Here is a Halloween flash fiction that I had wanted to get out last night (on Halloween duh). However, I got busy and did not get a chance to finish it, with all the ritual sacrifices and ceremonies to do. I mean handing out candy and lighting candles for trick-or-treaters (Of which we got zero, and ended up watching the movie Halloween and eating the candy). Anyway, here is my little story “Cellar Door.” It is based on a reoccurring dream I have had all my life, about the cabin I grew up in, in Alaska.

Cellar door.

At sixteen, Kyle was excited for the trip to the cottage he and his family spent their summers in Romania. He didn’t know the details, and he didn’t really care how it came to be that his family would start the trek overseas each year to the remote village. Kyle was excited nonetheless about the trip, not so much the destination, because what teenager wants to spend another summer in a small remote village? If he was lucky, he would meet a girl his age; that would at least make the trip worth it.

They did pretty well on the flight so far. Kyle and his younger brother, Cam, a six-year-old, could only behave so long before getting bored. They found the flight attendant to be a good source of entertainment, and lucky for them, it wasn’t the flight attendant’s first rodeo. She was good-natured about the constant requests for more snacks and sodas and even slipped Cam a few extra packages of crackers with a ‘just between us’ wink. That garnered an unspoken alliance between them. As long as the snacks were constantly flowing, his behavior would be in check.

The attendant trundled the meal cart down the aisle, handing out dinners and drinks before the lights dimmed for the evening on the overnight flight. It was already quiet, and more than a few passengers had already curled up as best they could in the uncomfortable seats. Kyle, who took the privilege of the aisle seat, discreetly peeked behind him down the aisle. Meal time was a great time to get a long look at the attendant’s curvy features without restriction. She eventually made her way to their seats, handing off dinners to his parents across the aisle. Kyle watched her bend over, reaching to hand off a meal tray to the window seat. Despite the distraction of his newfound curiosity, he spied the drawer with the alcohol mini bottles. The drawer was partway opened, and he could see a few bottles were easily within reach.

He waited for her to serve the next tray of food, then reached out as quietly as a ghost, catching hold of three of the bottles. He quickly tucked them under his leg, just in time, as the attendant finished the other side of the aisle and began to serve him and his brother. His heart pounded, and the adrenaline surged as she leaned over to hand Cam his meal.He was truly thrilled; she was so close he could almost feel the heat from her breast on his face, and the smell of her perfume was intoxicating.

He had to concentrate to keep his body from responding in embarrassing ways. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to imagine anything else than his proximity to the attendant, his raging hormones almost winning the battle.

     “Are you okay? You look flushed,” the attendant asked Kyle. The shockwave of embarrassment quelled any physical response his body may have been considering. His eyes shot open, startled back to reality. He recovered as well as he could, mumbling something about being hungry, and took his tray with shaky hands.

                She made her way further up the aisle, sparing him any more embarrassment. Kyle glanced at Cam, who was busy dissecting his ‘lab tray’ of food, too intent on it to pay any attention to him. Now that the coast was clear, he began extracting the mini bottles from under his leg, cracked the cap as silently as possible, and then poured each one into the plastic cup of soda on his tray table. Phase one complete, he thought, then slammed the burning liquid down his throat. Vodka. He almost choked and spit out the vile liquid, half wondering what he was thinking until the burning started to wane, and the warmth began to feel good, causing his cheeks to flush again.

                The heady liquid hit his adolescent body like a sledgehammer. The most alcohol he had ever had was in the cough syrup his mother gave him when he was sick, and that wasn’t enough to make him feel anything. He now understood what ‘buzzed’ meant and felt. He leaned forward and stashed the empty bottles in the pocket of the seat in front of him, his crime going unnoticed, and then ate his meal as if nothing had happened.

The pretty flight attendant began pushing the meal cart back to the galley. He watched her as she made her way back, accepting empty meal trays and plastic cups into her trash bag. Passing his seat, she stopped to take the refuse from the passengers behind him; he couldn’t help but indulge in another look at her posterior. Now infused with liquid bravery, the urge to touch her was uninhibited.

