Restlessness tormented me as I slept on the cold floor of the basement, nothing more than a thin quilt to keep me warm. My head rested against my arm, the muscles growing increasingly numb from the weight.

I felt my whole body stiffen as light flooded the basement.

"Kid," the voice called. I threw the blanket off of me and stumbled to my feet. I tried to hide against the back corner, but there was nothing to hide behind. He'd seen me. "You hiding?"

"No, sir," I trembled. "'M not hiding."

His red hair was thinning at the top, but you could still see it against the light. I'd gotten all my looks from him.

"Why you back there? Get your ass over here."

I cautiously took a step forward, scared shitless of what he was going to do. "Yes, sir?"

"Cops came by looking for you a'cause you ain't been to school. How long you been down here?"

"I don't know, sir," I replied, voice still shaking.

He scratched his chin and looked around. Upon seeing my blanket balled up in the middle of the floor, he shook his head. "A few more days, then," he said, nodding.

"No, daddy, please," I started to beg, clasping my hands together pathetically.

"Yes," he nodded again. "Three more days."

My father turned from me and started back toward the door. I ran after him, taking a wad of his t-shirt in my hand and yanking on it.

"Daddy, please don't leave me down here! You know I'm sc-scared of the dark!"

He rounded on me, slapping me hard across the face with the palm of his hand. I flew backward, my butt landing hard on the floor and my face throbbing. "I don't give a goddamn what you're scared of," he screamed. "You're gonna stay the hell down here because you don't deserve to be up there!"

"Daddy," I cried. I cried and cried, but he'd disappeared, and in his place were little shadow monsters waiting to consume me.

Those nightmares still haunt me to this day. I'm still scared of the dark. I still dream of my father and those shadow monsters. I know my dad is dead and those shadow monsters aren't even real, but they paralyze me.

I spent a week in that basement in total darkness. No one saved me. Not my mom or my brother. Not the school or the cops. Chris and Gordie knew something was wrong and they knew something had happened to me, but when I got back to school, all I said was that I was sick. It was all that I could manage to say. I didn't talk a lot in weeks that followed, but I slowly started to get over it. Or that's what I tell myself now, anyway.

As much as I hated my father, I didn't want them to cart him off to the loonie place like where Teddy's dad had gone. Our family would end up the laughing stock of town and it would be my fault.

At least, that's what my father told me. And I was just a kid then, so of course I believed him.

I kept it a secret and I pushed the subject away anytime someone would bring it up. I didn't want to talk about it, and yet I relived it every night.