It had been three days since the knocking that kept Evelyn up at night began. Having been a NYC girl all her life and only recently moving to Pennsylvania, Evelyn had quickly adjusted to calm, silent nights. The only lights were the stars in the sky and the occasional streetlamp. The only sounds were autumn leaves rustling and the gentle hum of the furnace in the basement. So, when the knocking joined the suburbian night’s orchestra, she noticed it immediately. At first, she thought it was a woodpecker. Knock-knock-knock, then a pause. _Knock-knock-knock. _Sometimes, the sound was accompanied by the cracking of branches. By the third night, Evelyn decided the woodpecker had overstayed its welcome. “James,” she whispered, “what’s that noise?” Her husband had the uncanny ability to sleep anywhere and through anything - a skill she attributed to his years of being a commercial pilot. “James,” she said again, nudging his shoulder lightly, “what’s that?” He mumbled something incoherent, then yawned and opened his eyes all at once. “What?” “The noise!” “What noise?” “This noise! The knocking!” Evelyn hissed, growing frustrated. James groaned, pulled on his glasses, and switched on the bedside lamp. “I don’t know. I guess I can check the basement.” “I think it might be a bird,” Evelyn suggested. “I was cleaning up a little down there a few days ago, and it might’ve gotten trapped or something.” “Highly doubt that. Most likely a raccoon. Though they usually prefer attics. I’ll take a look.” “I’ll go with you.” James grabbed a flashlight from the bedside table. “Just in case.” The couple made their way to the basement. Evelyn tried to turn on the light, but it didn’t work. The thin beam from the flashlight was the only comfort she could get, and this made her uneasy. “Let’s just check in the morning,” she whispered. “We’re already here. Let’s just take a look for a piece of mind. You’ll sleep better. I promise I’ll fix the light in the morning,” James reassured her. The flashlight’s beam swept across the basement, moving from corner to corner, up and down. Suddenly, the knocking intensified. Evelyn clamped her hands over her ears, terrified by the deafening sound. “I don’t think it’s a woodpecker,” she whimpered. “Or a raccoon, either.” The knocking stopped abruptly. “A woodpecker?” A raspy, unpleasant voice laughed. “A raccoon? Seriously?” James aimed the torchlight at an old refrigirator near the utility room door. On the top of it sat a creature. The beam caught its red, swollen eyes, its skin glistening with ooze and filth. “I was wondering when you’d give up and finally come downstairs. Took you long enough! Last time, it was only about five hours or so, if I’m not mistaken.” The creature jumped off the fridge and stepped closer to James. “Let’s play a game,” it said with a sneer. “Guess what I am.” “You’re a monster!” James screamed. The creature tsked, shaking its head. “Wrong.” A deep cut appeared on James’ neck, and thick, dark liquid poured out, speeding up. His eyes widened as he collapsed to the floor, trembling. “Now,” the creature said, turning to Evelyn, “your turn, sweetheart. What am I?” Evelyn sobbed. “No, no, no,” the creature chided. “No crying. You wouldn’t want to spoil the last moments of your dear significant other’s life, would you?” It placed its long, bony fingers around Evelyn’s neck. Its breath reeked of blood and soil. “Say my name,” it whispered. “Th-the… the devil!” Evelyn cried out. The creature smiled, baring sharp teeth. “Finally got it right.” Blood streamed down Evelyn’s neck.