     “What in the hell are you doing?” his father stage whispered, trying to be forceful without causing a scene,  stopping Kyle mere inches away from touching her. The stoned-faced glare was all Kyle needed, and he sat back in his seat, pretending nothing had happened. He was grateful that the flight attendant was too busy with her duties to notice the near miss and his father’s rebuke. His father shook his head in wonder at Kyle’s behavior, but Kyle noticed his father glance at the attendant with an approving twitch of his eyebrow. 

                Feeling like he escaped an embarrassing situation and his father’s wrath, he closed his eyes to enjoy his buzz. Cam leaned over, pointing to the seat pocket in front of Kyle, and asked their father why Kyle got to have the little bottle drinks and he didn’t get any. That fucker, Kyle thought, knowing he was busted. His father leaned over and emptied the seat pockets of the contraband, “First of all, you’re grounded; you’re going to be lucky to see the light of day this entire trip! Go to sleep, and we will discuss this further when we get off this plane.” He said quietly through gritted teeth.

                Kyle knew that he was in it deep. When his father turned that particular shade of red and didn’t yell, he knew that his father was past the point of no return and was only keeping his cool because they were in public. It’s all Cam’s fault, too. Little creep. I’ll get him back, he thought. He leaned his head back and tried to sleep for the rest of the flight.

                The drive from the Airport to the cottage was tense. Kyle got the verbal thrashing he was promised after they landed, and his parents did not seem to want to let it go. It was going to be a long summer. Being grounded in Nowheresville isn’t much of a punishment, at least, he thought.But he didn’t want his parents to know he felt that way. He was mad at himself. He knew he was ruining the trip; they usually had fun on road trips, playing car games and arguing over the radio stations.

                 They finally arrived at the cottage. It was exactly as Kyle remembered it. A quaint stone cottage that looked like it was built at the dawn of time. It was barely big enough for two people to live in, but who knows when, maybe a hundred years ago, someone had built a sizable addition off the back door., almost tripling the living space. Kyle’s ‘room’ was directly past the ‘back door,’ the first part of the addition right next to the washroom. There were about four steps leading down from the original cottage’s back door to his ‘room.’  His bed was a relic in itself. It was so old that it still had ropes supporting the mattress that needed to be tightened every so often to keep it from sagging like a hammock, reminding him of the origin of the saying ‘sleep tight.’

                Everyone was tired and cranky from the long trip. They had made it; the frosty feelings seemed to be thawing, but Kyle didn’t want to press his luck and decided to take a nap after he helped unload the baggage from the car. He slumped on the creeky bed, not really wanting a nap, just the excuse it offered. Kyle lay back and rested quietly, staring around the familiar room, wondering how many people had lived there before and what was the history of the place. Something he didn’t care about when he was Cam’s age, but from his perspective now, being older, his interests were maturing as well.

                He looked at the cobblestone wall of the cottage that separated it from the addition, tracing the grout between the stones with his eyes like a race track. Then, something he never noticed before caught his eye. Under the short steps that lead to his room, he saw what looked like the top of a wrought iron hinge poking up from the earth floor. His curiosity piqued, he crouched under the stairs and began poking around, brushing dirt away from the foundation, revealing more and more of the feature.

                Before too long, he had excavated a foot down from the hinge; he now knew for certain that’s what it was, revealing an old wooden door, And found the upper part of a window that had one of those sliding covers on it like a prison door. He was getting excited now, and he could hear his parents in the front room opening a bottle of wine to officially start the vacation. It was a good thing, too, that would keep them preoccupied while he figured out his next steps.

                He knew that he couldn’t clear enough soil away to open the door, provided it could even be opened after all these years, but he could focus on the window thing. He continued pushing dirt away, packing it as much as he could against the far end of the space under the stairs. He was happy he wasn’t any bigger under there since it was a tight space as it was. He cleared more and more until the entire window plate was plain to see. But now there was a new problem. On the right side of the window plate was a loop and an ancient paddle lock.

                This was going to be a problem. The key had probably been lost long ago, and the lock, covered in dirt and grime, was more than likely rusted shut, or the locking mechanism itself might be too packed with dirt to open. The steel of the lock looked pretty good, giving him hope if he ever found the key. He gave it some thought and decided that what he needed was a prybar. He could still hear his parents enjoying their bottle of wine. It was going to be a long summer, and he had time.

