“Be careful when you gaze into the abyss- for when you do, the abyss also gazes into thee.”
I don’t think I would’ve remembered Uncle Ben (that’s what I’ll call him here) very well if it wasn’t for one thing. I had a lot of relative visit us while growing up, but I can hardly recall enough of them to count on one hand.
The memory of him that stood out was when he, before leaving handed me something and then drove off.
I still remember- it was a hundred dollar bill! I was only four at the time, and this was the eighties- though as far as I know I could hand a kind a hundred dollar bill even today and after inflation, they’d be ecstatic. That’s the time when even twenty feels like a fortune.
My mother ‘kept it for safekeeping’ of course- meaning I never saw a cent of it, but that left a lasting impression on me.
I understood, even then, that my Uncle Ben must’ve been loaded. I often asked my parents what it was that he did- because I sure wanted to do it as well.
The thing is that they never gave me a straight answer. They said that he was a businessman- and other times they would say he was a consultant. Those answers never really satisfied me, though as I got older I noticed that my parent’s didn’t seem to be hiding the information- they didn’t seem to know very well either.
He visited us on and off over the years- every time giving me another extravagant sum of cash or something else valuable. That made me like him quite a bit more than anyone else who visited- and I’d ask why we never went to visit him. My father just said that Uncle Ben liked his privacy.
Don’t get me wrong though- it wasn’t like we grew up poor. It was just that we never had the money to throw around like Uncle Ben did.
Fast forward towards the future. I had moved out of my parent’s house and hadn’t seen Uncle Ben in years. I had started my own job and things were more or less going smoothly when I got a phone call from the police.
Uncle Ben… was dead. Now, this was not the first death in the family during my time- several older aunts and uncles had passed away, though they were always people I’d only have seen once or remotely.
This was the first death that hit close to home- Uncle Ben, while not exactly close family, was not a stranger either. I had always up till that point thought of paying him a visit near his isolated home- but things always came up before then.
It looked like that ambition would remain unfulfilled.
But, that wasn’t what they had called about. Rather, there was an issue with Uncle Ben’s death. He had not died naturally.
I went to go see his body- he was nearly unrecognizable. He had decayed what looked like several months- I was told that he had been found that way when he stopped paying his bills.
There was an odd peculiarity- several of his organs were missing. His liver, notably, was nearly completely gone while there was almost nothing remaining of the spleen or the kidneys. It couldn’t have been a disease- but there were no other markings on his body, so it was a complete mystery as to how he had ended up like that, with the coroner saying that he had never seen something like it before in his entire life.
i think- though they never told me this- that they thought I might’ve been involved somehow. Reason likely being that he had left the vast majority of his wealth to me, and it was no small amount. I could’ve easily retired right then and there.
That wasn’t all though- there were quite a things mentioned in his will which were left at his house. I would have to go there myself to pick them up and sort through them.
I quit my job and went for it- his house was really out of the way, I realized, when it took nearly an hour to drive there and I had seen nothing but greenery all around. The house itself was nice enough- though not quite the mansion I had thought he lived in during my childhood fantasies.
I let myself in- the police had done a well enough job of removing the stench of death from the house.
I never planned on living there, for the record. I couldn’t, not knowing what happened there. I felt like I could get at least a decent price for it notwithstanding its location.
It was still quite messy- it would take a few days for me to pack it all up. But then again, there wasn’t really anything much left for me to do. My student loans were paid off, and I had no need for a new job.
I slept on the sofa that night. Everything went well, though I did notice a few bites on my skin the next morning- did this place have bedbugs? Better to sleep in the car then.
I started sorting things out- it was rather incredible just how much junk Uncle Ben had accumulated, some of the things I had no clue as to how valuable they were. They looked like junk but could’ve just as well been antiques for all I knew.
Upstairs, I found a safe of his. I would’ve struggled with the combination, but as part of his will he’d left a note regarding it.
There was nothing too valuable inside, just a few papers addressed to me.
Johnathan,
I have left these here for the day that you may come to inherit what I have. But that isn’t limited to just money, Johnathan.
