Merry led the man into a large room with a large fireplace, one very comfortable looking chair and a large picture hanging above the fireplace which had a picture of a old man in it, who  was dressed up in a military uniform saluting. The background of the picture was black. “Please sir,” Merry said “sit down.” The man slowly walked over to the fireplace and he sat in the chair that was facing it. The chair was as comfortable as he thought and the fire was as warm as a warm summer’s evening. “I’ll get you something to drink,” Merry said, quickly walking, faster than he would for his age. The man was now all alone in the room, with only the sound of the crackling fire and the pit pat of rain as his company. Suddenly, an intense wind blew through the room, putting the fire out and the sound of rain suddenly stopped. The hairs on the back of the man’s neck stood straight up in terror. Suddenly the house started shaking again, more violently than last time and lasted much longer. When the shaking stopped, the man noticed that there was a low rumble behind the wall of the fireplace, and it didn’t stop until it sounded like it was right behind the picture. Suddenly, the eyes of the picture lit up in a bright yellow color. They eyes of the portrait scanned the room and they stopped when they saw the man. The man was now clutching at the arms of the chair in fear. The yellow eyes started squinting at him and suddenly, the floor below the man started shifting around a little bit making the chair move. The man couldn’t take it anymore and he sat up out of his chair and he made a mad dash towards the hallway that lead back to the foyer. When he reached the foyer he grabbed at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. He kept pulling on the door but it still wouldn’t budge. He suddenly felt a hand touch his back and he yelled out in terror, he covered himself up with his jacket. “Master, is everything ok,” said a familiar voice. The man stopped shaking and he looked up and he saw the face of Merry

“What was that… Thing in the walls, Merry!” The man yelled out in distress.

“Oh you probably just heard one of those giant rats that lives in the walls. They do make quite a noise,” Merry replied.

“Then why did the floor start moving from under me?!”

“The floor in the living room wasn’t quite built right and during a storm they seem to move on their own.” Merry replied. The man knew that he wasn’t going to get any more information from the butler, but he knew that there was more to this house than meets the eye. “Come now sir,” Merry asked “let me show you to your room for the night.” The man followed Merry up a flight of stairs and down another hallway, never noticing that there was a pair of eyes staring at them from another painting.

Merry opened a door and lead the man into a bedroom, which looked more modern compared to the rest of the house with its old creepy floorboards. “This is your bedroom for the night,Master,” Merry said “and here is your nightwear,” Merry pulled out a set of comfortable looking clothes from the drawers under the bed.

“Why do you call me your ‘Master’, Merry?” The man asked out of curiosity. “I just met you today and I have never seen this house before, which is weird since I now these woods like the back of my hand.”

“Oh,” Merry said “well you see, my old master went away a long time ago and I have been lonely for what feels like forever, when I saw you enter this house, I thought that you were him, I guess that I just didn’t look at you enough. So anyway, what's your name then?”

“James,” said the man.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, James,” Merry said in a little more depressed tone “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. I do enjoy the company.”  Merry walked to the door and opened it and he started walking through but he stopped midway through it. “It’s nice to have someone here again,” Merry said, before he slowly shut the door.

James felt sorry for the man. Even though the house that he is in right now isn’t the most appealing to the eye and has some secret to it, its owner was light hearted and kind like a puppy. James put his night clothes on and he crawled into his surprisingly clean and fluffy bed. “Merry’s master sure was lucky to have such a good butler,” James thought to himself. He shut off the light by his be stand and he adjusted himself to fit comfortably into the bed. Then he closed his eyes and let darkness take him away. In his dream, he found himself at his house with his family, (who were probably worried sick wondering where he went), eating dinner. James got up from the table and went down a hallway and he opened a door that had steep steps leading down to the basement. He flipped a switch, but the lights would not turn on. So he grabbed a flashlight from the overfilled closet next to him and he turned it on and he started walking down the stairs. Every step creaked as he went further. They the light behind him disappeared, but he kept walking, after what seemed like forever, he finally reached the bottom of the stairs. He shines his flashlight around, but dense fog was preventing the light from showing his way. There was a rumble and the stairs behind James fell away and dispersed into the fog. James was starting to feel the feeling of fear coming up from his stomach. There was another rumble. And another. And another! James was shaking now. He suddenly saw a giant shadow appear before him he shined his light on it but the fog was still to thick. They suddenly, everything goes black.

