"Oh great! Its must be the fuse, all the lights have gone," she shouted, as she blindly made her way down the hall to the kitchen where she knew there were at least some candles she could light.

"Mummy I'm scared!" Janine wailed.

Russell had calmed down after the initial shock and was now teasing his sister mercilessly, "Cry baby, whooo the ghost is gonna get ya!" he taunted.

"Russ stop it!" his father yelled. He went to find his wife; he needed a flashlight if he was going to fix the fuse.

His wife was in the kitchen lighting two candles and putting them in holders. He went over to one of the boxes that still had to be fully unpacked and rummaged a little before finding the flashlight. "Eureka! We will have light very soon" he said with a smile, and made his way to the door beneath the stairwell.

When he and his wife had first viewed the house, he was amazed at how large the cellar really was. The house was typically Victorian, with its elaborate and decorative banisters and coving on the ceilings. The rooms were a fair size, but the cellar belied the actual size of the property. It seemed to go on forever, and when they first saw the cellar, he only made a mental note to have better lighting installed and declined a thorough inspection. Well once you've seen one cellar, you've seen them all.

In this case he cursed himself that he hadn't asked the estate agent where the fuse box was and began tripping over crates and walking into cobwebs. The torch light leapt wildly around his dank surroundings illuminating the brick work and the odd box or two. It was then he heard the scuttle. It came from the far end of the cellar. 'Rats, that's all I need,' he thought as he pointed the light beam in the direction of the noise.

But how did this happen? The switch, and indeed the whole fuse box looked relatively new, like it had been installed recently, so there wasn't any reason for the switch to turn off. He heard the scuffling noise and reeled round just in time to see a small black figure disappear into the small pile of boxes in the corner. It looked too big to be a rat or even a cat but too small to be a child. He raced over to the boxes, braver now that he had some light and began to move them aside. When he had removed the last box he noticed a hole in the concrete ground at least 10 inches wide all round. It was pitch black inside.

He pointed the torch beam down into the hole. What he saw made his blood curdle, and he felt a scream rise to his lips. A bald, shriveled head with red eyes stared up. It's skin was translucent, almost like that of an albino, yet it had not a trace of hair on its face. It screeched like a new born baby, showing razor sharp teeth that grew in three jagged rows on the top of its mouth and two large canine incisors protruding from the bottom of the mouth. The thing covered its eyes from the light and scuttled down into the dark recesses of the hole. Terry stood in silent shock unable to move, even when Linda came down the cellar steps to tell him his food was getting cold.

He decided not to tell Linda what he had seen. It wouldn't be fair. She would just want to leave the house immediately, and he knew they couldn't afford to do that. No, he had to deal with this...this......thing, whichever way he could.

After they had finished supper, the children got ready for bed, and Linda decided to draw a bath, with Terry making the excuse that he had a few odd jobs he wanted to do down in the cellar. Just the thought of the cellar made his skin crawl, and he loathed to go back down there, but he had his family to think about. That thing looked nasty. He tried to reason that it could very well be a rat that had mutated into something else.

A figure suddenly jumped up out of the shadows and went straight for Terry's throat, the impact pushing him back so that he lost his balance and landed with a crash onto the cellar floor. The creature was upon him, teeth snarling, glowing blood-red eyes glaring at him with such intense hatred that Terry felt himself urinate in fright. The creature's hands were clasped tightly around Terry's neck slowly choking him. Terry had lost the hammer in the fall, but still had hold of the torch. He swung it over, and the beam of light bathed the creature in its unnatural glow. The creature screamed as if in agony and immediately leapt off Terry and ran across the cellar towards the hole. Terry had at this point regained some of his composure and went in hot pursuit. He managed to grab the creature's leg before it could get into the hole. He yanked it hard, sliding the small body on the floor towards him while raising his torch like a club. He swung it onto the creatures head with such force that it split the thing's head open like a ripe tomato. Its white hairless head turned crimson from the blood which gushed from the wound. Terry hit it again, this time across its body which appeared to be covered in a thick matted black fur which ended just above the knee. The little body lay still. Terry breathed heavily with the effort and sat on his haunches staring wildly at the creature lying on the ground.

He reached for the bin liners and took one, which he put on top of the creature. Then he took another, opened it and scooped the thing into the bag as quickly as he could. He felt bile rising to his lips, and he looked down at his urine sodden jeans. This was going to be a tough one to explain to Linda, he thought. As he stood up, he bent to pick up the torch, when suddenly it was whipped away from him. Before he knew what was happening, his torch was sliding towards the hole. It was then he noticed a piece of string attached to the torch that was pulling it into the hole. Before he had a chance to retrieve it, the torch disappeared into the darkness. A darkness that now enveloped the whole cellar. Terry could not see, but he could hear things. Scuttling things, brushing against his leg, he leapt back trying to feel his way out of the cellar. However something was pulling at his legs. Small hands, with claws, many of them, pulling, tugging until he lost balance and fell once more to the ground.

He reached the cellar door and saw his mother lying face down on the cellar floor at the bottom of the stairs. He ran down and stooped to turn her over, he screamed loudly. His mothers face had been torn off. He looked up and saw lying on the cellar floor further up the remains of his father. Russell's screams turned to tears, and he sobbed uncontrollably as he realized he would never see them alive again. He suddenly heard another scream. It was Janine. It seemed to be coming from....below?

He noticed at the far corner of the cellar the hole. He ran towards it, cricket bat in hand. Yes, she was definitely down there somewhere. The hole was just about big enough for him to squeeze through. Although it was pitch black his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and he could see the faint outline of the tunnel as he crawled, cricket bat in front.

He seemed to be moving downwards, although it wasn't a steep incline. He felt that this tunnel ran deep into the earth, perhaps even deeper than the sewers themselves. As he crawled onward, he noticed the sides of the tunnel widening slightly, enabling him to move more easily until the tunnel became big enough for him to kneel on all fours. Up ahead he could see a dim light, like that of a candle or a lantern. He cautiously moved towards it, holding on to the cricket bat tightly. As he crawled on he rounded a slight bend which led him to an inner chamber, almost like a small cavern. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth. The sight that stood before him was almost too unbelievable to describe. There were thirty...no maybe fifty of the albino creatures standing around Janine, who was still alive but huddled on the ground, her face buried deep in her hands, her knees drawn up to her chin. None of the creatures moved a muscle. They must have been about a foot tall, black fur matted on to their small deformed bodies. Their legs and feet were devoid of hair, as was their hands which had long ragged talons hanging from their fingertips. What disturbed Russell most of all was their blood-red eyes. Red orbs that literally glowed in the dark. Apart from a few placed candles around them, everything else was in darkness, and he realized they were probably sensitive to light.

On his own dying planet, he remembered his own family, watching them die as the planet turned from a dark cold place into a hot burning crater, a place that still remained uninhabitable but still interesting enough for humans to want to investigate it with the possibility of making it into a habitable environment. Yes, Mars was once a beautiful planet and having his name as an anagram to hide true identity made the whole thing even more ironic. He would move to another abode now; there were many more children to meet and many more adults to die.