“Don’t do drugs, kid, unless you want to have some fun.”

That’s the first thing my wife Janet ever said me, giving me a wink. She promptly swallowed a little pill, and without another word, held one out for me. I made a dismissive gesture and off she went, back to the dance floor.

It was at one of those hidden little back alley scene club, the type frequented by the weirder or more alternative parts of the population. You know the type: free spirits, esoterics, soul searchers, musicians, artists.

I could tell right away that the other patrons comprised a group of tightly knit regulars.

Somehow, though, I’d caught Janet’s attention and after only half an hour, she was back by my side.

We ended up talking for hours that night.

I guess it’s because of how different we were and how I clearly didn’t belong in her world. I’m a mathematician, a number cruncher so to speak, and work in controlling. Janet, on the other hand, was a free spirit, a painter, and always willing to explore new and interesting things, including substances.

Somehow, though, we hit it off and somehow we made it work. We got married six months later.

Our relationship was amazing. It felt as if all of our differences only brought us closer to one another. Sure, we had our problems, everyone does, and sure, I wasn’t the biggest fan of her little habit, but I had my own vices. Namely, costly bourbon.

Yet, we made it work, and I often took part in Janet’s ‘special little evenings.’ Janet would get high on acid or other psychedelics while painting, and I’d be with her getting drunk. Say what you want, but things never got out of hand; it was all recreational and nothing more than a bit of fun.

All that changed when Joseph came around.

Janet had her little clique of friends, a group of regulars she’d met over the years at her favorite hidden little clubs and bars. It comprised artists as weird as herself and who shared her interests. I never clicked with any of them, given how different I was, but they were all nice enough.

Joseph was different.

One of Janet’s friends had met him at a club and he’d quickly become a part of their little group. He was a suave guy who seemed to care more about appearances than anything else. I first met him when Janet held one of her group’s meetings in our living room.

I knew right away I’d never get along with that guy.

He had this grating, over-pronounced voice, and called himself a poet in prose, a writer who only bothered with topics of the highest elegance. Thus, his works would never catch on with mainstream audiences, and could only be enjoyed by a few select connoisseurs.

When I heard this type of pretentious bullshit, I almost couldn’t help but groan, and after giving the rest of the group a quick hello, I left them to their own devices.

That evening, I busied myself at the computer while hanging out with my good friend, Mr. Bourbon. Yet, a few times, driven by some strange sense of curiosity, I cracked open the door and listened in on their conversations. It was the usual artists’ talk, the stuff that went right over my head.

Occasionally, however, I caught on to Joseph’s grating voice as he disclosed the topics his art concerned. He’d talk about dreams and what was hidden behind them, things outside our universe, and what lay beyond our conventional, mundane reality. It was nothing but esoteric bullshit, most likely fueled by whatever drug he was on.

Janet and her friends, however, seemed entranced by the guy, and he soon become the center of their little group. This also meant that whenever they’d meet at our place, I’d have to tolerate the guy’s presence.

When I talked to Janet about it, she merely shrugged.

“He’s just an eccentric artist, you know. You’re married to one yourself.”

I laughed and accepted it. At least at first.

The more often I met him, however, the more I couldn’t deny something was wrong with this guy. He had this sort of… aura around him, one I couldn’t put anywhere and that I couldn’t help but be unsettled by.

I wish I’d done something by then, I truly wish, but I guess it was already too late by that point.

It was no other than Joseph who, unbeknownst to me, introduced her to this fancy new designer drug, this Nocturnalia.

I only found out about her using it by chance. One evening, I found Janet painting, while taking a hit from some strange, glistening powder. When I asked her about it, she told me it was nothing but another psychedelic.

I knew Janet was smart, I knew she was a responsible user, and I knew she always did her research.

Yet, I soon noticed the changes.

Janet’s paintings were beautiful, but also of a peculiar kind. Her works were more about colors and emotions than motifs. Yet, they all had one thing in common: they were bright and vibrant.

After she started taking Nocturnalia, her works became different. At first it were slight changes. Nothing but the minutest change in the color scheme.

Before long, however, they were nothing like her earlier paintings.

They became dark, weird, and much more surreal than anything she’d painted before. When I asked her about it, she’d laugh, and told me she was expanding her ‘artistic horizon,’ trying out new things and bringing her art to the ‘next level.’

