Benny & the Thing in the Basement

Benny ordered two Hawaiian pizzas with cheesy bread sticks, hot wings, and a full 2 liter Mountain Dew. His mom was out of town at a knitting convention, and he was gonna game all weekend. He was thinking he’d play some WoW, some LoL, then space it out with some anime while he ate the pile of junk food at his disposal. He even remembered to stop and grab some antacids while he was buying chips and candy at the store.

“I am the king of my kingdom!” he shouted into the air of his bedroom while his computer booted up. “Pwn all the noobs!”

His phone rang with a Cowboy Bebop theme song. He took a moment to do a little dance move and twerk a couple times before looking down to see the word Mom on his phone’s screen.

Benny rolled his eyes and hit Answer. “Hey mom.”

“Hey, Benny! Me and the gals have our boarding passes printed out, and our luggage is checked. So, we are on our way to the knitting convention!”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to turn off my phone once we get to our terminal, because, you know me, if I don’t remember to turn it off before lining up, sitting down, finding our seats and everything, I’m just not going to remember.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, do you have everything you need at the house?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, like I said, I won’t be available for the next few hours because my phone will be off. So, if you need something from me, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I’m good.”

“You know, I was worried that with the forecast of the rain and everything that our flight would get delayed…”

Benny opened World of Warcraft on his computer and started changing into his favorite pair of sweatpants one-handed while his mom continued to talk.

“Benny?”

“What?”

“Did you hear what I just asked you? Are you going to have any girls over while I’m gone this weekend.” He could hear the joke in her voice.

“That’s funny.”

“I thought that was a pretty funny joke!”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well you have a good time with your video games. Make sure you take breaks so your eyes don’t get tired.”

“Okay.”

When the call was finally over, Benny looked down at his phone. She’d talked his ear off for nearly ten whole minutes! Ten minutes of gaming time wasted!

Benny rolled his eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh before putting on his headset and settling into the butt-grooves of his gaming chair.

***

Not even 20 minutes into his game the power went out. He let out a series of swear words. It wasn’t until he took off his headset that Benny heard the rain. He went to his window and opened the blinds to see a complete torrent of rain obscuring his view.

“Of course this happens today!” He shouted. “Of course this would happen TODAY!”

Benny sat down with a huff. Benny didn’t know much about power outages, but he considered that maybe it was just a matter of switching the breaker back on. He grabbed his phone and made his way to the basement.

At the steps to the basement, Benny heard the sound of trickling water. The light above the stairs didn’t work, of course. But that didn’t stop Benny from flipping it on and off, then gnashing his teeth in a rage when nothing happened.

The steps into the basement creaked under Benny’s weight. The light from his cell phone illuminated the way. To his surprise halfway down the steps, the basement was completely flooded.

“What the—” Benny said.

Not wanting to deal with this himself, Benny went into his phone’s recent calls and dialed his mom. The call didn’t go through, then he remembered that his mom’s phone would be off for a couple hours longer.

Benny groaned and pouted. He turned his eyes to the ceiling and was about to say “Why me?” when he lost his grip on his phone. With a loud spelunk, his phone dropped into the flooded basement.

“AAARGH! My life is a FART!”

The light from his phone flickered and went out. Benny was plunged into darkness. He couldn’t see anything without the light on his phone. He got down onto his knees and reached his hand into the dark water before him, feeling around for his phone. As he was searching blindly, his hand caught the edge of his phone, and knocked it off the steps to sink below the basement stairs.

“NO! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

He pulled off his shoes and socks, pouted some more, then pulled off his pants and left them on the dry steps. Shivering in his whitey-tighties, Benny dipped one toe into the frigid basement water.

“Oh, that’s brisk!”

Benny sloshed down the last few steps of the stairs until his feet found the floor of the basement. The water came up to his waist.

“How did this get so flooded? This is disgusting.”

He felt along the side of the staircase and began moving along its side so he could get under the stairs where his phone fell.

Something poked him in the side. Benny let out a high-pitched squeal and began swatting at the thing in the water and pressing himself up against the railing of the stairs as if he could somehow squeeze through the rungs. Then, when his hand slapped down on the thing floating in the water, he recognized its shape.

“Oh my gosh,” Benny said in relief as he hefted the foam sword. It was from his old sets of toy swords and armor for live-action role-playing games.

“Why does mom keep this stuff around,” he said, irritated. “I don’t even LARP anymore.”

Benny chucked the foam sword into the darkness and turned back to his task of feeling around with his toes under the stairs to find his phone. But when the toy sword didn’t make the splash he’d expected, he straightened up and cocked his head.

“That was weird,” he said, feeling nervous again.

Then, far too long after it should have landed in the water, Benny heard the telltale splash.

Benny swallowed hard and breathed fast. The thought of something down here with him was ridiculous, and the rational part of his brain knew that. But here he was in pitch black darkness, up to his waist in dark water, wearing nothing but his briefs. He felt very vulnerable all of the sudden, and his imagination began conjuring dark creatures with tentacles or great white sharks from nothing.

Benny decided to abandon his phone. Holding his breath, he started taking very cautious and slow steps in the water towards the base of the stairs.

Something poked him in the side again. This time, he angrily swatted the toy sword away.

But it wasn’t the toy sword. It was something soft and slimy. And for the brief moment his hand touched whatever it was, he felt it move.

Screaming, Benny made a dash for the stairs. Some hidden junk around his feet tripped him up, and his scream cut off as he face-planted into the water, flailing his arms.

He finally got his feet under him and stood up, gasping. He reached the stairs and started climbing them two at a time. He didn’t even stop to collect his dry clothes. At the top of the stairs, Benny collapsed. He clutched his toes that got jammed while he was floundering in waist-deep basement water.

“Owwwww,” he said. “I want my mommy.”

Then the lights came back on.

“You have GOT to be kidding me!” he shouted to no one in particular. He sat there dripping water on the kitchen floor next to the door to the basement. It wasn’t until then that he realized just how ridiculous he must look: a grown man, soaking wet, wearing nothing but a pair of threadbare off-white briefs, pouting like a child on the kitchen floor.

But at least this meant his weekend of gaming could get back on track. He needed to look on the bright side, he decided. He could wash up, dry off, and be back to gaming within twenty minutes.

That was when three long, coiling tentacles reached up from the dark basement, seized Benny around the ankles and yanked him off his feet.

“HELP!” Benny screamed. He held onto the door frame with all his strength, but another large tentacle with a massive suction cup clasped the back of his hand. One by one the tentacle pulled his digits free from his grasp on the door frame. His grip came loose, and he was plunged into the dark basement.

***

The pizza guy had tried knocking several times.

“Hello? I’ve got a pizza order for Benny?”

He was just about to give up and leave when the door opened.

“Finally,” he said. Then he was yanked off his feet and hauled into the house. The door closed behind the pizza guy with a click.