This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Various_Destinations on 2024-10-21 17:30:10+00:00.
When I was a child, I had a best friend named Roger. He was adventurous, outgoing, and unbelievably kind. He really brought me out of my shell. I was a shy kid, and often overlooked by my peers. Not Roger though, he always knew how to get me engaged and excited. I miss that kid.
We loved exploring. I was always curious, and he loved the adventure and excitement. We lived across the tracks from the… rougher side of town, but we didn’t mind. It had the best exploring. Lots of abandoned buildings and forgotten streets.
It was on that side of town that we came across the cellar. It was so odd, since the town we lived in didn’t have any basements. Something about flooding, I don’t know. But it was the first set of cellar doors either of us had ever seen. They were the old fashioned kind, set in the base of a house, but facing outside. Like you’d see on a farmhouse. Only this was attached to the crumbling ruins of an old chruch.
Roger and I examined the doors; rusting iron with a padlocked chain wrapped about the handles. The padlock was just as old and rusted as the door, and I saw the mischievous gleam in Roger’s eye as he turned it over in his hand. He was a resourceful kid, and quickly found a discarded piece of rebar nearby. Again, not the nicest part of town. He jammed it into the arch of the old padlock and began twisting. After a few turns, the rusted metal sheared and the chains fell away with a clatter.
I looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard, but there was nobody nearby. I peeked around the corner, and the only person I saw was an overweight clerk through the window of a nearby drugstore. He hadn’t seemed to notice.
The doors of the cellar were rusted shut, and it took the combined effort of Roger and I to wrench them open. Once we had, the darkness beyond seemed to quell even Roger’s adventurous spirit.
I remember him trying to get me to go first. I remember calling him a chicken. That seemed to goad him well enough, because he puffed up his chest, and strode down the creaky wooden stairs. I couldn’t just taunt him and stay behind, so I followed him down.
All things considered, the cellar wasn’t particularly notable. There were some interesting things, like old sacrament trays and bibles. Plenty of cobwebs. A weird red book. It was creepy, sure, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Except for the other set of cellar doors.
It was on the opposite wall from where we came in. These were locked too, but from the inside, with a metal handle attached to a locking mechanism. I remember Roger turning it; the squeaking metal setting my teeth on edge. I assumed it led into the decrepit building, so I was surprised when it creaked open to reveal the same street that we had just been on. Except, everything seemed different. The most striking difference was the fact that the sky was a deep red. The trees were leafless and black. The streets were cracked and shadowy.
It brought such an ominous feeling that I had never known, but Roger was brave, and I was curious. And we had each other. Together, we ascended the steps and stepped into this dark world.
The first thing I noticed was the church, not crumbling, but erect and looming. Red bricks trimmed with black iron stood tall before us. The bell tower was ringed in upside-down crosses. Roger and I backed away, and I instinctively looked to the drugstore that stood across the street. It was there, still occupied by the overweight attendant. Only now he stood in the center of the store, staring blankly into the distance. At least, for a moment he was. Then he snapped his attention directly to me, and a strange expression overtook his face. I could not discern it from where I stood, but I knew it to be unnatural.
I yelped and turned to urge Roger to get back to the cellar, but he wasn’t beside me. I looked around, but could not find him. I assumed that he had returned to the cellar, and I rushed over to check. The doors were closed, and no matter how hard I yanked, they would not budge.
I called out to him. I yelled and told him that this wasn’t funny. That he needed to open the doors. I shouldn’t have made so much noise. I heard shuffling from around the corner of the church. I was frozen in fear. Ten years old, and alone in a hellish version of my world. I won’t deny it. I cried for my mother then. And the worst part? That shuffling, it was her.
Only it wasn’t. She beckoned me over from behind the corner of the church. She whispered sweet words on the wind. But her face was wrong. Her eyes were black, and her mouth was too wide.
“Come to the feast” she had said. There was blood dripping down her unnaturally long chin. I could see past her shoulder, a crowd, a horde, all clustered together, tearing into something that I couldn’t see. I began to cry. I wrenched on the cellar doors. They moved a little, but not enough. My “mother” slunk toward me. Her body was lithe and slender, but disproportionate. Everything seemed too long.
Then he was there. Roger was beside me, pulling on the cellar doors. Together we managed to get them open, and we dove inside. They slammed shut behind us on their own accord. We dashed out of that place, and we didn’t stop running until we were on the other side of the tracks. When we stopped to catch our breath, I finally got a good look at Roger.
He did not seem the same. His clothes were the same. His voice was the same. But his eyes… his features. He smiled a too wide smile, and stroked my face once. Then he turned to leave.
Every day since I have struggled with my decision to say nothing. To not go back and look for my friend. Worry haunts me that he roams that hellscape, alone and afraid. But a part of me knows. He isn’t alive anymore. As for “Roger,” well. He tried to fit in. For a time. However, his unsettling demeanor was impossible to ignore. Everything had changed. The way he looked at people. The way he moved. He almost passed as the real Roger, but everyone noticed that something was off.
Even still, the news of his parents dismembered bodies found in their bed shocked the entire town.
Nobody saw Roger again after that. There was a statewide manhunt, or… childhunt, really. But he was evasive. I saw him once, though. Outside my window in the dead of night. I woke to that ominous feeling of being watched, and I saw him there, staring in, grinning his too wide smile. He waved at me, breathed fog onto my window, and wrote something in it with a skeletal finger. I pulled the covers over my head and called for my parents.
At first they thought I had a nightmare. The trauma of the murders was so fresh after all. But then I pointed to the window. Written in the foggy glass were the words, “thanks friend.” The cops came and scanned the property, but they of course found nothing.
That was years ago. Sometimes I feel like I see him on the street, grinning at me from a distance, but whenever I try for a closer look, he’s gone. I know he’s still out there. I know because I’ve received many more notes. Sometimes handwritten in the mail. Sometimes scrawled on my driveway. Once keyed into my car. All saying the same thing: thanks, friend.
That, and the murders that seem to follow me around. One every year. Dismemberment. I don’t know what I unleashed that day, but I know it isn’t my friend. And what’s worse? I don’t remember locking the cellar door behind me.