Somehow, though, I could tell something else was going on.

In many of her new works, I could almost see the strange twisted figures hidden behind the dark swirls and spirals she painted. It seemed as if she’d been taken by Joseph’s words and her work had become nothing but an expression of the things he talked about. What had once been vibrant colors had been transformed into strange dreamscapes and dark space nebulas hiding terrible horrors.

I’d always enjoyed watching her paint, but now I could almost feel Joseph’s ghastly influences emanating from her work. Her paintings had this otherworldly aura to them, one I could feel growing stronger the longer I stared at them.

We had our first big fight when I confronted her about it and when I learned who’d actually gotten her this strange new drug.

“I told you, I’m just trying a new style. It’s not like I’m going full emo or something,” she said, laughing.

“I know, but isn’t it because of Joseph? I mean, I heard some of his talk and those paintings, they are all, I don’t know…”

“You mean because of the Nocturnalia?”

“What?”

“Yeah, Joseph brought it along, but I told you already it’s-“

“Wait, he’s the one who got you hooked on that shit? How can you just take some random drug this guy brings along? Wasn’t it your first rule to always do your research, to make sure it was safe? Or are you so taken by this guy and his stupid talk you can’t even think straight anymore?”

For a moment, she was taken aback by my outburst, but then she stared me down.

“Oh, I’m taken by him? Is that what you think? You know, maybe if you wouldn’t be drinking so much, and maybe if you’d join our meetings for once in your life, you’d know what’s actually going on! Instead, you just hide in your stupid little office and play your stupid little video games!”

“What’s actually going on? What are you-?”

“Just stop it, Stephen, all right!?”

With that, she stormed out of the room.

We made up eventually, but not a thing changed. She kept working on her weird paintings, kept hanging out with her little group, and kept doing the strange Nocturnalia Joseph had brought along.

A week ago, they met at our place again. I wish I’d have kicked the fucker out then and there, screamed at him to leave my wife alone and bring none of that shit near her ever again.

But, I didn’t. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if I’d been afraid of him even back then.

When he entered, he was as suave and charming as always, all smiles, all words and talking in his usual mixture of half-riddles and thesaurus words. While the rest of the group swooned all over him, I had to keep my balled fists in my pockets.

This time, I didn’t even bother with greetings. Instead, I stormed to my office, hit the bottle, and settled in for a night of shitty video games and early sleep. All the while, I knew my wife and her friends were most likely getting high on Joseph’s little wonder drug.

Even with the volume turned up, and even while I was getting progressively drunker, I could hear their laughter, and their high-pitched, excited voices. Most of all, Janet’s.

I know what you’re thinking. This dude’s gotten my wife hooked on some new designer drug, or he’s fucking her. But no, that wasn’t it. I wish it would’ve all been so simple, but it wasn’t.

The first thing I remembered was waking up at my desk. It was long past midnight, and I was clearly very drunk. The almost empty bottle of bourbon stood right in front of me like some accusatory monolith.

Then I felt it. I can’t describe what it was, but something had changed in the house, in the air, and for a second goosebumps came all over my body.

Something was wrong here, very wrong.

I pushed myself off my chair and stumbled towards the door, bottle of bourbon in hand.

When I pulled it open, it hit me right away. It was a sensation… an otherworldliness that seemed to have spread through the entire house. It made me feel like I didn’t belong, that this wasn’t my home anymore.

As I stumbled through the house, I could hear the sounds; strange wet sounds. It sounded like splashing and squeezing, as if flesh, no bodies, were pushing together and coming apart again. Below it all, I heard moaning, and quiet, echoing giggles.

Those sounds. Don’t tell me…

The first thing that came to my mind was sex, an orgy. Some crazed drug induced fuckfest was happening right in the center of my living room.

The next thing that hit me was the smell. It wafted through the house, a strangely sweet aroma, yet slightly spicy; a smell unlike anything I’d ever smelled before.

For a moment, my body felt strange, and I almost turned around. Then the image of Janet came to my mind, my wife Janet, being down there, being part of whatever was going on, being fucked by that asshole.

My grip around the bottle tightened. Fueled by anger and rage, I was prepared, more than prepared, to beat his stupid head in.

