23rd Step

This being a second story I have submitted I decided I would use one of my experiences with a very angry and hostile feeling spirit.

This tale begins in a small farmhouse outside of Dalton, New York where my grandparents are from. My grandmother owns a small two story farm house. It was a very simple floor plan: 2 bedrooms on the bottom floor, a bathroom, kitchen, dining room and a family room. The upstairs was made up of 5 bedrooms with 2 stairways leading upstairs. One straight off of the left of the kitchen and the other out of the living room. The house seems to have certain cold spots in it. Being one of numerous grandchildren (33 to be exact) I spent a lot of time in this house.

Every night I would fear and loathe going to bed as any kid used to. I had a different reason though. Every time I went upstairs I would hear whispers and chants in low voices. Mostly incoherent mumbling. Sometimes I would see red eyes in the shadows watching me. Well this horrible feeling would occur until I climbed into bed. So every night when it was bed time I would bolt up the stairs that led out of the family room and into my dad's old room and into bed and I would throw the covers over my head and try to ignore the whispers.

Well years passed and I slowly got older and wiser, but I still never got over my fear of the upstairs of that house. The back staircase that leads up out of the kitchen is made up of 23 steep steps of solid oak. It is very dark since there is no light in the stairwell. The stairwell opened into a large hallway with a bedroom to your left (used for storage purposes only) and a room right in front of you at the top of the stairs. This room scared the hell out of me! Every time I would walk up those stairs when I reached the 23rd step I would leap over it and onto the hallway floor. I had heard a story that an old woman had fallen down those steps and broke her neck, she lay there for a week or two and was found by her daughter. Well every time I reached the 23rd step something would either push me backwards or try to rip my feet out from under me.

One cold night during Christmas vacation I was sent upstairs to retrieve some gift wrapping supplies. I reached the 23rd step and suddenly a pale blue face leaped out of the bedroom at the top of the steps and pushed me backwards screaming the whole way. I rolled down the stairs smashing into the hard wall at the bottom of the stairwell. I didn't feel any pain, even though I had broken my arm. I was more worried about the woman's glowing face which now bore a horrible evil grin and was coming down the stairwell towards me. I let out the highest pitch yell a man can let out when suddenly the door by the kitchen opened and my grandmother walked into the stairwell and looked at me very worried and said "what's going on?". Before I could say anything about the woman's face I noticed that it was gone. I picked myself up off the floor and placed a damp wash rag over the cut on my forehead and I sat in a stool in the kitchen waiting for my grandmother to get dressed to take me to the hospital. When I heard someone coming through the living room I automatically yelled "hey grandma you all ready to go?" then I remembered that my grandmother was in the bathroom. As soon as I realized this I heard the most blood curdling laugh I've ever heard come from the stairwell. I passed out. The next thing I knew I woke up somewhere outside of the house in my grandmother's car with my arm in a sling. Whatever the thing on the stairs was I am sure it was going to kill me. I get chills every time I close my eyes because all I see is that cold stare of hell that that face had on it!

I never go upstairs anymore and when I absolutely must I go up the front stairwell in the living room.