She was so tired. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Slowly Sam approached the bed and as she pulled back the blanket to get into bed, she heard a noise on the first floor. Curious, she left the bedroom to investigate the cause of the noise. Cautiously she took the steps up to the first floor, the wood creaking softly beneath her feet. She stopped on the top landing, trying to locate the direction it was coming from. It almost sounded like footsteps. Like someone was walking on the wooden floor in the lounge, but that was impossible. Both her daughters were fast asleep in their room downstairs and there was no one else in the house. Besides, it sounded like a heavy person walking.
Gathering her courage, she approached the door to the lounge on tiptoe, in case it was a burglar waiting on the other side. Ever so slowly she peeped around the corner of the door. Luckily her eyes had already adjusted to the dark and with her first glance of the lounge she couldn’t see anyone skulking around.
Dragging the rest of her body through the doorway, she looked more carefully, because she could still hear the noise and it was definitely coming from the lounge.
It took less than a second for her brain to realize what her eyes were seeing and to compute the implications.
There, on the floor at the bottom of the flowered single seater was a pair of men’s shoes, and they were walking. Without a man in them.
She never even realized that she was screaming and running. It was only as she reached the bottom of the stairs that she saw where she was.

Chris woke up with a start. Something had disturbed his sleep. Lying still, he tried to define what it was that had woken him. There it was again. A noise was coming from the first floor. It sounded like footsteps, but who would be walking around upstairs? There was no one in the house except him.
Pushing back the blankets, he put his feet on the floor and almost immediately pulled them back up again. The floor was freezing. Switching on the bedside lamp, he saw that there was a mist seeping from under the door.
Feeling the first stirrings of uneasiness, he got up from the bed and put on his slippers. Something strange was going on.
He opened the door and saw that the whole passage was filled with the strange mist. It seemed to be coming from the first floor. The same place where the noise was coming from. With a sense of foreboding he slowly made his way up the stairs, flinching with each creak the wooden steps made.
As he reached the top landing, he hugged the wall, trying to be as invisible as possible. If someone was trying to break in, he didn’t want to advertise his presence. What was bothering him though was the mist. Had he left open a window and the mist was coming in through there or was something else going on? The strangest thing was that it was so cold. It was in the middle of spring. Even though there were still a few nights where a blanket was welcome, that was not an explanation for the bone chilling cold that was permeating the top floor. The first door that he opened was for the lounge and that was where the noise was coming from. With a rapidly beating heart and his breath clouding the cold air in front of him, he reached for the door handle and nearly had to jerk back from the coldness. Turning the handle, he thrust it open with force, and jumped through the doorway at the same time.
Scanning the lounge to see if someone was in there, he at first didn’t notice anything out of place. As he was about to turn around and leave, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slight movement. Switching on the light to see better, he approached the area where he saw the movement. There, by the couch, stood a pair of shoes. Not one of his pairs. And they were moving. The movement that he had seen had been as they had turned around to return to the couch.
Slowly backing away in order not to take his eyes off the shoes, he hit the door and fell.
Scrambling to get purchase on the slippery wooden floor, his hands and feet not working together, he managed to fall down once again. As he lifted his head to try and get up one more time, he saw that the floor was really uneven at exactly the point where the shoes were now standing still, as if waiting to see what he would do.
Not bothering to try and get up, he hastily crawled to the door. Grabbing hold of the frame, he pulled himself up and dashed to the stairs, going down them two at a time.
He immediately ran for the phone to call someone but as he picked up the receiver, he realised that there was no one he could call. Who would believe him? The mist was disappearing even as he put the phone down and the temperature returning to normal.
The full impact of the last few minutes finally hit him and he started shaking.
He was living in a haunted house. He wouldn’t have believed that possible except for what he had just witnessed with his own eyes.
He slowly replaced the receiver and stood contemplating his options. The first thing to do would be to unfreeze and then make a list of all he knew regarding the house.
As he made his way towards the kitchen to switch on the kettle for some coffee, he turned on the lights as far as he was walking, because the light made him feel less jittery.
Finished with making the coffee, Chris sat down at the kitchen table with a pen and pad, ready to make notes.
The first thing that he noted on his list was his lack of knowledge regarding the history of the house. He had only recently moved in and had not bothered to ask the agent about the previous owners or even if anything had happened in the house.
So, that would be where he would start. After he had a good sleep. The adrenaline had finished running its course and he was feeling really exhausted.