James sits straight up in his bed with sweat running down his neck. He had no idea what he had just dreamt up. It didn’t make any sense, yet it felt so familiar. It felt like it was connected to this strange house in a way that he couldn’t describe in words, or in his mind. It was a bad feeling. James got up and turned on the bed stand light and he got up and he walked around the room a few times. He walked over to a curtain at the side of the room and he pulled it to the side to find a door leading out to a balcony. The balcony was small and it had a little bar fence going around its perimeter. If it wasn’t raining as hard, James would have walked out and taken in the fresh air. Right when he was about to close the curtains, he saw the rain on the window move aside in a swishing motion, he looked closer and he saw that there was a hand wiping against the window. With curiosity, he looked even closer and he saw that the hand was making words. From what he could see, they said:It’s a trap. The house with the haunted basement and walls, beware the horror in the basement! Then the hand went away, but the writing stayed. James closed the curtains and he slowly walked back to his bed, pondering what the writing meant and what the hand had to do with it. When he lied down in his bed, he heard a his bed make a big crack and then suddenly there was a large thud. James didn’t know what it was so he just tucked himself in and he turned off the bed stand light. He felt his mattress cave in a little and the next thing he knew, his mattress fell through the bed stand and he went tumbling down with it.

James was lucky to have fallen with his mattress, otherwise he would have probably not survived the fall. James looked up and he could see the square hole where he fell from. It was far and distant, with no way to get back up. James looked around and he saw that he had landed in a wooded area with stairs leading up behind him. He walked up the stairs and he found a door at the top. He put his hand on the door handle and he tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. He started banging on the door “Help, Merry help me!” he yelled over and over again to no effect. James looked behind him and he saw now that there was a door at the bottom of the stairs now and that the stairs were enclosed in a hallway. James stared down the door. He didn’t want to see what was on the other side, but it was the only way he can go. He walked down the stairs and when he was halfway down them the door at the bottom of the stairs opened and a cold air blew up from it. James stopped and he looked up the stairs one more time to see that the door had disappeared and that the picture of the man saluting was in its place. James let out a sigh and he he continued to walk down the stairs, into the dark abyss below.

The ground below James started to feel soft and wet as if he was walking through a jungle after a heavy rain. The air also went from being mildly cold, to being hot and stupidly humid. Old dead vines were crawling up the sides of walls and up into the darkness above. James couldn’t see the ceiling because of the darkness, he wasn’t even sure if there was a ceiling. He kept on walking until the ground below him started to slant downwards slowly. When he reached the bottom, he found himself in a dimly lit shaft made of brick, with a dark hole going further underground. When he looked up he could see that there was water just randomly floating in a hole in the ceiling. With closer inspection, James could see that he was under a well. The ground started shaking again, knocking James off of his feet. The water in the well’s bottom fell down and fell down into the hole. The shaking stopped and a few seconds later James James heard a horrible sound erupt from the hole. RAWRRRR SHREEEC. James stepped away from the hole in surprise. He then heard more rumbling. The sound was getting closer. Then with a horrible thought of realization, he realized that the thing making the sound was coming up the hole! James quickly looked around to see if he could find anyway to escape and his eyes landed on a small gap in the wall on the other side of the hole. He quickly ran around to the side of the room and he laid flat on the ground and squeezed his way through the hole as quick as he could. When he got through he stood up, seeing that the hole led into a small hallway just big enough for him to stand in. James looked behind himself and he saw two little peep hole in the stone behind him. He looked through them and he saw a truly horrible sight. A giant creature had crawled out of the hole and the sight and smell of it made James almost vomit. It skin what deathly pale and it had a bald round head, its arms were five times longer than its body and below the creatures waist, was a tangle of tails that helped it move. The creature turned around and now James could see its face, oh and how horrible it was. It had two eyes, with both being a bold yellow color, its nose was small and it pointed straight downward. The worst thing of all was its mouth. The mouth had dried blood stained on its teeth and the teeth were sharp knives. It stuck its tongue out into the air and the tongue split into two seperate tongues. The creature retracted its tongues back into its mouth and growled lowly in its throat. James knew what it was doing, it was looking for him. James held his breath as the creature slowly walked by his hiding spot. James looked down and he saw that one of the tails almost touched his foot. The creature seemed to give up and it slowly started crawling its way back down the hole. James let go of his breath, he was sweating from head to toe in fear. “That must be the thing that was making all the earthquakes,” James thought to himself “Merry lied to me.” James began to wonder what other horrors this house held in its deep underground caverns.

