Children Upstairs

Stories of ghosts, haunting purchases, and apparitions. We don't always know what's out there. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. Children upstairs. I close my eyes and try to fall asleep once more. But just like my friend who texted me at just the right time, I couldn't you up? She asked. I sent back the disappointed emoji, sad and defeated me too. She said. It was one in the morning, you know, the time when most people are in deep sleep, and the ones that aren't are usually up to no good. We started the conversation talking about things in school and work. She had a part time job at Starbucks and I got one barely at the cheesecake factory. As many of you may know, there's always stories there, so when she asked me how things were at work, I got really into it. It was almost three in the morning when I started to get drowsy. Mindy had long stopped responding by this time. Lucky, my eyes were barely starting to close when I started to feel the strange sensation once again, the one that had been waking me up ever since I moved into this house. Mom told me that it was my mind trying to deal with all the changes. New job, new college, new place, being away from home was one of her reasons too, But honestly, I sort of enjoyed that despite all of her attempts to try to make me feel better, I felt the same. I made her feel like she helped after every conversation. Though there's lots of things I wouldn't tell her. Sleep deprivation is a serious issue, and everything that you hear or read about tis true. For me, though it was causing something completely different. How do I explain it? It was making me see things, the things that weren't there. The clock from the radio alarm flicked to three and two zeros, the dots in the middle pulsing along with my heartbeat, and then those things I tried to not think about started flashing again in my mind. One of those thoughts was about the lady who showed me the place and told me about the roommates who I would be having in the future, and yet two weeks in, I was still by myself in a four bedroom house. She told me about how this house was so close to my college and how much I would enjoy it. Distracted by her great teeth, I simply agreed and smiled awkwardly. It was nice to finally have a place, and I'd have to deal with it before the semester started. Plus, it was tough to find a place for less than six hundred dollars around there. My mom got along with that old lady. Then again, she gets along with everybody, so that doesn't mean anything. One thing I remember, one that hasn't left me was the sound of the rolling items above us when we were moving in. I mean, there were lots of other things about the house, but this one really stood out. Mom and I looked up at the ceiling and into the old lady room. With another one of her grins, she said, well, looks like they're excited to play with you. Mom raised her eyebrows and mouthed in ooh to me, laughing. I rolled my eyes and looked back toward the old lady, who simply left a story at that. She didn't explain what the sound was, and didn't say anything else but the normal house stuff, the street sweepers of trash collecting, and then showed us where the fuse box was. I prayed, right there I would never have to go and flick it back on the basement was dark enough with the lights on, and knowing that I would have to go there with the flashlight by myself, no things. Hopefully one of the roommates would be willing to do that, but they never came. The semester started a couple of days after that, and I started to get used to coming back to an empty house. It was on the first floor, which for a while. Mom told me to simply imagine that I was living in my own apartment and the upstairs was another unit. She would tell me this when I told her about the noises that I'd hear late in the night, rolling objects like marbles on the floor above me. It's an old house, she would tell me. Old houses have old pipes and old materials. They make sounds like that. Then she started telling me about how her and dad started on their own by living in an old house like that. I knew that story forwards and backwards, but it did make me feel better. That wouldn't last very long. Eventually, the sounds of marbles came with footsteps, little ones like children, running up and down the hall. They would laugh and sit on the floor at times. I believe there were two of them up there. On steps coming from different parts of the house. Mindy was the only person I told about the children. Once a topic where we lived came up in conversation, she joked that it was a good thing that at least they stayed upstairs, and yeah, I guess that was true, but even that started to change. I had gone upstairs two times the entire time I was there. The first time it was during the tour of the place with the old lady, and the second was when Mom helped me move in. The staircase led to the middle of the second floor, with rooms lined around the strange balcony type opening. The rooms had old keyholes, the ones you see on TV nowadays, and all of the rooms were empty. The closet doors and cabinets were wide open, even in the bathroom. The old lady said that it was for ventilation for a mold issue they had a while back, but that it was completely fixed and nothing to worry about. There was one closet, a wooden closet at the end of the hallway that was close shut. I simply looked at it. The woman noticed, and once again she simply ignored it and went back to explaining more things about the house. It was that image of the closet that made me uneasy at night, a night like that one three seventeen in the morning, and wide awake again. If only I could just see it, if only I could just gather the courage to open it