I am quite sure there is someone in the house with me today. I know houses breathe, they have their old wounds and own little aches and pains: they creek. The main sound in my house is usually the pipes, they make the walls thrum. The other day I was in the kitchen making a sandwich and they began to play up, the cheese began to vibrate with the thrum.
Anyway, today these sounds weren't normal. There were thumps. At one point I swear a door closed (or maybe opened). I shut my bedroom door and found out a knife from a small collection I had and waited. Shut off the television sound. A few short bumps and silence fell. I knew it wasn't the cat, he was asleep in the next room.
I'm an adult. I know logically nothing was going to happen. The noises may have even come from outside. I sat there though, very excited. Waiting for the sudden crash and clatter of four legs running up the stairs (yes it would definitely be four, tripping over each other in frenzy - I knew this as much as I was certain it would be a monster, and the monster would be a dog even though I've told myself again and again I'm over my childhood phobia of the creatures...). I sat there almost hoping to hear the crash. Maybe the skitter of claws on the kitchen lino before it rushed up the staircase. I would hear its drool splatter over the wallpaper.
Of course it never actually came. The house is empty again now, people have left. I have my door open this time. I know it's still in the house though, it just hid. I'm waiting for it to crash up the stairs again. I will run to shut my bedroom door, but of course it will get a clawed paw in just in time to stop me from closing it (not that I have a lock). It will be stronger than me. It will see I am online, writing about it. Giving away its secret.
It made me think of the ghost stories I used to hear in primary school. They would catch my imagination on fire (here I am as an adult, still glancing towards the staircase every few words) and to this day some of them make me uncomfortable. I hate mirrors especially, can't stand having one visible in a room I sleep in. I'll go to great lengths to limbo under one when I go to the bathroom at three a.m. I fear what might look back. I guess that kind of fear can be fun. A bubble seems to form in my stomach and I go a little lightheaded.
I remember one story from primary school. A mother, an artist I believe in the version that sticks clearest, is holding her newborn baby. Only she isn't holding it very tight, and she drops it down the stairs. Said baby dies. A few weeks later she is in bed and hears a call "I'm on the first step, I'm on the second step... I'm coming to get you!". Apparently ghost babies learn to speak damn fast. It climbs a few more steps each night and one night the call comes to her "I'm on the landing, I'm at your bedroom... I'm coming to get you!" (Note: The adult me has just checked the landing and can't stop glancing). She calls her mother/sister/random character and the police are then called. They arrive in the morning to see she has met a bloody end. In my memories it is decapitation, which is possible... a lot of those primary school tales ended that way... I never much cared for it. Still makes me queasy.
Even at the age of eight I wondered why she simply just didn't move out. If it took the baby a bloody week to climb the stairs it seems reasonable that she at least would have considered that option. Still, even in broad daylight, when I thought of that story (and others) I would get that aforementioned bubble in my stomach and my whole self would feel light. The world would take on a surreal sheen. This is probably why I like horror. Adrenaline addict. All I have ever really wanted to do with my life is write horror stories. A friend of mine (Moobs on here) persuaded me to try the blogging thing to try and combat my very worst enemy, the only thing really stopping me. My complete and utter laziness and procrastination. Seemed a good idea seeing as I have nothing to do full time since finishing (academic) education recently. NaNoWriMo is coming up (an online campaign to write a novel in the month of November) and I may actually drag myself off my computer games long enough to attempt it. So that's your prior warning on what to expect here. Drivel.
on Solution: Live in a bungalow