As I made my way through the hallway, the sounds grew louder, echoed through the house.

When I finally saw the living room door, strange lights erupted from it. It was an ocean of intermingling colors, dancing and washing in and out of one another, like some crazed kaleidoscopic rendition of the aurora borealis.

“Janet?” I called out. “What’s going on?”

Instead of an answer, all I heard were more giggles and awed voices.

I cursed, called out for other members of her small group, but no one answered.

I fought myself on, step by step, but suddenly I felt drowsy, and slowly, ever so slowly, the rage went away. It was pushed aside by a feeling of apprehension. No, not apprehension, I realized. It was instinct, some part of my lizard brain telling me to leave this alone. Whatever was happening here was not for me.

I stopped, shook my head, took a breath and then a deep sip of bourbon, pushed it all aside and half-stumbled, half-dashed into the living room.

The moment I stepped through the doorway, I froze. The bottle of bourbon slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor right between my feet. It shattered, drenching the floor and covering my feet in sharp pieces of glass.

Yet, I didn’t give it any attention, I didn’t even feel it. I just couldn’t.

What I saw in front of me was madness; a surreal fever dream that had somehow become reality.

Joseph was still on the couch, or a being I knew had once been the suave man I’d seen so many times before. He’d become bigger, had grown in size, and was now an entirely different entity.

His eyes, no, his entire face, had turned into a mad, rotating galaxy that brought forth the dazzling lights I’d seen. Every other part of his body had turned into a shapeless void. Every other part but his arms and hands. His arms seemed to have grown longer, were spread out like two long, spidery tendrils encompassing the entire room. All the while, his hands were wide open. His fingers were spread out, moving frantically like those of a puppeteer right above the other members of the group.

A group that was… not a group anymore, but something else. What had once been almost a dozen people had now become an amalgamation of bodies, and limbs, of heads, hands and feet, a single, twisted entity.

Yet, there was no terror, only awe and giggling as their bodies were being warped, spread out and pushed together by the mad movements of the once-Joseph’s hands.

And then, his body folded open, and the darkness gave way to a vision, a display. The awe and giggling went wilder, and turned into a mad cacophony. For a moment, I saw a dazzling city made of non-shapes, of organic structures growing from the sky, of other, similarly twisted beings, all surrounded by a mad, swirling galaxy.

Then everything went dark.

When I awoke, I was lying on the living room couch. All was quiet and normal.

No hint of the strange sensations, of the smells or colors, remained. I was suffering from a splitting headache and for a moment, I groaned and closed my eyes again.

Then I remembered what I’d seen and jerked upright.

“Janet? Where are you?”

This time, I got an answer, but not from her. Instead, it was from a grating, over-pronounced voice.

“She’s not here anymore.”

I turned around to find Joseph sitting in a recliner and watching me from the other end of the room, still all smiles.

“What the hell are you doing here? Where’s my wife? What the fuck did you do to her?”

As I rambled on, I fought myself to my feet. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself at this asshole and beat that damned smile off his face.

“She’s in a different place now, one you can’t reach.”

As he said this, his smile never wavered, but his eyes changed. Once more, I knew there was something wrong with this guy. And now, I realized he was terrifying me, terrifying me on a level I’d never known or felt before.

“W-what do you mean?” I asked in a trembling whisper.

“She traveled on, but where she went, you can’t go.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“You never joined our meetings, but even then, you wouldn’t have understood. There are places hidden below dreams, places only reachable by those who strive for them, who want to transcend. These places, they lay outside this mundane reality.”

I opened my mouth again, to call him out on his bullshit, but with the slightest wave of his hand, Joseph shut me up instantly.

“She was searching for them. Deep inside, she’s always been searching for them. She wanted this, always had. There are certain people who strive for more, for ways to transcend, to improve in ways that just aren’t possible… at least not here. What they want to feel, to create, to know, is something different that can only be achieved there…”

“This makes no fucking sense!”

“No, it doesn’t, not for you.”

“But where is she? How can I reach her?”

When I said this, when I screamed those words at him, Joseph slowly got to his feet. With only a handful of steps, he crossed the distance between us and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You can’t,” he said with the slightest shake of his head.

At this moment, last night’s anger, last night’s rage at this esoteric asshole returned to me. In an instant, I pushed him back.

