Daniela couldn't sleep. She held her breath and listened for the thumping sounds again. Restlessly, she tossed and turned on the creaky bed of her guest room. The ceiling had some water damage. Although she knew not to complain, this place had a musty smell to it.
There was something ominous about this Victorian mansion, which Daniela didn't sense until she stepped through the front door with her sisters. The owner was a widow by the name of Alma Fletcher, who sought anyone willing to house-sit for her, so she could visit an old friend out of the country. Bela and Cassandra had been the ones who had seen her ad on social media. She offered $75 per night, which was a decent offer since she required no yard work or house cleaning. Tempted by the offer, Cassandra had persuaded you and Alcina to let her take the job. But there were conditions set by you and your wife:
1. No friends allowed
2. Cassandra had to take her sisters along and split the money evenly with them, much to her disappointment
3. Having their phones on them at all times in case they needed help
Of course, being the protective parents that you were, you arranged a meeting with Alma two days before her trip. Alcina and you were given a full tour of her home, being shown where your girls would be staying. From Alcina's viewpoint, she admired the genteel architecture and how well Alma maintained it. It was clear she took great pride in her home. From your perspective, the woman seemed sweet and lonely. Her husband had been gone for over ten years and her only daughter and grandchildren rarely visited her. You pitied her. You knew your daughters would never forsake or forget about you if you were a widow. After the tour and having tea with Alma, you and Alcina felt good about this arrangement overall. There was nothing alarming or unsafe about it. You made your girls promise to text or call you if they needed anything.
Daniela remembered your words and how you gave her spare cash to order whatever food she and her sisters wanted. Staring at her brightly lit phone screen in the darkness, her fingers were dancing on her keyboard. Her finger was a tap away from sending you a text about how she had been hearing these sporadic thumping sounds from above her, only for them to fade back into the hallway to where the attic was located. But then she deleted her message and retyped a different one to you.
Instead of focusing on what scared her, Daniela informed you about the dinner she had and how Cassandra nearly choked to death on a chunk of beef. "It's nothing, it's nothing..." She whispered this to herself repeatedly with shaky conviction. The mysterious noises were all in her head. That was it. Maybe it was that stinky cheese she ate from Alma's fridge. Surely, it had to be the cheese that tasted like the smell of crunchy socks that hadn't touched the inside of a washer for months.
Then there was another thump, which sounded much louder, like somebody had tripped over a nail and fallen. Scared shitless, the redhead kicked the sheets off her, scrambling to her feet. Lacking grace, she sprinted out of her bedroom and into Bela's without knocking first. Too afraid to even switch on the lights, she made a beeline for her, shaking her sleeping figure. "Bela? Bela! Wake up! I need you!"
Bela grumbled and flicked her wrist at her. "Dani? What's wrong?"
"I heard a loud noise," she squeaked. "There have been noises right above me all night, and I can't go back in there. There's something in this house with us."
Bela yawned. "Big, ugly rats, probably. It's an old house. You're going to hear weird noises and creaks. It's totally normal."
Daniela shook her head furiously. "No, no, what I'm hearing isn't normal! Big, ugly rats don't thump on the floor like giants!"
"Neither do humans. Are you saying you think a person is in this house with us?"
Daniela curled up next to her on her bed, seeking comfort. "I don't know! I just know it's continuous, and it's not stopped since 11:30 AM."
"What time is it now?" Bela turned her phone on, reading 1 AM. "Girl, it is way too late for this. Please — go back to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning."
Daniela clung to her arm. "I'm not going back to my room after what I heard. Can I stay here with you? I won't make any noise."
"Like all the noise you've already made?" Bela teased, her smirk vanishing when she realized just how frightened her sister was. "Fine. But only tonight. We only have two more days of this and then Alma will be home Sunday evening." Bela scooted over, allowing her to curl up into her. When they were children, Daniela always loved to snuggle with her older sisters whenever they'd permit it. "No hogging the blankets, okay?"
Daniela giggled, hiding her face under the covers. "I don't know what you're talking about. I would never."
"Mmm, right."
When Bela closed her eyes again, things were silent for a few seconds until Cassandra's voice suddenly spoke through the darkness. "Hey? Guys?"
Daniela let out a high-pitched squeal, while Bela felt the blood drain from her face. "Cass! What are you doing up?"
Cassandra grinned through the blackness before turning on the lights. "I could ask y'all the same thing — I'm literally right next door to you. These walls are paper thin. I could hear you two talking about something?"
"Daniela says she's hearing things from the ceiling."
"Thumps, not things!" Daniela mumbled from under the covers. "Something fell, and I'm pretty sure it's coming from the attic."
"The attic!" Cassandra's eyes sparkled with glee. "Not going to lie, I was hoping Alma was going to show us that. I mean, in this huge place? I want to see what it looks like!"
"That's...random," Bela said. "Alma wouldn't need to show us her attic. Her personal stuff is probably stored up there. It's not our business."
Casandra beamed, running over to her sisters and throwing the covers off Daniela. She grabbed her by her ankles. "It's our business now. Come on! Rise and shine, my piglets! We must conduct a thorough search through the attic, so our baby can sleep in her room again."
Daniela glared at her, giving her a light kick. "Then you're on your own! I'm not checking out the attic."
"Come with us," Bela suggested, nudging her. "Or you're going to be left in my room all by yourself. You should come."
"Fine, but I will not be the first one climbing into it."
Gazing up at the spring-loaded attic hatch together, Cassandra pulled on its cord. The wooden ladder then slid out and was carefully set down on the floorboards. Setting her feet on the wobbly ladder, Cassandra was most eager to see what was up there. "Hey? Can one of you grab my phone from my room? I need a light up there." After Daniela fetched her phone, she headed up while Bela stood directly below her in case she lost her balance and fell off.
