THINGS THAT STAMP ABOUT IN THE NIGHT

Hauntings by Susan Price

          It was the Christmas when I was 15.  I usually shared a bedroom with my sister, but she was staying with relatives, so I had my bedroom to myself.  I went to bed last, and lay awake reading, my bedroom door closed.  Lying there, I heard my brother walk from his room to the bathroom.

          Then he walked from his room to the bathroom again - only without first returning to his bedroom.  After that he went up and down the stairs several times – sometimes without bothering to come back up before going down again.  Sometimes he started down the stairs without having walked across the landing to get there.

          At first I explained these gaps in the footsteps as my inattention, but soon I started to be annoyed.  Sometimes the footsteps started inside a bedroom, sometimes outside the door.  They made circuits of the house – across the landing, down the stairs, back up the stairs and back along the landing.  They’d do this several times in a few minutes, sometimes walking up the stairs without going down them, or vice versa.

          What were my family up to?  Were they tramping heavily one way, and then creeping the other?  And why?

          They were real footsteps.  At 15 I knew the difference between a creaky floorboard and a real, heavy footstep.  I called out to ask what the game was, but was unheard or ignored.  I didn’t get up – it was too cold.

          I heard my baby brother start to cry, and my parents wake.  I clearly heard my father get out of bed, walk round it, leave his room, cross the landing and start down the stairs.  Then my mother called, “Oh – the powder’s here.”  My father walked back into his room.

          And soon after that I turned off the lamp and went to sleep.

          Next morning every one slept in, except my mother.  I asked her why everyone had been tramping about in the night.  She was mystified.  She’d heard nothing, and swore that neither she nor my father had left their beds after turning in.

          I told her that I’d heard Dad get out of bed and go part way down the stairs when the baby had started crying.  “He never got out of bed,” my mother said.

Nightcomers by Susan Price

          I couldn’t believe her.  She insisted that when the baby had cried, she had asked my Dad to fetch the powder, and he’d started to get out of bed – but then she’d found the powder, and Dad had lain down again.  He’d never left his bed, let alone walked out of his room, along the landing and down the stairs.

          I didn’t know what to think.  I had heard the footsteps.  I’d been awake and reading.  When my brother got up, I cross-examined him, but he swore that, not only had he heard no footsteps, but had never left his bed.

          But my Dad, when he got up, said yes, he’d heard the footsteps.  “I got up about four and went round the house, I was so sure somebody had got in.”  There was no break-in, but even after he’d returned to bed, he’d heard the footsteps for a while.  He’d eventually dismissed it as some kind of dream or imagination and gone to sleep.

          But we both heard the footsteps.  It made me uneasy to remember that I’d called out, demanding to know what was going on.  There’d been no answer – but what had ignored me?  I was glad I’d stayed in bed.

          I wasn’t scared at the time, as I had no doubt that the footsteps were being made by some member of my family – though I was puzzled by their continual roaming of the house, and the odd gaps in them.  If my father hadn’t heard them too, I would probably have dismissed them as imagination.

          Happy Hallowe’en – and please leave an account of any ghostly experiences you’ve had.

          If you'd like to read one of the stories from NIGHTCOMERS, click on the links below.  One will take you to the story.
           The others will take you somewhere else.
           You click at your own risk.  This blog accepts no responsibility for any offence taken.

           Will you choose to click on  RAT or
                                                                      WITCH or
                                                                                           GHOST?
           IMP or
                                  BROOMSTICK?

          My new ghost story collections, NIGHTCOMERS and HAUNTINGS will be published as e-books, available for download from Amazon, on Hallowe'en.
          My website: www.susanpriceauthor.com

          And here's Blot, trick and treating...

And if you enjoyed this cartoon, you may enjoy this post, over at Awfully Big Blog Adventure