The following is the second part of a two-part series. The First part was published in the October 23, 2026 edition of the San Benito News. Abel Fonseca, II, is a lifelong San Benito resident and community advocate who has served students and families for more than two decades. Through his “Heart of San Benito” series, he shares stories that celebrate the people who make the Resaca City special. He can be reached at abelfonsecaii@hotmail.com.
…I tried another idea. “What if we all go together?”
The answer was pretty much the same.
“Heck no!”
And honestly, I wasn’t too eager to go down there with them—or without them.
We had played in the dark plenty of times. We had hidden in the woods at night and laughed about scaring one another. But this was different. The darkness down those stairs seemed unlike anything we had ever encountered.
One of my friends had a small flashlight. We pointed it down into the opening, hoping to see where the stairs led.
But I remember the light not reaching the bottom as it should. We still couldn’t see far enough to make out the bottom. It was as though the darkness swallowed up the beam before it could reveal anything.
We couldn’t tell how deep the space was. We couldn’t tell whether it opened into a room or led somewhere else. We couldn’t even see enough to make sense of what we were seeing.
Then we heard the noise. It came from somewhere beyond that doorway, from the darkness below—or at least that was how it seemed to us.
I’ve never been able to describe that sound properly. It wasn’t something we recognized. It wasn’t a noise we had heard while playing outside or exploring the woods. It was strange, unfamiliar, and terrifying to a group of kids who had never heard anything like it.
Nobody wanted to investigate. Nobody wanted to be brave anymore, so we ran. We all rushed back to the side entrance, trying to get out as quickly as possible.
In the confusion, I ran straight into the hidden door we had just left. We were so scared that all we wanted was to get outside and leave the house behind.
We finally made it out. For a moment, we turned back toward the building, and there it was: the light on the house’s side was still on.
had gone inside looking for an explanation. We had explored the rooms, climbed the stairs, and found a hidden doorway that led into darkness. But we left with more questions than we had started with.
What was at the bottom of those wooden stairs? How far down did they go? Was there a room down there, or did the stairs lead somewhere else? And what was the sound we heard?
We never were able to answer those questions.
Years have passed since that night. The old house is gone, and Vicky’s Restaurant now stands where it once stood. The neighborhood has changed, and those childhood nights are long behind me, but I still remember that doorway.
I remember the narrow wooden stairs disappearing into the darkness. I remember us all going silent. I remember feeling watched before my friends even arrived.
And I remember that sound—the one that sent us all running.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to the space beneath the old house. Was it filled in when the house was torn down? Was the basement removed, or could it still be there, sealed underground?
Could an old basement lie beneath the ground where Vicky’s Restaurant stands today, alone in the darkness, holding a secret no one ever discovered?
I have no way of knowing. I never saw the bottom of those stairs, nor did I ever find out where they led.
But every now and then, I picture that hidden doorway and the narrow wooden steps. I wonder how far down they went—and what might still be buried beneath the site where that old house once stood.
Maybe there was a simple explanation for everything that happened that night. Maybe the noises came from somewhere we couldn’t identify. Maybe the darkness only seemed endless because we couldn’t see far enough.
But after all these years, I still have questions. Maybe the biggest mystery was never what we heard that night. Maybe it was what we never got to see. It was just the feeling that someone was present.
I wanted to know what was at the bottom. Part of me wanted to go down and find out, but another part of me wanted nothing to do with those stairs.
For the first time that night, I couldn’t bring myself to take another step forward.
My friends eventually came over to see what I had found. When they gathered in the doorway and looked down, everyone fell silent.
Nobody said much at first. Finally, I asked, “Who wants to go down there?”
Nobody volunteered.