The next morning he woke up early and started getting ready. He needed to talk to the agent as soon as possible. Luckily it was a Saturday, so he didn’t need to go into the workshop. Having his own woodworking business really had its benefits. He stood almost as tall as the top of the doorpost, with sun- streaked golden brown hair and green- flecked light brown eyes that could stare down an elephant if needed. Not that he had ever used such a tactic, because it went against everything that he believed in. Working hard and treating people with respect and dignity had always been one of his strong points, making everyone that met him want to be a better person.
Being eager to get to the bottom of the events of the previous night, he knew that he would first have to have some coffee and toast to take the edge off the hunger, otherwise he would not give his full attention to the problem, but rather be concentrating on what his stomach was feeling.
Finally stuffing the last bite into his mouth and swallowing the final bit of coffee, he was ready to talk to the agent.
Picking up the phone, he called the agent to make an appointment to find out more about the house. As luck would have it, the agent was free and could see Chris in the next hour.
Arriving at the restaurant where they had agreed to meet, Chris could see that James, the agent, had already found a table at the back where it was a little quieter.
“Morning James. Thanks for seeing me at such short notice. I hope you’ll be able to help me, otherwise I would’ve dragged you out here for nothing.”
“No problem. I wanted to get some fresh air anyway. What can I do for you? You mentioned something about the history of the house?”
“Yeah, I only now realized that I had bought the place without really knowing anything about it, so I was hoping to find out more about the place.”
“Sure. What do you want to know? If I don’t have the answers, I can always look it up for you.”
“Well, I never met the previous owners, so I was wondering why they decided to sell?”
“It’s quite a sad story, actually. They didn’t decide to sell. The previous owner was Mr Walton and he and his wife and two daughters had lived in the house since it had been built. In fact, he had the house built for his wife as a wedding present. Had the wooden floors especially made by a master craftsman. Anyway, no one knows exactly what happened, but it seems as if his wife took the children and ran away, causing Mr Walton to slowly deteriorate mentally until he finally committed suicide. The neighbours noticed after about a week that there was no movement in and out of the house and the post was piling up, so they decided to call the police who broke in and found him in the bath tub with a radio. Not very pretty I’m afraid. The police had tried to find Mrs Walton to inform her that her husband had killed himself, but they couldn’t locate her or the children. The next of kin was then contacted to inform them and find out how to proceed from there. Mr Walton’s sister made arrangements for the funeral and for the sale of the house. She did a very good job of having the placed cleaned, by the way.”
During the whole conversation, Chris was listening very intently, storing away the details. What was really surprising was the reference made about the wooden floors. Any woodworking person worth their salt would make the floors to last a very long time and ensure that they would not lift up or pull away from each other. James had said that a master craftsman had made them, making the likelihood of them pulling up the way that he had seen last night really strange. Maybe the chemicals that the cleaning company had used had something to do with it.
“Would the company that cleaned the house have had any reason to clean the living room upstairs with harsh chemicals?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“I noticed last night that some of the wooden planks of the floor in the living room are really uneven, like they may be lifting up and if, as you say, the floors were made by a master craftsman, the only reason for planks to lift up would be if they were treated with chemicals that were not meant to be used on wood.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think that would be the reason. There was nothing wrong in the living room. The main part that needed cleaning was the bathroom. Mr Walton’s sister did have the tub replaced, though, so you don’t have to worry about that. I am sorry to hear that the floor is lifting up. It was a lovely piece of handwork.”
“Well, thank you for your time. Now I know a little bit more about the place, though it does have a sad history. Luckily I tend to look at practical things more so I don’t worry so much about the pall that a death might leave on a place.”