I crept down the basement to see a distorted shadow standing in the dark room I look for the light switch still facing towards the shadow,(flick)I turn the light on the shadow dissapers…

John is awoken by a hard scratching sound from the basement again. “Every night for a week straight, I swear this sound will drive me mad. It’s time to finally man up like Dad would say and ghost down there.” John speaks quietly under his breath as if psyching himself up, but trying to not wake his still sleeping wife. John blindly grabs the oil lantern and matches on the side table and leaves the bedroom before striking a match and lighting the light, making sure to keep the shutters mostly closed so as to be as stealth as possible. His footsteps are light and the only sound is the gentle scratch of his slippers on the hardwood floor, and his nervous breathing. After heading down the hallway, then the staircase, cold but comfortable, he pauses to listen. Scratch, scratch, scratch, he hears clear as day muffled only by distance down the stairs and the old basement door. “Now or never’ he whispers to himself as he descends the stairs towards the kitchen. He looks into the dark kitchen, signs of his wife’s cooking from dinner earlier still linger, he swears he can still smell the roast she surprised him with, briefly distracting him from the mission at hand. He slowly approaches the basement door after shaking his reminiscing of the warm and lovely night he had with her. He hesitates as he reaches for the basement doorknob. Slowly turning the brass knob he tries to avoided that blasted squeak the door always makes. “I really need to fix the squeaking” he thinks trying to distract himself further from his nerves. But he is quickly brought back to reality by the scratching, so loud he flinches. A sudden burst of bravery overtakes him as he swings the door open. The squeaking hinges barely audible over the relentless scratching. He opens the lantern shutters more to illuminate the dark basement stairs. A sudden wave of icy air greets him ,”I hate how cold it is down here” he can’t help but to think as he calls out, “Who is down here?! I’m armed so let yourself be known now!” He bluffs. The scratching suddenly stops and the silence can only unnerve him further. He begins down the stairs, more vigilant than he’s ever been in his life. Suddenly a massive figure runs to confront him at the bottom of the stairs. His beam of light reveals a massive rat nearly the size of a teenager, and John can’t help but to let out a blood curdling scream as the rat leaps to him with unbelievable speed. It’s yellowed teeth sink deep into his cowering arms and he can only think of the danger he’s just put himself and his family in.

Trish said, “I’m going first”, as she took the torch from Ted’s hand. The light switch did not work. “What’s wrong with all of you? It’s just a cat or mouse down there making that noise”, she said in a sarcastic manner as she started toward the basement.

The three other teens followed hesitantly behind Trish. Trish walked slowly down each creaky step.

“Let’s just leave whatever it is alone. Let’s go back upstairs”, Miles said as they got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Miles, this is your house! You should want to know what’s going on in your basement.” Trish said as she kept her eyes focused on the darkness in front of her.

“I know”, Miles said softly.

The scratching noise was louder and could be heard from across the room. Everyone stopped in their tracks.

Susan said, “It’s coming from over there”, as she pointed to the left.

Everyone looked left except Teddy, who looked right. They began walking slowly towards the left side of the basement while Miles stayed near the bottom of the stairs.

The scratching noise seemed to get louder.

Trish said, “What’s behind this door Miles? The noise seems to be coming from behind this door.” She swiped at the cobwebs that covered the door and turned the doorknob but the door didn’t budge.

“Let’s just leave guys. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.” Susan said as she turned around to go back toward the stairs. She took a couple steps and then froze. She stood still as she stared blindly into the darkness.

No one noticed Trish was still behind them.

“Miles where is the key to this door?”, Trish asked. “There is something in there. What if it’s someone’s cat or dog?”

Miles didn’t answer.

Trish turned around to look for Miles in the darkness. “Miles? Miles?” She held up the torch to see if she saw her friend of 11 years. “Where did Miles go?” She looked left and right in the blackness but didn’t see Miles. She turned around quickly to talk to the group and lost her footing and fell on to the cold hard floor.

“Shit! Hello?” Trish was alone on the floor. “Miles, Susan, Ted? Where is everybody?”

The torch began to flicker.The doorknob on the locked door turned slowly and creaked as it opened slowly. The torch went out.

Trish screamed, “No! Please!” Help..!” There was a long moan that seemed to go on for minutes.

Miles and Ted walked up the creaky stairs in the darkness and walked out the door. The basement door locked behind them.

