The Basement Drain

Sometime in the 1980’s Wilmer and his family were looking for a larger house to move into since his blended family there were already 12 children. They were able to find a house with enough space for them all, an old farm house built in the early 20th century in Pasco, WA.

This is a story based on a friend’s experiences in his childhood home in eastern Washington state. House basements always seem to hold the darkest secrets and in this story, the center of the activity was near the drain.  

When his family moved in, he and his brothers took the rooms in the half-finished basement. Half of the space was built into a few bedrooms. The other half was open and bare with a dirt floor. His older brothers took the finished rooms leaving Wilmer with the unfinished area with a drain. It was there in case the basement flooded. The house had settled since it was built, however, and the drain no longer was below the level of the basement floor. In fact, it stuck out as if wanting someone to stub their toe on it. Wilmer mentioned that there were a few times when water seeped in and there was flooding. It wasn’t the fact that the drain no longer served its intended purpose, but what he felt whenever he got close to it.

Wilmer knew nothing of the house’s history, save for when it was built. Nor did he know about the previous owners, nor those who had built or occupied it. He mentioned that he sensed that something definitely happened near the drain.

One night while Wilmer was reading with the covers over his head, the bed started to shake violently. Thinking that his brothers were playing a prank, he yelled out telling them to stop. The shaking continued without a response to his protests. Irritated, he took the covers off to see no one. That night he ran upstairs to sleep in the living room. A few other times in his “bedroom”, he would hear his name being called.

To this day, when Wilmer would walk up the stairs, he would always run because it felt as if someone were chasing after him.