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code 50 nightmare at factor75.com to get 50% off and free shipping on your first box plus 20% off on your next box of orders let me give you some context so the story I am about to tell you is more understandable our cat Cosmo has always slept in the basement every night since I was a little kid our parents would scoop him up from wherever he was lounging and stick him in the basement they detested all the cat hair he'd leave behind on their bed which I guess was understandable he was also an outdoor cat
so if one of us forgot to put him in the basement at night he'd wake my parents up at 3:00 a.m. screaming to be let out the basement's huge the biggest room in our house so I figured he liked having all that space a little over 2 weeks ago as I'm writing this he started acting weird there's a little landing at the top of the basement stairs just behind the door that's where we'd usually put him after a few minutes he'd walk down the stairs and sleep on whatever piece of furniture he pleased one night
I placed him delicately on the landing and gently shut the door something I'd done a million times as I was filling my water glass in the kitchen though I heard him meowing from behind the door that was odd he usually tried to down the stairs immediately I finished filling my glass and walked over to the door wondering if someone had maybe forgotten to fill his dish I opened the door and he darted out into the living room as if he were chasing something I checked the dish and it was completely full weird I thought turning
to go find him I put him back on the landing step closed the door and that was that the next two nights were essentially the same I'd put them on the Landing close the door and start getting ready for bed after a few minutes I'd hear him repeatedly meowing I'd go over to the door and it was always the same thing he'd just linger at the top of the stairs refusing to go down I worried that maybe he was just getting old but that was a thought I didn't want to confront just yet it killed
me to do it but I just ignored him knowing he'd walk down the stairs eventually the day after that he refused to enter the house at all usually when he wanted to come in he' just hang out at our front steps or by the back door until one of us saw him through the the glass and let him inside at one point I noticed him curled up on our doorm I went to let him in but he didn't move I went out and petted him a little before going back inside a few hours later I
walked by the door again and saw that he still hadn't moved it was getting late so I picked him up and carried him inside which he wasn't too happy about I knew he didn't want to go to sleep downstairs so I let him sleep in my room that night it wasn't a big deal and he seemed a lot calmer that way of course that solution didn't last for the next few days my dad kept complaining that someone was leaving the basement door open he was mad because it was letting all the cool air Escape downstairs
air conditioning wasn't free which was something he loved reminding us I assumed it was my sister she's always been the type to leave doors and drawers open without thinking I didn't really pay it that much thought I was just happy that Cosmos seemed to have mellowed out after being allowed to sleep in my room one night I woke woke up randomly in the middle of the night in my groggy half awake state I glanced over to the door and saw something weird there was a silhouette standing in my bedroom doorway it was just standing there
perfectly still I could tell it was a person because I could see their outline in the faint glow of the lamp we'd leave on in the den I figured it had to be my sister so I called out to her but the figure moved away without a word I was too tired to figure out what she wanted so I just went back to sleep a couple of days later we discovered what had been keeping Cosmo away from the basement a flea infestation the whole place was crawling with them it was disgusting we assumed the fleas
were the reason Cosmo had refused to go down there which made sense but it was strange how they came out of nowhere we' never had a flea problem before and Cosmo always wore a flea collar my dad yelled at my mom for not changing out his collar even though she swore she had my dad went all out tearing through every corner of the basement to clean it thoroughly we vacuumed the carpets sprayed the entire room and washed everything down with flea killing Solutions he told us to stay out of the basement for the next few
days so that any stragglers would die off without a host it seemed like a good plan and I figured that would be the end of it but then a few nights later another strange thing happened I was lying in bed when I noticed light seeping in under my door flickering on and off like someone was playing with the hallway switch I told myself it was was probably just my dad getting up to use the bathroom or something but the flickering continued going on for longer than seemed normal it was starting to freak me out but
