More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

A Voice In The Attic

The sun was straight overhead and beating down hot as we approached the doorway of the old farmhouse with nothing but our wits in tow. I hesitated at the entrance, casting a glance over my shoulder to ensure no lectures about venturing into unsound structures would be delivered over dinner that night, but Jane walked straight in like a woman with a mission. I followed her inside, nearly tripping over a horse saddle that had been left just inside the doorway. The doorless entryway opened up to a fairly large room crowded with old cardboard boxes, and a large worktable stacked with bridles and old horse saddles. To the right, there was yet another doorway that led into a much smaller room (a bedroom, I supposed). The way into this room was made impenetrable by more stacks of boxes and crates. Off to the left, I saw an even smaller doorway that exposed a rickety flight of stairs leading, presumably, to the attic above.

The interior was fairly well-lit by the large cracked picture window that had at some point (and for reasons I never discovered) been painted over but was now badly peeling. The first thing I noticed was how the previous occupants had apparently plastered draft-holes in the walls with what appeared to be old newspaper. Closer inspection proved my initial assumption to be true, and I discovered the dates on the newspapers went as far back as the early 1930s.

Jane, now also having discovered the aged newspaper that crammed the draft-holes in the walls, was attempting to flatten out a large torn portion of a strip of newspaper that announced the destruction of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst in 1937. She called me over and we stood there marveling at it. I was mid-sentence, decrying the use of such a historical headline as hole-fodder, when we heard the thump overhead. In retrospect I wish we'd had a video- camera to record my reaction to this sound, because I nearly jumped out of my skin and my motions, although betrayed by my desire to remain cool in the situation, displayed a willingness to race headlong out the entryway of that place. But my legs and feet, loyal to my inner workings, took only a single step before falling into compliance.

Heads now turned upward to the blackened wood overhead, I started to mutter "Did you hear that" when Jane cut me off with a swatting of her arm and a sharp "Shhhhh!" Dead silence ensued for the next thirty seconds as we stood there, frozen, until I finally spoke again in a whisper. "Could be the bats your grandfather warned us about, let's go." But she would not be moved, her will would not be shaken. I was about to fire off some crack about the woes of having a ghostbuster for a wife when it came again, this time more distinct, not directly overhead but further toward the back of the structure, as of something in the far corner of the attic above our heads. Bats fly, I thought to myself, they don't walk and they certainly don't lay heavy footfalls in their wake. Immediately our heads turned toward the doorway to our left, the doorway leading to the short flight of steps into the attic. I asked her if she thought it could be a cat, or a bat finally given up the ghost of hanging upside down from a rafter in 100 degree temperature, but the silence of her response only served to shake me up all the more when it came a third time, actually loosening dirt from the rafters and punctuated by what I can only describe as a dragging shuffle on the floorboards overhead.

That was enough for me. I took hold of Jane's arm and gave a firm tug. "Let's go." But I know my wife, and I ought to have known better than that. Eyes still fixed on the first three steps leading up to the attic, head cocked sideways in an almost comical manner straining to hear, she whispered: "It sounds like there's someone up there." Now, I don't know about most people, but I don't do well with declarations such as those, under circumstances such as these. Anything bearing an even remote similarity to the typical fright-fest dialogue of "They're coming to get you" or (heaven forbid) "They're here" and I'm a running fool with feet flying out ahead of me like a leaper over hot coals. But I suppose that I would willingly trade bearing sole witness to any of those proclamations in exchange for what we heard next, which is something that my rational mind still grapples with, something that if I live to be 100 I will never, ever forget. The voice was soft, and low, muffled by the rafters and the overhead floorboards that separated us from the attic, and it called the words: "David, is that you?"