“Don’t you give me any of that shit! I’ve had enough!”

As I did this, Joseph’s body changed. I watched as he contorted, folded open, and twisted himself into a dazzling mad galaxy right in front of me.

I screamed in mortal terror, cringed back, stumbled over my feet, and hit the floor. As I scrambled away from his dazzling life, I clawed at the floorboards for dear life, and pulled my body onward. Away, I had to get away, this was not really, it was all just-

“You understand now?” I heard a calm, grating voice from behind me.

When I jerked around, there was only Joseph, the suave, human Joseph.

“It’s not for you. Only for those who accept it, who want it. And you, you don’t. You never will.”

“But… My wife… Just give her back, just give Janet back,” I brought out with tears in my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t. She made her choice, made it long ago. And I was only here to help her, to give her that last, final push.”

And with that, Joseph simply turned around, walked from the room, the house and my life, leaving me a sobbing mess on the living room floor.

It’s been a week since then. I told myself repeatedly that none of it happened, that what I thought I saw was nothing but a delirious, drunk dream, but Janet’s still gone…

For the past days, I’ve looked into every single member of Janet’s little group. I tried to contact each one of them, went to the clubs and bars they all frequent. Yet, no one’s seen them or heard from them. For all I know, they really are gone.

Sometimes, however, on rare occasions, in these dark joints, frequented by the weirder or more alternative parts of the population, I notice a certain figure. A suave one, sometimes a woman, sometimes a man, but they’d always be sharing a strange, glistening substance amongst the patrons.

“There’s no fucking ghosts in that house!” my boss, John, yelled.

The victim of this newest tirade of his was Ed, my co-worker. I liked Ed. He was a good guy, if a little slow in the head.

We’d all heard the noises, of course, Ed, me and even John himself. Scratching noises from inside the walls, the sound of creaking floorboards echoing from distant rooms and hallways, and even doors opening and closing all by themselves.

Now, I don’t believe in ghosts, or anything supernatural. Those sounds? Nothing but the typical sounds of an old, run-down building comprising half-rotten beams and crumbling walls. And yet, even I had to admit that the place was kind of creepy.

What made the situation worse was our boss. John didn’t care for work ethics, work hours, or, well, his workers.

I’d started working with him a good year ago. Let’s just say, I wasn’t the smartest kid and after a few questionable life choices, my prospects of finding work were close to zero. John, however, seemed to see something in me and hired me on the spot. No questions asked.

At first, I thought he was a pretty decent guy. A hard worker who’d been running his own little renovation business for the better part of his life.

Soon enough, however, I learned what an asshole he really was. He worked me hard, which meant constant over-time and if I dared so much as to question him or, hell, complain, he’d go on a diatribe about us ‘goddamn millennials who’d never worked a day in their lives.’

Our newest contract was to refurbish an old, run-down colonial home. Some rich kid had inherited it from his late uncle and thought the place would be a perfect home for him and his family.

He wanted the job done by the end of November, which gave us little more than six weeks, but he was willing to pay a hefty sum for it. John, being the greedy bastard he was, agreed, of course, knowing fairly well that it would normally take us at least twice as long. As I said, he never cared much for work ethic, and if the pay was right, he’d not only work himself but also Ed and me to death.

I’ve got to give him credit, though. Sure, he was an asshole, but I’ve seen no one work harder than him. He was there right after sundown, and would stay until late in the evening.

Before long, however, the long, hard work days were getting to me. Those and the damned sounds.

We’d been on the job for no longer than a week when they started. At first, it was nothing but the rare sound from somewhere in the building you could easily attribute to vermin. Soon enough, however, they seemed to be ever-present, as if the house itself was alive and protested against our presence there.

John never said a word about them, and I, not wanting to get on my boss’ bad side again, tried my best to ignore them. Just the sounds of an old building, I kept telling myself.

Ed, however, was a superstitious man, and had soon convinced himself that the place was haunted. With each passing day, he grew more and more restless, fidgety even, and one day, he finally spoke up about it.

“I can’t do this no more, boss. All them noises and what not.”

John turned around, an annoyed look on his face, but said nothing, so Ed went on.

