Daddy's Little Friend In The Basement Pt. 1 [FICTOID]

When I was a little girl daddy would tuck me in with “Nighty-night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

I’d giggle and kiss him then he’s leave and shut the door, thinking I’d go the sleep.

I didn ‘t go to sleep.

Rather, I’d spend a long time -- it seemed like hours, but who knows? -- thinking about things.

What I’d seen and done during the day.

Cartoons I saw on TV.

Stories I’d tell myself.

I could hear mommy and daddy talking in the living room and it always felt reassuring to hear their warm laughter.

Sometimes I’d drop off to sleep before they’d go to bed, sometimes I’d stay awake long enough to hear them go to their room and shut the doors.

Occasionally I’d hear daddy get out of bed, creep down the hall, then open the door to the basement.

I knew it was him by the way the floorboards creaked.  He was bigger than mom, not by a whole lot but enough that the floor sounded different when he walked on it, even in his stocking feet.

Mommy told me I was never to go down to the basement, that daddy kept his dangerous tools down there, that there were spiders and perhaps even mice and rats.

I believed mommy.

Then.

Of course, no self-respecting five-year old can resist the temptation to go someplace they’re forbidden so one day when daddy was at work and mommy was resting because she had another one of her headaches, I took the keyring from the secret place they didn’t know I knew about and unlocked the door to the basement.

It felt scary, let me tell you!  Maybe the scariest thing I did in my life up to that point, but I felt determined to go through with it and explore.

I crept down the unpainted wooden steps to the basement.  There were four small hopper windows along the south side.  Daddy put translucent plastic over them to let sunlight in but keep people from seeing inside.

On one side of the basement sat his workbench and tools:  Big, mean, ugly looking things; hammers and saws and screwdrivers.  I know today they’re perfectly innocent, but to a five-year old they might as well have been weapons of war or instruments of torture.

There were boxes stacked around the basement.  I recognized a few as the boxes we kept the Christmas things in. 

For all the warnings mommy gave me, the basement seemed spooky but not particularly dangerous.

Then I saw daddy’s room.

It looked like a big plywood box reaching from floor to ceiling.  It seemed a little smaller than my bedroom and my bedroom was only half as big as mommy and daddy’s.

Daddy kept it padlocked, but I tried all the keys on the ring and sure enough, one fit.

I opened it and stepped inside.  It seemed deathly quiet and awfully dark.  None of the light that same through the little windows in the basement reached it, so I groped around for a light switch and flipped it on.

Ever have one of those bad dreams where something terrible is happening that frightens you so much you can’t scream?

That’s what it felt like when the light came on.

There was a little girl standing in front of me, just my size and age.

My mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds, long enough for me to notice she wasn’t a real little girl but a mannequin or a doll or something.  I calmed down enough to get over my initial fear and shock, so I stepped forward to examine her more closely. 

While she was approximately my size and age, she didn’t look like me.  Different hair color and her face seemed more like an Asian’s though she didn’t appear to be completely so.  She wore a light blue frilly dress and wore stockings and nice shoes.

Much nicer than my shoes.

Her big, beautiful lavender eyes were open and looking straight ahead.  I stood just inches from her face when she suddenly blinked, smiled, and said, “Hello.”

Again, a shock so great it robbed me of my voice.  I jumped back, hitting the wall of the tiny room.  Daddy covered it in this strange black foam with bumps all over it like an egg carton.

Sound dampening foam, as I learned later.

“Who are you?” I asked when I finally regained my voice.

“You may call me whatever you want,” she said.  “I am here to please you.”

=to be continued=

© Buzz Dixon