The Stairwell Tape

It began the summer I house-sat for my aunt in the old mill town of Ashford. The house was a Victorian relic with a steep, narrow stairwell leading to the attic, which my aunt used for storage. She’d told me never to go up there, but of course, that only made me more curious. The first few nights were uneventful, save for the occasional creak of the old bones of the house. But on the third night, around two in the morning, I was jolted awake by a sound that was not a creak. It was a low, rhythmic hum, like a distant machine, coming from the stairwell.

I got up, heart pounding, and opened my bedroom door. The hallway was dark, but the hum was clearer now, almost like a song without words. I crept to the top of the stairs leading down to the first floor, but the sound was coming from above, from the attic. My aunt had warned me, but I was a grown man, and I’d never believed in the supernatural. I grabbed a flashlight from the nightstand and started up the stairs. The hum got louder, more urgent, and as I reached the top, I noticed a faint light spilling from under the attic door. I turned the knob, and the door swung open.

The attic was not as I’d expected. Instead of boxes and old furniture, it was filled with shelves of tape reels, all neatly labeled with dates. The hum seemed to emanate from an old reel-to-reel player in the corner, its reels spinning slowly, a fresh tape loaded. I stepped closer and saw a small note taped to the player: ‘For the one who hears me. Press play.’ My hand trembled as I reached out and pressed the button.

A woman’s voice crackled through the speaker, soft and pleading. ‘If you’re hearing this, it’s too late. You’ve listened. Now you must listen to the others. They are the voices of the fallen. They fell from grace, from the sky. They are not angels. They are the inverted. They will not stop until you find them.’ The tape ended with a hiss, and the player clicked off. I stood there, my mind racing. What did that mean? I looked at the shelves, and I realized the tapes were labeled with names, not dates. ‘Margaret,’ ‘Elias,’ ‘Ruth,’ and so on. There must have been dozens.

I returned to the attic the next night, despite my better judgment. I picked a tape at random, labeled ‘Theodore.’ I pressed play. A man’s voice, ragged and desperate, spoke. ‘They came down in a storm of fire, but they didn’t die. They burrowed into the hills, into the old mines. They are waiting. If you play this, you must go to the old mine shaft on Miller’s Road. They will speak to you. They have chosen you.’ I shut it off, my hand shaking. I had to know who these people were. I searched my aunt’s records, found a list of names, dates of disappearances, all from this town, all in the last century.

I went to Miller’s Road at dawn, to the mine entrance that was sealed with rusted bars. I pressed my ear to the bars, and at first, I heard only the wind. But then, a sound rose from the depths. It was the same hum, but now it was layered with many voices, all whispering, calling out names. And among them, I heard my own name. I leaped back, stumbling over a loose rock. I ran back to the house, but the noise followed me, growing louder, more insistent. That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat in the kitchen, watching the stairwell.

As dawn broke, I went up to the attic again, determined to destroy the tapes. But when I entered, the player was gone. The shelves were bare. Only a single tape lay on the floor, unlabeled. I picked it up, and I could hear the hum even before I played it. I shoved it into a plastic bag and drove to the dump, but the hum only grew louder. I buried it in the woods, but it kept humming. In desperation, I returned to the mine and threw it into the shaft. There was a long silence, and then a chorus of screams, and then silence.

Now, weeks later, the hum is always there, faint, at the edge of my hearing. And last night, I woke to find a dirt stain on my pillow, like the mark of a hand, and the word ‘LISTEN’ written in the dust on my mirror. I know they are waiting for me to return. They are the inverted, and they have chosen me. The tape is still down there, and they will not rest until I join them.