The Caller from the Basement

Grace had always loved the house. It was old, yes, but there was something about the weathered brick and the creaky wooden floors that made it feel like home. When she moved in with her fiancé, Noah, they had big plans to fix it up together. They’d spend weekends repainting the walls, fixing the drafty windows, and dreaming of the future.

But, like all old houses, it had its quirks.

It started with the phone calls. Grace didn’t know why she’d never mentioned them to Noah before—it just seemed so trivial at first. Every evening, as dusk fell, the landline in the kitchen would ring. When she picked it up, there would be nothing but silence on the other end. She had chalked it up to a wrong number, or perhaps a telemarketer who didn’t know how to hang up. But then, the silence began to feel… wrong.

There were no clicks, no beeps. Just a long, drawn-out pause before the line went dead. Sometimes, she would hear faint sounds—scraping noises, like something moving beneath the floor, or a muffled voice, though it was always too distorted to understand.

The first time she told Noah, he dismissed it. “It’s probably just an old phone line, babe. Don’t overthink it.”

But as the calls continued, she began to feel uneasy. The house had a basement, one that Noah insisted was full of old junk left by previous owners. It was locked up tight. Grace had never gone down there, and Noah never seemed in a hurry to clean it out. But the calls… they always seemed to come from somewhere down there.

One evening, after a particularly unsettling call, Grace decided to investigate. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the calls were tied to the basement in some way. The phone had never rung while Noah was home, but tonight, he was out with friends.

She stood at the foot of the stairs, staring at the basement door. The house felt cold, the air thick with an odd tension. The house, which had once been full of warmth and light, now felt empty, its old wooden beams creaking in protest. She felt a shiver race up her spine as she reached for the doorknob, which was surprisingly warm under her touch.

She opened the door, the hinges groaning in protest. A sudden chill swept over her as she descended the stairs, the darkness swallowing her whole. The smell of dust and mildew hit her first—then, something else. The faintest hint of something rotten, as though something had been buried here for far too long.

When her foot touched the bottom step, the phone rang.

She froze. The sound was piercing, even down here. It seemed to echo off the walls. Her stomach lurched. She had to answer it. It was as if something inside her knew that this was the moment she’d been waiting for.

Her hand trembling, she grabbed the receiver.

“Hello?” she whispered, her voice cracking. The phone was static-filled, a low hum filling her ears. But then came the voice. Soft, distorted, but definitely a voice.

“Grace…”

It was faint at first, as if coming from far away. But it was unmistakable. The voice was low, like a whisper, and it echoed in her ears, calling her name.

“Grace… help me.”

Her pulse quickened. The voice wasn’t just calling her name. It was pleading. Begging.

“Who is this?” she managed to say, her voice barely audible. The air around her grew colder, the basement growing darker with every passing second. She glanced around, the shadows creeping closer, and for a moment, she thought she saw a shape move at the edge of her vision.

There was no response for a long moment, just the crackling static on the line. But then, the voice came again, louder now, almost desperate.

“Help me… I’m here.”

Grace felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The voice sounded familiar, but… she didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t Noah. It wasn’t anyone she knew. But there was something urgent, something that made her feel like she couldn’t leave.

Before she could react, the sound of the phone line cut out abruptly. The basement was silent once more. Too silent. The kind of silence that made her nervous. The only thing she could hear was her own breath, shallow and quick.

And then, there it was again—scratching, faint, but distinct. It was coming from beneath the floor, right under her feet.

Her eyes widened. The basement floor was old, and the wood had gaps between the boards. She moved closer, pressing her ear to the ground, her pulse pounding in her ears. The sound was unmistakable now—something scraping, like nails on wood, digging and digging.

She moved quickly, almost instinctively, to the corner where the noise seemed loudest. There, beneath a stack of old boxes, she noticed something strange. A trapdoor. She hadn’t seen it before—it was hidden under layers of dust and old paint. It was small, almost too small for a person to fit through, but she could see faint scratches along the edges.

Before she could stop herself, she grabbed the latch and pulled it open.

The stench hit her immediately. It was foul, rancid, the smell of something decaying. But she couldn’t back away now. She had to know.

Beneath the trapdoor was a small crawlspace. And there, in the corner, was something horrifying: a figure. A person, or what had once been a person, chained to the wall. Its skin was pale, withered, and its eyes… its eyes were wide open, staring at her in horror. Its mouth was moving, but no sound came out. The figure’s fingers twitched, scratching against the floor beneath them, trying desperately to reach the phone.

Grace’s blood ran cold as she realized the truth. The calls weren’t coming from upstairs. They were coming from here, from the figure trapped beneath her house. The thing that had been buried, forgotten, waiting to be set free.

And then, the phone rang again.

This time, the voice was louder.

“Grace… it’s too late. It’s too late for both of us.”

Her scream echoed through the house as the trapdoor slammed shut.