“I mean this place. Been working with you for years, now, but never heard no nothing like it. Being here after dark gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me remember my grandma’s old stories about ghosts and-“

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ed! There’s no fucking ghosts in this house!”

“But boss-“

“No, Ed. Shut your trap. Just do your job, or you’re out! No pay, no nothing, you get me?”

Ed was a big guy, but as John laid into him, I could see him grow smaller by the second, almost as if he was folding into himself. At the end of John’s tirade, Ed looked dejected, but gave him a weak nod.

I felt for Ed, I really did, and by now, even I felt uncomfortable around the place.

At this point, however, I knew little about the house or its questionable history. All that changed one afternoon when Ed and I went on one of our little secret smoking breaks.

“Now why’d they be spending all that money on a place like this?” I heard someone say.

It was an old lady with a phone in her hand, leaning over the property’s fence and staring at our efforts with a disdained look on her face.

“No, Clara, I don’t think they’re tearing it down. I think they’re renovating it.”

“Excuse me, missus,” Ed spoke and walked towards her. “What you mean by place like this?”

The moment she noticed Ed and me, she almost dropped her phone and quickly ended the call.

“Oh, it’s nothing, I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s all right, we’re part of the construction crew,” I cut in. “But the place sure is creepy, isn’t it?”

For a moment, she squinted her eyes at me before she gave me a well-measured nod. Then she stepped closer towards us.

“Did you know about the former owner?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

When both Ed and I shook our heads, she went on.

“He was a strange, reclusive man. Never talked to anyone, never left his home. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there are those rumors.”

“Rumors?” Ed blurted out.

“Well, I know nothing myself, but old Lisbeth down the road, she’s living right next door. Says she saw people at the house, people other than the old man, but saw no one entering or leaving.

I shrugged. “Probably didn’t-“

“Now here’s the thing. Old Lisbeth swears they were all children, young children at that. Sometimes she said she saw them even waving at her, as if to call out to her. Now, I’m not saying anything bad myself, or want to assume anything. But Lisbeth says it went on for weeks, months even, and then, one day, the old man just up and vanished never to be seen or heard of again.”

Ed’s face had grown paler and paler the longer he’d listened to the old woman. He’d just opened his mouth, most likely to inquire about the man’s mysterious disappearance when John’s angry voice reached our ears.

“The hell you think you’re doing? You think I’m paying you to stand around all goddamn day?”

The old lady excused herself and Ed and I had to endure another of John’s tirades about our ‘constant fucking smoking breaks.’

As he ranted on and on, I couldn’t help but wonder about the story I’d just heard. I could believe an old man living her by himself, but the rest, the stuff about those children…

No, I thought, shaking my head. It’s all bullshit. God knows what ‘Old Lisbeth’ had seen or thought she’d seen.

Yet, when night fell, a few hours later, a sudden scream reached my ears. It was Ed and a few moments later, he dashed past me as fast as he could and straight out of the front door.

I was quick to go after him, and when I made outside, he was already sitting in his truck, frantically trying to start it.

“Yo, Ed, hold on! What’s wrong?” I called out to him.

At first, he didn’t even notice, but when he finally did, I saw just how out of it he was. All the color had drained from his face and he stared at me with wide eyes.

“F-face,” he brought out. “I saw a face, a kid’s face!”

He said it with such intensity, I instinctively took a step back.

“Ain’t no way I’m going back in there!” he added.

“Hey, calm down, Ed. You sure it wasn’t just a rat or something?”

“No rat. Know damned well what a rat looks like, and that sure wasn’t one!”

“Where’d you even see it?”

Ed was still rambling on, his story barely coherent. From what I caught, he’d been tearing out some of the old, rotten floor boards in the old man’s former study when he uncovered a hole. When he went to check it out, he found someone, a child, staring up at him.

I instantly remembered the story we’d heard that afternoon and, for a moment, I couldn’t help but shiver. Then, the rational part of my brain took over and convinced me it was most likely attributed to Ed’s superstition and an overactive imagination.

“Maybe you just imagined it? Because of that story we heard and-“

“You leaving early, Ed?” John cut me off from afar. “You know what happens if you do, right? No work, no pay!”

I could see Ed’s face contorting, saw the struggle he went through. For a moment, I thought he’d just hit the gas and speed off, but then he slumped back in his seat.

