pest control

There is some sort of monster living in my basement. It's a horrible, slimy thing that looks like it's never seen the light of day--and maybe it hasn't--with a huge gaping maw and terrible grasping claws. I saw it when I was going down to put all my winter coats away for the season, dropped the box and slammed the door and sat there in the stairwell for what felt like hours, just breathing.

I opened the door and shone my flashlight in. It was just sitting there, watching me with horrible eyes that were never meant to be seen by human eyes. I turned the light on and it started howling like it was in pain, so I turned it back off. "It's okay," I said, and immediately felt stupid for saying it. It's just a monster. It doesn't even speak English, even if I was concerned about its well-being.

Still, eventually I went from being afraid of it to getting used to it and eventually valuing its company. It was like a pet, except I apparently didn't need to feed it or take care of it. Sometimes it would just be gone when I'd go down there. Mostly though, it would be there, and I'd sit down nearby and turn off my flashlight and just talk to it. It never made a sound but I felt like it liked having me down there.

I didn't tell my girlfriend about it. She never went down there anyway and she would probably just be upset. I didn't want to upset anything.

I came home one day to the sound of screaming from the basement--nothing human could make that noise. I ran down to see what was going on. Some kid in a hazmat suit was there, wielding a rake over the enormous carcass of the beast. He was splattered in something that was probably blood, but black and smoking.

"Looks like you had something living in the basement. Your ladyfriend called me in and I took care of it."

"It's . . . dead?"

"Yeah. We'd been looking for this one for a long time! He seemed to like it here for some reason. Good thing your lady needed something from down here, huh?"

"Yeah. Good thing."

He drove off in his little truck, hauling off the body. Only some little smoking patches of blood remained in the basement now.