Grandpa’s secret lived in the basement
It was during the spring break of my second year at college that I got a phone call from my uncle Andrew, asking me if I’d be willing to spend a few days over at his house. My grandfather had been sick for a long, tough while, and it’d apparently gotten to the stage that the primary focus now was less so to treat him and more so to just make him as comfortable as possible for the time he had left. I can’t say I envied anyone in the situation – Grandpa, who’d be getting ready to face eternity in a house that wasn’t his, with no company but a son who he barely spoke to these days, and Andrew, who’s girlfriend died giving birth to their daughter seven months ago and was now tasked with taking care of a dying man on top of that. I’d like to act as if I was making a saintly decision to come over and offer a helping hand out of love for my family, but the truth was that it had been quite some time since I’d spoken to Andrew last, and it had been… forever since I’d spoken to my paternal grandfather. No, I went because I was lonely, unbearably so. I didn’t have any friends to speak of at college, and ever since my mother passed away about a year ago, I’d had no one to talk to at all. I made the decision to help Andrew out of the desperation for proper social interaction. Not like there’d be much to it, anyway. All I really imagined I’d be doing is keeping the baby out of his hair when he was too busy and getting grandpa anything he needed. Andrew’s house was out in the sticks, at least forty minutes away from the nearest town. My family are mostly dotted around a generally quite rural county, so there wasn’t much in the area but barren roads and the odd building or two. As for the house itself, there wasn’t really much to say about it from the front yard. Just another isolated double story that someone called home. I rang the doorbell, and after a few moments Andrew greeted me. He seemed more or less the same as the last time I’d seen him in the flesh. “Ah, Nick, how’re you doing? Thanks so much again for coming”, he smiled, his voice nothing if not welcoming. “Nah, not like I had much going on anyway,” I replied, to which he chuckled. “Come on in, throw you jacket on the hanger there. You want some coffee?” “Sure,” I said. “Yeah, alright. Have a seat over in the living room. First door to your left. I took his invitation and made my way over. Now that I was fully inside, I could see that there was more to Andrews’s house than meets the eye at first. It smelled like old books and something faintly musty, the scent of time that slowly claimed everything. The entryway was wide and dimly lit, with heavy curtains blocking out the daylight. There was a quiet rhythm to the house—the creaking of wood beneath our feet, the soft shuffle of Andrew’s footsteps echoing through long corridors. It had the basic interior of a house a lot older than you’d think it was from outside, with aged patterns across the wallpaper and a somewhat ornate type of miniature chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Clashing with these design decisions was the more minimalist furniture and art pieces hanging from the walls. It seemed like someone had taken these measures in order to give the inside of the building a more modern feel, but really, it was a bandaid on a bullethole. I looked around after reaching my destination. The living room appeared comfortable enough, with an ever so slightly peeling couch, a worn rug, and shelves of books that didn’t seem to have been touched in years. It was the kind of place that felt frozen in time. A bit musty, but lived-in, as though the walls had absorbed the memories of countless years of family life. A minute or so later, Andrew entered with two mugs. I sipped mine slowly as we exchanged some admittedly uncomfortable small talk. “God, you look so grown up. It’s been, what, two years?” It’d been at least five. This continued for a while until we got to the tasks that’d be at hand for the next number of days. “I’ll be picking him up from the hospice tomorrow after work. It’ll probably be close to seven before we’ll be back. Chloe’s upstairs having her nap right now, so I’m gonna go and get started on making dinner. In the meantime, you go ahead and make yourself comfortable. There are two rooms free upstairs, you can take your pick.” He rose and clapped me on the shoulders before heading over to the kitchen. “I really do appreciate it, Nick. It’s been rough having to pay for babysitters.” After going upstairs, I passed what must’ve been Andrew’s room on the way down the hallway, another chamber masquerading as belonging to a home far