“Thought so,” John spat at him in a condescending voice. “Now, what the hell’s the matter with you?”

“He thought he saw something,” I said, turning to John.

John, however, didn’t even bother with me and continued to stare Ed down.

“Saw a face,” he finally said. “A face below the floor staring up at me.”

When John heard this, he burst out laughing.

“You been drinking or something, Ed?”

“No, boss, not a sip. You know I ain’t touching none of that stuff.”

I heard John grumble something to himself before he went on.

“Either way, you get your ass back inside, and you as well, Frank! We’ve got work to do!”

“Ain’t no going back in there,” Ed said in a low voice, shaking his head vehemently.

“Well then, Ed,” John said in a now much harder voice. “If you ain’t going back in there, you might as well drive off. I need no damn slackers on my crew.”

Even after that, Ed didn’t move.

“Why don’t we just check it out? You know, in case it’s-“ I started, but John cut me off almost instantly.

“It’s bullshit, that’s all! Superstitious fucking bullshit. There’s no freaking ghosts in that house and there sure as hell is no freaking face below the floor!”

“You heard what the old missus said, didn’t you, Frank?” Ed suddenly asked, giving me a pleading look.

A moment later, John’s probing eyes came to rest on me. I couldn’t help but sigh before I told John what we’d heard this afternoon. He listened, but I could see the look on his face.

“Should’ve known it was something like this. Dammit Ed, the moment you hear some stupid story, you imagine freaking ghosts!”

“You have to admit, though, the place’s kind of creepy,” I cut in.

“For Christ’s sake! It’s an old place. Old places make noises, all right? And there are probably rodents in the wall or below the floor. Don’t tell me you’re believing this idiot’s story?”

“Ain’t no idiot. I know what I saw,” Ed protested.

“Well, if there’s really rodents below the floor,” I tried to defuse the situation, “we might as well take care of the problem now.”

John rolled his eyes at me, but nodded.

As we made our way towards the study, Ed huddled behind me like a scared little child, trying his best to hide his enormous frame behind me.

The moment we’d reached the heavy wooden door that led to the study, I had to take a deep breath before stepping inside. I didn’t want to admit it, but even I was getting scared.

John, however, was already inside, scanning the chaos that was the floor before he found the small hole Ed had been talking about.

“Well, what do you know?” he said.

“See, boss, I told you-!”

“There’s no freaking face, you idiot,” he snapped, turning towards us.

“It’s just a freaking hole, that’s what it is. It’s strange though, because there seems to be something down there. A basement, if I had to guess, but there was nothing about it on the floor plans.”

I went and walked over to him as well, to get a good look at the ominous hole myself, when I stumbled over something. At first, I thought it was a board Ed had torn out, but then I saw it was a small metal latch.

“A latch,” I said, more to myself than to either of them.

John was by my side instantly, and a second later, he went down on his knees and started toying with it, trying to pry it open.

As I watched him, I suddenly felt cold. That old lady’s story came back to me. Children that were never seen again, all those sounds around the house and now we’d discovered some sort of hidden basement.

“Oh god, don’t tell me…”

“Don’t tell you what?” John asked, looking up at me.

“That story, the one about the kids and-“

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Will you stop with that? It’s humbug, that’s all it is!”

“Look, man, I’m not saying there are ghosts down there or something, but if there’s anything to that story…”

John just rolled his eyes at me before he redoubled his efforts. A moment later, the trap door opened. Right away, a damp, musty smell hit us, but there was something else to it, something I’d smelled before but couldn’t put anywhere.

“Jesus Christ,” John cursed, covering his nose.

Then, after a few moments had passed, I watched as he took out a flash light and illuminated a set of old, wooden stairs.

In that moment, I knew what that smell reminded me off, rotten food. I cringed back.

“That smell, something rotten… John, I think we might want to call the cops, I think there-“

“And cause a fucking scene? The hell you think will happen if our contractor hears about supposed dead bodies and missing children?”

“Wait, what are you… Is that all you care about?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, getting up.

“You don’t care what happened here, do you? You just want to get paid, and that’s it, right?”

“Look, Frank,” he started. “If you want to know if there’s dead bodies, or God knows what down there, how about you take a look?”

I couldn’t help but stare at him.

