User blog comment:Witnessme/Creepypasta Short Story Contest/@comment-24559495-20151008092443

The Watcher, by DanZ

Have you ever had a basement in your house?

If you have, you may be familiar with the feeling of running up the basement stairs, feeling like someone or something may be watching you...

For Tom Matherson, though, this feeling was far too familiar. His parents' house was quite small, but had a large basement. Because of this, his parents often stored furniture or toys that couldn't fit in the house in of the basement. He would also be asked more than enough to go down into the basement and fetch something, whether it be a spare door or table, or just an empty casket once filled with his toys when he was young and small, at the age of 8. Not that being 13 was much more than young and small. He never felt safe in the basement, as the only light in the whole basement was an eerie rainbow-pattern hot air balloon-shaped lamp, which emitted beige-yellowish colored light, and this still barely lit up half of the basement; despite the fact that there were packs and packs of spare lightbulbs, the light never changed in color or brightness no matter what lightbulb was put in.

However, on May 13th, 1994, Tom disappeared after being sent down into the basement to fetch his parents a spare door, since their bathroom door's hinges had broken off. The parents, Matt and Dana Matherson, recalled hearing a faint, short scream a few minutes after they sent him down.

An investigation into the house; mainly the basement; was launched four days after Tom's disappearence, but even after months upon months of searching the basement floor, the walls, and all furniture, the only evidence that could be noticed was a horrific stench of rotting flesh and human feces littered around the basement. Tom's body was eventually found years later by a carpenter who had been hired by another family who moved in to find the source of the now incredibly strong, putrid smell of death and flesh that stank the house. Tom's body was crammed into a box a slight bit bigger than a suitcase, which had been hidden five feet underneath the floor of the basement.

Tom had always complained before that whenever he was inside the basement, he felt like someone was watching him, and that he sometimes heard raspy, quick breaths. He once even said that he had to run out of the basement because the lamp's lightbulb popped and he heard snarls and the noise of clattering and moving all around him. Noone believed him, and they paid the price.