Perplexed, Chris left the restaurant and headed to his car. Before last night that last statement that he had made to James would have been true, but now things were changing a little. He was no longer so sure that being practical could keep you from feeling like you had no control over your emotions. Especially your fear. He wouldn’t have said that he had a scared bone in his body, but that was true with physical things. He could stand his man against anyone trying to fight with him and he could carry and push and shove like the next man, but how do you approach something that you can’t see?
Climbing into his car, he decided that he would start with the one thing that he knew he could do something about. Heading towards his workshop, he made a mental list of all the things that he would need to fix the floor.
Working with wood always had a way of making him feel part of something bigger. Like he was helping to make the world better by making beautiful things from a natural material. Although this time he would not be making anything but fixing something.
By the time Chris reached the house, it was already late into the afternoon. It took him two trips to get all the gear from the car and upstairs into the living room. With a cautious look around to see if he could spot the shoes or if any mist was creeping around, he switched on the light and started the preparations to take out the floor planks and replace them evenly.


Twilight was fast approaching. Sam could see the darkness touching the horizon. Wanting to appreciate the sunset, she decided to go upstairs to watch it. There was a better view from the living room. Climbing the stairs, she found her two daughters, Sarah and Jane sitting on the steps, each with a doll, playing quietly. They were dressed in their pyjamas already. She touched them each lightly on the head as she passed them, filled with love for their little angel faces.
She flipped the switch for the passage light, but it would not come on. It was probably a blown bulb. Not too worried and eager to see the sunset, she decided to change it later. Seeing that the living room door was closed, she thought that she might have left a window open which caused the door to close, because she could not remember having come up here today and closing the door.
As her hand touched the door handle to open the door, a slight shock passed through her, making her let go for an instant. Surprised that she had generated electricity with her slippers, she took hold of the handle again and opened the door.
The sight that met her eyes made her stop dead in her tracks.
Right there in her living room was a strange man with some kind of tool in his hand and he was on his way to attack the wooden floor. As she opened her mouth to stop him from damaging the floor and demand to know what he was doing in her house, he started to put the flat crowbar- like tool in-between two of the floorboards. From where she was standing in the doorway, she could see that the floor was quite uneven where he was standing on his knees, working the tool between the planks.
With a slight creak, the first board gave up its place in the floor.
Without even noticing what she was doing she had made her way over to him to see what he was uncovering.
Two things hit her as soon as she saw what lay beneath the floor boards. The first was that the floor underneath the boards was really dirty and the second was that there was something there that looked all too much like bones. Seeing the bones was like a floodgate opening. A floodgate releasing memories. Her whole body had turned into ice, with drops of sweat rolling down her back. She knew now that she was looking at herself. Those were her bones that were lying underneath the floorboards. She remembered running away, running from Steven. He was chasing her downstairs. Her breath coming in gasps. She had to get away. She had to get help for her daughters. She had taken her daughters for an ice cream earlier and when they had returned, Steven had told her that he wanted to talk to her alone. Settling the girls in their room to play, she went downstairs to start cooking dinner while they had their talk. Except the talk had quickly turned into an argument. That was what was happening all the time recently. Steven was convinced that she was having an affair. He had told her so. Whenever she went out she would have to explain time and again why she had gone and who she had met. It was like he was paranoid. He wouldn’t believe her no matter what she said.
Standing with her back to him, busy cutting the vegetables at the sink, she was once again trying to convince him that she had taken the girls for an ice cream and that she had not met anyone. With a surprised gasp, she felt him place his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t you want me to touch you? I guess I’m not good enough to touch you anymore? Do you like it when he touches you?” the questions were asked in a low menacing tone.
“Of course you can touch me. You are my husband. No one else touches me except you.” She answered for the umpteenth time, her heart rate increasing. He hadn’t touched her before when he had accused her of having an affair. This was new.
Slowly stroking her neck, he leaned in closer and very softly whispered in her ear.
“That’s right. I’m your husband. Don’t ever forget that. In fact, let me help you to keep on remembering that fact. I will never let anyone else have you. You are mine.”
By this time, Sam had stopped cutting vegetables, her hands shaking too much. When he had finished the last sentence she could suddenly feel the pressure on her neck increasing. Trying to push back with her head to get away from him, he gave her head an enormous shove and her head hit the edge of the sink with a massive thunk.
Dizzy from the hit and trying to find her bearings, she felt her arm grabbed and twisted up behind her back. The nerves in her shoulder screaming for release, she realized that she was still holding on to the knife with her other hand. With huge effort and scraping together her courage, she reached behind and stabbed him in the leg. He let her go from the shock, but almost immediately reached for her again, screaming with pain and rage.
She only needed that single moment in order for her to escape his reach and start running. She at first only wanted to get away but then realized that the girls were still in their room, probably scared from the noise that was coming from downstairs. What could she do? Her husband was trying to hurt her and might also hurt the girls. There was definitely something going on with him. She would have to come up with a plan very quickly if she wanted to get herself and the away from him.
Heading for the stairs she realized with a sinking feeling that she had let go of the knife when she had stabbed him, leaving her without a weapon. Trying to think what else she could use to protect them, she managed to reach the bottom of the stairs before he caught up with her. The adrenaline pumping through her was giving her surprising strength and speed, but it was as if Steven was possessed. With a huge jump, he managed to get hold of her hair before she had managed more than one step up the stairs. Yanking hard, he pulled her back and shook her head like a doll’s.
“I told you that you are mine! No one will ever have you! You want to run upstairs? Fine, we’ll go upstairs!” Not caring that she was losing her footing and tripping on the stairs, he dragged her fighting body behind him.
She was now working on automatic, trying to fight back, not caring anymore that he was her husband, only to get away from him as soon as possible. Her hair was being pulled up from the roots, but she couldn’t feel the pain. Dragging air into her lungs was like razors going down her throat, but that was another feeling she was oblivious to.
“No, Steven, please stop it! What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” she pleaded, hoping that he might stop, but knowing that he was too far gone in his rage to even hear her voice.
They finally entered the living room where he threw her down on the floor, causing her to slide across the highly polished wooden floor. Before she could get up, her hip paining where it had encountered the floor, her breath left her body in a huge whoosh as his foot connected with her midsection.
When he had finally finished with her, there was no more life left in her battered and bruised body.
She can remember standing and looking at him as his raged calmed into something more ominous, but she was no longer able to do something. Her body was dead but she was still there seeing him wipe off her blood from his fists and shoes before slowly turning away heading for the door.
With a feeling of dread she followed him to her daughters’ room, somehow knowing what was coming, but not wanting to believe it. She saw him sitting on the edge of Sarah’s bed and stroking her hair, before slowly easing the pillow from behind her head. Not wanting to see anymore, she closed her eyes and turned away, knowing that she could do nothing about what was happening in the room. Sobbing and shaking her head, she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore and screamed as loud as she could, hoping that somehow he would hear and stop what he was doing.
“What’s Daddy doing Mommy?” a small voice asked beside her, the arm having snaked around her legs.
“Sarah? Sarah honey? Are you okay?” she asked not believing that she was looking at her eldest daughter.
“Sure I am, but why is Daddy holding the pillow over Jane like that?”
“Sarah, look at Mommy. Don’t look at Daddy. Jane will be joining us and then we will go and have some cookies in the kitchen, okay?”
Still not believing what was happening, Sam picked up Sarah to stop her from seeing what was going on. She felt herself dying all over again. Slowly walking out of the room, she soon felt a small little hand sliding softly into hers.


