Someone on the Stairs

Someone on the Stairs
told by
Brian Barnett
I don't know if anyone believes this story. Honestly, I don't really care. I was there and I remember it like it was yesterday.
After my papaw and mamaw died, dad decided to fix up their house and live there. It required a lot of work, not due to neglect, but do to an overall remodeling and expanding. Every once in a while, I would get off my ornery butt and help out with some of the projects that went into fixing it up.
One day, it came time to take down some of the drywall in the attic and to clean out the insulation from the rafters. The attic was bare, sort of a skeleton of what it once was. I remember going into mamaw and papaw's attic at times when I was a kid. The staircase was steep and narrow, but once upstairs, it always had that pleasant "musty attic dust" sort of smell. There were all sorts of things that I would consider to be treasures strewn about.
But on this day, there was nothing much but a hole in the wall between two studs and a heap of old insulation that was the final resting place of several old JC Penney ads and 1960s-era coloring books. That was something that was sort of off-putting. The walls were sort of covered with graffiti either created by the previous owners or the previous owners' children. It just didn't quite fit with the cozy warmth of the rest of the house.
As I rolled my sleeves up, ready for a honest afternoon's work, dad and Zola left to pick up some lunch from either McDonald's, Captain D's or maybe Taco John's. Those were the favorites.
That left me in the house all by myself. No worries. I was a grown adult, I kind of liked the quiet. I had just finished filling my kitchen-sized garbage bag with insulation when I heard the very distinct sound of the chain ticking against the back screen-door window. Anyone who visited mamaw and papaw know that sound. It only sounds like that when the door had been opened and closed. The only sound that was missing was the other distinct clapping of the screen door as it slammed shut.
I shrugged it off, thinking maybe dad or Zola had forgotten something, though at this point, they had been gone for some time. I started on my second bag when I heard the attic stairs squeak. Yet again, that is a very distinct sound for anyone who was used to being in that house. I knew it going all the way back to my childhood. It's a sound that was easy to remember and that I probably will never forget. Yet there it was, the squeaking sound as if someone was stepping on the first step.
Knowing dad, I figured that he was going to sneak up there and scare me. He, like his dad, is a practical joker and loves to watch people jump in fright. Of course, over the years I became a little more wary of where dad stood and subconsciously I knew to always have my guard up. Papaw and dad were always devious in their humor.
I was determined to steal his thunder. I stood up and walked to the top of the stairs to say, "I heard you coming, you'll have to do better than that". But nobody was there.
I went to the side window that overlooked the driveway, and the van that dad drove at the time was gone. Just for good measure, I went to the other window on the opposite side of the house to see if dad might've taken the extra precaution to park on the basement side of the house. But the van wasn't there either.
Obviously I was a little unsettled - hearing the chain, hearing the stairs squeak - but I continued on working anyway. I got maybe one or two more handfuls of insulation when I heard the chain ticking again. Just a few seconds later the stair squeaked again too.
I had had enough. I put the bag down, took off my gloves, and went down those squeaky steps, out the storm door with the ticking chain and sat on the back porch until dad and Zola got back.
Category:Stories from the Barnett Family
Category:Spooky Stories
Category:Stories