The Room at the Top of the Stairs

November 13, 2012

by Syble

3 min read

Story Premise 3 min read (477 words)

"My sister-in-law, Diane, had just inherited a house from a distant uncle she barely knew. The place was a fixer-upper, but the price was right—almost too right. Our family gathered to inspect it, hoping to turn it into a vacation home. As we pulled up, the house loomed against a gray sky, its paint peeling […]"

My sister-in-law, Diane, had just inherited a house from a distant uncle she barely knew. The place was a fixer-upper, but the price was right—almost too right. Our family gathered to inspect it, hoping to turn it into a vacation home. As we pulled up, the house loomed against a gray sky, its paint peeling like dead skin, and the porch sagged as if tired of holding its own weight.

Inside, debris crunched underfoot: shattered glass, torn paper, and sticky stains that made my skin crawl. The previous occupant had been a hoarder, maybe worse. I carried my three-year-old son, Eli, because the floor was treacherous. Eli was usually a chatterbox, but here he was quiet, his small hands gripping my shoulders.

We moved from room to room, the air thick with dust and the smell of decay. My unease grew with each step, but I attributed it to the filth and the eerie quiet. Then we reached the staircase. It was a narrow, winding thing with a crooked banister. Eli stiffened, his little body going rigid. ‘No, Daddy. Don’t go up. Please, no.’ His voice was high and trembling.

I tried to soothe him, ‘It’s just the upstairs, buddy. We’ll be quick.’ But he started to thrash, his feet kicking against my hips, his hands tugging at my collar. ‘No! Bad up there! Want to go bye-bye!’ His screams echoed in the hollow space. Diane and my brother looked at me with concern, but I figured it was just a toddler’s whim.

Reluctantly, I carried him up, his protests turning into whimpers. At the top was a narrow hallway with two doors, one at each end. The windows at the ends let in weak, gray light, casting long shadows. I turned my back to one window, trying to calm Eli. He was clawing at my shirt, sobbing, ‘No, no, no go.’

Suddenly, a cold draft swept through the hall, and the door at the far end creaked open. It was then I saw it—a child’s hand, small and pale, reaching out from the darkness of the room, fingers curling as if beckoning. My blood turned to ice. Eli’s cries grew louder, and I stumbled backward, almost falling down the stairs.

I didn’t stop to explain. I ran, clutching Eli to my chest, shouting for everyone to get out. We piled into the car, and as we sped away, I looked back at the house. In the window of that room, I saw a small silhouette, a child’s figure watching us leave.

We never went back, and Diane sold the house at a loss. But at night, I still hear Eli’s voice in my dreams, whispering, ‘Bad up there.’ And sometimes, when I look out my own window, I think I see that pale hand, reaching out from the darkness.

Related Horror Movies to Watch

Clubbing to Death

2008

Home for Rent

2024

Time of Moulting

2020

The Meat Puppet

2012

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Celestial Liner

In the autumn of my forty-second year, I took a job as a night auditor at the Grand Meridian Hotel, a crumbling Art Deco relic perched on the edge of the industrial district. The city was a sprawl of steel and glass, but the Grand Meridian was a ghost of a bygone era, its marble […]

The Hollow Cradle

The first time it happened, I thought I was dreaming. I was in that heavy, half-awake state where the world is soft at the edges, and I could hear a baby crying. Not my baby—I don’t have any—but a wailing, desperate cry that seemed to come from the walls of our new house. I blinked […]

The Clockwork Man

The house on Maple Street was only ten years old, but it had a way of feeling ancient. My family moved in when I was three, and I remember my first night there, lying in my crib, staring at the ceiling. The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of a nightlight shaped […]

The Farmhouse on Larkspur Lane

Growing up, my brother Adrian and I spent every summer at our grandparents’ orchard in the valley. The house was old, with creaking floorboards and walls that seemed to breathe. From the time we were six, we knew we weren’t alone. We’d hear soft humming from the attic, see a woman in a white dress […]

The Static Between Rooms

When I was a baby, my mother would place me in my crib with a baby monitor on the nightstand. She said that every time she left the room, the monitor would hiss with static, and through that hiss she heard a child’s wail—not my cry, but something mimicking it. She’d rush back to find […]

The Cellar Static

The first time I noticed something was wrong was when our new ceiling fan in the living room just… stopped. No grind, no wobble, just a sudden silence, like it had been holding its breath and finally let go. It was a Friday, and I remember because I’d been dusting the blades that morning, and […]

The Lantern Man

Marla had lived in the old farmhouse at the end of Cedar Lane for eleven years, ever since she inherited it from her grandmother. The first few years were peaceful, save for the usual creaks and groans of a century-old structure. She chalked up the occasional flickering lights or the sound of footsteps in the […]

The Windmill Keeper’s Bargain

The old Stroud family had always warned us about the windmill on the hill. Not the one that still turned, but the one that had been in ruins since before the war. They said it was cursed, that the Keeper who once watched over it had made a pact with something that lived in the […]

The Night the Lamps Died

The town of Saltmarsh always smelled of brine and decay, but on the night the lamps died, that smell seemed to cling to everything like a shroud. I was thirty-one when I finally understood what happened to me as a child, but the memory had never left. I was nine, living with my mother in […]

The Saffron Scent

My mother inherited the old farmhouse after my grandfather’s passing. It was a lonely place, perched on a windswept hill, surrounded by dry grass that whispered in the breeze. She had moved us there to start over, but the house felt heavy, as if it held its breath. The air inside was thick with the […]

The Bone Gate

The first thing I noticed was the cold. Not the sharp bite of autumn, but a damp, cellar chill that seemed to seep from the walls themselves. I was seventeen, and we had just moved into a sprawling Victorian on the edge of a small, fog-choked town named Greyhaven. My mother, ever the optimist, had […]

The Fourth of July Incident

Every summer, my siblings and I gather at our mother’s farmhouse in the rolling hills of central Missouri. We’re all in our thirties now, with kids of our own, but we still cling to the tradition of a long weekend at the old homestead. The first night is always the best: after dinner, we drag […]