Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark: The Room Behind the Wall

This is a great story from Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark.

The old house had been empty for almost twenty years.

Nobody in town wanted it.

During the day, it looked harmless. The paint had faded, weeds covered the front steps, and one side of the roof had started to collapse. But after sunset, people avoided the road completely.

There was a reason for that.

Every few months, someone claimed they had seen a light moving inside the house.

Not a flashlight.

Not a candle.

A small yellow light that appeared in an upstairs window.

Then it would disappear.

One evening, curiosity finally became stronger than fear.

The front door opened with almost no effort.

Inside, the air smelled of wet wood and dust. The floor creaked under every step. There was an old staircase leading upstairs, but something caught my attention before I reached it.

A photograph hung beside the stairs.

It showed a family standing in front of the house.

A man.

A woman.

Two children.

And another figure standing behind them.

At first, I thought it was a shadow.

Then I noticed the face.

It had no eyes.

I moved closer.

The photograph suddenly fell from the wall.

I nearly screamed.

When I picked it up, the glass had cracked directly across the eyeless face.

I put the photograph back and decided to leave.

That was when I heard the knocking.

Three slow knocks came from upstairs.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I stood completely still.

Then came three more.

This time, they were louder.

I told myself it was an old pipe or something moving in the wind. The explanation sounded stupid, but it was enough to make me continue.

The upstairs hallway was narrow and dark.

There were four doors.

Three were open.

The last one was locked.

I tried the handle anyway.

Nothing.

Then I noticed something strange.

There was a small line of fresh dirt beneath the door.

Someone had recently walked through there.

I crouched down and looked closer.

The dirt continued underneath the door.

A single footprint.

Then another.

Then another.

All of them were facing toward me.

I backed away.

The knocking started again.

This time it came from inside the locked room.

I ran downstairs.

The front door was still open.

I could see the road outside.

I was almost there when I heard a child’s voice behind me.

“Don’t leave me here.”

I stopped.

The voice sounded very close.

I turned around.

Nothing.

“Please.”

It came from the staircase.

I should have left.

Instead, I walked back.

The stairs groaned as I climbed them.

At the top, the hallway looked different.

The three open doors were now closed.

Only the locked door remained.

And it was open.

I stood there for several seconds.

The room beyond it was completely empty.

There was no furniture.

No window.

No light.

Just four walls covered in old writing.

Names covered almost every inch of them.

Some had been scratched into the plaster.

Others were written in dark brown stains.

I recognized the family from the photograph.

Their names were there.

So were dozens of others.

At the very bottom of the wall was a sentence.

I read it twice.

“Everyone who enters becomes part of the house.”

A sound came from behind me.

A quiet laugh.

I turned.

The hallway was empty.

Then the door slammed shut.

I rushed toward it and pulled the handle.

Locked.

I hit the door.

Nothing.

“Help!”

My voice echoed through the room.

Then something answered.

“Help.”

It was my voice.

But it came from inside the wall.

I stepped backward.

The plaster beside me cracked.

A thin black line appeared.

Then another.

The cracks spread across the wall like veins.

Something moved underneath them.

I could see fingers pressing against the plaster.

Five fingers.

Then another hand.

I ran to the opposite wall.

The hands disappeared.

For a moment, everything became silent.

Then the wall whispered my name.

I covered my ears.

It whispered again.

Louder.

I looked at the locked door.

The handle slowly turned.

The door opened by itself.

The hallway outside was empty.

I ran.

I didn’t look back.

I reached the stairs and jumped down several steps at once.

When I reached the front door, I could hear footsteps behind me.

Slow footsteps.

Someone was walking down the stairs.

I pushed the door open and ran into the night.

I didn’t stop until I reached the main road.

The house disappeared behind the trees.

For several minutes, I stood there trying to breathe.

Then I noticed something in my hand.

The old photograph.

I didn’t remember taking it.

I looked down.

The family was still standing in front of the house.

But something had changed.

There was a new person in the photograph.

Me.

I was standing beside the children.

My face was turned toward the camera.

And behind me stood the eyeless figure.

I dropped the photograph.

That should have been the end.

It wasn’t.

Three nights later, I heard knocking at my bedroom door.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I didn’t move.

The knocking stopped.

Then came a child’s voice.

“Don’t leave me here.”

I stayed silent.

The voice became softer.

“Please.”

I looked toward the bedroom wall.

A thin crack had appeared in the plaster.

I moved closer.

Another crack formed beside it.

Then another.

Something was moving inside.

That was when I understood.

The house had never been empty.

It had only been waiting.

And whatever lived behind those walls had followed me home.

Since that night, I have never answered a knock after midnight.

Sometimes, I still hear them.

Three knocks.

Always three.

And every time, I hear a child whisper from inside the wall.

The strange thing is that the voice is getting older.

It no longer sounds like a child.

It sounds like me.

If there is one lesson in this scary story, it is simple:

Some doors are locked for a reason.

And some houses don’t want you to leave.