Two months after my brother and his wife bought a new house, they had to go out of town and needed their cats fed. Their house and my office are both a good drive from my apartment, but only a few minutes away from each other. My brother said if I wanted, I could just stay over in the guest room rather than driving among the three places. So I got the keys and instructions. I was staying there three nights: Mon-Wed.
Monday evening was uneventful until about midnight. I was lying on the living room couch, watching Conan, with a cat lying on my chest. I started to drift off to sleep. The next thing I knew, I was standing in pitch black darkness. I completely freaked out, I had no idea where I was. I felt around in the dark and felt nothing. Finally I realized there actually was a faint blue light coming from above. I moved toward it and then understood where I was. I was in the fucking basement! The light was coming through the basement door at the top of the stairs, which leads to the kitchen. Just enough moonlight apparently made it through from a window elsewhere in the kitchen. I bolted up the stairs, turned on the kitchen light, and closed the basement door. I was terrified until I calmed down enough to come to the conclusion you probably already came to: I had sleepwalked all the way down the stairs (after opening the basement door, which I know was closed).
A couple things are important to the story. First, the basement. The house was very nice -- actually, more than they should have been able to afford. The only exception was the basement. I had only seen the basement once, when I first got the tour. It was totally unfinished and was the one major thing they wanted to fix up. All they had down there was some boxes and the washer/dryer. I had no reason to want to go down there and had kind of forgotten it existed.
The other point is that sleepwalking is kind of a thing in my family, almost an inside joke. My brother talked in his sleep constantly, and would sleepwalk sometimes, and it always scared the hell out of me. The idea of people doing things in their sleep just creeps me out to the core (still does). My brother knew this and would tease me about it, so it was known in my family that I had this phobia. But as far as I know, I had never, ever sleepwalked until that night. The image kept playing in my mind, over and over, of me, asleep, getting up from the couch, walking to the kitchen, opening the basement door, and shuffling down the stairs into total darkness. Creepy as all hell.
Anyway, I saw the TV was still on in the living room, playing Wedding Crashers. I watched the rest of the movie, trying to laugh and think of the sleepwalking as a funny story to tell my brother. When I went upstairs to go to sleep in the guest room, I stayed asleep. That was night one.
The next morning, in the light of day, it didn't seem that scary. I texted my brother about it and joked around. All day I wasn't bothered one bit. But as I'm walking out of my office to my car, I'm overcome with this sense of dread. All of a sudden, the thought of going to sleep in that house -- and maybe sleepwalking again -- is scaring me. So I had a plan. I stop at the hardware store and pick up one of those rubber door-stopper wedges. At the house, I jam this into the crack under the basement door, and kick it in until it's as far as it can go. I test out trying to open the door, and it won't budge. Perfect.
Later, I go upstairs and fall asleep. When I wake up, I swear to god I think I'm dreaming. I was standing in darkness again, but this time I know exactly where I am. The smell is the same. The concrete floor under my feet is the same. I look around for the light from upstairs, and it take me longer to find it because it's farther away. Last night I was only a couple of feet from the stairs, this night it was maybe ten feet. I run up and turn on the kitchen lights. I see the rubber wedge on on the floor, a couple of feet away, as if tossed there. Again, I can't stop picturing myself sleepwalking. Out of the bedroom, down the stairs, trying to open the basement door. Bending down and yanking out the wedge. And then, again, slowly down into the darkness.
I decided I was turning on the basement lights and they were staying on. I opened the door and flipped the switch to the basement stairway. I saw there was a main switch at the bottom of the stairs. To give you a quick sense of the layout, the staircase splits the basement into two parts. To the right is a small area with the washer/dryer, and to the left is the a big open area.
Anyway, I walked down and turned on the lights for the whole basement. That's when I noticed something I hadn't noticed when my brother gave me the tour. About 10-15 feet away, in the big area, there was a door to what looked like a small closet. This door was closed, but had no doorknob (just an empty hole), so it looked like it would freely swing open. I realized it was very close to where I had just awoken. Then a fucking freaky thought came to me: it was as if each night I was heading to the door, and getting a little farther each time before I woke up. As soon as that thought popped into my head, I booked it up the stairs again, left the lights on, and closed the door. I went up to the bedroom, but it took me forever to fall asleep. That was night two.
The next morning, Wednesday morning, I woke up late for work. I didn't think about the basement at all because I was scrambling to get ready. At work though, I was still curious about what was behind the door, so I texted my brother and asked. He replied "wait....why were you in the basement?" I realized that when I texted him the day before, I never actually told him where I woke up. So I tell him I woke up in the basement, actually twice in a row. After a while, he sends this novel-length text. About how the basement is creepy, not to go down there, etc. How they tried putting the litter boxes in the basement and the cats made a mess in the house because they refused to go down. How he volunteers to do every chore other than the laundry so he doesn't have to go down there. He says all this stuff, and it's surprising to me, because my brother never believed in the paranormal or superstitions, ever since we were kids. I also realize he never answered my question about the door, but I let it go.
After work, I get the same feeling of dread as I'm walking to my car. I really don't want to stay there again, and I decide: fuck it, I don't have to. So I go feed the cats, get my stuff, and drive back to my place. I'm supposed to feed the cats one more time, so I'll stop over in the morning. As I went to sleep at my apartment, I was thinking of all the steps I would have to take to sleepwalk to the basement again -- find my car parked around the block, drive asleep to my brother's house, etc. But this time, I sleep through the night. That was night three.
Thursday morning, I stop at the house as planned. I'm about to leave when I remember that the basement lights are still on. I don't even hesitate to go down to turn them off. There was something about being there in the morning that, at the time, made it seem fine. When I go down, again that door without a doorknob catches my eye, and it also doesn't seem scary anymore. So, what the hell, let's see. I walk over to it and I distinctly remember not feeling spooked at all. Until -- I reach my hand toward the doorknob hole to pull it open. As soon as I do that, and I mean instantly, I feel this electric feeling, like the air before a storm, and I imagine a hand coming through that hole and grabbing mine. It was like 0 to 60, going from no fear to being certain that something horrible would happen if I opened that door. It's hard to describe it other than that electric feeling. I booked it up the stairs and out of the house.
So, a month later, I meet my brother for happy hour. A few drinks in, we start joking about me sleepwalking and the creepy basement. I say he never answered me about what's behind the door, and he says I don't want to know. Joking at first, but then insisting. Finally he tells me, and I don't believe him. He's my big brother and has only bullshitted me about a million times in my life.
This was his explanation: the previous (and first) owners of the house had a teen daughter that used the basement as her bedroom. The door was to her closet, where one night she curled up, took some pills and killed herself. The family was going to remodel the basement, but after tearing it apart realized they couldn't do it and had to move. That was why only the basement was unfinished, and why my brother was able to afford the place -- the seller had to disclose a suicide happened in the residence. He said if I didn't believe him, to look up the market values of the identical houses in his track (I know how much they paid for their house and it was way lower). He and his wife considered themselves rational people and figured it was a bargain, but didn't want to tell anyone. After they moved in, his wife was fine with the basement, but he grew to hate it. He apologized for not saying anything to me before I stayed there, but he never thought I'd have any reason to go down there.
Now here's what that convinced me. I said "Okay, the only thing that makes me kind of believe you is that the last morning I was there, I went over to the closet door" -- and at this point, I see my brother's face change -- and I continued: "when I went to open it, the air felt like--" and at the same instant, I say "electricity" and my brother says "electric." At the same exact time. I saw his face and knew he was telling the truth.
I've never stepped foot again in that basement, and I haven't sleepwalked since.
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5luo87/comment/dbz7y8l/
