Gremlins and Monsters at the Basement Door
“Hi, Mommy!” echoed through the hall as I pushed open the unlocked front door in my normal cheery manner. “Mommy, I’m home,” I tried lustily, but only silence greeted me. In a house with four children, silence isn’t really normal. I was surprised but undaunted, continuing to cry out as I moved toward the kitchen.
“Swingch,” the door to the refrigerator said to me as I peeked to see about a snack. Glass of Kool-Aid in hand, I pressed on, peering around the corner into the butler’s pantry to see if mother just hadn’t heard me because she was busy putting things up after unloading the dishwasher.
The silence was deafening. I mustered myself for the trek to the third floor. Surely she would be there cleaning the bathroom or putting the boys’ clothes away. As I passed the living room and put my empty glass down on the hall table, I spied the Endust and rag left hurriedly on the game table. “She’s got to be here,” I mumbled half to myself, half to the first step as I grabbed the railing to mount the rising staircase.
Reaching the first landing, my tiny eyes glanced out the back window to the empty clothesline below. No Mommy there. My little feet began to pump. Heart pounded. Moving swiftly now, I covered the second floor. Not in the sewing room, or the bathroom! Folding clothes in the sitting room? No! “Mommy!” I fairly screamed, wild-eyed and beginning to feel the fear as it rose in my throat with my voice’s high pitch.
Now, the final peak – to the third floor! Clutching the rail, my pint-sized hands, still chubby from leftover baby fat swung me up and around the curve in the stairs. The light poured in through the round window at the rooftop and guided me up the darkened ascent. “Chirp,” Petey’s strong sound pushed its way into my churning thoughts. The pretty little parakeet in Wakeley’s room had heard me come up the stairs and figured it was time for his afternoon free flight. Not to be.
Tears began to well up and sting my eyes. I looked behind me with that eerie feeling someone was there and jumped when the winding stairs were empty. “Oh, no,” I groaned, knowing what would come next.
I would have to face that glowing monster in the basement. Even with the lights on, he loomed large in my imagination and breathed fire through his mouth! Slowly, I made my way down the stairs to the dreaded door in the kitchen. My trips to that netherworld were always filled with uneasiness. Sometimes Mommy would ask me to venture down there for clothes left on the indoor line or a hammer from Daddy’s workbench, and always the pounding heart accompanied me as I quietly crept down the stairs hoping not to wake the sleeping gargoyle in the corner. But somehow it usually sensed my fear and clicked on producing a muffled scream from its victim.
I steeled myself as the door approached, knowing that Mommy would be down there cheerfully loading the washer. But the images of the monster stopped me. The rush of blood in my head masked my hearing, and the only sound was the loud roar of blood coursing through my veins. I knew it would hear the beating of my heart and release its gremlins that forever lay in wait behind its ugly bulging form. Once down there, I would have to avoid their little tricks by quickly jerking this way and that because only when they were seen would they disappear!
The thought of those empty coal bins peering out at me around the corners of the glowing monster kept me from turning the knob more quickly. There was always something in there. The ax murderer, the boogie man, the devil. I just knew it and never dared enter them to see what really was left in their cavernous expanse. No choice remaining, I quietly rotated the crystal knob, being sure to get the latch totally clear of its home, so the gremlins wouldn’t hear the door open. Then my little palm pulled against the weight of the awesome door, opening a tiny sliver to peer into. It was dark!
No light at the bottom of the stairs! Relieved at not having to check further, I quickly slammed the door against the disappearing gremlins who had mounted the staircase behind it.
I reeled away from the door with the sudden realization that I was totally alone for the very first time. Carried by the fear that enveloped me, I quickly, but quietly, ran, eyes full, toward the couch in the living room. Its velvet arms reached up and comforted me all scrunched up in a little ball in the corner.
A few minutes later, I heard, “Hullo? Anybody here?” through the kitchen door. It was Mommy carrying groceries. “I need help, here,” she called out, and I stumbled into the room with eyes spilling over, too relieved and scared to explain because I’ve never been sure that Mommies understand about gremlins at the door.
