basement floor, trying to calm down. Suddenly I realised I wasn’t alone anymore. Mr Joseph was standing in the basement door, looking mean and scary.
‘What are you screaming about you naughty child?! Where is your mother?’ he said, making me start to cry. His facial expression changed however as he saw the skull and jar of eyeballs behind me.
‘Good Lord! I’m calling the police’ – he croaked before he took out his phone and dialled.
Despite my protests, Mr Joseph made me stay in the basement with him, waiting for the cops to arrive.
The police car arrived in approximately 20 minutes. There were only two cops present. After a brief chat with Mr Joseph they began examining the basement compartment, but did not get very far as my mother suddenly burst into the room, breathless.
‘Helen, what have you done?!’ – she yelled at me, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me.
‘Ma’am we need you to calm down’ – one of the cops interrupted her, grabbing her arm, and attempting to steer her away from our basement compartment.
‘No, you don’t understand!’ – she cried out.
‘They do understand Mrs Kowalski!’ – Mr Joseph shouted before she managed to say anything more – ‘I always knew you and your husband were up to some dodgy stuff. Just look at your daughter. That child can’t ever behave! I should have cut up your front door with my axe a long time ago!’
Now the other cop was taking Mr Joseph outside, as he continued yelling insults at me and my mother, waving his fist as he was dragged out of the basement.
My mother looked a lot calmer as soon as Mr Joseph left.
‘Look, this is a misunderstanding, officer’ – she began to speak tearfully – ‘After my parents died I just could not bring myself to throw away their stuff. I wanted to keep them with me forever and I missed them so much that I wanted more than just the clothes they wore and their dentures. That’s why I took out their eyes while they were still at the morgue. Nobody even noticed. And after my mother died and was already buried I decided to dig up her skull and keep it too. My father's skull... well, let's just say he and my husband didn't exactly like each other, so it wasn't difficult to convince my husband to cut off his head while his body was still in the coffin. My husband also removed his eyes and cleared the skull of tissue, and then he gave them to me to make me happy. Please... you must understand how difficult coping with grief is. I don't ever want to lose my parents.'
'Ma'am you are aware that profaning a corpse is a criminal offence' - the police officer replied - 'me and my colleague will have to bring you and your family to the station to question you. I'm sorry but there's no other way.'
At that my mother began to cry and whine. I was always amazed how easy it was for her to start crying whenever she needed someone else's pity.
'Officer, I'm really sorry' - she said, sobbing - 'I will give you $10,000 in cash to split between you and your colleague if you just let this go. We don't have much money, but that's almost all our savings and I will give it away because family memories are so much more important than all the money in the world. You can buy your families some nice presents.'
Amazingly, it worked. The cops took the cash, went back to their car, and we never heard from them again. Only I was less fortunate, as that evening I was told off by my parents for going through the cupboard without their permission and I ended up grounded for 2 months.
For a long time, the memory of that cupboard haunted me and gave me nightmares. But now, over 30 years later, even though my own parents have also passed away of old age, every time I sit at my dining table, I feel like they are there with me. Especially as I behold their heads, perfectly preserved in large jars of formaldehyde decorating my table, I know that I will never let my family go.