Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

Author’s Note: Consider this a late Halloween story.

Jeremy lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. It was dark, the room illuminated by only a slim sliver of moonlight coming in through the window. It was quiet; the night only pierced by the roar of the occasional car passing by. And yet, he just couldn’t seem to get any sleep.

He rolled over. He sighed. The lumpy bed sheets pressed into his side, and he rolled over again. He itched his back. He was thirsty.

He groaned with frustration, and got up. This was going nowhere. Slowly, he pushed himself out of bed, easing his naked feet onto the cold floor. Thankfully, pajamas covered the rest of Jeremy’s eleven-year-old body, shielding him from the October chill. He shuffled his way to the door, then started down the stairs.

Thump-thump

He hissed at the noise, sounding off loud and clear in the quiet house. If he wasn’t more careful with his steps, he would wake his mom up. It wasn’t like she would punish him for getting a glass of water, but still. He would rather let her sleep. Moving more carefully, he crossed the final steps down to the first floor of his home.

Thump-thump

The noise was louder this time. And more concerningly, he realized with absolute certainty that it hadn’t come from him. He looked around, curious and slightly antsy, before he noticed it. Below the stairs, on the side of the hallway leading to the kitchen, was a door. It hadn’t been there this evening.

Thump-thump

The noise was coming from the door. Jeremy backed away from it, slowly. It looked like a normal door–wooden, painted white and windowless, just like every door in their house. Somehow, that just made it all the more ominous. What could cause a door to just appear like that? And what was that noise coming from it?

Thump-thump

It wasn’t like there could even be anything behind it. The house wasn’t that big, there was no space for an extra room. The only thing that could be behind that door was a closet. Or maybe a basement. Their home didn’t have a basement. He felt sweat bead on his brow.

Thump-thump

Jeremy ran back up the stairs, all thought of silence forgotten. He went to bed thirsty that night. He swore he could still hear the thump-thump, steady and rhythmic, from his bed.

~

“Mom, do we have a basement?”

Jeremy’s mother gave him an odd look as she worked on breakfast. She wore a light floral dress, and her brown hair in a bob cut. “No. What brought this on?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing much. I was just wondering… is there anything under the stairs, then?”

“No. Spiders and sawdust, maybe. But there’s nothing down there.”

“Ah.” he nodded agreeably. Down there? What did she mean, down there? Or was he just overthinking things …

~

Jeremy lay in bed again, awake. This time, it was no accident.

This time, he was going to enter the door under the stairs.

Jeremy was well aware that this was perhaps not the sanest course of action. Doors did not simply appear from nowhere, for one – it was far more likely he had simply dreamed all of last night up.

But he was still young, and prone more to flights of fancy than rational explanations. And besides, last night didn’t feel like a dream. That was enough evidence for him. And even if he hadn’t been simply dreaming, Jeremy had still seen enough movies and read enough books to know that entering mysterious doorways with mysterious sounds behind them was not the safest course of action.

And yet, he just couldn’t get it out of his head. The mystery of it all tugged at him. And the way his mom spoke of it, when he asked her? It had felt like a deflection, a lie. Again, he had no real evidence, much less proof, of this, but his gut told him it was true. And for young Jeremy, that was enough.

So here he was, creeping down the stairs at midnight. He had actually dressed himself this time (although his shoes were still at the front door, leaving him in only socks), and was carrying a small flashlight his mom insisted he keep under his pillow–”just in case”.

Thump-thump

He heard it again, just as he started down the stairs. He paused, for a moment. Then crept onwards.

Thump-thump

He stood before the door. It was, once again, completely unremarkable–except for the fact it hadn’t been there during the day. For several long moments, he was completely still, unwilling to reach out to the door handle, yet equally unwilling to back off.

Thump-thump

He breathed in deeply, steeling his nerves. It was fine. If there was anything dangerous here, his mom probably already knew about it, right? She had been living here for as long as he could remember.