I couldn't bring myself to check it out I lay there heart pounding staring at the bottom of the door hoping it would stop eventually it did I forced myself to fall asleep after that but I've never felt more uneasy in my life a few more days passed without incident my dad said the basement was probably clear which was great because i' had been missing playing video games down there after getting home from school I went down to the basement as soon as I got down the stairs though I noticed something was wrong there were still
fleas down there a decent amount of them it didn't make any sense after all the cleaning they should have been long gone I went back upstairs to call my dad at work but he just said to give it time he insisted that any fleas left would die soon enough I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else going on though it wasn't normal for fleas to keep thriving like that after everything we'd done so the next day after school I decided to investigate a bit further I went down to the back of the basement
and into the storage room where we kept some old boxes and tools figuring maybe a rodents had gotten in and died somewhere I opened the door and instantly knew I was right the smell hit me almost immediately this thick rotten stench that clung to the air and made my eyes water I followed the smell to the far end of the room where the There Was An Unfinished crawl space that connected to the plumbing for the whole house it was Pitch Black back there and the smell only got stronger as I stepped closer I didn't want
to go in there it was too dark anyway I turned to grab a flashlight and that's when I heard it breathing it was faint at first but steady like someone was hiding in there I froze I felt a pit forming in my stomach the breathing got louder as if whoever or whatever it was was coming closer I backed away before I could reacts I saw a figure lunge toward the end of the crawl space moving fast a hand reached out for me but I jumped away before it could grab me I didn't stay to get
a better look I ran upstairs as fast as I could slammed the basement door shut and called the police when they arrived they searched the house but there was no sign of anyone they found some empty chip bags and food wrappers stashed to the crawl space but that was it whoever had been down there had escaped through the storm door at the back of the basement the officer said it was probably a homeless person who'd snuck in looking for shelter but I couldn't help but wonder how long they'd been living there and how much they'd
seen my parents were twice as shocked as I was we've kept the basement door locked ever since and Cosmos still won't go anywhere near that door I don't remember every detail of this story since I was only around seven but my parents have filled in some of the gaps over the years and there are still bits and pieces that stick out in my memory so here it goes I'm an only child yeah it kind of sucked growing up by myself but one of the pros meant that my parents were a lot more involved in my
life they'd really go out of their way to make sure I was thriving and I look back appreciatively on that every year around Halloween my parents would transform our basement into a haunted house it wasn't anything fancy just some old decorations fake spiderwebs strobe lights and a lot of enthusiasm the whole thing was for a good cause you had to donate canned food to get in and my parents would give everything we collected to the local food bank they even made flyers and passed them around my school and a couple of other elementary schools nearby
the vast majority of people who came were parents of kids in my school but there were always a handful of parents and kids that we didn't know my parents actually welcomed that The More Strangers there were the more food they'd be able to collect and the greater the likelihood that the haunted house would be a hit we lived in a pretty big Brick House in hton Pennsylvania a lot of the houses in our neighborhood were fully brick for historical reasons I won't get into that also meant that most of them were really old too since
it was kind of frowned upon to do any remodeling our house was the kind of place that already had a bit of an eerie vibe to it especially at night with its old creaky floors and dimly lit hallways every year my cousins Jeff Rick Chaz and Eric would come down to help my parents set up and manage the night usually they dress up in scary costumes and hide around the basement to jump out and scare my friends that year they decided to go all out and wore matching Anonymous masks you know those kind of creepy
white masks with the blank Expressions the haunted house was a big hit that year as usual we had a good crowd going by early evening but my parents told me later that there had been a strange man who showed up before things really got started he wasn't with any kids which was odd since the haunted house was mostly for families he said his wife was planning to bring their daughter later on but he wanted to drop off some food cans early my parents didn't recognize him but they figured it wasn't a big deal they thanked
him took the cans and stood there awkwardly before he got the hint and left as the night went on and more people showed up the basement got pretty chaotic I remember trying to keep up with my friends who were screaming and laughing as we ran through the decorations at one point one of my friends came up to me crying saying someone in an anonymous mask had scared her I tried to calm her down and told her it was just one of my cousins but then she said something that made my stomach drop she said the