younger than was the reality, with a double bed and a child’s cot next to it, the baby sleeping soundly inside. I had a mountain of college assignments to get cracking on, so I’d brought my laptop and sociology textbook in my travel bag. That’s how I spent the majority of the evening, taking an hour’s break for dinner. We had another fairly awkward conversation about what I’d been getting up to in college (spoilers: fuck all.) From my seat at the dining room table, I was able to look out the window at a filth-coated golden retriever pottering around the yard outside. I hadn’t noticed it before; I was surprised that Andrew was able to manage a dog on top of his life as a single father. As I tried to focus on my pork chops, something else caught my eye. There was a door in the corner of the room that I hadn’t noticed before. A small door, almost entirely hidden behind another old bookshelf. I couldn’t see much of it, but there was something about the door that captured my attention, something in the way the wood seemed to shimmer in the dim light, as though it wasn’t quite real. “Is that a closet?” I asked, pointing. Andrew looked over his shoulder and then shook her head quickly. “Oh, that? No, just a small little space in the structure I haven’t really found a use for yet.” He smiled, but it was tight, forced. I was going to ask him more before the dog outside started barking loudly. “God, what’s his problem?” Andrew sighed, exasperated. “Hey, you never mentioned you had a dog. Seems like an awful lot of work for you.” I commented. “Nah, he’s not mine, just some stray that’s been finding the yard lately for whatever reason.” The conversation petered off after that, but I remember thinking that if that was the case, it was odd that the dog had a collar. I called it a night maybe two hours later, but I had a hard time sleeping because the dog continued to bark periodically until all hours of the morning. In the morning, Andrew was already gone to work when I awoke, but he’d left instructions on the kitchen counter for taking care of Chloe. I’d babysitted before as a teenager, so I could manage things fine, but it never really gets any more enjoyable changing a diaper. Other than that, there’s not much to say about the day other than that I’d tried checking out the door behind the bookshelf out of curiosity and boredom but I’d found it locked. I didn’t really care though, since it sounded like it was nothing more than just a small crawlspace or something. When Andrew arrived home, wheeling Grandpa with him, I could see for myself just how sick he must have been. He had stage three skin cancer that had by now spread through a terrible amount of the tissue in his torso. Andrew would tell me later on that night that he had two weeks left, tops. The man looked like a skeleton, his complexion beyond wrinkled and pale, his head like a skull with its eyeballs left intact along with a few pointlessly added tufts of snow-white hair. His skin was hanging off of his body so, so loosely, as if the space between had been repeatedly filled with air and then deflated. I’d been hoping I could have at least some sort of conversation with him, since I’d seen him even less in my life than Andrew, but he could barely work a sentence together, mostly just murmuring, grunting and pointing at things to communicate. The evening ended up being even more uncomfortable than the last, so I spent even more time with the company of my schoolwork, figuring Grandpa would probably prefer to be with his son anyway, especially seeing that as far as I knew, they hardly ever saw each other either. I ended up just going to bed early, Grandpa in the room next door, but of course I was kept up for ages by that stupid dog again. I ended up spending, I think, another week at Andrew’s, and I’m not gonna recount every day from here on, since it ultimately doesn’t really matter much to where I am now. Andrew had to keep going to work, of course, so it fell to me to keep watch of Chloe, and help Grandpa take his medicine. The only words that he could consistently get out, or perhaps the only ones he cared to were his frequent complaints about the various pains in his body. “The skin” “My muscles” “The flesh” I’d heard before, not from my father but from my mother, about how Grandpa didn’t treat him and Andrew very well. He was Vietnam vet, and the war came home with him, rearing its head in the form of a bottle and the abuse that resulted from it. Even in spite of that, I couldn’t help but pity the pain he must have been experiencing for the last few months of his life. All I could do is keep encouraging him to choke down his pills. During