I’m about to tell you something that happened to me that I will never be able to forget. It happened when I was only 15. My name is Alayna Caldwell and like all 15-year-old teenage girls, I was saving up for my first car so I didn’t have the luxury of turning down good-paying jobs and that’s where this all started. My neighbors were going out of town for the entire day and wouldn’t be home until tomorrow morning. They had just moved here not that long ago.
When they offered to pay me to watch their house and let their dog out at first I thought twice about it. You see, my neighbors, Tyler and Lacey Alston are rather strange. They’re most likely in their early 50s and give me bad vibes. Mr. Alston was a scrawny man with a scruffy face and dark eyes that were layered in bags. Mrs. Alston tried her best to stay young with her dirty blonde hair that was obviously dyed. She had a terrible smoking habit and she too developed bags under her eyes.
They constantly go on about how pretty I look and the way they stare at me makes my skin crawl. However, when they offered to pay me $100 to stay the night with their dog, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
They said they’d be gone until the next morning, but they’re still might be an opportunity they would return earlier. They made it clear not to go down in the basement and to stay out of the room on the second floor. Mr. Alston added that it’d be best if I just kept to the living room and the kitchen. They keep their dog, Jackie, a rottweiler, in the laundry room on the first floor. It wouldn’t stop barking all the while they were talking to me. It seemed rather angry. What was really odd was as soon as they left it seemed to calm down. It was very friendly with me.
It wasn’t long before I had the house to myself, besides Jackie. I took him out for a walk before resting in the living to watch some TV. The news talked about a missing girl about my age with dark black hair named Paula Edwards. She was very pretty. Thoughts ran through my mind of all the horrible possibilities of what could’ve happened to her. The distinct possibility that I could’ve been her ran through my thoughts. She too was a cheerleader and lived in the city next to ours. I pushed the thought from my mind as I quickly changed it to one of the reality shows I enjoyed watching.
As the day turned dark and it became late in the evening, I snuck out to smoke some pot and let the dog out. As we returned, the dog went straight for the door to the basement and started clawing at it. I thought that was odd. I could’ve sworn I heard noises coming from the basement. It sounded like muffled screams. I tried to chalk it up to my stoned paranoia. However, as the night carried on, the noises didn’t cease. I tried the door but it was locked. My curiosity got the best of me and I started to search the rest of the house. Now this was really strange. All of the other rooms were empty except for the room they said to stay out of which was also locked. There was no sign that anyone had been living here, let alone two people.
I got to the point where I couldn’t help it anymore, I had to know what was down there. The locked door had the kind of lock that you could easily shove a nail or something thin in and click it unlocked. I used to pull this trick on my older sister all the time when she took too long in the bathroom. As soon as the door opened, the dog rushed down the stairs. I grabbed my phone and turned the light on as I slowly climbed down the dark stairs. The noise was now unmistakable. It was a person. Their groans were being muffled out. I could hear the dog whimpering.
I could hardly make out anything in the dark as I crept forward with my little flashlight. However, as I crept down the basement, the things I saw in the light of my phone’s flashlight, started to terrify me. There were shackles, cages, and things I can’t begin to explain. My heart was thumping faster than ever as I continued to look through the basement. I heard the muffled sounds of a person along with the whimpering of the dog.
I cast my light over to where the sound came from and nearly shrieked. Chained to a pipe and gagged was a girl with black hair. She was dirty and it looked as if she’d been crying. Her eyes had dark spots around them. I quickly called the cops as I rushed over to her and took the gag out of her mouth. The dog was licking her face, and stayed by her side.
She immediately pleaded with her to help her. They kidnapped her and had been keeping her down here in their basement. The police arrived not long after. They identified her as the missing girl from the town over.
If things couldn’t get any worse, what they found in the room on the second floor was beyond creepy. They had pictures of me, rope, bindings, Chloroform, and other horrifying items. Apparently, they planned to come back later that night and kidnap me too. The rest of the house was empty and apparently, they only used the house to keep their victim.
The worst thing was that they still haven’t been caught. They’re out there somewhere, probably still kidnapping girls. I now live in constant fear, always looking over my shoulder. Afraid I could find them in my home waiting for me. On a side note, the dog happened to be the victim, Paula Edward’s dog. It certainly explains the odd behavior. Paula and I had become very close friends since then.