person had grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her into a closet I didn't know what to make of it I thought maybe she was just being dramatic but the look on her face told me she was genuinely scared I went and found my parents and told them what she said they took it seriously and went down to the basement to check things out they asked my cousins if they had had seen anything strange Jeff Rick and Chaz were all in their positions and each one of them swore they hadn't done anything like that but
then my parents noticed something else Eric wasn't at his post just then everyone started to panic Eric came running down the stairs he said he'd taken a break to use the bathroom upstairs and that when he came back his anonymous mask was gone he figured one of the other guys had taken it as a joke that set off alarm bells for my parents and they immediately shut down the haunted house they made everyone leave and called the police who came and searched the house but of course nothing turned up that night I was still a
little shaken up but I figured it was all over I fell asleep easily enough but then I woke up to this tapping sound it was soft but noticeable like someone was repeatedly knocking on my bedroom window I was too scared to get up so I just laid there pulling the covers over my chin hoping I could just fall asleep after a few minutes the knocking stopped and I managed to drift back to sleep but a few hours later I was woken up again this time by a scratching noise it was more urgent than the knocking
had been like someone was clawing at the window frame I was terrified but something inside me snapped and I threw the covers off and rushed to the window I yanked open the curtains and my heart nearly stopped there staring back at me was a person in an anonymous mask only inches away from the glass I screamed for my parents they rushed into the room and I pointed frantically at the window but by the time they looked the person was gone we called the police once again and they searched the yard and surrounding area but they
didn't find anyone there were no signs of forced entry no Footprints nothing the property was clear a few months passed and things settled down the haunted house was just a memory by then and my parents had started to ease up on their extra security measures then one day I came home from school to find an anonymous mask laying on my bed it wasn't just any mask it looked exactly like the ones my cousins had worn that night but the thing that really freaked me out was the writing scrawled across the forehead and black Sharpie was
my name how the hell had that guy even known my name we called the police again but there wasn't much they could do besides file a report my parents added more security cameras and made sure all the doors and windows were locked tight every night they really went over the top with the security adding a full alarm system and putting sensors on every window including the upstairs ones after that nothing else happened at least not that we could prove the next few months were fine but I swore I kept hearing things outside my bedroom window
tapping scratching you name it it was probably nothing but it got to the point where I was scared to sleep in my own bed I've since grown up and moved out of that house but sometimes I still wonder if there was more to the story behind what happened to me me all those years [Music] ago I recently got a job at a Mexican joint in a neighboring town the area was a bit sketchy but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle I was also pretty desperate for money so it's not like I really had a choice
plus I figured working nights wouldn't be so bad since I'd have most of the day to myself the restaurant itself was decent enough but the manager Carlos was well Shady he always scheduled me for the worst hours kept me late and never seemed particularly concerned about following the rules he was the type of guy who made you feel like you couldn't trust him but like I said I didn't have much of a choice I needed the job one night while closing up I started hearing these weird noises I was mopping the tiled floor in the
kitchen when I first heard it as I was mopping I picked up on these two muffled sounds that sounded like soft thuds and scraping they were coming from below the floor it was faint at first but I knew I wasn't imagining it the thuing and scraping would alternate but I was positive that there were two distinct sounds I was hearing I listened for a while and the noises continued for a minute before stopping completely it startled me but I brushed it off as something small maybe an animal outside or the pipe settling but it kept
happening the noise would start up when the place got quiet just as I was finishing up my cleaning after a few nights of this I told Carlos about it he Shrugged it off immediately and told me it was nothing and to stop worrying he went as far as to say the restaurant didn't even have a basement that's when I got a little suspicious I knew he was lying because I had literally seen the window wells around the back of the building I wanted to tell him that but held my tongue I figured I'd give it