Steven had placed her body under the floorboards where he had taken the last of her life and he had placed their daughters under the floorboards at the top of the landing.
As time went by, she saw how he deteriorated and stopped caring for anything. The day he had killed them and put away their bodies was the day his life ended, his body going on but his mind dying.
She soon learned that although she no longer had a body she could still move things. It was as if her mind was now her body, not able to move big things but still able to do small things. She set about doing everything she could to show Steven that even though he had killed her body, she was still there and that she was not going away until the truth had been revealed.
Within a month of the killings, she had waged such an effective attack on him that he had completely lost what little of his mind had been left and he committed suicide by taking his clock radio with him into the bath.

It must have been when Chris had moved in that he had awakened her from her hibernation. She had opted to forget what had happened when Steven had died, trying to continue, but never really able to rest unless the truth was discovered. She remembered how she had managed to make the boards uneven while Steven was still alive, so that he would be reminded on a daily basis of where she was lying. She never realised that it would be where Chris would start looking. Recalling what she had seen last night she realized something else. Steven was back. The same reason that had wakened her from her self enforced hiding must have called Steven back somehow. He would do anything to stop someone from finding out the truth. As soon as the truth came out, she and her daughters would finally be released to move on and he would most probably also move on, but not to the same place, therefore the moving shoes last night. Well, no matter what he tried to do, this time she would not permit him to do anything to harm them or Chris. Chris was her only hope of getting any rest.

