FOOTSTEPS ON THE STAIRS

I have always felt that I am more sensitive than other people. When I was a little girl, I felt that there was something bad in my room.

My mother and my sisters always said that I was crazy, but I hated to be alone in the upstairs. I never saw anything, it was just more of a feeling. Even now, being 26 years old, the upstairs of that old house scares me. My parents moved into a new house a couple of years ago, but they retained ownership of the old house and the land. Some of our things are still stored in that house.

Once, a few months ago, I decided I needed to get something from the house. I was fine until I got to the stairs. I thought I was just being silly, as I am a grown woman now, so I proceeded to climb those stairs. Before I even realized fully what I was doing, I had hurriedly grabbed what I came for and was running as fast as I could back down the stairs. I decided then that next time I went to the house, someone was going with me. This is just a little background on why I think I might be what some people think of as sensitive to paranormal happenings.

I have had two separate happenings (as I haven't lived in many different places, I think this is a lot). The first happened when I began to stay at my Grandparents' house for the winter while they were in Florida. I was down in the basement doing my laundry, when I heard what sounded like children laughing upstairs. At first, I didn't think this was too strange. The neighbours we shared a driveway with had three young grandchildren, so I assumed that it was them, playing on the porch as they often do. Then it dawned on me what time it was. I had not gone into the basement until around 11:30 PM, so by that time it had to be nearly midnight. I walked up the stairs to see what exactly was going on. The neighbours were not even home, and the rest of the street was dark. Still, I figured I was either imagining things, or it was perhaps some other children that had come from further down the street. Everything was quiet then for about a month or so, and I had almost forgotten about the incident.

Then one night, I had gone out with some friends, and we had decided to just all stay at my Grandparents' house because it was closest and we were tired.

One friend, (we will call her Sam to protect her privacy) decided to take the attic room. I had not told her of the past incident as it was nearly forgotten. Then next morning, a very tired and frightened Sam came down the stairs for breakfast. When asked what was wrong, she at first refused to say, only asking if any of the rest of us had been going up and down the stairs. When we all denied having gone up the stairs after she had gone to bed, she finally broke down and told us that for about an hour after we had shut the attic door, she had heard something or someone running up and down the stairs (the stairs are quite old and creaky, so any step on them can be easily heard). Since she was too scared to move, she had simply covered her head until she was too exhausted to stay awake.

At other times, those same footsteps were heard by myself, as well as other friends. Also, I have lost a pair of aerobics shoes in the house that no one can seem to locate, and another friend lost her makeup bag. She had used it to get ready to go out with me one night, and by morning it was gone. My mother and my grandmother tease me all the time about my "children." They think I am just being silly, as they have never heard any of these things.

The other experience I have had was in another house with stairs. This was a house that was converted into three apartments, with ours being the only upstairs one. In order to get into our apartment, you had to go through the bottom door, up the stairs, and through a top door. My boyfriend worked out of town for the summer, but he had come back to begin moving some of our things in. We had no furniture yet, so we were sleeping on a couple of sleeping bags on the floor. It was quite late at night, and we were getting ready to go to sleep when we heard what sounded like someone opening the bottom door and walking up the stairs. The top door, however, never opened. At first we thought it was one of our roommates. Bill (this is not his real name) got up to check. When he opened the top door, there was no one there. Thinking it had been our imaginations, we decided just to go to sleep. About five minutes later, however, it happened again. Thinking it may be a burglar, Bill got out of bed, grabbed his fraternity paddle (basically a converted two-by-four) and searched the rooms, then opened the top door to see if anyone was there. Again, there was no one. By this time, we were getting a little apprehensive.

He came back to bed, first grabbing his hunting knife out of his bag. The third time it happened, he jumped out of bed, ran to the door, and down the stairs. The bottom door was locked. There was no way anyone could have gotten in. Puzzled and a little freaked out, he came back to bed. It took us a long time to get to sleep that night, but it didn't happen again.

A few months later, I was talking to my roommate's girlfriend, and decided to tell her the story. She just sat and looked at me, wide- eyed, while I spun my tale. At first I thought it was because she thought I was weird. After I was done, she admitted that the same thing had happened to her and my roommate while they were there alone. She hadn't wanted to tell me because she thought I would think she was crazy!

I apologize for the length of my stories, but I hope you enjoyed them nonetheless.

Submitted from: Melissa, Ohio, USA

[Home]
[Story Page]
[October 2000 Ghost Stories]