She crept down the stairwell, the faint sputtering of her torch echoed beside her. With each step her weariness grew, the cramped and musty basement was illuminated by a feeble yellow light. She halted at the last step and stretched her arm along whatever she couldn’t make out of the muddled room. The floorboard creaked with the faint scuttling of rats under old furniture, the dust enough to give someone a coughing fit if they took a long enough breath. When she took another step, a wall-scaled bookshelf toppled over, the books flying out in a pile of molded covers and pages. She covered her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt and went to step over it. A tile of the ceiling above her creaked, fissures spidered out of where it was placed. Then it all went black.

At 3:33am, Sam was listening to a thunderous round of appalause. For the third night in a row, claps, cheers, and whistles erupted from the dark basement and lasted for exactly one minute. When the clock read 3:34am, the world was completely silent again.

The first night that it happened, Sam thought she was dreaming. A loud, sudden noise startled her awake and shocked her into consciousnesses. She tried to process what she was hearing, but was left with more questions than answers.

Is somebody in the house? Are they screaming? No, that’s not screaming, it’s cheering. It sounds like a big audience. Is the noise coming from a tv?

Just as suddenly as it started, the mysterious applause stopped.

The second night, Sam thought she might be crazy. Jolted awake again, she lay frozen in bed holding her breath, trying to make sense of the hooting and hollering. The only possible explanation was that she was losing her mind.

On the third night, Sam stayed awake all night staring at the blaring red numbers of the alarm clock on her end table. It was 3:32am.

When the minute changed, the applause began. Although Sam was expecting it this time, her body tensed and her hair stood on end. It was a warm, welcoming, happy sound, but it still filled her with dread.

The next night, Sam stood guard in the dark hallway in front of the basement door. With a flashlight in hand, she waited. Soon it would be time.

Raucous cheers erupted from the basement. Sam placed her hand on the thick wooden door, feeling the pulses and vibrations. She pushed the door open and beamed her flashlight down the stairs, softly illuminating the small room below.

Sam was greeted by a room full of familiar faces. Clapping hands, bright smiles, shouts of joy. Her mom waved to her excitedly. Her best friend from high school jumped up and down, still looking 16 years old. She recognized her grandfather from old family photos she’d seen before, although she never had the chance to meet him. An audience full of people that she missed dearly gave her a standing ovation.

At 3:34am, Sam took a bow.