and find out that it was empty, that there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe then I'd be able to go to sleep peacefully. The wooden doors creaked open at the end of the upstairs hallway, and I could hear their footsteps creep around the wooden floorboards. They would whisper to each other and then begin their games marbles or toy cars, rolling on the floor, laughed and giggled with each other, and I could hear them boy and a girl. My mind started racing with explanations. Perhaps it could be the neighbors or kids sneaking into the house, something echoing from next door. The more I paid attention as the knights were passing by, I started to notice how close they would get to the staircase, their steps staying near the top as they whispered and giggled, daring each other to just take one more step before bolting back up and to the end of the hallway. It seemed to happen every single night. Now it was three twenty four and I was waiting for them to begin their journey out of the closet and begin to play again. Something felt different. They were late. I looked at the clock and the two dots in the middle as I began to doze off. When I heard them. The door creaked open and I heard their footsteps once again. They laughed and ran around the hallway there going crazy. I looked up to the ceiling, and even through the dim lights that were from the outside, I could see dust to fall above me. Something was upstairs. But then I heard the sounds of the staircase, the creaking boards slow, heavier. They were getting softer with every step, moving away. They were moving away. Suddenly I heard a grunt and a yell as a voice of a woman demanded something in an unknown language. The little steps ran toward the end of the hall and two doors shut at the same time. I was almost in tears when everything went quiet. I don't know when I managed to fall asleep. The next evening, I got a text from an unknown number, a woman who confirmed my name and then asked if it was a good time to call or to show up the landlord's daughter. She knocked on the door and met me at the porch. About an hour after that, she gave me the news that the old lady had died the night before that she would be taking care of the place from then on. I agreed, not knowing what to say. Barely knew the woman. She asked me if everything was okay, and that's when I told her everything, that I didn't know what was going on and that I hadn't slept well in days. She stopped me and looked me dead in the eyes. I used to hear them too. Within a week she helped me find another place. I have real living roommates. Now a new car. Scott looked at the salesman in disbelief. Are you serious, he asked, looking at the enormous vehicle in front of him, I need to make deliveries on this thing. Hey, kid, listen to me, he said. You said you have two thousand only right, good luck finding a better one out there. But hey, he interrupted himself, trying to make himself a bit less aggressive with him. The thing has barely been used, you know how it is around here. In fact, the owner used it so little that he decided to simply sell it. He couldn't believe it, but the old salesman was right. With a loud sigh both of disappointment and relief, he grabbed the keys and took it for a test drive. He wasn't expecting to like it, but oh he did. The salesman was on his phone the whole time. He missed a smile. Scott was letting out with every grunt of that old thing. The rear part of it squeaked as he stepped on the gas just a little more, car shifted, it turned properly. There was something oddly comforting about it. When they got back to the lodge, he grabbed the keys, signed the papers, and left the envelope with two thousand dollars inside. He bought it and cash. He had the pink slip to prove it, and it was going to be set to his name in a few days once the paperwork arrived by mail. When he got back, his young wife was waiting outside for him. You got this, she said, A bit uneasy, trust me on this, Julia hop in. Julia run back to the house and grabbed the keys and shut the door, pulling on the knob to make sure that the house was actually locked. Nothing ever happened in this town, You never know. Their biggest fear was that all the old people in town would begin to die and leave them completely alone. Julia smiled that she got on the passenger seat and heard that engine rumble. Look at this, he said, as he stepped on the gas, and off they went. Julia felt relieved the car wasn't struggling like their old one, and with so much room in the back, her pies and breads might actually get delivered while they were still warm. She was filled with so much hope, but like with everything else, her dreams died. Scott started hauling junk to get recycled, and the new bakery that came into town was taking all of her business away. They thought of so many other ideas, making pizzas, taking children to school for a small fee, and even helping carry the mill curtains in and out of town, but nothing seemed to work. Something about them made others uneasy and desperation. One night, got parked outside of a church, away from other people, to pray for a sign, anything that they could do that would bring some money, at least to close out the year with something good. Those prayers were answered. A tap on his window scared him just as he was going to reach for his keys to drive away. It was a priest of the church. We could use some of your services, he said, as Scott opened the driver's side door to peek over to the sidewalk. Sure thing, father, what do you need? He was explained the time and place to wait, and so he did. He held off the news for Julia until after he had cash on hand and simply went on his way the next day and waited where he was told. A group