The Propane Reek

My first real brush with the uncanny happened in the autumn of my fifteenth year, in a rented townhouse on the edge of a sprawling, pine-choked suburb in the Pacific Northwest. I was with a boy named Derek, a friend more than a boyfriend, but we were at that age where labels felt heavy and we were content to just hang out. The afternoon was gray, the kind of leaden sky that presses down on the rooftops and makes the world feel hushed and expectant. We decided to watch a movie on the old VCR, a worn copy of a slasher film we’d seen a dozen times. The tape clicked and whirred, and the opening credits began to crawl across the screen. Then, without warning, the TV went black, and the room was plunged into a sudden, profound silence. The power had cut out. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen died, and the digital clock on the microwave blinked out. I felt a prickle of unease, but I shook it off. I told Derek it was probably a blown fuse or a downed line from the weather, though the sky through the window was only overcast, a thin drizzle beginning to mist the glass. He looked uncertain, but I laughed it off and said he could head on home; I’d be fine. He hesitated, then left, and I heard his car engine cough to life and fade away.

I lit a few candles, their flames casting dancing shadows on the walls, and settled onto the couch with a tattered paperback. But I couldn’t concentrate. A smell began to thread through the air, faint at first, then unmistakable: the sharp, chemical tang of propane, like the pilot light on a gas stove that won’t stop. It was coming from the hallway that led to the cellar door. My heart started to beat faster. I told myself it was just a gas leak, but the timing felt off. I set the book down and padded down the hall, the scent growing stronger with each step. The cellar door was closed, but the smell was strongest there. I hesitated, then turned the knob. The door swung open, revealing a narrow flight of wooden steps descending into darkness. I flicked the light switch out of habit, but the power was still out. I took a deep breath and started down, my hand brushing the rough plaster walls, my other hand holding a candle whose flame wavered nervously.

I reached the bottom step and froze. Across the dim cellar, about fifteen feet away, stood a figure. It was a man, or at least it had the shape of a man: tall, perhaps six feet, but it was not solid. It was a column of pure blackness, darker than the surrounding gloom, and it seemed to waver and flicker, like a flame caught in a draft. There was no light source for it to cast a shadow, yet it was there, a tear in the fabric of the dark. My blood turned to ice. The propane smell was overwhelming now, a sickly sweetness that clawed at my throat. The figure didn’t move. It just stood there, observing me, or perhaps not even acknowledging me. I don’t know how long I stood there, my breath caught in my chest. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the figure vanished. The smell dissipated almost as quickly, replaced by the musty odor of damp concrete. I scrambled up the stairs, slamming the cellar door behind me, and didn’t stop running until I was in my room with the door locked, huddled against the wall, trying to convince myself I’d imagined it.

But I hadn’t. Over the following weeks, I noticed things. The propane smell would waft through the house at odd times, always leading me toward that cellar. Sometimes I’d hear a faint scratching from behind the door, like something dragging itself across the floor. My parents dismissed it as a gas leak and had the utility company check; they found nothing. But I knew. That figure, that shadow with substance, had left a mark on the house, a persistent presence that lingered like a bad penny. I began to research the history of the neighborhood, and I uncovered a small item in the local paper’s archives: a few years before we moved in, a man had died in that exact cellar, a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, using a faulty propane heater. They said he was a recluse, a veteran who never quite came home from the war. I never saw the figure again, but I’d sometimes catch that oily scent wafting from beneath the cellar door, and I’d remember the way he stood there, dark and patient, as if waiting for me to summon the courage to ask what he wanted. I never did. We moved a year later, but to this day, the smell of propane makes my skin crawl, and I stay far away from any basement door that creaks open on its own.