I always enjoyed that line from Frank Herbert's Dune. Nothing could be closer to the truth. So much in life causes us pain and frustration but nothing paralyzes a person more then fear. Stephen King said it best in his '73 article, The Horror Writer Market and the Ten Bears. "Where do the ideas- sellable ideas- come from. They come from nightmares." As a horror writer, we can't expect to scare a reader if we aren't terrified ourselves. King listed his ten "bears" out and uses them to this day. I don't have that many that I can think of but that's because I'm a little desensitized. So here's looking at bear number one: basements.

I know it's cliche but they scare the hell out of me. When I was twelve we lived on an old farm and ranch miles out of the small town where I went to school. There weren't many room for my parents and three siblings so we made due. I got the bedroom in the basement. The ceilings were low and the whole place was slate gray so at night the basement was as black as night. There wasn't any cable TV or an extra Tv for that matter so it was me, my comics and my records. Sometimes I could here the branches of the willows raking against the house, at least that was what I assumed it was. It wasn't too creepy being down there, away from the rest of my family, until I broke both of my arms trying to fly.

After they brought me back from the hospital I was bed ridden for a week, my casted arms hanging from ace bandages suspended from the ceiling. Occasionally someone would come down to help me go to the bathroom or feed me. It was lonely and crawling on my nerves. Then one blustery night, the popwer went out.

There I sat in complete darkness while my family scrambled around upstairs. I heard shouts, laughter, a few blue words then silence. I strained to hear what was going on but the damned basement echoed with my short gasps. I clenched my knees together so they wouldn't knock, tightened my jaw to keep my teeth from rattling. There I sat in the dark as my family did god knows what because they forgot all about me. I can't say how long I was there in the dark but it was long enought to bring me to tears and long enough to feel the icy hand of death wrap tight around my quivering throat.

Now as an adult, I live in an old house miles from town, above a cramped, rank basement that harbors a few mice that my cats don't catch, and all of my childhood fears.