                He dusted himself off and cleaned up some of the evidence of the excavation. Tucked under the stairs, where no one looked, he was certain that his project would go unnoticed. He had to go look for something to take care of the lock. Of course, finding the keys would be optimum, but that was a long shot in the extreme. He could only guess, but the ballpark figure he would throw out there was at least one hundred years, but honestly, he felt it was much longer; it could be three hundred or more easy, and the probability of that one key still hanging around was a pipe dream. Find a prybar.

                His parents made things easy for him, though they didn’t know it. They spontaneously decided to go to the lake that was on the edge of the property. The beautiful thing was that it was too close to justify driving and just far enough away to take a little time to hike there. Kyle had hours to work once he came up with a good enough reason to stay at the cottage. But that problem solved itself again. I guess being grounded means I have to stay home to be punished. He thought as his parents and Cam headed out, carrying a backpack of snacks and towels; Cam more dragged his then carried.

                And suddenly, Kyle was alone; he didn’t even have time to pretend to be sad about being left out. He waited patiently until his family was out of sight; then, he was all about the search. He started in the main room, which would have been the only room in the cottage had it not been for the addition. Nothing he found could be used as a prybar, and of course, nothing close to a set of keys that would magically be the exact right ones he needed.

                He still felt good he had enough time to keep searching. Kyle felt dumb, as it occurred to him that the tool shed the name says it all, dummy, should have exactly what he needed. Kyle almost ran to the tool shed; it looked as if it was built in the Middle Ages as well. The rickety old door of the shed looked as if it only needed one more stiff breeze to push it off its hinges. Kyle carefully pulled the door open, its rust hinges screaming for mercy. No one had been in here for decades, at the very least, and the tools looked like they hadn’t been touched for longer. An even coating of rust and dust coated everything.

                 He stepped in, kicking up dust, and looked around. He didn’t even recognize some of the tools, and some he only saw in pictures or drawings. Did people actually use scythes? He wondered. He rummaged around, finally finding what he was looking for the prybar, a catspaw; he recalled its name but, for the life of him, couldn’t say where he had learned it. Renewed excitement came over as he rushed to the cellar door, ready to get to the next part of the project. The curiosity burned inside him.

                He eagerly stabbed the catspaw into the lock and wrenched. The lock, clasp, and hinge slid out like butter, as the decaying old wood had long ago lost any strength it had once had. Had he tried before, he would have realized all he needed to do was pull on the darn thing, not the tool or key required. He shrugged and looked at the panel covering the window opening on the door. As easy as the lock, the panel that was supposed to slide out of the way peeled away from the door like a shedding skin.

                 He was half expecting a puff of air, like from in a movie when they opened an old Egyptian tomb, but there was nothing as exciting as that, just the soft thump of the panel on the soil. The panel was gone, revealing a rectangular black void behind it. There was a pleasant earthen musty smell that reminded Kyle of fall, anything left in there to rot and leave an oder had done so long ago. Having made good progress with the door, Kyle’s curiosity was on overdrive. He reached in his pocket for his phone; the flashlight function was a handy thing to always have with you. You never know when you are going to need to peek into an ancient root cellar. Kyle thought with a grin, his excitement making him giddy.

                He panned the light from his phone in a wide arc, but the room was bigger than it seemed, and it was hard to see past his own hand. He decided to take a video, which made more sense the more he thought about it; he would want a video anyway if only to show his friends back in the States. He caught a glint of something as he was pulling his phone back to switch on the video recorder. He quickly started recording and shoved his hand back in to see if he could get a better look at whatever had caught his eye.              

                It was far easier to see what was going on in the dark room, watching the screen on his phone. Now that he could see better, he panned left and right, trying to get a good video of the room. There it was again, the glint that caught his eye the first time. It seemed like something shiny at first, but this time, it was a pale white movement in the far corner. A little startled, it was eyes playing tricks; he quickly pointed the phone in that direction., but it was gone.

                The front door slamming jolted Kyle; he was so engrossed with the cellar he had lost track of time, or they came home early. Jerking his hand back at the sound of the door slamming, that twerp Cam, the phone slipped. “Fuck!” he blurted as his phone landed softly on the floor of the cellar. He crawled back out from under the stairs with a vengeance on his mind, his heart still pounding from getting startled. “Cam! Get in here!” Kyle yelled into the front room. Cam came trotting over, wondering what Kyle was so worked up over.