“No,” I finally said. “There’s no way I’m checking out some creepy hidden basement.”

With that, I backed away from John and the trap door behind him.

“Oh, you’re not? You know what, fine. You don’t have to, you don’t have to do a fucking thing anymore because I’ve had it with your fucking attitude. Get the hell out of my sight! And that bonus I told you about? You can forget about that!”

At first I didn’t know what to say, but then I couldn’t help but shake my head.

“You know what, John? Go fuck yourself. I’m done!”

With that, I turned around and walked off, right past Ed, not even listening to the insults John screamed after me.

The moment I was outside, I jumped into my car and drove off.

I’d driven for barely five minutes when my phone rang. One glance at the screen told me it was John. I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I couldn’t help but laugh. Guess he didn’t think I’d drive off like that. It rang on for a good half minute before he gave up.

“Not coming back, you asshole,” I said to myself.

Yet, only a few moments later, it rang again. And then once more. By the fourth time, I’d had it, and answered.

“The hell you want, asshole?” I yelled into the phone.

Instead of John’s voice, however, all I heard was rapid breathing and sobbing.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, John,” I cursed.

When I finally heard a voice, however, I knew it wasn’t John. It was Ed. His voice was raspy, and strangely high-pitched.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“Ed? Hey, you all right?”

Instead of answering, he kept sobbing, muttering to himself.

“It won’t open,” I understood, followed by a set of heavy thuds.

“Wait, Ed, what’s not opening? Shit, don’t tell me it’s that damned trap door?”

When he spoke again, I could barely make out what he was saying. I caught only bits and pieces: boss went down, didn’t come back, thought he fell, no answer, went down, door fell shut.

And then something else, something he repeated over and over again, as if he was pleading with me.

“No ghosts.”

A second later, I could hear a strange, distorted sound. A moment later, Ed began screaming.

“Ed, what the fuck’s going on over there?”

I got no answer. All I heard was Ed whimpering for a few more moments before the phone went quiet again.

I instantly tried to call him back, but the phone just rang on and on. Shit! Why’d that idiot have to go down there and why’d he have to drag Ed into this?! Fuck!

A second later, I’d turned the car around and was on my way back to the house. It took only ten minutes, but it felt much, much longer.

I hoped, prayed, that Ed was overreacting. Hell, maybe by now they’d managed to open that damned trap door and everything was okay again.

Yet, when I arrived, all was quiet. I called for both of them, but received no answer. Without wasting another second, I stormed through the building, down the long hallway, and right towards the study.

“Ed, John, you guys all right?”

Still nothing.

Finally, I’d made it and reached the trap door. This time, I heard something. It was nothing but a whimper, a quiet call for help. It was Ed!

“Hey, it’s all right, Ed. I’m here!”

With shaking, sweaty fingers, I tried to pry open the small latch, but the delicate piece of metal slipped from my grip again and again. Then, finally, I made it and threw open the door.

“Ed! Where are you?”

Then answer I received was another cry from Ed. I activated my phone’s flashlight and found him, huddled, just below the trap door. His fingers were bleeding, his eyes were wide and his mouth was open in a perpetual, toneless scream. For a second, I saw the bloody marks on the underside of the door, where he must’ve tried to open it.

“Jesus Christ, Ed, what happened to you?”

In an instant, I got a hold of him and pulled him upwards.

“It’s all right, Ed, it’s all right.

At first, he didn’t even seem to notice I was there. When he finally did, he screamed again, scrambled past me and retreated to a corner of the room. He was completely out of it.

“Ed, calm down!”

I walked over to, putting my hands on his shoulder, whispering to him that everything was fine now.

“Boss, down there, something happened, and, and those…” he couldn’t go on anymore. Instead, he put his arm around his legs and began rocking back and forth.

“Shit, Ed, what happened?”

Instead of an answer, all I heard was Ed sobbing to himself.

“Fuck!”

I turned around and stared at the trap door once more, than at the old, wooden stairs. Dammit.

“John, you down there? You all right?” I called out, but still got no answer.

Eventually, once I’d made sure the trap door was wide open, I went on my way down the stairs. Sure, John was an asshole, and sure, he shouldn’t have gone down there, but that didn’t mean I’d just leave him.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found myself in a dark, musty cellar. The only light was the small beam of my phone’s flashlight.