James walked back through the hallway that was behind his hiding spot and he kept walking for what seemed like miles before he came to a square staircase. He looked down them and they seemed to go on forever, James groaned as he leaned on the rail. Suddenly the rail broke and he started falling to his impending death. James didn’t have time to think he was falling so fast. He suddenly blacked out and he found himself on a bed when he awoke. His head was facing up at the stairs. “Well that was interesting,” James thought as he stood up, somehow still able to stand. The ground below him was now hard rock with some sort of red sand covering it. James looked in front of him and there was a giant gaping hole in the wall that lead into complete darkness. James sat down on the bed, discouraged for the first time in these caverns. He didn’t feel like going on, he felt more like curling up into a ball and hiding in a corner where no one could find him. James threw his hands up in the air in anger and slammed them down back on the bed. Something rolled out from under the bed and James reached down to grab the thing. It was a flashlight. It seemed to James that there was some good forces down here in these evil caverns, and they were helping him. James turned on the flashlight and he shone it into the hole. The darkness kept going on forever but the flashlight provided enough light so that James could at least see five meters around him. James saw something fall right in front of the hole and it made him jump off the bed and stand straight up. He shone the flashlight on the thing and he saw that it was a jumbled mess of wood with some silvery thing in the middle. James started to walk over to the mess and he saw that it was a gun that was making the silvery glow. It was just a hand pistol, but it was better than nothing. There was also a thin piece of paper in the mess. James pulled it out and he saw that it was the picture of the old military man again. James let out a laugh and he dropped the paper and then he stepped on it and rubbed his shoe off on it. He then looked straight into the hole, with his flashlight in one had and gun in the other, and then he charged straight into the darkness.

James quickly got through the tunnel with no problems. “Well that went better than I thought it would,” he thought to himself. James was now in a dimly lit area with skeletons on the ground and some of them were hanging onto the ceiling as by some sort of invisible force. James was about to walk around a corner when he heard a sound. It sounded like the crunching of bones and marrow. He quickly stepped backwards and hid in a little alcove. James then peaked his head out and looked slowly around the corner and what he saw almost made him gag. There was a gigantic spider with ten legs and ten eyes and its mouth was a humans mouth with very sharp teeth and it was gnawing on the corpse of some larger creature. James silently stood up and began to walk the opposite direction and take the other tunnel that he saw when he came into this cave like area. When he was halfway to the tunnel a giant hole opened up in the ground a little ahead of James and a disgusting smell erupted from the hole and a blast of heat sent James falling backwards into a little nook in the wall. Then, James heard a sound. RAAWWWR SHREEEE. It was the same creature from earlier that came up the hole beneath the well. KNEESSH! This sound was different. James peaked out from the nook and he saw now that the spider had come out from the corner and was staring down the monster from the hole. The monster crawled the rest of the way out of the hole and slammed its giant arms down on the ground, making the earth shake. The spider lifted its four front legs and charged. The monster reached out to grab the spider but it was to slow. The spider jumped over the monsters arms and landed on them. Then it crawled the rest of the way up to the monsters face and it began to bite at its head, drawing yellow blood. The monster yelled in rage and it bit the spider in its under belly. The spider let go but it wasn’t able to run. The monster bit down hard to make the spider scream before it threw it all the way across the room with one powerful swing. The spider was bleeding purple blood now and it was screaming in agony. The spider go up and it slowly crawled away towards the spot where James hide. With terrible realization, James saw that he was right inside the spider’s lair and there was no way he could escape. The only way was to go further into the lair. James quickly began to run further in to find another exit. He kept running and he couldn’t find anything. His time was running out.

James kept tripping over cobwebs and bones of animals that he couldn’t make out. There were other smaller spiders crawling around everywhere. James could see a growing shadow behind, getting larger every second. James ran and ran until he almost fell into another hole in the floor. ¨Dang it!¨ James yelled in frustration, ¨There are too many holes in this ******* house.¨ He turned around and he saw that the spider was crouching behind him in a crude position

¨Flesh,” The spider spoke, surprising James. James quickly pulled out his gun and pointed it right at the spiders eyes. He knew that it would be ineffective, but it was worth a shot. When he fired the gun, he saw gold smoke trail the bullet as it went straight into the spider eye, destroying it on contact and everything around it. The spider stood straight up on all ten of its legs and it roared off towards the ceiling in pain. It started to stumble towards James, but he fired another bullet at the spiderś damaged underbelly, this time the bullet burnt down further into the wound, making an awful stench spread around into the room. The spider started producing blue foam from its mouth, and when the foam touched the ground it burnt holes that would not stop burning. The spider lunged forward at James and it knocked him and itself into the dark hole below.

