The Chalk Man on the Landing

I was twenty-five when my grandmother passed, and cleaning out her attic in the old farmhouse outside of Millbrook, I found a box of my childhood drawings. Among the crayon suns and stick figures, there was a series of chalk drawings on black paper, all of a tall, thin man with hollow eyes, standing on a staircase landing. I didn’t remember drawing them, but the style was unmistakably mine. My grandmother had annotated the back of each: ‘March ’98: Danny drew this after waking up screaming.’ ‘June ’98: Danny drew this after the night-light went out.’ ‘September ’98: Danny drew this after he said the man was waiting.’ I felt a cold prickle on my neck. I had no memory of these incidents, but the drawings were dated right around the time we moved into the house on Aspen Street, when I was seven. My mother, a woman with an unshakable belief in the spiritual world, had always said that house was ‘wrong.’ She had seen things there, heard things. But I had blocked it all out, until now.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The memory of the drawings itched at me. I decided to drive back to my childhood home, now abandoned and for sale. The key was still under the loose brick by the porch, as if waiting. The house creaked and groaned, full of dustsheets and the smell of decay. I walked up the creaking stairs, my flashlight beam cutting through the dark. As I reached the landing, I stopped. Something felt familiar, too familiar. Then I saw it: a chalk drawing, fresh and white, on the wall at the top of the stairs. It was the same tall, thin man, but now he was stepping out of the chalk, his arm extended, reaching for me. My breath caught. It was just a drawing, just a child’s scary picture. But then it moved.

The chalk man’s head turned, and his hollow eyes fixed on me. He smiled, a wide, jagged smile, and stepped off the wall, leaving a chalky dust behind. The landing grew cold, and the air thickened. I backed away, but my foot caught on a loose floorboard, and I fell. He stood over me, his thin form looming, and I could smell old chalk and dust. He opened his mouth, and a whisper of dust blew out. ‘I’ve been waiting,’ he whispered, the voice like dry leaves skittering across a floor. ‘You left me here.’ I scrambled backwards, but he just watched. ‘You tried to forget me, but I’m part of this house. Part of you.’

My mother’s words echoed in my mind: ‘He’s a doorway, sweetie, not just a ghost. He’s what comes when you open a door that should stay shut.’ I realized then that the chalk drawings weren’t just drawings; they were a record, a map of something I had summoned as a child. I had opened a door on that landing, and I had forgotten to close it. Now, he was free. I ran down the stairs, the sound of chalk scraping behind me. I burst through the front door into the cool night air, and I didn’t stop running until I reached my car. I drove away without looking back, but in my rearview mirror, I saw the upstairs window, and in it, a tall, thin silhouette, watching. And on the passenger seat, I found a piece of chalk, covered in dust, and scratched into the dashboard was the word: ‘DRAW.’

I haven’t slept since. I know he’s not done with me. He’s waiting for me to finish what I started. And every night, I see that landing, and I feel the chalk in my hand, and I wonder if I’m the artist, or the drawing.