(He was only eleven. His memory did not stretch back very far.)

He reached out, and turned the handle.

Thump-thump

No monster jumped out at him, no evil thing peered out from the darkness before him. Instead, he beheld a cramped staircase, descending down beneath the earth. In any other circumstances, he would have thought it the entrance to a completely ordinary basement. The sound was louder now, coming rhythmically from the darkness below, just out of sight.

Thump-Thump

As he descended the stairs, he noticed just how much dust had accumulated on them. In fact, this whole place felt almost abandoned. Small spiderwebs dotted the corners, and in the quiet night air, the only sound was the thumping from below. It created an aura of mystery as much as one of fear, and Jeremy found himself drawn inexorably deeper. What was at the bottom of these stairs? He needed to know.

Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump.

Slowly, carefully, he descended the last steps. The sound was thunderous now, loud enough to drown out his own thoughts. He raised the flashlight, and beheld it.

A great heart sat in the center of an empty stone room, pulsating, beating to a terrible rhythm. It was a grotesque thing–far larger than a heart had any right to be, closer to the size of a large dog. Tendrils of flesh had sprung from it and dug into the stone below, giving it the appearance of some unholy plant–in fact, so corrupted were its surroundings with flesh that it seemed to be almost reclining in a chair of glistening meat. Blood flowed from the thing in waterfalls. It pooled at its base, where, he realized, it was being sucked back up into it–like some sort of dark fountain. For several long moments, Jeremy stared.

THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. The heart beat.

He screamed, high and shrill, before bolting for the stairs.

~

Jeremy’s mother found him as he was running up the stairs back to his bedroom. She was still in her nightgown, her hair messy.

“Jeremy! Jeremy, oh goodness. What happened? Why are you running?” She spoke, grabbing him and holding him tight.

He shuddered, nestling into her shoulder, tears beading in his eyes. “I was downstairs, mom. I saw …  There are stairs down there that only appear at night. I went down them. I saw a heart, but not a heart, it was too huge, and it was just sitting out in the open … ” He babbled, letting the words flow freely as his mother whispered gentle encouragements and rocked him.

“Oh dear.” She sighed. There was a sort of resignation in her voice. “I hadn’t wanted you to find out about all this until you were much, much older.”

“You knew?” He looked up at her with tear-stained eyes. “You knew what was down there?”

“I … yes, Jeremy. I knew.” she spoke gently, looking down at him. “It’s my heart, after all.”

“What?”

“Here–let me show you.” With quick, efficient motions, she unbuttoned her blouse – only to reveal not soft skin but a gaping hole in the center of her chest. Her ribcage was plainly visible, jutting out like the fangs of some great beast, but beyond it was only darkness and bloody flesh–no heart to be seen. Were it not for her perfectly intact bones, he would think someone had just reached in and scooped it out.

That was about the moment that he fainted.

~

Seven years later, Jeremy was in college. Life had gone on. He had grown up.

But he never forgot the secret his mother harbored–the secret that he, too, now kept. It was an ancient curse, laid onto their family line long ago, passed down from mother to son. When any of their family came of age, their hearts would take on a sort of perverse life of their own, crawling out of their chests and seeking a new home.

It was about that time for him, now. He could feel it, burning hot in his own chest, his heart grown too large to quite fit anymore. It was moving and twitching on its own, uncomfortable in the confined space.

But first, he had a package to open. It had come to him just the other day. He hadn’t been expecting a package.

It was a bulky thing, as long as his arm and wide as his head, wrapped in brown paper. It didn’t have a sender listed.

He opened it, to reveal a fine wooden box and a note.

I know it’s your time, now. I thought this would help. A place to keep it, until you can find something more permanent.

Love, mom.

He smiled, a well of gratitude filling his chest. He understood what this was for.

He reached up to his chest, feeling his heart beat. He pushed, until the flesh broke open and blood seeped through his fingers. And then he tore out his own heart.