the second night with Grandpa in the house, I was woken up yet again by the incessant barking of the dog outside, After the dog had seemingly fucked off to annoy someone else, I was quickly drifting back to sleep, until I heard Grandpa mumbling something next door. I’d gotten accustomed to his mostly nonsensical mutterings throughout the day, and the house had thin walls, so I didn’t think too much of it, until I heard another voice, speaking back to him. Andrew’s voice, whispering, just audible. “No. I’ve told you already, it’s not happening, so get it out of your head.” “You know you have to!” came Grandpa’s slow response. His voice was like the creaking of an old floorboard, but he sounded far more lucid than I’d ever heard him before. I don’t remember their conversation continuing beyond that point. I heard the door open softly, then shut again, and I didn’t have enough energy to ponder what I’d heard for long before I fell back asleep. The next day, I decided to find out from Andrew about it in private. “Hey, so, sorry if I’m being too nosy here, but I heard you and Grandpa talking about something last night. It sounded like you were arguing?” I asked. He sighed deeply. “Look, you… you’ve probably realised by now that this house is a lot older than you might’ve expected. Truth is it belonged to him – your father and I grew up here. He’s just, well, he’s not happy with how I’ve been running things here, that’s all. You know how older guys are really particular about that sorta thing.” He looked conflicted about what he’d said, and the silence between us was deafening. “Come on, I just managed to get Chloe asleep five minutes ago. Let’s get to bed for tonight.” I can’t say I was entirely satisfied with that answer, but I could sense Andrew didn’t wish to discuss the matter any further, so I oblige him. On the bright side, there was no barking from the dog that night, or any of the following nights for that matter, so I slept well, at the very least. I don’t have anything to say about the day after that, other than that the uncomfortable atmosphere in the house was only getting worse. Grandpa spent all of his time alone in his room, just sitting in his wheelchair in the corner, mumbling nonsense to himself – Andrew and I delivering his meals to him, giving him his pills, and sharing some unspoken weight about it all between us. That night, I was woken up by another argument in Grandpa’s room. Grandpa’s voice was no louder, no more commanding, but I could sense an undeniable rage in it. “You’re a fool. You always were. I know what you did last night. You think that’s enough? It has to be me.” “You don’t deserve it. You treated us like dirt!” “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF I DESERVE IT. IT HAS TO BE ME, AND IT HAS TO BE TOMORROW.” I didn’t fall back to sleep quickly that time. Actually, I don’t think I got any sleep that night. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but grandpa’s words scared me. The following day, Grandpa’s door was locked from the inside. Andrew also stayed home from work, and he looked terrible. I knew I had to ask him what happened last night, but I decided to give some space until the evening. I barely saw him all day, to be honest. The only perception I had of him was the tired cooing to Chloe every now and then, the unlocking and relocking of Grandpa’s door as he took his pills every three hours, and a dinner we shared in silence. In the end, it was he who came to me. “You heard us last night, didn’t you.” I nodded. “Yeah. I guess you deserve to know at least this much. I don’t imagine your parents ever told you before they were gone.” He looked like he was about to either scream or break down in tears. I’m not sure which. “Your father and I had a younger sister once. Phoebe. I was eight when she was born, your old man eleven.” My mind raced trying to fit this into my family history. He wasn’t lying, I’d never heard so much as a word of this throughout my life. “She went missing when she was five. Just gone, without a trace. They never found her. Dad started drinking a lot more after that.” I didn’t know what to say. “That “tomorrow” Dad was talking about is the anniversary of the disappearance. I think the memories just hurt him the most today. They hurt me the worst today too.” He was crying now. “I’m sorry,” I managed. “I don’t know what to say, I… I’m so sorry. No one ever told me.” Andrew rubbed his eyes, steeling himself. “Look, I’m sorry too. You should never have needed to know, really.” He started heading for the stairs. “I’m gonna try and get some sleep. Please, if you hear anything from him tonight, or if I have to come