The Hollow Room Above

I was sixteen, that summer my mother shipped me off to my father’s house in the dusty foothills of New Mexico. She called it a ‘visitation,’ but we both knew it was a reprieve—from her, from her constant criticism, from the suffocating silence that filled our apartment whenever she was home. My dad had remarried when I was eight, and he had three kids with his new wife, all younger than me. My half-sister, Elena, had the room at the end of the hall, the one with the door that never quite closed right. From the moment I arrived, I felt it—a weight in the air, a cold patch on the floorboards, a sense that something was listening just beyond the threshold.

The house itself was a sprawling adobe ranch, the kind with thick walls and small windows that kept the heat out but also kept things in. My dad was a practical man, a geologist who believed in the tangible, the measurable. He dismissed my unease with a wave of his hand, saying, ‘It’s just the desert, son. Makes people jumpy.’ But even his wife, Rosa, would avoid Elena’s room, always finding an excuse to pass by quickly, her gaze averted. I tried to ask Elena if she felt it too, but she just shrugged, her eyes darting to the ceiling, and changed the subject.

One afternoon, my dad and Rosa had to drive into town for supplies, leaving me, my half-sister, and my younger brother, Mateo, alone in the house. The sun was high, bleaching the sky to a pale white, and inside, the shadows seemed to pool in corners. I was in the living room, trying to read a book, but my skin prickled with a constant, inexplicable dread. Elena was in her room, supposedly doing homework, and Mateo was on the back porch, playing with his action figures.

Then it started: a heavy thud, followed by another, and another. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, directly above us. The ceiling creaked as something paced back and forth in Elena’s room. But I was in the living room, and Elena’s room was right above me. My heart hammered. I called out, ‘Elena? You okay?’ No answer. The footsteps continued, each one sending a tremor through the floorboards.

I ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time, but when I reached the top, the hallway was empty, the door to Elena’s room slightly ajar. I pushed it open. Elena was sitting on her bed, reading a comic book, looking up at me with wide eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘I heard footsteps,’ I said. She frowned. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’ But the moment I stepped into the room, the air grew cold, and I saw the closet door was open, revealing a darkness so absolute it seemed to swallow light. I felt a pull, like a whisper against my ear, but there was no voice. I backed out, my heart racing.

Downstairs, Mateo had come in, his face pale. ‘I heard it too,’ he whispered. ‘It was walking heavy, like it was wearing boots.’ He pointed to the ceiling. We both stood in the living room, staring up. Then the footsteps started again, but this time they were accompanied by a faint, rhythmic scraping, as if something was being dragged across the floor above.

We decided to wait outside, on the porch, until my dad came back. We huddled on the steps, the hot desert wind not doing anything to warm the chill that had settled in my bones. When my dad’s truck finally pulled into the driveway, he found us sitting there, silent and shaken. I tried to explain, but he just laughed. ‘It’s the old house settling,’ he said. ‘Nothing to be scared of.’

But that night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my bed, listening to the hum of the air conditioner, when I heard it again—the footsteps, right above my head. My room was on the ground floor, but directly above me was Elena’s room. I got up, my legs trembling, and went to the stairs. This time, I didn’t call out. I crept up, each step a creak, and when I reached the top, I saw the door to Elena’s room was wide open, and a figure stood silhouetted against the moonlight streaming through the window. It was tall, gaunt, and it turned its head slowly, fixing me with eyes that were empty, black pits. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. It took a step toward me, and the floorboards groaned under its weight.

I turned and ran, stumbling down the stairs, out the front door, into the cold desert night. I didn’t stop until I was in the middle of the yard, my heart pounding, gasping for air. When I looked back at the house, the window of Elena’s room was dark, and I could see, just for a moment, a pale face pressed against the glass, watching me. Then it was gone.

The next morning, my dad found me on the porch, wrapped in a blanket, shaking. He listened, this time, his face growing serious. He went up to Elena’s room alone, and when he came back down, his expression was grim. He told us we were going to stay at a motel in town for a few days. He never said what he found in that room, but he never doubted me again. We moved out of that house a month later, and I never looked back. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I still hear those heavy footsteps, pacing just above my head, and I know that no matter how far I run, that hollow room in the desert will always be waiting for me to return.