It’s been a few years since we moved here, and everyday since at exactly 10pm we’ve been hearing some noises from the locked basement, to get into some context of our situation, me and my roommates moved to Colorado for a beautiful opportunity in our life but it fell through shortly after we moved here, seems a lot of things have been. When we first moved here we were told not to go into the basement and being curious teenagers we tried and tried again. But this door is stealed like no other, it took us years to even make it budge but we were persistent because we needed to know what these sounds were. They were like screaming? But almost as if it was farther than just the basement like there was somewhere else that room led to, we tried to contact the landlord and no luck. We honestly haven’t heard from him in months and that’s why today we decided it’s time to do what we’ve been trying so hard for. We looked up stories about this place to see if maybe others knew but the reviews are all weirdly positive.. too positive if that makes sense. Me and my roommate and a couple of friends we normally hang out with at our flat all got together to figure this out, we began pulling and prying on the door but no budge, we didn’t want to try at night because that would’ve been too difficult, we gave up and all had a few drinks, 10pm roll around and that door is cracked but won’t budge anymore. We’re all feeling a pretty good after awhile and laughing but then, the sound from the locked door gets louder. There’s a storm rolling in and the lights have been flickering for the last 20 minutes, our drunk selves obviously had to investigate, our friend John goes over to the door and screamed “you don’t scare me spirts” and just like that the power went out, knowing John and how he can’t hold his liquor his fear is still unseen. He grabs a match and lights one of the little wall torches, I always have thought it was weird that this hallway has torches, but it’s an older house so I didn’t think much of it, we all thought John was too drunk so we pulled him away and he just kept arguing that this is the night we planned it is when it’ll happen. Then the next second we heard a lock click. The door came wide open and I stepped forward because I was the most obviously sober person here, I grabbed the torch off the wall and began to walk down the stairs. I look back up to the top on my 4th step down and seen everyone watching me, I knew I couldn’t turn back now because then John would have to do it, I began to walk down a few more steps and that’s when I heard the sound again, I felt my body trembling and the floor shake from how loud it had seemed this time, I finally reach the bottom and the door at the top slams pushing John and Alison inside they scream “Hailey?” I turned around and realized there was torches on the walls descending into the basement I lit them up and the growls got louder. Alison says “Hailey.. I think we should go back, but I knew we couldn’t. The door wouldn’t open before and it sure as hell won’t now we need to figure this out, we get to a hallway at the bottom of the stairs and on the walls was engraved stones with a weird language none of us understand, Alison studied Latin for 4 years and could make out some of the words but the fear in her eyes told me I should just keep walking. We reach another door and then a smell hits us, John vomits and screams that we need to leave now. I turn around and there is a man crawling on the floor covered in this slimy mess. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks malnourished, he opened his mouth and says “you shouldn’t have came here”, I would recognize that voice anywhere, “it’s our landlord” I say with fear in my chest, Alison finally sees one of the little engraved stones and it’s a grave stone “ITS A Crypt” Alison shouts, I look away and in one second the landward lunges at John pinning him by his throat, “I told you not to come here and now you can’t leave”, Alison screams and drops her torch lighting the satin curtain hanging from wall, the landlord doesn’t seem to like that she damaged his property and he drops John and screams “you’ll all pay for this” alison falls to her knees in shock because now he’s right in front of her he opens his mouth and says “I’ve been waiting for years for this moment you just had to have a little courage or I know you’ve been too scared, your friends love is what will end you alison” he pulls her forward and snaps her neck right in front of us, breathing heavily John gets up and grabs the landlord trying to buy me enough time to get out “RUN HAILEY” he screamed but the landlord can’t let that happen. He threw John into the wall and being how under the influence he was I couldn’t get away, the landlord grabs me and says “you’re the one I’ve always adored Hailey, you are to blame for their deaths not me”, he drags me back to the basement along with John, I knew I had to get out I needed to for John. I managed to escape his slimy grasp and I make a run for it lighting up the entrance to the basement with the torches that were along the walls, “I managed to escape! I knew I could” I said as I got to the top. I looked down and he has John’s lifeless body, he begins to pull his bones out of his skin like he’s just a sack of skin, he screams “don’t forget me” in this ungodly voice he begins to pull John’s flesh around his own wearing it like a suit. “PLEASE STOP” I screamed as I watched John’s body rip apart, my friends stsrted opening the door and by this point my friends body is halfway on and there’s blood everywhere, the landlord walked up a few steps and said “I’ll always be with you Hailey” and I’ll never forget how much his voice sounded just like John’s. The door opened more and the landlord retreated bsck to the door at the end of the hallway, my friends pulled me out and asked where the others were but I was in shock, I finally snapped out of it when Leah and mark wanted to go find them. They could never go down there. I called the police and they searched everywhere and turns out the landlord never existed, and there was nothing in that basement, that’s probably why I am where I am now. They’ll never believe me, I’ll never trust them! He could still be here he’s always here….always with me.

Deep inside the basement, the main character smelled a mixture of rotten meat and decaying potatoes. He was confused, he doubt his family store meat since they’re all vegans. He explored deeper inside the basement and closer to where the noise came from. Suddenly he felt he step on something soft and squishy , he look at the floor it’s a mice. In front of him was a large amount of mice on the floor, it seem like it was the mice that has been making the noises. Before he turn back upstairs, his eye caught something terribly scared him. A corpse laying on the floor almost completely covered with mice, its flesh was nearly all eaten up. The main character fell to the ground because of this terrifying scene, he accidentally drop his torch on his pant. He then screamed so loud that even his neighbors can hear him. Then he lost his consciousness. After he woke up he found himself in a hospital, his doctor told him that his neighbors called the police because he screamed so freaking loud at 1AM. The police then arrived to his house and discovered that its burning and saved him. The doctor told him that his body was mostly burned and his leg and arm need to be amputated. The most unlucky part is that he couldn’t reproduce anymore. The main character told the police about the corpse under his basement after he fully recovered. Ironically it’s actually his dead fathers pet monkey that accidentally died while playing in the basement. The main character cursed the god and world and said that his life was too unfair. Then the jade emperor came down to the mortal world and told him that he will be punished and be sent to the eighteenth levels of hell, never be reincarnated.

