"Sammy? Saaaaammmy?" I went down the cellar stairs today with baited breath, worried what I would find.
"I'm down here, Claire." I turned at the foot of the creaky steps and saw nothing unusual. A stack of boxes from when his family had moved in last month, a few old paintings and sculptures they had yet to move upstairs, a stack of lamp shades and cardboard cones...
"Sam?" I looked around one more time, jumping half out of my skin when the lampshades all tumbled over, little Sammy Mothwright curled up inside three of them, like a cone-boy.

"Sammy!" I pulled the shades off of him and picked him up, patting dust off his tiny jeans and shirt.
Sammy was my favorite child to babysit, as he was calm and well mannered, and liked to talk about kid's books and animals. He was gentle natured, but that also lead to all the kids in the daycare bullying him.
  "What were you doing in there, Sam?" I said, frowning because I already knew the answer.
"Tommy and Joseph told me they'd beat me up again if I didn't' do the dare."
   "Aww, Sammy..." I picked the tiny child up in my arms and carried him back up the stairs, were I found cobwebs dotting his pants. I swatted them off while still asking him about what happened.
"What did they dare you to do?"
"Go down into the cellar..." he looked down, red faced, as if he'd done something wrong. I patted his red curls and sighed. "Why did they want you to go down there? Cause it's dark?"

"Yeah, and cause Tommy said there was a monster down there."
  "A monster?" I gasped, looking at him with wide eyes. Sammy and I played like this a lot, he'd tell me about the scary things in his dreams or books, then we'd go slay the evil monsters together wearing bed sheet capes and holding empty paper towel roll swords.

"Yeah! A big monster, it had tons of teeth, and it drooled this icky green slime..." he waved his tiny arms around, little green eyes sparkling with imagination. Tommy and Joseph had been picked up nearly an hour ago, leaving Sammy's house empty for the time.
  Sammy's parents were nice people, but always away on business. They had made a deal with me only two weeks after moving into town that I could run a day care out of their house when they were away, as long as I took the best of care to Sam.


I glanced to the clock, it was six at night.
"Well, how about tomorrow I go get us some super duper protect-all capes, and we can go down and slay it?" He joyfully cried an eccentric, "Yeah!" as I scooped him up, taking him upstairs to his room.

   Instead of a bedtime story we spoke about the monster. "What does the monster look like, Sam?"
"It's greaaaat big, and really ugly! And he smells bad, to!" we shared a giggle at the monster's expense as he snuggled in more to his bed. "But be careful, Claire..." he yawned, his eyes lulling slowly down. "It eats little boys, so you need to get really, really good capes. I was lucky today, when Tommy made me go down there, I managed to hide in those anti-monster tubes."
  I nodded with a soft smile, patting his head. "I'll find the best capes ever." I promised.






   The next morning Sam was playing with his friends in the finger-paint station I had set up. I left him for a moment to go talk to a new parent about her son staying here. In the middle of the conversation I heard little Anne scream and run up to me, grabbing my leg. "Miss Claire, Miss Claire!" she cried, nearly pulling my pants right off.
   "Ahh, what's wrong Anne, did you hurt yourself?"

"No, no, it's Sammy! Tommy pushed him down the cellar, and he started screaming about a monster!"
I excused myself from the parent, racing down to the cellar door. Tommy was babbling about not meaning to, but I didn't have time.

"Sammy? Sammy?!" I cried, racing down the stairs. I slipped a the bottom, crashing into the floor hard. Sitting up, my hand went "slop" loudly. I looked down, grossing out a bit at the puddle of slime my hand was on.
  "Sammy, where are you?" I cried, wiping the mess off and standing back up, just to see the gross gunk was all over my pants. "Sam?!" he wasn't answering. I remembered his talk about the lamp shades, and started to push my way around boxes in the back corner to look for him.

Everything was pitch black down here, and it made looking hard. "Sam?" I shouted it this time louder, but still no response. Like last time, I heard something rustle in the back. I moved passed all the junk towards to noise, but found no Sam. Just a putrid smell that slapped my face hard. Oh no, had the poor boy been so frightened he soiled himself? "Sammy, come on, it's alright." I coaxed, but still there was no reply.


  "Miss Harrawit, please, I need to go. I don't think i'll be sending my son to this place if this is how you handle yourself!" the parent from earlier was at the top of the stairs, shouting down to me. "I'm very sorry ma'am, but please, could you switch the light on for me if you're there?"


She did, and I screamed.

Splattered all over the floor was poor Sammy's blood. His leg was sitting in the corner, and I saw the lampshades scattered about. A loud hiss screeched out when the light came on, several boxes flying up as something huge crawled around, slithering out of sight into a deeper recess of the cellar.
   A few bones were at my feet, and I felt myself get sick. "S.....S....Sam....my..." I stuttered, collapsing to my knees.

   Looking over, I saw one of the lampshades roll on the floor from the still shuddering and falling boxes. Inside the shade were words. I don't know what had pushed me forward, but I had moved and picked it up, reading it.

  "Holy Church of the Eighth Century, Prime Minster Rollin Cornister." was scrawled in loopy writing across the top. Near the bottom the ink was more worn. It was a prayer written all over the lampshade's inside. Picking up the other shades I read the same prayer.

Holy lampshades? Why were they down here? I set the odd thing down, looking again at Sammy's remains. I bawled, loudly, until another box fell in the distance of the cellar, sending more junk falling in other places.
  "You!! You killed Sammy! Who are you?!" I bellowed, standing up with a tear stained face. The resounding roar shook the cellar and I felt my sudden confidence falter.

Boxes rushed and moved and fell, until two large black eyes were staring out at me from this....monster. It smelt awful, and drool leaked out of one corner of it's mouth. It's face was stubby and scaled, black as night. It hissed, sending a box full of books clattering down.
  I looked down at them, all of them bound barely together, reading weird languages. One of them though, had fallen open, the old black text slapping me in the face.

   "Demon Summoning : How to bring up Class-A Demons"

I stumbled back, looking again to the foul beast. More books started catching my eye. "How to Feed Demons", "Summoning Rituals", "Demon Summoners Near You, A guide to Cults".


Poor Sammy's parents were demon summoners....and I was face-to-face with their at-home pet.

   "KIDS! RUN!" I screamed to the little faces I could imagine crowded around the cellar tensely.
The beast huffed out several low breaths, sounding like a dark laugh.



  

     "I don't see why that good for nothing girl didn't answer the phone." Miss Mothwright huffed as her husband and her pulled up to the house. The car stopped in teh driveway as they both got out.
"Now, now dear. You know how taken she is with Samuel. They were probably off playing games again."

The door swung open on a blood coated house. Drapes, walls, floor, all coated.
   The Misses sighed, stepping over the chunks of kids and parents that littered the floor. An arm got kicked away as she went along, stopping at the cellar door.

"Belphegor, come up here." she called sweetly. There was silence, then several loud thuds, before the large beast came bounding up, a bit of shirt and hair poking from it's teeth. "Aww, my poor baby, did those mean kids wake you up?" she cooed, petting it's scales.

Mr. Mothwright pushed up his glasses, surveying the home. "I'll go alert the Cult Leader. Dear, you go pack what we need." he headed off to the phone as his wife laughed, petting her beast.

"Darn, this is the fifth time we've had to move."