The Locked Attic Door

I’m Aurora, and I share this account with my older brother, Julian. We’ve had our share of unexplained events, but the one that still gnaws at me happened in the autumn we moved into a creaking Victorian house in the outskirts of Salem, Oregon. The house had been on the market for years, and the realtor’s smile was too tight when she handed us the keys. The moment we stepped inside, a chill ran down my spine, and I knew we were not alone.

Julian and I were exploring the upper floor when we found a small door, almost hidden behind a heavy wardrobe in the hallway. It was padlocked, and the key was nowhere to be found. Our mother, ever the pragmatist, dismissed it as a forgotten storage space and told us to ignore it. But that night, I woke to a sound that made my blood run cold: a rhythmic scratching, like nails on wood, coming from behind the attic door. It was as if something was trying to get out.

The next morning, I told Julian, and he admitted he’d heard it too. We decided to pick the lock, a simple task for Julian, and when the door swung open, we were met with a narrow, dusty staircase leading up into darkness. The air was thick with the smell of mothballs and old paper. At the top, we found a room cluttered with forgotten furniture, a rocking chair that swayed on its own, and a child’s drawing pinned to the wall: a stick figure with hollow black eyes, and the words ‘Don’t let it out’ scrawled beneath.

We laughed it off, but that night, the scratching was louder, more frantic. I crept to the attic door, my heart pounding, and pressed my ear against the wood. A voice, thin and reedy, whispered from within: ‘Let me out, it’s so dark.’ I stumbled back, and when I looked again, the door was ajar, the padlock lying on the floor as if it had never been locked. Julian was asleep, and I didn’t dare go upstairs alone.

The next days were a blur of unease. I started having nightmares of a woman with long black hair, her face a mask of sorrow, trailing her fingers along the walls. One night, I woke to find the attic door wide open, and a faint light flickering at the top of the stairs. I called for Julian, and he came running, his face pale. Together, we crept up the stairs, and there, in the middle of the room, stood a figure, its back to us. It turned slowly, and I saw the face of the woman from my dreams, but her eyes were not eyes; they were voids. She pointed a trembling finger at the drawing on the wall, and the words had changed: ‘You let it out. Now it’s in you.’

We fled the house the next morning, leaving everything behind. But as we drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the woman standing in the upstairs window, her hand pressed against the glass. Julian put his hand on my shoulder, and I saw that his eyes, too, were becoming hollow, like ink spilling into milk. I screamed, and he screamed with a voice that was not his, a voice that echoed from the attic we had escaped. The road stretched ahead, but I knew: the attic door was open, and the house had followed us home.