Chris sat there, staring at what he had uncovered. He couldn’t believe it. There were bones underneath the boards. There was still some cloth covering the bones, what looked like jeans and could’ve been a sweater. His heart was racing, his breath was coming in quick gasps and his hands were shaking. He would have to do something.
As he was still trying to recover his senses, he suddenly heard a noise from behind him. Turning around, he saw his lamp on the table next to the door come flying at his head. Not believing his eyes, he just sat crouched, not moving, like a deer caught in the headlights of a moving vehicle. He closed his eyes the moment before impact, expecting to feel the crushing blow from the lamp hitting his head, but instead only felt a strong breeze move past the front of his face. He heard a loud crash and slowly opened one eye to see what had happened to the lamp, but could not immediately locate it. Opening both eyes he saw the lamp lying on the other side of the room, completely in the opposite direction it had been travelling in. Bewildered, he looked around to see if he could find out what had happened but nothing he saw made sense. The floor had revealed someone’s last resting place and a lamp had come flying at him but was now smashed on the other side of the room. Before he could move to get up, he saw the other lamp from the set suddenly lift into the air and come flying at him. This time he was a little more prepared and managed to duck but once again something made the lamp change direction and crash down on the other side of the room.
Not wanting to have anything else come his way, he sprang up and ran for the door, intending to run down the stairs and out the door as fast as his legs would carry him, but just as he reached the doorframe, his feet went crashing out from under him, sending him sprawling through the door. Something had tripped him, of that he was sure, but what it was, was a mystery.

Sam was still looking at the whole in the floor and knowing that Steven would try to stop Chris from uncovering the truth when she sensed that there was someone else I the room. Looking over her shoulder she saw Steven standing by the table with the two lamps on it. Instincts kicking in, she turned to face him squarely, this time not afraid that he would hurt her, but knowing that he would try to hurt Chris. Preparing herself for the fight that was coming, she gathered all her energy and strength together.
Across the room she could see Steven picking up the lamp and giving a mighty heave to throw the lamp at Chris. Without even thinking of what she was doing, she stepped in front the flying lamp and with a great shove of her hand managed to deflect the lamp in the opposite direction. Steven, seeing that she was not going to let him harm Chris without a fight, picked up the second lamp and let fly. Once again Sam was there to stop the lamp from getting to Chris. Keeping her eyes trained on Steven she didn’t see Chris running away until he was at the door. She was too late to stop Steven from tripping him, but she would not be late in stopping him again. Running full speed towards Steven, she tackled him before he could do anything to Chris, jumping up before he had a chance to recover. She saw Chris had already gotten up and was running down the stairs. Following him downstairs, she saw him entering the kitchen. Going in after him, she saw him scrambling around looking for something. Not waiting for him to find what he was looking for, she grabbed the pen hanging from the notebook attached to the fridge and started writing on it.

Chris was still scratching around looking for his car keys when the notebook on the fridge started bringing forth letters and then words. He hadn’t thought that it could get any weirder, but there was his fridge reminder notebook telling him to call the police. NOW! What was going on? But he wouldn’t argue with that piece of advice, even though the police would think him crazy.
With speed that actually surprised him, he ran towards the phone, picking up the receiver and pressing the numbers on the keypad before he was fully registering what his hand was doing.
“Hi, could you please send someone to this address? I’m being attacked and I found a body buried under my floorboards. And I don’t know if there are any more. Please hurry up!” Before he could get any other words out, he felt a mighty push sending him backwards. Lying on his back he could see the knife that was meant to kill him, flying harmlessly over his head. He decided that the safest course of action for him would be to stay in one place, because there seemed to be two opposing entities in the house. One trying to kill him and one trying to save him.