Cassandra took a deep breath before poking her head above the scuttle. Shining her light into the attic, the first sight she was greeted by was a one-eyed doll, leaning drunkenly against an antique dollhouse. Its appearance was an idealized image of wealth, wearing the finest dress of maroon silk and satin from the Victorian era. "Oh, hell. That's creepy."
"What's creepy?" Daniela asked, craning her neck upward.
"Nothing! It's just a dollhouse. I see a bunch of boxes filled with clothes, I think. Some kid toys. And one of those exercise bikes that don't go anywhere. I didn't know they had those during the 19th century."
Bela sighed. "They didn't have stationary bikes!"
"I know, I'm just messing with ya." Cassandra then aimed her phone to the back of the attic, where a mannequin stood wearing a white dress. "Aw. I found Alma's wedding dress. It's pretty. I bet she looked beautiful in it when she was...however old she was."
A sudden chirp caused her to jolt and turn her attention to the one-eyed doll again. From underneath the doll's skirt, she swore she saw something move. Focusing her light on the dress, her throat tightened as she waited.
Bela drummed fingers on the ladder. "What's happening up there, Cass?"
"Give me one sec—" A small creature appeared from underneath the gown, scurrying in her direction and forcing a curse from her lungs. Cassandra dropped her phone and then fell backwards, screaming all the way.
Bela became frantic, as she was a bit too slow to catch her sister properly. She broke her fall, for the most part. Being smashed by her weight wasn't exactly pleasant, yet at least Cassandra couldn't whine about her sisters never having her back. "Ow. Are you good?"
"It was a mouse." Cassandra glanced over at Daniela."Whatever noises you heard, it was a mouse."
"Mice don't make that kind of sound!" Daniela was quick to fold and then shove the ladder back up into the ceiling. "Guys, help me, I want this thing closed!" After they closed it, they froze from hearing something crash from downstairs.
With a wide-eyed expression, Daniela started running into every room to switch on the lights. "Nope! Nope! I'm not sleeping in the dark! We're going to sleep with the lights on!"
Bela couldn't have agreed more. "Did Alma mention if she had any cats?"
"No," Cassandra answered. "She told us she didn't have any pets, remember? She's allergic to cats and her dog died a few years back."
"We can go downstairs together, right?" Daniela asked anxiously.
Bela hesitated. "I guess we should see what broke. Let's hope it's not one of her painted vases."
As they made their way down the staircase at a snail's space, being overly paranoid they'd hear another noise, they stayed close to one another. Reaching the kitchen, the first thing they noticed was the fridge's door was ajar. There was a broken milk bottle on the floor, with most of its contents leaking through the cracks of the worn geometric floors.
"Aw, man." Disgruntled by the mess, Bela fetched a sponge and paper towels. She then chucked the sponge at Cassandra. "You know what? You get to clean this up, since you forgot to shut the fridge!"
She pointed to herself, aghast. "Me? What are you talking about? You think I caused this?"
"It explains why you were up when Daniela came into my room. I know the milk isn't you, but maybe you forgot to close the fridge after a midnight snack?"
"I don't appreciate the tone," she scoffed. "And I didn't have a midnight snack!"
"Guys?" Daniela tried to interrupt.
"Even if I had forgotten to close the fridge, you really think that bottle just fell over by itself?"
Daniela finally raised her hands. "Guys! Stop! Who pulled out that cup?"
Cassandra was fuming, sliding her hand over her face. "What cup?"
"That one." Aiming her finger at the empty glass cup on the stone countertop, Daniela wondered who took it out of the cupboards. "I had a soda. Did one of you forget to put it back?"
Her sisters shook their heads in stunned silence. They only had Chinese takeout and soda pop that evening. "I threw my can in the trash."
"Same. All of our cans are in the trash. None of us used any of her cups," Bela said.
"Forget it!" Casandra snatched the glass abruptly, placing it back in the cupboards. "There. Now it's out of our sight. We don't have to worry about it anymore."
"Not sure how comforting that is, to be honest," Daniela mused, watching Bela throw her milk-soaked mess of paper towels into the trash bin. "Just to be safe, I think we should sleep downstairs tonight. Or anywhere that's far from the attic."
Cassandra groaned at that idea. "There's literally nothing to fear. I told you it was a mouse!"
Daniela frowned. "Who do you think tried to pour themselves milk in the middle of the night? Look at the mess Bela just cleaned up. This happened while we were investigating the attic!"
"No more, guys!" Bela snapped. "I mean it, we're ending this discussion, and then we're going back to bed! Dani, if you wanna sleep with me tonight, that's fine. Cass, not another word about the attic. This house is old. We're bound to hear weird shit. Obviously Alama's gotten used to it, so we'll get used to it, too."
Her sisters accepted her credible explanation. They turned off the lights in the kitchen and then headed back upstairs. As they ascended the staircase, they joked about how you would've hated seeing the mouse, and how much their mother would've disliked the spilled milk.
When they turned the corner to see the attic hatch open again, their hearts hammered inside their chests. Cassandra was nauseous. Daniela was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Okay, so we didn't shut it all the way," Bela muttered, fighting the panic that surged through her body. "Not a problem. We'll just push it back up." Making a pretense of bravery, she marched forward. With every step she took, her heart became sicker with terror. She had to prove to her sisters, and to herself, that nothing malicious or supernatural was going on. However, as she got closer to it, the doll was thrown down the ladder.
The girls screamed.
And screamed.
Their shrill cries would have woken the next-door neighbors if they hadn't already been out of town. On the ground, the doll was now lying on its side, facing them. Its one glass eye stared right into their souls, seeing their deepest fears.
[Some of you have expressed interest in seeing a sequel to The Interview. It'll be posted soon]