Ghost Stories

My brothers and I are convinced that our house is haunted. The whole place is just full of terrors and frights that make our skin crawl. Whenever I hear the word "darkness," I think of this terrifying event.

I was upstairs when I heard my stomach rumble. "Uh-oh," I said to the empty room. I told my mom about my hunger and asked if I could grab a huge bowl of cereal downstairs. She said sure. Seems like a normal thing at first, right? Breakfast at night? Unfortunately, more events unfold whenever this happens. It was 10:30 p.m., and the same thing that happens every night when I’m hungry was about to unfold.

The bottom portion of our house has a lot of windows. It has three in the kitchen along with a glass sliding door. The living room holds six windows. Both rooms are connected in two places: one in front of the staircase, a wide hallway, and another connecting to the laundry room, bathroom, and pantry. It's normally very dark.

I went downstairs, with the light on of course, and felt a force on the bottom of the staircase. It felt as though something was pushing me up the staircase, away from the kitchen -- almost as if I shouldn’t go to the kitchen. I ignored it.

There are two light switches I have to hit in order to see to pour my food. First, I have to hit the switch in front of the staircase. Not hard. Then I have to hit the one in the dark hallway. It has a turn in it.

I hit the first switch and a light came on and the fan started. I felt a presence behind me, something that seemed to retreat when the light came on. I paid no attention to the thing that was there and went left towards the other hallway that led to the pantry.

I didn’t take the more spacious living room route because I could feel something staring at me. As I went to touch the pantry doorknob, the air was ice-cold. I checked the thermostat. It read 86 degrees. I saw my breath in front of my face and the door started to rattle. Then I heard a noise.

Step. Step. Step. CLINK. Step. Step. Step. CLINK.

It repeated over and over again until the footsteps stopped at where I was. I looked around and saw a figure dressed in blue and red and walking with a brown, emerald-studded cane. I stared at the cane. Nothing special. He came up to me and passed through me. I looked back and saw him travel through the couch.

He turned and shrilled, fiercely and sharply. I rebounded from the noise and quickly grabbed the cereal. His voice always sends me spiraling into depression and hopelessness. I poured the cereal and milk into a bowl with a spoon and hurriedly turned off the switch.

I'm very light on my feet, so I didn’t spill a drop. I turned to the staircase and to my right, in the living room, a black shapeless being was waddling towards me, its false feet moving in front of one another. I stared and saw that its eyes were small and pointed, like slits. Its back was covered with fur and its tail had small, spiky hair on it.

When it stared at me, I merely hid my fear. I’ve seen it before. It's nothing new, but still scary. I backed off and ran up the staircase with my bowl. The thing glided over the staircase, followed by the man with the cane; their noises were muffled by the carpeting. I jumped up the last four steps of the staircase and closed the door.

I looked over and saw my brothers.

“Hey, where have you been?”

I looked back at the staircase and the ghosts were gone. No marks were left or objects out of place.

I looked back. "Eh, getting some cereal."

I stared at the clock and saw it read 10:34 p.m.

It's the same time every night.