Four ways

John found himself trapped in the basement. His only companions were dust, darkness and despair. At the door above, he could hear the nails of the things that wanted to eat him scratching at the door.

He found the lighter in his pocket and brought a tiny flame to life. The light was a small comfort, but more importantly revealed that, tucked into a corner of what could be his tomb, there was a large gun safe.

He’d cracked harder safes than this one. He just needed the one thing he had very little of: time.

He flung himself against the cold steel of the safe and pressed his ear above the dial. He turned the device back and forth, listening for the discreet clicks that would let him know he’d gotten part of the combination.

The first number came almost immediately: 12.

Above, the door was beginning to crack.

“C’mon, c’mon,” John muttered, and his plea was rewarded with the second number: 6.

His relief was short lived, however, as he heard the thin wooden barrier above snap as a clawed hand reached through.

He needed five more minutes. That was all. But he didn’t have it.

But he had a guess. Six was half of twelve, so maybe he’d kept the pattern.

Spinning it to 12, then 6, then 3, he grabbed the handle and tore it open.

He took a deep breath, for inside he found….

Action:
…more guns than he knew what to do with. He reached for a revolver hanging in a leather holster on the door. He opened the cylinder and found the chambers loaded with shiny, new .357 magnum shells.

“This day is looking up,” he said as he turned and shot the first horror to breech the door right between the eyes.

Horror:
…only more dust. A few empty boxes of ammunition were on one shelf, but otherwise, there was no sign the safe had ever contained it’s intended cargo.

He fell to his knees, not knowing he was weeping until he heard a tear hit the concrete floor. He wondered how he could hear such a thing, over the destruction of the door.

Then he realized there were no more sounds of wood being rent asunder. He got out his lighter and lit it, turning slowly to see if his pursuers had made it inside.

He could not even bring himself to scream when one of them smiled and blew it out.

Mystery:
…a message scrawled on the back that said, “John, Take it and meet us in the gas station on third and main. -Your Friends”.

“I’ve never been in this house,” he said. “How the hell did anyone know I’d be here?”

The scream of the things that had been pursuing him from the lab finally making it into the door brought him back to the moment.

The only item in the safe was a pump action 12 gauge, but there were over forty shells tucked into the slots on it’s sling. That would be enough to keep him alive until he could make it to the address, he was sure.

He took it up, racked the slide and said, “Time to find out what’s really going on.”

Urban Fantasy:
…a wooden door where the back of the safe should have been. It was adorned with sigils and runes he’d seen in the book back at the mansion, but he still didn’t know what they meant.

What he didn’t find were guns. The fact that there was a door was less comforting that guns would have been, but still it meant there was a way out. He tried pulling on the large, iron ring on the door’s face, but it did not open.

As he heard the other door at the top of the stairs crack and splinter, panic struck him. He pounded on the door and screamed, “Help! Please help me.”

Light flooded the room as the door in the safe opened from the other side. The girl from the truck stop poked her head out, an impish smile on her lips. Pushing one raven lock away from her eyes, she said, “About time you asked.”

She offered him her hand. John took it. She pulled him through, the wooden door and the safe door closing behind them.

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This originally was going to be something about a line or two long with the horror and action examples only, but I got a little carried away.