The Floorboards Remember

The first time I ever wrote a story, I didn’t expect it to be this. But after what happened at Aunt Merle’s place, I can’t shake the need to put it down, to make sense of it. Maybe writing it out will keep it from following me home.

It was the night after New Year’s, and my cousin Rhea and I had decided to sleep over at our cousin Dale’s house. Dale, though, had gone out with his friends, leaving the place to us. The house was a two-story relic from the ’70s, sitting at the end of a gravel road that dead-ended into a thicket of pine trees. The inside was all dark wood paneling and shag carpet that smelled of dust and old cigarettes. Downstairs, the front door opened into a cramped living room with a sagging couch and a TV that only got static. Straight ahead was the kitchen, its linoleum curling at the edges. Between them, a narrow staircase climbed to the second floor, where two bedrooms faced each other across a hallway. The first was the computer room, with a bulky desktop that hummed and whirred like a trapped insect. The second, smelling of lavender sachets, was where Dale’s mom slept when she visited, and where we’d bunk for the night.

We’d both had a few beers, and Rhea was already dozing on the fold-out couch in the living room, but I was restless. I went up to the computer room to check my email, the old machine’s dial-up shrieking into the dark. The floorboards under the desk creaked with every shift of my weight. After a while, I heard it: footsteps from the bedroom above the kitchen. Not Rhea’s—she was still downstairs, I could hear her snoring. The footsteps were slow, deliberate, crossing from the door to the window, then back. I froze, listening. The sound was heavy, like someone wearing boots, and it matched the rhythm of the ancient grandfather clock in the hallway, except the clock had stopped years ago.

I told myself it was Dale’s mom’s cat, but she didn’t have a cat. I went to the hallway and peered toward the other bedroom. The door was ajar, a sliver of light spilling from inside. The footsteps stopped. I stood there, heart thumping, for what felt like minutes. Then, from inside, a voice—not Rhea’s, not Dale’s—said, ‘You’re not supposed to be up here.’ I didn’t wait to see who it was. I bolted downstairs, nearly tripping over Rhea on the couch. She woke with a start, and I grabbed her arm, dragging her toward the kitchen. ‘What is it?’ she slurred, but I couldn’t speak. I just pointed upstairs, where I could now hear the footsteps again, faster, moving toward the staircase.

We didn’t wait for an explanation. We grabbed our coats and ran out into the cold, gravel-bitten night. The house sat dark behind us, and as we reached the car, I looked back. In the second-story window, the one above the kitchen, there was a silhouette. It was tall, too tall, with a head that brushed the ceiling. It didn’t move. It just watched. Rhea saw it too, and she let out a whimper. We drove off without a word, the headlights carving through the pines.

Later, at an all-night diner, Rhea told me the story Dale had mentioned once, about a previous owner who had hanged himself in that upstairs bedroom, leaving the floorboards permanently dented from his boots kicking. The house had been sold cheap, and no one stayed long. I didn’t sleep for days. I kept seeing that silhouette, and every time I close my eyes, I hear those footsteps, slow and heavy, crossing the floor above my head. The floorboards remember, and they don’t forget the price of being there after midnight.