The Disc in the Attic

I’d been seeing Dana for three months when she invited me to her grandmother’s old farmhouse for the weekend. The house itself was a relic of a bygone era, all creaking floorboards and drafty windows, but it had a charm that felt almost alive. Dana’s grandmother had passed two years ago, and Dana had inherited the place, though she rarely spent time there. She said it held too many memories, some of them not so pleasant.

Friday evening, after we’d unpacked, Dana was rummaging through a box of CDs she’d brought from her apartment. ‘That’s weird,’ she said, holding up a tarnished silver disc. ‘This is my dad’s old Stones album. I thought I left it at home.’

I frowned. ‘Maybe you brought it by accident?’

‘No, I remember putting it in the case in my bedroom. It’s been there for months.’ She set the disc on the kitchen counter, and I could see the unease flicker in her eyes. I tried to brush it off, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

Later that night, I decided to take a shower in the old claw-foot tub. The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, and the door didn’t quite close properly. I turned the water on, letting it heat up, and stepped in. The rush of water filled the room, and I stood under the spray, letting the warmth soothe my nerves.

Then I heard it: a distinct, low rumble of a toilet flushing from somewhere else in the house. But the bathroom was the only one with a working toilet; the other was a clunky, rusted thing that hadn’t worked in years. I froze, the water beating against my back, my heart pounding. I dared not turn around. I knew, with a sickening certainty, that if I looked back, the shower curtain would be pulled aside, and something would be standing there, dripping wet.

I stayed like that for a minute, the water streaming over me, until the sound of the shower curtain rings being pulled across the rod made me flinch. I craned my neck, and through the steam, I saw the curtain slightly ajar, as if someone had just peeked in and retreated. I quickly finished, shut the water off, and wrapped a towel around me. I ran out of the bathroom, my bare feet wet on the cold floor, and found Dana in the kitchen, staring at the CD.

‘Did you hear that?’ I asked, my voice shaking.

‘Hear what?’ she said, not looking away from the disc.

I told her about the toilet, and she just shrugged. ‘This old house has a lot of creaks and groans. It’s probably just the pipes.’ But I could tell she was trying to calm herself as much as me.

Saturday, we spent the day exploring the attic. It was filled with dusty boxes, old furniture, and a layer of grime that seemed to cling to everything. Dana was searching for her grandmother’s costume jewelry, but instead, she found a stack of vinyl records in a mildewed crate. Among them was a single cassette tape, unlabeled except for a date written in marker: ‘April 12, 1998.’

‘That’s weird,’ Dana said, picking it up. ‘My dad used to record himself playing guitar on tapes like this. He died when I was nine.’ She looked at the date. ‘This is a couple years before I was born.’

I took the tape from her. The plastic was sticky with aged adhesive. ‘Should we play it?’ I asked.

She nodded, and we carried it downstairs to the old stereo in the living room. I pushed the cassette in, and the player whirred to life. There was silence for a moment, then a soft, acoustic guitar began to play a melancholy melody. It was beautiful, haunting. Then a voice, barely above a whisper, began to sing words I couldn’t quite make out. It faded in and out, like a radio signal losing transmission.

Dana’s eyes welled up. ‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘That’s my dad.’ We listened to the entire tape, and when it ended, we sat in silence, the weight of the past pressing down on us.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the tape, about the fact that it had been in the attic for years, untouched. What was it doing there? And why did I feel like someone was watching us from the shadows?

I got up for a glass of water, and as I passed the living room, I saw the lights flicker. The stereo was on, the cassette player deck blinking. I walked closer, and the tape began to play on its own. The same melody, but this time, the voice was different. It was not Dana’s father; it was a woman’s voice, and she was saying, in a cracked, faltering tone, ‘I’m still here. I’m still here.’

I froze, my blood cold. The voice seemed to come from the speakers, but it also seemed to resonate from the walls, from the floor, from inside my head. I turned to run, but the hallway was longer than it should have been, and the darkness at the end seemed to pulse with a malevolent breath.

I shouted for Dana, and she came running out of the bedroom, her face pale. ‘What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘It’s the tape,’ I stammered. ‘It played by itself.’

The tape had stopped, the player now silent. Dana looked at it, then at me, and I could see real fear in her eyes. ‘We have to get out of here,’ she said.

But it was too late. The lights went out, plunging us into blackness. I felt a hand grip my wrist, icy and strong, and a voice whispered in my ear, ‘You shouldn’t have played it.’

I screamed, and Dana screamed too, and we fumbled for each other in the dark. The hand let go, and we scrambled to the front door. We yanked it open, and cold night air hit us. We ran to the car, and I gunned the engine, speeding down the dirt driveway without looking back.

We drove for hours, not stopping until dawn. We haven’t gone back since. The house is still there, waiting. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I hear that voice again: ‘I’m still here.’ I can still feel that icy hand on my wrist, a permanent reminder that some things are better left unplayed.