/yesod

Tag: back stairs

  • not a bat

    “She says she saw something in the back stairwell,” my wife tells me.

    Our daughter is eight years old and not prone to flights of fancy or making things up. Also, we have been very careful to not let her overhear any of our conversations about what is going on here at home.

    When I talk to my daughter, this is what she tells me:

    She saw something hanging from the wall in the back hallway, up near the ceiling. A big dark mass, something solid. About the size of a cat. It reminded her of a bat, curled up and hanging there. It was alive, “kind of like an animal.” She ran to get her mom, thinking it might be a bat (we get them sometimes in the house, especially during the summer) but when they got back it was gone.

    If there was a bat that big in our house, I tell my daughter, we would know it.

    “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “If you ever see anything like that again, just come and get me or mom right away. We’ll take care of it.”

  • switch

    (null)

    Sitting in my office this afternoon, working.

    A few moments ago I heard the distinctive sound of the light switch in the back hallway snapping on.

    A few moments later I heard it snap off.

    My wife and youngest daughter are napping upstairs.

    Before I heard the light switch, it was quiet and peaceful. No telltale sounds of someone coming up or down the back stairs.

    For all intents and purposes, I’m the only one down here.

    But, I suppose, I might not be alone.

  • shimmer

    the back stairs“There was something in the back hallway,” my wife tells me over dinner. “I saw it right before we were leaving.”

    “What did you see?”

    She thinks for a moment. “It was a blur in the air, almost shimmering. Just a movement…”

    Gooseflesh on my arms, the back of my neck. “That’s interesting you say that.”

    “Why?”

    “Tell me what else you saw. What color was it?”

    “A gray-blue, a movement like…” She mimes someone passing a hand over their head. “Like someone was throwing a hood over themselves.”

    I nod, even though it’s not quite a match with what I saw the previous night.

    I tell her that when I was down in the basement, just as I was closing the door, something walked towards me… A shimmer in the air, like a heat mirage.

    Mine was brighter, nearly transparent, almost gold.

    It was there, then it was gone.

  • footsteps again, of course

    Standing in the kitchen, I hear the sound of someone coming down the back stairs — slow, cautious . . . almost stealthy.

    But when I go to check, of course, no one is there.

    It takes a few minutes for the hair on my arms to lay back down again. My skin is electric, almost burning.

  • laundry room

    20130728-171418.jpgAs I came into the laundry room this morning, a shadow moved in the dim light from right to left — coming from the hallway and passing through the closed and locked door at the top of the back stairs.

    The shadow was large, as wide as a refrigerator though not as tall. It has a solid mass to it, depth even.

    I did not at any point feel afraid.

    This is just another episode in a growing list of sightings here in The Last House — shadows mostly, sometimes dark and sometimes pale, moving up and down those back stairs.

  • lavender dress

    My wife went to the market one afternoon this past weekend. The weather was warm and she was wearing a long lavender dress, very lovely. The dress has bare arms and drapes in a style reminiscent of a statue of a Greek goddess.

    While she was out, a flash of color caught my eye in the back hallway. I saw the lavender dress, someone on the landing above the stairs leading down to the back door.

    I assumed it was my wife but when I went to help carry in the bags, the hallway was empty.

    This happened twice before my wife came home.

    Then again tonight, I saw someone in the dress move down the back stairs.

    My wife was upstairs putting our daughter to bed.

    This time, though, the dress was pale blue.