Sitting on my front porch, in the night air I heard this sound. As I stand up I pick up my torch as I start heading to the sound I hear. The unknown is scary but as i creap closer and closer to the sound it seems to pause. I stop and think should I continue down to the creepy, dark, musty basement of mine where the sound is coming from. I head down the steps first them right after me my girlfriend follows behide me. Once we make it down to the basment i stop amd wait to hear that nosie again. I hear this moaning nosie as we creep closervthe louding it gets. lisa and I are about to move the table cloth that sits on top of this old table to see what maybe that noise is. I grab the cloth and pull it off the table as a cold breeze feels like it went straight through me. Lisa is holding the torch as now it feels like we standing outside in dead winter and the flame on the torch goes out. Lisa screams and as I light the torch and look for what lisa screamed about she is no where to be found. The basement door is locked no way out still cam heard her scream but i cant find her. I'm not sure what is happen a ghost a person a demon. As I walk to where i feel her screamimg . I think I go to the wall and I exploring thinking maybe wherec its a old house a trap door or something and nothing I yell for her and she screms demon its a demon run it wants to kill us all. Im not worried about this so called demon until out it comes from the wall wanting me as well. Never fought a demon before what do you use or say do you run scream. I just gve up snd let it take me to my girlfriend. Who has yet to quit screaming. I wake up to her screaming for me to wake up. Were in this dark bloody red area stuck to feels like raw skin smells like it too. Do I give up. In this moment yes no one knows whats going on or where we are. Were now the demons forever.

The lights are out, and the banging and crashing in the basement is getting louder. I can’t avoid it anymore. I have to go down there. The flashlight gives halos of light around the periphery of my path; it’s old and giving out. Just like my vision. Just like my heart. I slowly make my way down the stairs. This is asinine. I’m an old man. I can’t do anything about what I’d find. I need to call the police or animal control. The stench of chemicals hits me first; I start to wheeze and cough. My vision waters. I reach the bottom of the stairs and use the railing to keep my balance. “Whoever you are,” I call out, “I’ve already called the police,” I lie. “Just come out and you can leave and get away before they get here. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The banging gets louder as I get closer to the crawl space. “Hello? I’m not going to hurt you! Just come out.” I perch over the lip of the crawl space. Something is moving in the dark. I shine my light on it and it starts coming toward me. I think it’s my flashlight going out; it’s all black, on a black background, racing towards me, reaching, knocking the light out of my hand. I’m wrapped in fur and the chemical stench is all in my nose. My knees buckle and I fall to the floor. I don’t know what happens next. When I wake, I slowly get to my feet. The lights have come back on in the house, and I don’t see any animal or anything in the crawlspace. I can still smell the stench, only faintly. That’s when I notice it. My vision is crisp and clear. I can see again, like when I was younger. The floaters, white spots, and blind spots are gone. I pick up a magazine from the floor and read the cover, then open it to scan the text of an article. I make my way back upstairs, feeling vigor and life like I haven’t known for years. What’s happened to me? I’m not out of breath from climbing the stairs, and my joints aren’t stiff like they have been. In the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror. My face is unlined and fresh. I can feel health where before I was exhausted and falling apart. On the kitchen table, I find a paper plate scrawled with crayons, like a child would draw. There’s a heart there, and a smiley face. A clump of black hair rests on the plate. I went to find my phone and tell my daughter the news. No one will ever believe me.