The Bottom of the Stairs

My brother Leo and I were sorting through a box of old photographs in my parents’ attic when he brought it up. We were both in our late teens now, and the house we’d grown up in was just a memory, but the look on Leo’s face told me he’d never quite let it go. He picked up a picture of me, around seven years old, standing in front of our old house on Cedar Lane, and he got this distant, uneasy look. ‘Remember how Mom used to call me from downstairs?’ he said, not really looking at me. I shrugged, because I did remember, but it was just a normal thing, a mother calling her son for dinner. But then Leo said, ‘She wasn’t home, Evan. And it wasn’t just Mom. It was Nan too. And sometimes it was Granddad, but he never visited more than once.’

I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach. Because I had my own memories of that house, and I’d always chalked them up to a kid’s overactive imagination. The bathroom at the top of the stairs was the worst. Whenever I was in there, I’d hear my mother’s voice, clear as day, calling my name from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Evan, come down here.’ It was so vivid, so distinct, that I’d often answer back, and when I got no response, I’d open the door, expecting to see her standing there, but the hallway would be empty. The thing is, my mother worked nights, and my nan was usually in the kitchen, and my granddad was in another country. So who was calling me?

I never told anyone about it, because I thought I was going crazy. But hearing Leo say he had the same experience made me feel a strange mix of relief and dread. We started comparing notes, and it got weird fast. Leo said he not only heard Mom and Nan, but also his best friend, Danny, who used to live across the street. Danny would call Leo’s name from outside his bedroom window, and Leo would look out, but no one was there. Once, Leo even went downstairs and out the front door, and the street was empty, not a soul in sight. And the voice kept calling, ‘Leo, come here,’ from the direction of the neighbor’s house. He said it felt like something was trying to lure him away.

I decided to look up the old house online, just out of curiosity. I found out that a family had moved in right after we left, but they only stayed a few years. Then another family, and another. The house had a high turnover, and I found a news article from about twelve years ago about a child who went missing from that exact address. The kid was five years old, and he wandered off from the backyard, and they never found him. The parents were frantic, searches were done, but nothing. They eventually moved away. That article sent a chill through me, because I remembered something from when I was about eight. I was playing in the backyard, which was mostly just a patch of weedy grass. And I heard my mother’s voice, ‘Evan, come here,’ from the back fence line. I walked toward it, and I remember the fence was old and gray, and there was a gap at the bottom. I knelt down, and I saw something on the other side. I couldn’t make it out, but it was dark and moved, and I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I screamed, but it was just my nan, who had come out to check on me. She said I was staring at a hole under the fence, and I was shaking. I told her I heard Mom calling me, and she got real quiet and said, ‘Your mother is at work, love.’

That memory came back to me with terrifying clarity. I realized that the voice was never just in the house. It was outside too. And it was always trying to get me to come to it. The night Leo and I talked, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the missing kid. I had a sudden, sickening thought: what if the calls were the echoes of that child, or worse, whatever took him? And what if it had been calling to us all along, mimicking the voices of people we trusted?

I pulled up a map of the area around the old house. I saw that the backyard, which was just a small patch, actually butted up against a patch of woods that had been there for ages. And I remembered that there was an old well at the edge of the woods, covered with a rotted wooden lid. I’d discovered it once when we were playing, but I never got close. Leo said he remembered it too, and we both got the same idea: maybe that well was the source. Maybe the missing child had fallen in years ago, and what was down there was still calling, using our loved ones’ voices to lure us closer.

We decided to go back. The house was now vacant and half-collapsed, and the woods were more overgrown than I remembered. We found the well easily, covered in vines and moss. The wooden lid was gone, leaving a gaping dark hole. We stood at the edge, and I felt a presence, something climbing up from the depths. I heard my mother’s voice, clear as day, from the bottom of the well: ‘Evan, come down here.’ Leo heard it too, and his face went white. I looked into the hole and saw movement, a pale shape rising. I grabbed Leo’s arm and we ran. We didn’t stop until we reached the car.

As we drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw something I’ll never forget: a face at the edge of the woods, wrapped in darkness, but with two bright, too-white eyes, staring after us. And I could have sworn I heard my mother’s voice one last time, whispering my name, not from the well, but from the back seat. I don’t know if we’ve truly escaped, or if it’s still out there, waiting for the next child to call. But I know one thing: I’ll never trust a familiar voice again. Because sometimes, the ones that sound like home are the most dangerous of all.