                Cam came to the doorway out of breath and sweaty. “Where are you?” he huffed a gulp of air between breaths as he looked around the seemingly empty room.

     “Down here,” Kyle said, sounding desperate. “I need your help.” Cam groaned at the request, but being the youngest meant he was told what to do by everyone. He dropped the flippers and snorkel he had come back to the cottage to fetch. He jumped down the stairs with a loud thump, then crouched under the stairs with his brother. “Whoa, what are you doing?” he said, looking at the mound of dirt that was heaved into a pile. “I don’t think you are supposed to do that. You’re gonna get into trouble! He said with a sing-song voice.

     “It’s really cool. I found this old door; check it out!”

                Cam crawled in next to Kyle to take a better look, imagining a secret treasure horde. “Wow, it’s so dark, though,” Cam said apprehensively.

     “I dropped my phone, trying to see what’s in there. You need to get it.” Kyle said as he formed a plan in his mind. Cam was just small enough to squeeze through the opening. Cam peeked over the edge and looked down; he could see the faint glow of the phone screen sitting face down on the dirt floor.

      “I will just hold your legs and lower you down, easy peasy. It’ll be quick!” Kyle coaxed his brother.

     “I’m not going in there,” Cam said, shaking his head.

      “Alright then, I’m gonna keep all the treasure myself. He said, taunting Cam. “There will be nothing to it.

                Cam groaned in submission and lay down on his belly, preparing for the descent. Kyle grabbed his ankles, and Cam began to scoot forward. Cam reached out, stretching. His little body was just inches too short to reach. He stretched farther, kicking his feet for traction, causing Kyle to start to lose his grip. “Stop squirming, Twerp, I’m going to drop you if you don’t stop!” As soon as he said that, Cam slipped out of his grasp with a soft thump. “Ow!” he complained as he scrambled to his feet. He looked up at his brother, reaching through the small opening. “Come on, grab my phone!” Kyle said urgently. Cam bent down and grabbed the phone, its lights temporarily blinding Cam in the darkness. He covered his eyes and blindly reached toward Kyle but was nowhere close to the handoff.

                Something shuffled. A small movement on the far side of the room sent a shockwave of fear through little Cam. It was so sudden that Cam almost peed himself and was now frantic to get out. He tossed the phone through the window slit, sending it sliding past the stairs in a skitter. “Get me out! Get me out!” Cam cried as Kyle stretched to reach him. Their hands met, and Kyle began to pull. Cam’s chest hurt as the bottom of the window plate scraped along as he was lifted.

                Cam was pulled to his waist now, kicking and squirming as he tried to inch his way out of the opening. He futilely kicked again, brushing past something that wasn’t there before sending him into complete panic. “There is something in here; something touched me!” He cried out. Kyle heaved back hard, dragging Cam out of the hole, his legs almost completely free. Cam’s eyes went wide, and he went silent. Time seemed to stop at that moment. Kyle watched, stunned, as Cam was jerked suddenly back through the window slit, making a stifled squeak as he went through.

                Kyle scrambled back to the opening, his protective instinct overriding his fear. “Cam!” he yelled as he poked his head in as far as he could, trying to see Cam. Nothing, it was completely black in there. Kyle screamed for Cam again, then listened to see if he could tell where Cam was. All he heard was a strange slurping sound that sent a jolt of fear that was so strong his bladder let loose. Then, there was a sharp cracking noise as the cellar door gave way in a landslide, pulling Kyle in with it.

                An hour later, Cam and Kyle’s parents had been taking too long to get back to the lake. They slogged their way back to the cottage.

     “Cam!, Kyle? Where are  you?” Kyle’s father yelled, not sure if he should be angry or worried. They went into the cottage calling out but heard nothing. Getting nervous, they went to the back room. Their mother looked in and saw fresh dirt scattered across the floor and Kyle’s phone, still gleaming and still recording. She walked over and picked it up with shaking hands, afraid to watch what was recorded. She stopped the recording and hit play as something shuffled under the stairs behind her.