The Basement Anomaly
By
Nick Vossen
The following collection of letters was retrieved from a New York City demolition site in 1995,
the exact location is undisclosed.
You know, people always ask me. “Blake, what is the weirdest case you’ve ever done?”
People always presume that working as a detective for the NYPD is automatically a ticket to seeing
and learning about the strangest sides of humanity. I always give the same answer: “Haven’t really
seen anything bizarre”, I tell them.
I lie, every time.
Well, maybe it is time to finally get my story out in the open. Hell might even get a book deal
out of it you know. It never hurts to try, so let’s consider these my liner’s notes.
A few years ago I was waiting in the department briefing room with two of my peers:
Jennings, A fine looking broad if I may say so, and Reynolds, the class-A asshole. Reynolds was testing
my patience by chewing his gum so loud I swear it sounded like the Moon itself came down and
started rolling through downtown Manhattan, squishing everybody in its path. As I casually
continued being the most annoyed person in the world, our boss Paxton walks in the door with the
biggest grin on his face, which usually meant it was going to be a long night ahead. “Oh you’re not
gonna believe this!” He exclaimed sarcastically. “Some strange stuff going on in an apartment
building in Queens, some people went missing…” Jennings looked up longingly; her eyes were as
wide as a puppy’s begging for food. Strange things, voodoo, witchcraft, the occult; she loved this
stuff.
Paxton continued: “some tenants claim there is an old refrigerator in the basement complex
that, and I quote, opens a portal to a shifting maze filled with angry spirits”.
Damn, I started to wonder what the hell these crackheads were smoking if this suddenly became
official police business.
Jennings couldn’t control her excitement and pretty much immediately volunteered to go,
obviously. Reynolds was too busy coughing up his lungs from laughing, it seemed, but to my surprise
he took on the job as well. “I gotta get out of this dusty coffin sometime, might as well have some fun
doing it, right Blake?”
“Two should do the trick” Paxton told us, “Blake you can go on out on patrol, it’s a busy night
in the Big Apple, you’ll be needed somewhere tonight, I’m sure.
Great, so there I was, a NYPD detective, patrolling around like some rookie cop straight out of
the academy. I was just waiting for the stereotypical call; Aggravated assault, domestic dispute, gang
shootout.
How I wish that was the case I’ll tell you that.
I got the call at around 1.30AM.
An officer was down in the line of duty at an apartment complex in Queens. I quickly connected the
dots from tonight’s briefing. “Same building”, I thought.
I immediately answered the call. Even though I was miles from Queens and even though I hated
Reynolds; this was still my department, my people.
I arrived a while later. I ran up to Jennings who was waiting for me at the front door of the
complex, she was clearly distraught. She rambled on about a possessed tenant who shot Reynolds in
the face, then started slicing his ears off while smiling and whistling Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea”.
I remember opening the door and finding most of Reynolds’ face adorning the brown matt
wallpaper of the complex. It made me sick to my stomach, but before I could take a moment to
breath, Jennings ran past me, screaming. She was heading for the basement it seemed. I had no
choice but to run straight through the crime-scene and after her.
The basement reeked of foul sewage. It consisted of several rooms all tied together with big
pipes, loosely banging at intervals when the heat kicked on and exposed electrical wiring was hanging
everywhere. I followed Jennings as fast as I could, and I last saw her descending a rickety iron
staircase hidden behind, you guessed it, an old refrigerator.
Before I could follow, the fridge door slammed shut. There was a magnetic board pinned to
the door which read “One at a time, please.”
“The hell with that”, I thought and I ripped the door open.
There was nothing inside; nothing except the feint stench of rotting meat. A shiver rolled down my
spine as I tried to grasp the situation. I tried to explain to myself in my head what I saw, and
wondered if I really did see anything.
I must’ve waited for hours. There was no sign of Jennings, but the sound of the refrigerator
door slowly creeping open caught me off guard. There it was, the iron stairs descending into the
darkness below. I gathered my courage and I went in.
My heart rose through my throat. It was pitch-black down there and the air was heavy. Once
in a while a gust of wind flowed through the corridor, eerily sounding like a heavy sigh. Even with my
strong flashlight I couldn’t quite shine down to the end of the weird corridors. I then tried to go back,
but I couldn’t find the stairs anymore. I started to run, and fast. The more corners I turned, the more
I felt like I was seeing feint shadowy hands from my peripheral vision. How long was I down here
now? A few minutes, an hour, three days, I honestly had no idea. Something came for me, a
blackness that swallowed the normal darkness around me like a black hole. I felt a constant
screeching my head, some metallic buzz eating up my brain.
I finally found a door, and went through.
You are probably wondering how I could’ve possibly escaped from that hell.
Well, to be honest, I’m not sure I did.
I… I think I’m still here. Whoever finds this, could you send help please?
Please send help.
Please.