vii. crawl

There has always been a hole in our basement. No secret passageway, it stands blatantly exposed, a small rectangle of darkness in the top of the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Mostly, we ignore it. Glance sideways as we head down to the basement, make sure not to look too long at the empty place, try not to notice the things that crawl out. Things were always crawling out.

One night, my father sent me in.

He needed to pass a wire under the floor of our living room. This was the only access point, the room being an addition with no corresponding basement area, merely a small section of space between the floorboards and the dirt.

I remember being unafraid.

My mission was simple: my father had made a small hole in the floor, and my sister would shine a flashlight down it. I would crawl to the light, pass the wire up, and crawl back. His strong hands tied a rope around my waist for safety, just in case, he said, as we did not know if there might be some hole I might fall in.

My father lifted me into the hole in the wall, and I began to crawl.

The light did not seem so far away, at first. As I inched my way forward on hands and knees, however, I seemed to gain no ground. I pulled myself along, eyes fixed on the light ahead, as the ceiling of the space sunk closer and closer to me, until it was scraping my back. Until I was forced to my stomach, squirming those last inches towards the light.

I fed the wire up into the waiting hands, pleased with the success of my little adventure.

It was then that the light went out.

I told myself not to worry. That the small patch of light illuminated by the flashlight was useless now that I had delivered the wire. That all I need to do was turn around and follow the rope back. That when I turned around I would see the light shining from the basement.

I could not turn around.

It was not that I could not move. I could squirm forwards, roll sideways, angle myself in different directions, but no matter what way I turned I could not see a light. The rope was so tangled around me that I could not find where it led.
I opened my mouth to call out and tasted dirt. It was falling up onto my tongue from the floor. Or was it the ceiling? Perhaps I had rolled too many times, perhaps my hands were not pushing myself forward, but down.

I shut my eyes against the unrelenting dark and tried to calm myself. I listened for any sign of voices, thinking that my father might be calling for me, but all I could hear was the beating of my heart, and the scuttling.

I do not know what it was about that sound that did it, but hearing it struck me with a bone deep fear. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had started, once more, to crawl.

I felt my way forward in the dark, clawing my way forward, hands dug deep into the earth as I pulled my way to an area where finally, finally it the space seemed to open up enough that I could move properly, enough that I could get on hands and knees and push rapidly forward.

It was in this moment, when I had finally regained hope, that it happened. My back scraped against something on the ceiling of that place, and it burst.

I do not remember screaming. I was told I did, and I must have. I do not remember being hauled back by the rope, screaming and fighting as my father pulled me out into the safety of the basement.

I remember only the scuttling. the rapid movement of millions of little feet as they moved over me, and the certainty I felt that I would be covered and consumed by them.

I am told that there were only a few spiders on me when they hauled me out. I know that there were more. That in the moments before coming out of that space I was surrounded.

I will not enter it again. I keep my trips to the basement short now, keep one eye on the place where we usually look away. I know what lurks there now. What amasses in the darkness and waits.

One day they we leave. I will be ready.