The first thing I noticed were the cellars walls. They were made from solid brick, but here and there, they seemed to have crumbled to reveal… tunnels.

Rats, I told myself, it had to be rats. Yet, those tunnels were huge, much too big for simple rats.

Slowly, I let the beam of the flash light wander around, not taking a single step away from the stairs.

Suddenly, the light hit something. I figure in a corner!

“John!” I called out, but then I saw it couldn’t be him. No, what I saw was nothing but bones, a skeleton with only a few pieces of rotten clothing still clinging to it.

Then, I heard something, a single sound, so quiet, it was barely audible under my rapid heartbeat and the blood rushing through my veins: a wet gurgle.

I instantly turned to my right, the phone shaking in my hand. This time, it was John. His eyes met mine. He opened his mouth, but instead of words, all that came forth was blood.

“Jesus fuck man, what happened to you!?”

I rushed forward to help him. He must’ve fallen, must’ve hurt himself, and Ed must’ve freaked out because of all the blood.

Yet, I’d barely taken a few steps when I saw something else. I froze. On the ground around him, I saw figures, small, childlike figures that crowded around him. I saw tiny hands ending in sharp claws, saw wide gaping mouths, and above them, cheap, caricature-like estimations of children’s faces.

Their hands and mouths were wet with blood, John’s blood, I realized, and the moment these, these… things noticed me, I heard the same distorted sound I’d heard over the phone. This time, however, I heard it more clearly, and it almost sounded like giggling, like a failed imitation of childish laughter.

I screamed in sheer terror, stumbled back over my feet, and crashed to the floor.

In an instant, one of the creatures dragged itself forward, towards me, and I watched as his body grew longer and longer, becoming nothing more than an elongated mass of flesh. And then, as my eyes focused on that slithering, writhing flesh, I saw it continued and vanished down one of the many tunnels in the cellar’s walls.

For a moment, time stopped, and I could do nothing but stare in fascinated horror at the surreal sight in front of me.

Then, when a tiny child-like hand closed around my ankle, the trance was broken.

I screamed in pain when I felt its claws dig into my flesh. With my free leg, and out of it, I kicked at the hand, at the thing’s face, and when it let go, scrambled for the stairs.

I’d barely reached the first one when I felt its hand close on my leg again. I stumbled, crashed onto the stairs and behind it, the giggling grew louder and I heard more of them move, heard them coming for me.

In sheer and utter terror, I dragged myself on, up one stair and then another.

“Ed!” I screamed. “Ed, help me!”

No reaction. I screamed once more when more tiny hands got a hold of me and I felt more claws all over my legs. With all the strength I could muster, I pulled myself up yet another stair, but then the creatures’ strength overwhelmed me. In sheer desperation, I clung to the stairs, dug my fingernails into the wood, and then felt them give way.

This was it, wasn’t it? Just like John, I thought, I’d end up just like John. I’d-

Right at that moment, a tear-streaked, terrified face came into view above me. And then, a moment later, strong hands reached out for me.

As Ed pulled me upwards, I frantically kicked at whatever was behind me, until the tiny hands finally let go. A few seconds later, we’d made it back up.

In an instant, I threw the trap door shut, closed the latch, and scrambled away from it. Fueled by adrenaline, I’d already rushed from the study before I remembered Ed. I turned back to find him just standing there, still not understanding what was going on, but got a hold of him and dragged the crying man after me.

As we hurried through the building, I could hear the same sounds again. The scratching from inside the walls, the creaking of floor boards all around us, but this time I knew what they were. It was those things, those things that slithered through the building’s walls and below the floor boards.

When we’d made it outside, Ed’s tears had stopped, but his expression was different. His face was entirely empty, and all he did was to mumble to himself. It was nothing more than two words, two words I’d heard before.

“No ghost.”

Once we were in the car, I took a single glance back at the house and there they were, the simple, caricature-like faces of children in the windows. I saw them beckoning me to come back, imitating their call for help. But my eyes were better than those of Old Lisbeth, and I saw those faces for what they really were: nothing but a lure.

When I finally drove off, a half-catatonic Ed sitting next to me, I could help but laugh, and laugh and laugh.

In the end, John had been right after all. There’s no fucking ghosts in that house!