another day maybe the noises would stop on their own of course the noises continued I complained to him the next day and told him that the place must have a basement since there were literally Windows below the ground that's when he gave me the strange look and insisted that there was no basement he told me that the previous owners of the building had sealed it years ago and no one can get in or out then he told me in a firm voice to just focus on my job and stop poking around the way he said
it so dismissive and firm gave me a bad feeling but I didn't want to lose the job so I dropped it I figured maybe it was just some animal that had somehow gotten in it was just weird that Carlos was so insisting on not checking it out or taking me seriously for the next few days the noises persisted every night it was the same those strange low thuds and occasional scraping like something or someone was moving down there I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right but I tried to ignore it then one night
after closing up curiosity got the better of me I decided to take a look for myself I walked around to the back of the building where the window wells were I crouched down and tried to peer through one of the windows it was Pitch Black inside and I couldn't see anything even with my phone flashlight just as I was about to give up a light flickered on inside the basement just for a second then it snapped off before I could see anything clearly I froze my heart racing unsure of what I had just seen I
rushed back to my car too freaked out to go back inside but I didn't tell Carlos something about the whole situation made me feel like it was better to keep quiet I was not prepared for what was about to happen though the next time I closed I couldn't resist the urge to go check out those windows again I fully admit that my hands were shaking as I walked around the building I knew nothing good was going to come from poking around I crouched down to get a good look this time as I leaned in closer
to get a better look I saw it pressed up against the glass was a face it was a man but not just any man he looked completely deranged his hair was wild and his face was filthy like he hadn't bathed in weeks his yellow eyes were wide staring right at me through the glass he bashed his head against the window and gave me this demented smile I screamed and stumbled back totally losing my I ran from my car without looking back my hand shook as I fumbled with my keys but I managed to get in
and speed off before anything else could happen the next day I couldn't keep quiet anymore I went straight to Carlos and told him everything to my surprise he didn't even try to deny it instead he sat me down and actually told me the truth he admitted that the person I had seen was actually his brother who had been living in the basement he said his brother was mentally ill dangerous even and Carlos had been hiding him down there to keep him out of trouble the basement had been sealed off to the public years ago but
Carlos had found a way to let his brother live down there away from prying eyes he urged me not to say anything and said he'd appreciate it if I forgot this whole thing ever happened happened I didn't know what to say I wanted to quit right then and there but I couldn't I was so strapped for cash that the idea of looking for another job didn't feel like a real option so I stuck around convincing myself it would be fine as long as I stayed away from the basement I tried to keep my head down
and avoid Carlos but the whole thing left me on edge a few weeks later something happened that made me regret staying it was late and I had just finished closing up as I walked in my car I noticed something or someone lurking in the tree line next to the parking lot it was just a figure but I knew in my gut it was a person I had a feeling I knew who it was my heart started racing but I pretended not to notice I kept walking trying to stay calm but then I heard footsteps behind
me I glanced over my shoulder and there he was the same man from the basement he was hobbling strangely toward me but clearly moving as quickly as he could I scrambled for my keys and managed to unlock the door and throw myself inside just as he reached the door he slammed his face against the window smearing it with dirt and sweat started pounding on the glass I screamed but I couldn't think straight all I knew was I had to get out of there I sped off as fast as I could I'm not sure how I
made it home that night without crashing I've never been more scared in my entire life I still thank God that he had some kind of Limp otherwise he would have definitely caught me that was my last night working at the restaurant I called the police from the safety of my apartment but I never went back I didn't want to know what happened next whether they found the man or if Carlos got in trouble for what he'd done I just couldn't be involved anymore even now though I can't shake the feeling that Carlos might come looking
for me one day I don't know if he'd go to Great Lengths to do something like that but it's a thought that sits in the back of my head I never found out what happened to the restaurant Carlos or his brother and honestly I don't think I want to maybe I'll take a drive by that restaurant sometime in the future but for now I want to stay as far away from that place and those people as possible