into him again, just ignore it. Please. It hurts everyone enough as it is.” With that, he headed up to his room, shutting the door behind him. I was stunned. How much else had I not known about my dad’s side of the family? Even with what I did know now, I was left with more questions than before. It didn’t make sense how the truth about my Dad and Uncle also having a sister could link to everything else I’d overheard between Grandpa and Andrew. Why did it “have to be” Grandpa? What had Andrew done last night? What the hell even was “it”? My mind swam as I laid wide awake in bed that night. I think it was that state of fog in my brain that actually ended up putting me unconscious for a few hours, as it happened. But, one last time, I was awoken from my sleep, but it wasn’t by the barking of a dog, or by voices from Grandpa’s room next door. It was by slow, heavy footsteps, descending the stairs. I know Andrew told me to ignore anything I might hear that night. To this day, I don’t know what compelled me to leave my room, but I crept out the door quietly, and the first thing I realised is that Grandpa’s door was open, and his room empty. The footsteps continued to pound through the house, into the kitchen, it seemed. I had to know. I had to know the truth to everything that was going on in this house, and I sensed that I was right at the cusp of it. As silently as I could, I too descended the stairs. I followed the noises to the kitchen, and I realised then what I’d been overlooking the whole time, the sight of it filling me with total dread. The door behind the bookshelf, now wide open. I abandoned whatever idea of stealth I had left in my head, rushing over to the door, where I found that it wasn’t some sort of small little cupboard or crawlspace at all, it was a flight of stairs, down to what must’ve been a cellar. Why had Andrew lied about this? I flew down the stairs and turned to the cellar door on my right, pressing my ear against it. Deep, heavy, fatigued breathing, and the surface of the door felt almost as if it was vibrating, pulsing with some impossible force. I gripped the door handle, and it felt white hot. My hand turns. The door opens. The truth is revealed. Andrew was alone in the cellar, illuminated by one dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the kitchen knife in hand. No sign of Grandpa anywhere. Andrew barely reacted to my presence. He just kept staring at the wall opposite of him. Only, it wasn’t a wall. Not really. Where there should have been brick and wallpaper, a pulsating, oozing, red-brown expanse of flesh spanned the side of the cellar ahead of us, the drywall at the edges of the adjacent walls transitioning from plaster and sheet brick into living tissue. The wall heaved, and throbbed, and sweat, somehow horrifically, impossibly given the gift of life. I can’t even begin to describe the smell. The smell was so fucking disgusting. I could barely think. The sight of it almost made me feel mad, like I had found myself in a bizarre nightmare, any rational thoughts shackled away behind lock and key. “What the fuck,” I choked. “What the fuck is this?” “ANDREW! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? WHERE THE FUCK IS GRANDPA?” He turned around, seemingly broken out of a trance. He stared back at the wall for a second. “He was right,” I heard him say, more to himself than to me. He turned back. “He was right. It had to be done.” I glanced back around him to the putrid fleshy mass before my eyes. No. He couldn’t mean that. “No. Andrew, where’s Grandpa? What have you done?” I begged, denying to myself what I knew had transpired. Andrew glanced back at the wall again for few moments. He had a look of almost reverence etched across his face. He faced me for a second, madness twinkling in his eyes. “It’s what he wanted.” “No! You’re lying!” I roared, not believing myself one bit. “WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS?” He didn’t look away from the wall of flesh. “I inherited it, I suppose. “It had to be done, you know. It’s what he wanted.” The wall suddenly flexed outward grotesquely, emitting a low grumbling sound. Try as I did to deny it to myself in the moment, I knew what that must have meant, as I saw a look of concern flash across Andrew’s face. It was hungry again, needed to be fed soon. Clearly, Grandpa wasn’t a filling meal. Amidst the grumbling, we could both suddenly hear a high-pitched noise, piercing through it. Chloe, crying from upstairs. Andrew stared up at the ceiling, then back over to me. “Don’t,” I whispered, but he was already charging towards the door. “Andrew, don’t!” He shoved hard against me as I tried