Stairs and Stares

It was three days before Christmas and Mason was alone in the house. The fifteen year old's parents had left to go look for new furniture. Feeling hungry and not being able to find anything good, Mason decided to go check the freezer in the basement. As he flipped on the light switch and looked at the gray colored steps he thought of his childhood friend Craig. Craig was always at Mason's house and one of their favorite activity's was to make scary stories. Craig once made a story that a ghost of a old serial killer lived in Mason's basement. At the time that had really freaked out the young Mason but had since been forgotten.

As Mason took the first step down, his left leg all of a sudden felt like it went numb. Unable to catch himself, Mason fell down two stairs and with his full weight landed on the square basement platform right on his left knee. Mason immediately cried out in pain and thrashed on the platform which connected to more steps and finally the basement floor. When the pain briefly went down Mason thought about how lucky he was to have not fallen down all the steps. Feeling around his pockets he realized he didn't have his cell phone on him adding a new fear.

On inspection, Mason found that his knee had come out of place, and that any attempt to move it made he thrash in extreme pain once again. Uncertain of what to do, Mason started screaming in an effort to possibly be heard by neighbors. As Mason half sat, and half lay with varying degrees of pain going through his leg and side he consider other options. He thought of his parents that could arrive back at any moment, or many hours later. His thought process went blank suddenly when he looked down at the basement itself and all its darkness. The light switch he had flipped earlier only illuminated the stairs.

Mason's parents kept a wide array of things in basement, ranging from several tall shelves to the freezer and then a uncountable amount of tote bins. Thinking of this made Mason less nervous about things and he inspected the knee again trying to figure out what to do. Then he heard a  scarping noise coming from the basement, looking Mason thought he saw some kind of white outline towards the back of the basement. Mason then thought of Craig's story for the first time in years, sending a chill down his spine along with the constant pain he was feeling. Was that the ghost he thought, of the killer?

Then a new wave of intense pain shot through his body, Mason using all the mental and physical strength remaining tried his best not to move. He knew if he thrashed around he could possibly fall down the remaining steps close by. As that happened the scraping noise returned, louder and closer. Mason refused to look in the direction of the noise, but to his own surprise called out to Craig. No response, just a sudden silence. Then the light above him started to flicker drawing his attention toward the light. If the light went out and helped didn't come soon Mason feared for his life.

Mason thought logically about what the noise and white outline could be, but thought of no answers. Turing around to face the thing was Mason's only choice, he thought. Turning slowly he saw that the white thing was closer, however not close enough to fully make out. It had two black spaces a short distance apart looking right at Mason. Then suddenly Mason heard the garage door open, meaning his parents were here. As he started to yell for help the scraping noise moved towards him. Mason could now see a human skeleton with a jackal skull on top instead of a human skull. It moved closer as he heard footsteps coming to the basement door. All of a sudden another rush of pain ran through Mason and he was unable to not thrash around and went down the remaining steps just as the creature reached for him.

The smell of fresh coffee awoke him. As Mason looked around he noticed he was in the hospital, heavily bandaged up, and that his parents were there. His parents explained the injuries he had suffered and how lucky he was that he hadn't went down the main flight of stairs until they got there. When asked what happened Mason left out the part about the creature and noises to everyone but Craig. Craig said it could have just been some type of illusion brought on by the stress and pain somehow but Mason really doubted it. Mason reminded Craig about the serial killer story in the basement from childhood stories and how he had at first thought it  was that. Then Craig said how he last remembered that the last story Mason told him was about a skeleton with a jackal skull.