James woke up at the bottom of the hole and he felt something furry and wet below him. He slowly lifted his head up, there was a little pain in his neck muscles from the fall, and when he turned his head all the way around, he saw that he was slightly lodged inside the spiderś wound. James quickly got up and pointed the gun at the spider. The spider didn’t flinch at all, so James thought it was dead. He quickly put the gun down and whirled around start heading off to find an exit. He looked around the room and he saw that there was no openings on the walls or any sort of passage to be seen. James started to panic with the thought of never being able to escape from this barren hole. There was very little light down in the hole, only enough to illuminate the immediate area around James. It has seemed that James has fallen down through Hades and into the depths of Tartarus. James than saw that right below the hole, there was some sort of liquid dripping down into the hole from above. He went to investigate and he stopped dead silent when he got right in front of the liquid that was dripping. He heard a low, deep rumbling noise above him. To his horror. To his extreme horror! He saw the monster that has been hunting him through the caverns staring at him with its ice cold yellow eyes. James suddenly saw that the liquid was blood dripping down from the creatures mouth. “We finally have him, Master,” a familiar voice said. James wiped around and he saw Merry stand with a huge inhumanly grin on his face

“Merry!” James yelled in a rage “You lied to me” James launched himself at Merry, but he went right through him. Merry reappeared in front of James.

“I’ll let you get acquainted with my master now, master,” Merry let out a monstrous laugh before disappearing again. James quickly stood up and stared down the nightmare that stood before him. He pulled out his gun and pointed it straight at the monster’s head. The monster charged straight at James and James fired his gun at the monsters huge forehead. It pushed the monster back a little and and down onto the floor, but it quickly got back up and resumed its slow crawl towards James. It got close enough to reach James with its long pale arms that stunk of death. One of the arms grabbed for James’ legs. James quickly shot down at the arm, the bullet was so powerful that it blew up the area that was shot. The monster didn’t even flinch or groan as the area around the wound turned black and cold. James looked down at the arm and he saw that it was slowly regenerating. When he was distracted, the monsters other arm grabbed James from behind and he was dragged to the ground and up into the the air feet first. James saw that the monster’s face looked like a face either way he looked at it, which made James even more scared than he already was. James pulled the gun out and fired, but nothing happened. It was out of ammo. James threw the gun at the monster’s head  but to no effect. The monster started drooling blood from its mouth and its eyes now glowed a bright blood red.

“It has seemed that fate has caught up to you!” the monster yelled in a disturbing voice. James closed his eyes as he accepted his cruel fate. What had he done to deserve this. The monster reared back its head and opened its mouth wide. The next thing James knew, was that he was lying down on a forest floor.

James slowly opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground with trees surrounding him. James slowly pulled himself up to the ground. The sun was setting in the sea of trees ahead of him and the air was getting cooler, crickets chirping in the trees above. “Was I dreaming?” James wondered to himself out loud. He looked behind himself and he saw that little stump that he tripped over earlier. ¨ I must have knocked myself out...¨

The sky got darker and it started to rain lightly. James started to run away, but he stopped himself from running any further. He saw a large wooden house behind the trees and it looked abandoned. James quickly remembered his weird journey and began to wonder, ¨Was I dreaming? ¨ James quickly turned around and began running away from the house and back to his house.

A small man was standing in the doorway of the house and he was looking out into the forest as James was walking away. ¨Bye Master James, its has been a pleasure,¨ and out from behind him there was the monster from the basement. Merry then slowly disappeared and the monster shut the door on the house with delicacy. James was never the same again after these events. He kept having nightmares and sudden black outs from the event. He moved his family far away from the site of the old house- all the way across the country. The events of what happened in the basement were unknown to any living soul, until 276 years later, when one of James’ descendancts confronted the horror that his many greats grandfather once faced. The cold dark truth of that place would finally be revealed to another living soul. The Horror in the Basement.