The Hollow Addition

Before I turned ten, we lived in a house that had been stitched together by my grandfather and my uncles. They’d tacked on a bedroom and a living room, sloppy but serviceable, and the place creaked like an old ship at sea. I remember the cold draft that always came from the new wing, no matter how many blankets we piled on.

It started when I was twelve, on a Saturday morning. I was in the bathroom, splashing water on my face, when I heard footsteps overhead. The ceiling above the bathroom was the floor of the guest room, the one no one used. I figured it was my older brother, Mark, who had his own place but still had a key. He liked to drop by unannounced to raid our fridge. But then I realized I never heard his truck or the iron door slamming, which was impossible to miss. That door always slammed unless you caught it just right. I shrugged it off, thinking maybe he’d come in while I was running water.

Two weeks later, I heard it again. This time I was in my room, reading, and the footsteps were heavier, like boots. They went from one end of the guest room to the other, then stopped. I called out, ‘Mark?’ No answer. The house settled into that familiar dead quiet. Later that night, my mom asked me at dinner, ‘Did you hear footsteps today?’ I froze. She had a pale, haunted look. I lied and said no. She nodded, but I could tell she was scared. She never brought it up again.

Then my grandmother moved in with us. She took the guest room because it was on the ground floor and she couldn’t climb stairs. The first night she was there, I was brushing my teeth when I heard her voice, low and urgent, coming from her room. I tiptoed to her door and pressed my ear to it. She was talking to someone, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then a man’s voice replied, rough and low. I didn’t recognize it. My grandfather had been dead for years. I knocked. The voices stopped. Grandma opened the door, looking tired but normal. ‘What is it?’ she asked. I said I heard talking. She said, ‘I was praying.’ But she never prayed out loud like that.

A week later, my mom and I were watching TV in the living room when we heard a thud and a cry from my grandmother’s room. We ran in. She was on the floor, gripping her chest, her eyes wide. ‘He’s under the bed,’ she gasped. ‘He’s been there since I moved in.’ We helped her up, and I got down on my knees to look under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies. My mom shot me a look that said, ‘It’s the old age talking.’ But my grandmother was as lucid as ever.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about what she’d said. Around 3 AM, I heard footsteps again. They weren’t overhead this time. They were right outside my bedroom door. Slow, deliberate. I held my breath. The footsteps stopped. The doorknob jiggled slightly. I whispered, ‘Who’s there?’ Silence. Then a voice, barely a whisper, but clear: ‘The floor is hollow.’ I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next day, I told my mom about the voice. She turned white. ‘I was going to tell you,’ she said, ‘but I was afraid you’d think I was losing it. A few nights ago, I heard footsteps too. And then a voice said, ‘There’s something under the floorboards.’ I thought I dreamed it.’

We decided to investigate. My mom, my grandmother, and me. We lifted the edge of the carpet in the guest room. Underneath were old, wide pine boards. One of them was loose. My mom pried it up. Beneath it was a gaping void, dark and massive, like a pocket in the earth under the house. In the corner lay a bundle of rags wrapped around something. My mom reached in and pulled it out. It was a child’s shoe, worn leather, with a rusty buckle. And a small, tarnished locket. She opened it. Inside was a faded photograph of a boy I’d never seen.

We took the locket to my grandmother. She stared at it, recognition dawning. ‘My little brother, Tommy,’ she whispered. ‘He died when we were kids. My father built this house on the spot where he’d buried his favorite dog. Tommy always said the dog’s spirit was in the walls. When he passed, my father sealed his things under the floorboards to keep him close.’ She looked at us. ‘But he never buried Tommy. He buried his shoes.’

As she spoke, the footsteps returned. They were unmistakable now, padding from the guest room into the hallway, then down the hall toward us. The air grew cold, and a faint scent of whiskey and dust filled the room. My grandmother clutched the locket. ‘He’s been waiting for his shoes,’ she said. ‘He can’t leave without them.’

We stayed still, listening. The footsteps stopped in our doorway. I felt a cold draft brush past me, like someone walking through. Then the locket snapped open in my grandmother’s hand. The photograph fluttered out, and as it fell, it seemed to dissolve into dust. The footsteps began again, but they were fading, growing quieter, as if walking away. Then silence.

We never heard the footsteps again. My grandmother passed away peacefully a few months later. Before she died, she told me, ‘He finally went home. The floor isn’t hollow anymore.’

We never opened that floorboard again. Some things should stay buried. And the house fell quiet, except for the settling of old wood, and the occasional creak of a floorboard that had never moved before. I always wondered if it was just the house, or if something else was still there, waiting for its own release. I moved out ten years after that, but I never forgot the sound of those footsteps, or the emptiness they left behind.