We always had a lock on our basement.  I didn't know why and I never bothered to ask.  I don't think even my mother bothered about it.   The lock was there when we moved into the house and she just viewed it as a safety measure.  Nobody even suspected...
    In the basement, there is a cold room.  It had a lock on it too.  Of course, no one was suspicious.  The lock was simply there to keep the door closed.  Still, when you think of it, two doors with locks could be explained more fully, especially when there are no other locks in the house.

    One night, everyone was out...except me.  It had been raining all night and the rain was banging on the roof.  I went around checking the windows to make sure they were all closed.  I went down to the basement, first unlocking the hook lock on the door at the top of the stairs, and then going down the concrete stairs.  There is a low hanging ceiling near the bottom of the stairs so I had to duck.  I then closed the windows and headed back upstairs.
    I locked the door and turned the basement light off.  Suddenly the phone rang and I ran to answer it.  After taking a message for my mother, I returned to the kitchen to get a cookie.  The light switch from the basement, on the kitchen wall was turned on.  Thinking I has simply forgotten to turn it off, I nullified the light once again.

    It was getting later in the evening when I realized that I was supposed to get a jar of pears from the cold room in the basement.  I once again returned to the basement to retrieve the jar.  I was almost down the stairs,  when all at once a stair cracked in two sending me sprawling flat onto the basement floor.  My left ankle was excruciatingly throbbing  and I could feel a bruise swelling on my elbow, but I wasn't hurt too badly.  I picked myself up off of the cold grey concrete floor and continued to the cold room.  The latch was undone so I pulled the heavy door open.

    I never went  very far into the cold room.  The little room made me nervous.  It was about 9 feet long, but was only about as wide as my shoulders, so I had to walk in slightly sideways.  The pear jars, of course were on the final shelf at the far end of the cold room.  I ventured deeper into the cold room and felt a sudden chill  on one side of  my neck.  Almost instantly the big door swung shut and I heard the "whack" sound that the door makes when it locks.  There wasn't any light in this cubby-hole, so I saw nothing.  All around me was pitch blackness.  I tried to push on the door to open it, but it did not budge.  I heard someone, or something laughing faintly from behind me, deeper in the cold room.  I swung around kicking and scratching at the darkness, but I made contact with nothing.  Nothingness swarmed all around me and I was disoriented, lacking my sense of sight, but something was  THERE in the darkness with me;  I could feel it.  Something was there.  I started to scream and yell as loud as I could, but no none was there to hear.  There noises around me grew louder until I could hear and feel something breathing right on me.  Whatever it was stood just far enough away not to touch me, but I wasn't going to reach out to grope for it.  I was absolutely frozen in place and for the first time felt what is was like to be absolutely helpless to do anything to improve my situation.
    I finally regained some movement and thrust against the door one last time and thankfully it flew open.  I quickly spun around, slammed the door ad bolted it shut.  I flew up the stair in a blur, tripping over the broken one and falling back down the stairs, landing square on my tailbone.  Quickly recovering, I scurried up even faster, slamming the door and locking it in a single motion.  Leaning against the kitchen table, I tried to slow my breathing down to a reasonable rate.

    I didn't see what was in the cold room.  I didn't want to face whatever was taunting me so psychopathically.
    Never again will I go all the way into that chamber.  Always will I keep my hand on the door.  And never will I leave the basement door unlocked!!