Sam could see Steven look around for something else to throw. She had managed to push Chris out of the way before the knife could hit him, keeping him safe. Hoping that Chris wouldn’t run again, she waited to see what Steven would do next. His options were running out. Very soon the police would be here and then everything would come to light. The thing was just to keep Chris out of harms’ way until then.
Casting a quick look behind her to see that Chris was still there, she looked back to Steven again and saw him pick up a marble cutting block used for cutting vegetables and meat. Looking her straight in the eye as if to say that she didn’t have the strength to stop him, he started walking in Chris’ direction. Standing with her legs slightly apart, she held her arms in front of her, to enable her to ward off any attack that Steven had planned against Chris.

Chris could only look at the cutting block that was heading his way. Feeling like gravity had pulled the strength from his limbs, his only hope was that whatever seemed to be protecting him could stop the block from reaching its intended target. With a feeling of total surrender and utter helplessness, he closed his eyes and waited for whatever the outcome would be. He did not want to see if the block hit his head. If it did, then it didn’t matter. For a few seconds nothing seemed to happen, making the curiosity over what was happening to the block too great to resist. Opening his left eye only slightly, he managed to see the cutting block simply stop in midair before going flying through his kitchen window. Both eyes now wide open, he finally heard the welcome sound of wailing police cars come screeching down the street.
Without thinking about what he was doing, he simply flew at the back door and yanked it open with such force that it flew back against the wall. Running with all his might he ran to meet the first police car coming up the drive.

The police officer that had been first to approach Chris was still trying to understand what he was explaining.
“So, Mr Lawrence, where exactly is the person that you say attacked you. We have searched the house and can’t find anyone.”
“That’s just it. I wasn’t attacked by a person. It was a ...a …thing. An entity or something.”
“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t arrest an entity for attacking someone. I don’t think that law has been passed yet. But you also mentioned the bones that you found. Do you have any theories regarding that? Know how they might have ended up underneath your floor?”
Chris was getting pretty fed up with the attitude of the policeman. He knew it sounded farfetched, but the least he could do was pretend to be serious about it. And now he made it sound as if Chris had something to do with the bones. With a disgusted shake of his head, he excused himself, explaining that he had to go the bathroom.
Dodging around all the policemen that had invaded his house, he went upstairs to the living room to see if he could find any more clarification on the matter. The open area had been cordoned off, not allowing him to go too close, but he could still see the inside of the hole in his minds’ eye.

Sam saw Chris sitting dejectedly on the couch, trying to figure out the events. She knew that he would have to explain what had happened but he wouldn’t know. He had not been part of it until he had uncovered her.
She knew now that she would have to try and give him the answers to his questions, even though she wouldn’t be able to talk to him. She slowly walked up to him and crouched down in front of him so that she could lay her palms against his face. She was hoping that by touching him, she could impart her gratitude for all he had unknowingly done as well as to ask him to tell their tale and have her and her daughters moved to their final resting place.
With a great sigh, she closed her eyes and started concentrating, letting all her thoughts and feelings travel down to her hands and through her fingers, willing Chris to feel what she was doing and understand what had happened.

Chris was still struggling to come to grips with the things that had happened during the last few hours. He was exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally. Now the police wanted questions answered and he had nothing to give except a few ‘I don’t know’s’. He had hoped that coming upstairs would reveal something more, but it had only added to his sadness. Still looking at the hole, he could suddenly feel something touch his face. Sitting absolutely still, not daring to breath, he could feel it touching his cheeks, almost like hands cupping his face. Closing his eyes, the sensation intensified, turning into thoughts running through his mind. He could see a woman being chased and murdered, two little girls also being murdered and how their bodies had been buried underneath the floor. There was such a tremendous amount of sadness coming from the slight touch on his cheek that he could feel himself being engulfed with a need to cry, but the tears streaming down his face made him realise that he had already reached that stage.
With a great effort he forced open his eyes and could see Sam. It was like she was just a thought brought to life, but he could see the tears and the smile on her face as she stepped back. She was no longer touching him, but he could see what see was trying to say. She was thanking him for setting them free. They could finally let go and move on.

Sam was finished. There was no longer a need for them to stay, so with a slight nod of her head to Chris, she took her little angels’ hands, turned around and started walking away, the light guiding her steps.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.08.2010

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