I was staying at my uncle’s house for a few weeks while he was away, which wasn’t really a big deal because I’d stayed there before and knew the place pretty well.
The house was old though. Not haunted old or anything, just the kind of old where every door makes a different noise and you start remembering which floorboards to avoid if you’re walking around at night.
There was a room under the stairs that I had never seen open.
My uncle kept it locked.
I asked him about it once and he said it was just storage, which made sense because he had a lot of junk. He collects old tools and things like that, so I assumed it was probably full of boxes.
I was also reading true short horror stories at night around that time, mostly because I had trouble sleeping in a different house. I know that’s not exactly helping with the situation I’m about to describe, but I didn’t think about it that way then.
The first night I heard something under the stairs I thought it was the pipes.
It was just a knocking sound.
Three knocks, then nothing.
I ignored it.
It happened again the next night, around the same time, although I wasn’t paying attention to the exact hour. I remember because I was brushing my teeth and stopped for a second to listen.
Three knocks.
Then something like a cough.
I checked the bathroom and the hallway because I thought maybe someone had gotten into the house.
There wasn’t anyone.
I didn’t check the locked room.
The third time it happened I was sitting in the kitchen eating cereal for dinner, which is probably worth mentioning because I had been there almost two weeks and was getting pretty lazy about cooking.
The knocking started.
Then I heard my name.
Not loudly.
Just someone saying it from behind the door.
I didn’t move for a while.
I actually thought my uncle had come home and was messing with me, which would have been annoying but also made more sense than anything else.
I walked toward the stairs.
The room was locked.
I could hear someone moving around inside.
I said my uncle’s name.
Nothing.
Then I heard my own name again.
I went back to the kitchen.
I didn’t sleep much that night.
The next morning I called my uncle.
He was confused when I asked about the room.
He said there was no room under the stairs.
I thought he was joking.
I told him exactly where it was.
He went quiet.
Then he asked me not to open the door.
That was basically the whole conversation.
I asked what was inside.
He said, “Nothing you need.”
Which wasn’t an answer, obviously.
I asked him if someone had ever lived in that part of the house.
He said no.
Then he changed the subject.
I probably should have left the house at that point.
Instead I stayed because I had work the next morning and didn’t want to explain to anyone that I was leaving my uncle’s house because a locked storage room said my name.
That sounds ridiculous when I write it down.
It sounded ridiculous in my head too.
The next night I heard the knocking again.
This time there were four knocks.
I was in bed.
Then I heard something dragging across the floor underneath the stairs.
It went on for maybe thirty seconds.
Then stopped.
I didn’t go downstairs.
About ten minutes later my phone rang.
It was my uncle.
He asked if I was inside the house.
I said yes.
He said, “Don’t answer the door.”
I asked why.
He didn’t answer for a few seconds.
Then I heard him breathing.
Not through the phone exactly.
I mean I heard someone breathing in the hallway outside my bedroom.
I didn’t say anything.
My uncle was still on the phone.
Then he said, “Are you hearing that?”
I said yes.
He told me to stay in the room.
The breathing stopped.
Then someone knocked on my bedroom door.
Three times.
I didn’t open it.
My uncle stayed on the phone with me until morning.
Neither of us said much.
At some point I fell asleep.
When I woke up, the house was quiet.
The door under the stairs was open.
I didn’t go near it.
I packed a bag and left.
My uncle came back that afternoon.
He wouldn’t tell me what had happened in the house before I stayed there. He just said the room had been sealed years ago.
I asked why.
He said there had been a fire.
I asked who had been inside.
He said nobody.
Then he corrected himself and said he wasn’t sure.
That’s about as much as I got out of him.
I haven’t stayed there since.
My uncle still owns the house, although he doesn’t sleep there anymore either. He says it’s because the place needs repairs, which might even be true.
Sometimes I still get messages from him asking if I remember exactly what I heard.
I always tell him yes.
I’m not sure why he keeps asking.
Maybe he heard it too.
Or maybe he’s trying to make sure I don’t remember something differently than I should.
I don’t know.
I still read scary stories for bedtime sometimes, but not when I’m alone in an unfamiliar house.
That’s probably an unnecessary rule, but it seems reasonable to me.
Anyway, my uncle finally sold the house last year.
The people who bought it apparently renovated the whole downstairs.
He sent me a picture after it was finished.
The room under the stairs wasn’t there anymore.
They had removed the wall completely.
There was just a hallway where the door used to be.
I noticed something in the picture, though.
There were four old marks in the new wood beside the opening.
Like someone had knocked on it from the other side before the wall was taken down.
I didn’t mention it to him.
I figured if he wanted to talk about it, he would.
