The Man In The Cellar

When Mona told her parents that she had heard a funny noise downstairs in the cellar it was passed off as nothing more then the budding, overactive imagination of a three year old. When Jack, twenty-six years her senior, heard the same noise days later the simple, offhanded explanations came far less easily.

Jack didn’t immediately make the connection between the noises he had heard, a kind of resonating; dragging sound, and the noise Mona had tried to tell him and his wife Lee about.

But he had heard them nonetheless. Without a doubt, he had heard them.

In fact it had completely slipped his mind until he saw Mona with her face pressed into the small doggie hatch at the bottom of the closed cellar door late the same night.

She was speaking into it as if someone were on the other side.

He stood watching her briefly, unable to make out what she was saying; but he could tell by the pauses in between her ‘sentences’ that she was defiantly having a conversation with someone.

Or something.

"Who ya talkin’ to, sweetie?" Jack asked walking over to where she lay on the floor.

"Luke." she said matter of factly

"Who’s Luke?" Jack’s voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"The man in the cellar." Mona said looking up at him as if he should already know this.

"There’s noone in the cellar, baby."

Mona looked back up to him blankly and pointed into the doggie hatch.

"I know, daddy, he’s at the top of the steps, right there."

A chill as cold as death danced up Jack’s back making the light hair on his neck stand like porcupine quills.

Mona turned toward the doggie hatch again, her pudgy face pressed squarely into the opening.

"Ven a la subplanta en la noche." The soft words, barely audible, drifted up to Jack and his breath seized up in his chest. Spines raced over his body creating dimpled gooseflesh, as he stood frozen like a stone monolith.

"Papi no me deha." she responded. Her vocabulary, still handicapped by age, twisted around the words like a college linguist.

Jack broke his paralysis and bolted to grab Mona. She protested slightly as he rested her away from her position. He sat her down forcefully, far more then he had intended, on the plush couch in the adjoining living room.

"Stay here!" he commanded.

She looked at him quizzically as he picked up a heavy ashtray from the nearby coffee table.

Slowly he stepped back towards the cellar door with the ashtray poised to attack, his pulse like a hammer in his ears.

As he gripped the doorknob he noticed the coating of cold condensation, as if it had been in a freezer.

Securing his grip on both the knob and ashtray he listened quietly.

Faintly he heard a small rustling sound like leaves skittering across a length of pavement.

He was scared, very scared.

Bracing himself, for what he didn’t know, he raised the ashtray and quickly twisted the cold doorknob. He threw the door open with such force that the knob smashed a hole in the plaster of the wall.

The stairwell was empty.

He peered down into the thick darkness of the cellar listening intently, straining his ears against the silence.

Nothing.

He stood rigid; head cocked slightly debating whether he should investigate the cellar personally.

Had he really heard a voice, or had that just been Mona playing around?

He knew the answer before he had even finished the question. Yes, he had heard.