I wish for you to inherit my business as well- if you want. It’s too precious of a gift to leave lying around after all. Perhaps you will come to judge me harshly for what it is that I do, but from what I’ve seen of you Johnathan, you and I are quite alike. I’m sure you’ll see the rich benefits that this gift can provide you.
I don’t really know how it started or where it began. Maybe this house was used for an old US Military project and was then abandoned or something along those lines- though I myself have never been able to find anything regarding the house along those lines.
The basement of this house contains a set of stairs that leads into it. Every night, from the period of midnight to one A.M., the staircase doesn’t lead down into the basement.
The next part is a bit hard to explain. Imagine that all the staircases in the world were connected somehow- kind of how computers are connected via the Internet. But not just all the staircases that exist now- every single staircase that has ever existed at some point in time.
If you go down the last step- although the staircase looks no different- you will find yourself warped somewhere new. Somewhere you could’ve never imagined. Of course, there are two things you need to be careful of:
That is the secret to my fortune. All that you see around you in my house- most of it at least, is stolen. Stolen from different people in different periods of time. I’ve seen the Aztec Empire, the palace of Ramses II, the ballroom of the Titanic- do remember some places can be dangerous though. Take a gun if you must.
I suppose you’d call me a ‘thief’- I prefer calling myself a collector. As far as I know, there are no drawbacks to taking things- I’ve never altered history in any way so far as I know. I’ve also never tried to take a person or animal back- I would advise against it.
Aside from that, have fun! I have amassed a massive fortune this way, and I would hate to see that no one used it after my passing.
Needless to say I didn’t believe a word of it. This seemed like an elaborate prank set up by him and I went on with my day.
That night, although I slept in my car, I woke up when I heard some strange noises coming from the house. I got up, but when I went in I saw nothing.
The strange rash on my skin got worse even though I was sleeping in my car- I was beginning to think that this might not be a case of bedbugs after all.
Something weird happened the third night as well- I swore I saw a shadow moving around in the house late that night. I was getting rather worried- and my rash was just getting worse.
Maybe it was just paranoia- but I decided to give the stairs a try. I had been avoiding the basement for quite a while now, but I thought it would be worth checking it out.
I didn’t go down there past midnight though- I was far too chicken for that. I went in the middle of the day, and at first, all I saw were a set of stairs. I went down them, nothing at all unusual happened.
But then I took a look around the basement. I nearly froze.
In the middle of the room was a sarcophagus- an old one, like you’d expect to see in a pharaoh’s tomb. I went to go approach it but the moment I tried to I puked. Just being near the thing made me want to throw up.
The next night, I made my resolve to go down there when my Uncle had advised me too. As I stepped on that last set of stairs, my surroundings changed.
A chilly breeze caught up to me, and the smell of the sea embraced me. I was on a ship- a fairly modern one it seemed. A cruise ship.
Needless to say I freaked out and ran back the way I came- thankfully I managed to make my way back. I shut the door to the basement and then collapsed on the sofa.
Today, I feel even sicker than I ever have in my whole life. I’ve started seeing it too- something in the shadows that seems to be watching me.
I think I realize what happened now. My Uncle went to go rob an Egyptian tomb- he took the sarcophagus back with him, but he also brought something else back too. A curse.
I can feel it- I can feel it gnawing at my body from the inside, slowly devouring me. Soon enough I’ll be an empty husk.
It’s been seven days now. I can barely bring myself to stand. I don’t think there is a cure for what I have- but I have to try regardless. That thing in the shadows, it seems to be coming closer and closer day by day. I can now make out a pair of glowing red eyes and a row of sharpened teeth. I don’t even want to think about what it’s going to do to me when it finally materializes- or maybe it’s already doing something to me, gnawing me out from the inside. Not that I can do anything now anyway. I don’t even have the strength to drive.
The only thing I can think of now is… to walk down the stairs. Maybe I’ll end up in a better place than this.
This is a sort of a last letter to the world- I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I hope that I can get away from…. from this… thing.