The Pram in the Attic

I moved to the small coastal town of Marwick Bay in the middle of winter. The rental was a narrow, three-story Victorian house that had been converted into flats, and I had the top floor. The landlord, a weathered man named Mr. Thorne, warned me about the floorboards. ‘They creak something fierce, especially in the attic,’ he said, handing me the key. ‘The last tenant had a baby, and that pram was a nightmare to get up those stairs. You might hear it rolling around sometimes.’

I laughed it off, thinking he had a quirky sense of humor. The first week was quiet, apart from the usual settling sounds of an old house. But on the second weekend, as I was reading in bed, I heard it: a rhythmic rattle, like wheels on wooden planks, coming from above. The attic was directly over my bedroom, and the sound moved from one end to the other, then back again. It stopped abruptly, as if someone had lifted the pram.

I told myself it was the pipes or maybe a stray cat. But it happened every night at the same time, around 2 AM. I got up and crept to the attic door. It was locked, but I could see a sliver of light under it. The rattling grew more frantic, then stopped. I pressed my ear to the door and heard a soft, hiccuping sob, like a baby trying to cry but muffled.

My friend, a curator at the local museum, told me about the house’s history. It had been a family home in the 1920s, and the wife died in childbirth. The husband, overcome with grief, kept the baby in the attic with the pram, but one night he left it by the window, and the cold got in. The baby died too, and the husband went mad, nailing the attic door shut. They said he never left, and the pram has been rolling ever since, searching for warmth.

I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I couldn’t shake the sound. I contacted a medium who came to the house. She went pale and said, ‘It’s not the pram you hear. It’s the mother’s heart, still beating for the child. She can’t rest. She wants you to open the attic and let her child go, but you must be careful. The father is still there too, and he’s jealous.’

That night, I decided to climb through the attic window from the outside, using a ladder I’d borrowed. The window was jammed, but I forced it open. Inside, the attic was a dusty archive of old furniture. And there, in the corner, was a pram, heaped with a moth-eaten blanket. The wheels had a layer of dust, but as I watched, they turned slowly by themselves, a quarter turn, then stopped. A cold draft made the blanket ripple, and I heard a baby’s gurgle, followed by deep, ragged breathing.

I reached down to touch the blanket, and a hand shot out, gripping my wrist with a strength that was not human. A woman’s face, half-rotted, appeared from under the blanket, her eyes wild. ‘My baby,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t take my baby.’ I screamed and pulled back, but she held on. I managed to break free and tumbled out the attic window, falling onto the roof below.

I lay there, gasping, and heard the pram wheels start to roll, this time faster, rattling across the attic floor, coming towards the open window. I scrambled to the edge, climbed down the ladder, and as I drove away that night, I looked back. In the attic window, I saw a figure silhouetted—a man’s shape, headless, holding a pram.

The next tenants reported the same noise, and the house has a reputation now. I never went back, but sometimes, even here, miles away, I hear that rattling and a baby’s cry. I know it’s not my imagination. The pram is still looking for its mother, and the mother is still looking for her child. And they will never stop.