The Uninvited Guest

In the autumn of 2018, my brother, Leo, had agreed to babysit for a colleague, Mrs. Hartley, who needed someone to watch her nine-year-old daughter, Emma, while she attended a late conference. I tagged along because my parents were having a loud renovation done at home and I needed some peace. We arrived at the Hartley residence, a sprawling Victorian house on the outskirts of a sleepy town, around seven in the evening.

Mrs. Hartley showed us around, her voice echoing in the high-ceilinged rooms. She pointed out Emma’s room, the kitchen, and the playroom, then reminded us that Emma had a strict bedtime of nine. ‘She might try to stay up, but just be firm,’ she said, grabbing her coat. As she left, she added, ‘Oh, and ignore the creaking in the attic. It’s just the old pipes.’ We laughed it off.

Emma was a sweet, quiet child with a peculiar habit of talking to her dolls as if they were alive. Leo and I settled in the living room, watching a thriller on the flat-screen. At around nine, we heard footsteps upstairs, heavy and deliberate, like an adult walking, not a child’s pitter-patter. Leo and I exchanged glances. ‘Probably Emma,’ Leo said, but I noticed his voice had a slight tremor.

I offered to go up and remind Emma to get ready for bed. As I climbed the creaky stairs, the footsteps grew louder, moving down the hallway. I called her name, but there was no response. When I reached the top, the hallway was empty, and a cold draft seeped through the floorboards. I checked her room; it was pristine, untouched. A strange, musty smell lingered in the air, like old books and dust.

I ran back down, my heart pounding. In the playroom, I found Emma sitting cross-legged, coloring with crayons, her back to me. There was a faint humming in the room, though she wasn’t making a sound. ‘Emma, were you upstairs?’ I asked. She slowly turned her head, a strange smile on her face. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve been here the whole time.’ But her eyes were fixed on a spot behind me.

I spun around, but there was nothing. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow shift at the edge of the room, just for a second. Leo came in, his face pale. ‘I heard something in the attic,’ he whispered. ‘There’s a rope in the hallway.’ We both froze as a loud thud echoed from directly above us.

Emma laughed, a high-pitched cackle that was too mature for her age. ‘That’s Mr. Holloway,’ she said, pointing to her drawing. I looked at the paper—it was a stick figure of a man, but with a noose around its neck. ‘He likes to swing.’

A chill ran down my spine. We tried to call Mrs. Hartley, but her phone went straight to voicemail. We decided to leave, but the front door was locked from the outside. We were trapped. The footsteps began again, this time descending the stairs. We huddled in the playroom, Emma humming a lullaby I didn’t recognize.

The footsteps stopped right outside the door. The knob turned slowly. I held my breath. Then, a voice, raspy and low, said, ‘Don’t forget to check the attic.’

We huddled in the playroom for hours, listening to the sounds of something moving through the house. When dawn finally broke, we found the door unlocked. We fled without looking back, leaving Emma and her doll in the window, waving.

I later learned from Mrs. Hartley that the house had a history: a previous occupant had hanged himself in the attic. She had never mentioned it because she didn’t want to scare us. But I knew differently. The footsteps weren’t from pipes. And in that attic, I had seen a child’s shoe, the same size as Emma’s, hanging from a beam with a note that read, ‘He can see you.’