Last Day of School Horror Story

This was something that happened so long ago that a lot of details are a little blurry. It's not like it happened yesterday. I'll try my best to fill in smaller details that I don't fully remember with how I best remember things played out. It was the last day of school. I was in the fourth grade. Fourth grade was the last year in our elementary school where kids had to be picked up by their parents. Fifth graders were allowed to walk home on their own. My mom would always be the one to pick me up on the last day of school. My friend Dennis and I had a play date planned to celebrate the last day of school. Dennis wasn't in my class this year, but we had been friends since kindergarten. He was in a different dismissal hallway from me. After school was over, we single-file lined up and walked to the exit door at the end of the hall, where we waited outside by our teacher, Miss Blue. I waited for Dennis's dad to appear from the crowd of parents shuffling in and out of the parking lot next to the doors. Then I heard my name, "Tommy, Tommy." I looked over and saw a man waving at me. As he approached, he introduced himself as Dennis's uncle and said he was picking me up. I went over to Miss Blue and said, "I'm being picked up." She asked, "Where is he, sweetie?" and I pointed to Dennis's uncle, who waved at Miss Blue. Miss Blue dismissed me, and I went with the man. He led us through the crowd and was a very quick and jittery talker, like he spoke fast and had a bit of a stutter. He was walking incredibly fast; it was almost hard to keep up with him with my backpack on. He explained to me that his brother, or Dennis's dad, was working later than expected, so he was driving me back. We got to his car, which was a dark red hatchback-type car from what I remember, and it took me this long to acknowledge the giant elephant in the room. Where was Dennis? Why weren't we picking him up too? The man turned to look at me in the back seat and said that Dennis was already at his house. I was shy around people I didn't know, especially adults, and I wasn't one to openly speak my mind if I was confused, but I was very confused. This was making less and less sense. The whole drive, the man kept yapping, telling stories of his days in elementary school, asking me questions like what sports I played, what we were learning in class. If I had to guess, we were in the car for like 10 minutes, which honestly, for our town where houses were right on top of each other, that was a while. My house was a 5-minute walk away from the school. We were definitely in an area I wasn't familiar with. When he parked the car in front of his house, his house looked pretty normal to me from what I remember. He led us inside and shut the door and locked it behind us. It was really, really dark inside the place, and I realized why—all the curtains were shut. It almost felt like it was nighttime in there, especially because the only source of light was a dim lamp in the corner of the room. He then looked at me and smiled. I said, "Where's Dennis?" and he started acting really jittery and nervous-seeming. He said something like, "Oh, I think he's downstairs playing video games. Give me a second, wait here." He then disappeared into a nearby room, and I heard a door open and then footsteps descending into a basement. By now, my heart was already racing. I knew I was in danger. I went to the door to quietly try to open it, but I couldn't. It had some kind of lock that must have needed a key for it. I really started to panic now, yet I still probably held out a little bit of hope that Dennis would be coming up those stairs. But I knew the chances of that were slim. I regretted entering that house. I did the only thing I could think to do—I went to the kitchen and found a phone hung on the wall. I picked it off the receiver and dialed 911. The first thing I said when they answered was in a whisper, "Please come to this house; I've been kidnapped." They heard me; they acknowledged me, but I didn't say another word. I hid the phone under a towel in the corner of the room with 911 still on the line. I hurried back to where the man left me as I already heard his footsteps coming back upstairs. Then he called my name, saying, "Come down, Dennis is down here." Then there was a pause. He repeated my name, and when I didn't answer, he came up the stairs fully to look at me. He asked me if I was okay. I felt so sick and I was so scared. I hated myself for walking into the situation and not being wiser. I asked in a very scared voice if I could leave, and I remember the change in his face—his fake friendly smile disappeared as he realized that I was no longer falling for this. He walked closer to me in a gentle manner until he was close enough to grab my wrist aggressively, and he started pulling me towards the basement. I screamed and cried, and he screamed at me, "I'll let you go if you stop and behave." So I listened. I went down the stairs, and halfway down, the door slammed shut behind me, and I heard it lock. I walked fully down the stairs to this empty, unfinished basement with a concrete floor and one singular support beam in the middle of the room. There was a depressing yellow glow in the room from one exposed light bulb hanging on the ceiling. If there was a place you'd imagine kidnapped children to go, this would be it. I heard his heavy footsteps upstairs—you could hear everything in this house. I don't know what he was doing, but I heard him walking around for a while. Then he came to the basement door, opened it, and called down, asking if I was hungry. I replied, "No," I didn't want him going into the kitchen, seeing the missing phone. He shut the door and locked it again. I sat down there waiting with my heart in my throat, and then I heard it—the doorbell ringing three times from upstairs, followed by banging sounds, which were definitely the sounds of police banging on the door. I would refrain from screaming until I heard the front door open, but I never heard the man's footsteps approach the door. The doorbell kept ringing, and I kept hearing the bangs. This went on for some time until I heard a really loud bang sound, and then multiple heavy footsteps and multiple screaming voices. I started screaming for help as loud as I could at the top of the stairs, banging on the door. The door was unlocked, and a police officer on the other side grabbed hold of me and hurried me outside. There were at least three cop cars outside. I had to tell everything to two of the cops outside as we waited for my parents to show up. The man from inside was brought outside and into a cop car in handcuffs, and that was the last time I ever saw him. When my parents arrived on the scene, my mom was bawling her eyes out. There had already been a whole at the school as cops were called, and Dennis's dad realized what happened. This man was a work associate of Dennis's father. When he somehow learned that Dennis's dad would be picking up Dennis and me from school on the last day, he seized the opportunity to do what he did. A complete sick [censored]. I don't know how he found out what I looked like. As I got older, I never really asked for more details because I try not to think about it. My mom went to counseling with me for months after this incident. Let's just say my parents didn't have kind words for Miss Blue not verifying if I actually knew the person picking me up. If I didn't think to call the police before he basically threw me in that basement, I know for a fact I'd be dead right now. This was like 17 years ago—that man might be out of prison for all I know.