of people gathered outside of the church, and when the bell started chiming, he did as the instruction said and opened up the back door. Group of eight people carefully put the coffin in the back, and Scott drove to the cemetery slowly, just like he was supposed to the whole time, gleaming with joy that he finally found a use for his hearse. Stories like these have always fascinated me. The surprises at the end and the lingering feelings that they leave has always very welcome to send me ideas for stories by tagging me at Edwin Cove on Twitter or Instagram. The next story is called The Girl by the Window, and it is coming up. Right after this. I was moving out finally, and my mom had me sores through box after a box of old memories, mostly papers from school and old certificates, greeting cards and notes that we used to pass around during class. It was a trip down memory lane, for sure. It ended suddenly when I found some of my old drawings. The thought of seeing this reminder, even though mom and Dad talked about never speaking about this again, made shivers run down my spine immediately. It was the most bizarre and dark experience I have ever had. We had just moved into a new apartment building and it was nice. The plays had two floors all to ourselves, and it felt like such a big house to me, even though looking back at it the place was sort of low income. I didn't know, and I didn't care. My sister and I had just gotten a set of walky talkies and I had to convince her to play with me since I hadn't made friends yet at the new complex. She didn't find them as fun as I did, but she agreed as we pretended to look for missions and things like well, my mom was up to win the kitchen or like me, pretending to retrieve something from our room. I don't know. There were just games we used to play. One day, Mom and Dad went to the store and left us at the apartment because we were watching cartoons. Back then, one of our favorite shows started every single morning on Saturdays, and we had a good time watching it. I swear even the commercials were cool. So anyway, the show was over and my sister went back to her little kitchen set toys, and I ran upstairs to grab the walkie talkies just to see if she wanted to play. She said okay, but after she was done, so I left one of them downstairs and ran upstairs to hide under the bed. That's when I heard a signal coming through. Hello. I saw the red early d light on the talkie, wondering if it was an automated sound or something similar. There was only so much I could see in the dark. I pressed the button Sylvie, I asked Hello. I heard back it was in my sister's voice, but rather another woman whispering on the other end. Started getting nervous being alone up there, and instead decided to crawl out of the bed. When I noticed a small shadow moving away from me and into my parents bedroom. Sylvie. I cried out again, walking toward the empty bedroom. As I got closer, I saw the shadow cast on the floor of Sylvie looking out the window on the opposite wall. Sylvie say something. I nearly yelled as I walked up to her frozen, solid body that wasn't even breathing. I walked up to her and grabbed her by the shoulder. That's when she turned around. Her jaw was loose and hanging off her face. Dark circles around her eyes against her purple pale skin. She was staring right at me. I took two steps back before falling against the carpet. I wasn't my sister. I didn't look back as I hopped almost the entire staircase in one jump. My sister came burning up to me, and I told her to follow me outside. We waited for our parents by the front door, and when I told him what I had seen, my sister started crying and refused to go off there by herself. I told mom about the voice on the walkie talkie. I'm sure they believed me, but didn't want to make a big deal about it. Eventually, though, a couple of months after that, Mom started asking me more and more about the apparition I had seen. That's when she made me draw her just as I had seen her. I could still picture her clearly in my mind. She asked me what the girl was doing, how tall she was, and about the length of her hair. The following month, we moved to another unit in the same complex, and things turned around for the better. Eventually Mom explained to me why she had asked me so many questions, and her answer still terrifies me. And some nights, Mom would wake up to my sister walking into her bedroom and standing by the window and walking back out of the room. From advice she had heard from her friends, she figured that my sister was simply sleep walking and that waking her up would only scare her. So, since she didn't see any harm in it, she would fall back asleep, and then when my mom opened her eyes again, my sister would be gone. It was after my experience that Mom started becoming suspicious of the whole thing. So when my sister came into her bedroom to stand by the window one night, Mom crawled out and went to our room. I wanted to find my sister fast asleep in her own bed. I also went through an old box of toys and I found those walkie talkies. They bring back those memories, same ones I'm trying to forget. Scary Story podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Kovarugaz. I want to thank the new supporters that signed up for the premium version of the show. Honestly, I didn't know anybody would join, and now they can get add free episodes and joined too by going to Scary Story podcast dot com and clicking the premium link at the top. I'll be sure to add the link in the description of this episode. For more creepy content, check out the other podcast, True Scary Story and also a Dark Memory. They're available where you're listening now. Until next time, Thank you very much for listening.