The Thing Under the Stairs

My father’s family comes from a small village in the Scottish Highlands, and every summer we’d pack up the car and drive north to stay in the old croft house that had been in the family for generations. It was a drafty, stone-built place, half-hidden by a thicket of gorse, and it smelled of peat smoke and damp wool. I’d heard the whispers from my older cousins about things that went bump in the night, but I always laughed them off. We were family, after all. What harm could a few old spirits do?

Last summer, my younger brother, Callum, and my cousin, Morag, decided to stay on for the festival after our parents left. I was nineteen and felt a bit responsible, so I agreed to stay with them. We had the house to ourselves, which felt both liberating and eerily quiet. The festival was a rowdy affair with music, dancing, and too much whisky, but every time we walked through the front door of the croft, a heavy stillness settled over us.

The first night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. I chalked it up to the unfamiliarity of the place and the creaking floorboards. But as I lay in the narrow bed, I heard a faint scratching sound coming from the wall behind the headboard. It was rhythmic, almost like fingernails dragging across stone. I told myself it was mice, but the sound was too deliberate. I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to sleep, but the scratching continued until the early hours.

The next morning, I noticed Callum looked pale. He said he’d had a nightmare about something reaching through the wall. Morag just shrugged it off and said we needed to get to the festival. But as we walked to the village, I caught her glancing back at the house with a troubled expression.

The festival was a blur of pipe bands and dancing, and for a while, I forgot the oddness of the house. But when we returned late that night, the door was unlocked. I was certain I’d locked it. I brushed it off, blaming the alcohol, but inside, the temperature had dropped. Our breath misted in the air.

I went to the kitchen to make tea, and that’s when I noticed the loose floorboard near the pantry. It was jutting up, as if something had pushed it from below. I knelt down and pried it open, revealing a dark gap beneath. A cold draft wafted up, carrying a faint, earthy smell. I felt a sudden urge to reach in, and I nearly did before Callum called my name, making me jump. I quickly closed the board and stepped away.

That night, the scratching was louder. It followed me, moving from wall to wall, and I could swear I heard a low moan. I tried to ignore it, but sleep was impossible. Suddenly, I heard Callum scream from his room. I rushed in to find him standing in the corner, shaking, pointing at the floor. ‘There’s something under the stairs,’ he whispered. ‘I saw it.’ I tried to calm him, but his eyes were wide with terror.

We decided to leave the next morning, but as we packed, Morag said she’d left her phone in the house. She insisted on going back alone. We waited by the car for over an hour. When she finally returned, her face was ashen, and she clutched something in her hand. It was a photograph, old and faded, of a man with hollow eyes and a twisted grin. ‘He said we shouldn’t have come,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘He says he’s been waiting for family to return.’

We drove away without looking back, but the photograph stayed with me. Now, every time I close my eyes, I see that grinning face, and I hear faint scratching, as if it’s trying to get out. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that something followed us home, and I know if I ever return to that house, under the stairs, it will still be there, waiting.