The Porch Tape

My cousin Maren and I were staying the week at Aunt Cora’s old farmhouse, a place with weather-worn cedar siding and a wraparound porch that creaked in the wind like old bones. We were bored, rummaging through the attic, when we found a dusty cassette recorder in a shoe box. It was one of those old gray plastic ones with a chunky microphone. We decided to try it out, setting it on the screened-in back porch where the sun made weird shapes through the bug screen. We pressed record, ran back inside, and huddled by the kitchen door, listening. When we came back out, we rewound and played it. At first, all we heard was the hum of the afternoon and the scuff of our own feet as we’d left. Then, a soft thump, like a bare foot on wood. Then a whisper, too low to make out words, but it sent a chill down my spine. We looked at each other, eyes wide. The recording went on, and near the end, there was a heavy, raspy breathing, and then a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the tiny speaker. We yanked the tape out, hearts pounding.

We put in a fresh tape, determined to get something else, and this time set the recorder in the upstairs bathroom, on the edge of the claw-foot tub. We shut the door and waited in the hallway, barely breathing. When we played it back, we heard a faint, high-pitched voice, a little girl’s, clear as a bell, asking, ‘Will someone play with me? Please?’ It was echoed by the sound of a ball bouncing somewhere far away. We stared at each other. There were no children in that house. Aunt Cora and Uncle Hal were in their sixties, and we were the only kids who ever visited.

Determined to push it further, we took the recorder to the back porch again, setting it near the screen door. This time, the playback was different. A man’s voice, harsh and angry, growled, ‘You don’t belong here. Get out of my house.’ We both felt the temperature drop, and the hair on my arms stood up. But we were stubborn. We placed the recorder at the bottom of the creaky wooden stairs that led to the second floor. We pressed record, then ran to the living room, listening to the sounds from afar. When we played it back, the first minute was just the settling of an old house. Then the heavy breathing started, slow and deliberate. Then a scream, a woman’s scream, so desperate it made my blood run cold, followed by sudden silence, as if a door had been slammed shut. Then the breathing returned, heavier, louder, and we heard slow, dragging footsteps approaching the recorder, each step closer, until the audio cut off with a loud click.

We never listened to those tapes again. But the house was different after that. Every visit, I would feel eyes on me. When I was alone in the living room, Aunt Cora in the kitchen, Uncle Hal out, I would hear the sound of slow, heavy footsteps coming down the hallway behind me, and then a dragging sound, like something being pulled along the floorboards. I would turn, but no one was there. The footsteps would stop, but I felt a presence, just beyond my line of sight, waiting. And once, when I was sitting by myself, I saw the curtain sway, as if something had just brushed past it, and I heard a little girl’s voice in the next room, humming a song I didn’t know. I never told Aunt Cora, but I stopped sitting in that living room, and I never went near that back porch again. The recorder remained on the stairs, untouched, gathering dust, and I think it’s still there, waiting for someone else to press record and listen to the things that shouldn’t be heard.