Josh recognized this nightmare. There he was, again, in a dark basement. Oh yes, there was a real basement in his house. The only entrance was through the door in the upstairs hall. Looked like a coat closet. The stairs were inside to the left. Josh never went down there, except in his horrible basement dream. It always started like what was happening now—he would be lying on the cold cement floor. He wouldn’t know how he’d gotten there. There were always the sounds of things down there in the darkness—coming after him. Like those sounds he was now hearing coming from the other side of the room. Could be footsteps. Okay, now would be a good time to wake up.
Josh felt his head clearing. Maybe he was waking up. Or not. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw he was surrounded on all sides by dark stone walls. So was this still the dream? His hands were tied behind his back. His wrists burned. So did his shoulder. He struggled to sit up. He heard metallic sounds coming from above. He looked up and saw movement. Something was crawling out of the ceiling toward him. Its head slowly swiveled. Two bright blinking eyes looked down at him. He had seen that face. It was in that video he’d downloaded. Right before he’d fallen asleep.