to block him from getting out of the door. I threw myself against him with everything I had, tried to wrestle the knife from his grip, but he was far stronger than he looked, overpowering me quickly and slashing my right leg. I howled in shock and pain. “You know what?” He hissed, throwing me to the ground and grabbing me by my legs as I gushed blood. “This is even better. You’re of far more use anyway.” I realised in an instant what he meant as he dragged me towards the wall of flesh. “No,” I choked. “No Andrew please God I-” my words were cut off as I became almost entirely immersed in the writhing, living mass. Tendrils wrapped around me, almost painlessly puncturing through my skin, connecting to me. For a few brief, passing moments, I had the notion that I was linking, fusing to the grand, biological system of the wall, that soon all would be alive, all would be connected, before my mind went black. After an unknowable length of time, I grew more and more aware of my surroundings once more, the bizarre, weightless sensation of simultaneously feeling out of my body and feeling one with another body. Then, something cold, foreign. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you!” I fell forward into someone’s arms, the cold air of the cellar enveloping me in an instant as I screamed out. I looked up. I was surrounded by a team of men in yellow hazmat suits, working to fully cut me down from the wall of flesh. I laid in their arms, feeling the way I imagine a newborn infant must, my body and mind focusing entirely on trying not to seize up from how overwhelmingly cold everything seemed. A few minutes later, once I’d been fully freed from the wall, I was given sedatives that knocked me back out. I don’t know how long I’d spent like that, but it must’ve been a few days at least, because it was my girlfriend, Emily, who had called the police after I hadn’t responded to a number of her calls. In the end, though, I was kept in some sort of containing facility for a day, where I was asked a great deal of dubious sounding questions that I couldn’t begin to answer for the most part. And they never ended up finding Andrew. In the end, though, Emily took me back home, whatever classified part of the government that covers up shit like this did just that, and life mostly moved on. I tried my best to forget about that brief, hellish stint of my life. I certainly didn’t gain any sort of enlightenment or newfound appreciation for life by my experience. I was changed by it, I guess. Who wouldn’t be? But, as I said, life moved on. Emily was invaluable in ensuring that, comforting me about it when I needed her to but never acting like it defined me now. Life moved on. Four years later, I asked Emily to marry me. Five years later, she was my incredible wife. Eight years, and she gave birth to the joy of our lives, our daughter Lily. I loved my wife, of course I did, but there’s absolutely no feeling of adoration on this earth that compares to holding your own child in your arms. And yes, of course I still felt scarred by my experience all those years ago. One night, as we were in bed getting ready to sleep, I told her about it once more. How even though things are fine now, things are perfect now, I still had nightmares about the wall of flesh sometimes. I still get sent into near panic attack at the sight of an open wound. She held me in close. “I know you do love, I know you do,” she murmured, her voice drowsy but full of care. “But you’ve got me, don’t you? You’ve got us.” I closed my eyes and felt myself beginning to drift off as she held me closer still. I breathed in the beautiful smell of her rose-scented shampoo. “It’s okay, because I’ve got you.” “I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.” “I’ve got you.” “I’ve got you!” “I’ve got you, I’ve got you!” I fell forward into the man’s arms, the cold air of the cellar enveloping me in an instant as I screamed out. I looked up and all around, stared at the yellow-suited men, still screaming and babbling incoherently. I laid in their arms, still smelling the rose-scented shampoo, though there was now something horribly wrong with it, like how after you realise the trick of an optical illusion you can never see it as you originally did. Pheromones. *** It turns out, the wall had been digesting me for quite some time indeed. I saw my reflection. I look emaciated, barely alive. It showed me wonderful things. Now, I sit alone in my cold, dark apartment, looking outside at grey skies. I think of my wife’s smile. I think of my child’s laughter. I want to go back. Credit: Swagemandbagem Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.