Short scary stories

Visceroys and Artisans

I have to say one of the things I hate the most is to have somebody walking behind me, doesn't matter if it's a friend or a complete stranger, I don't like it. I feel insecure, watched and uncomfortable. You might call me paranoid but honestly, for me, it's unbearable. Let me begin by saying that the reason I practically hate that is due to some occurrences during my childhood. All of the events that I will tell you actually happened so you probably will understand that for protection purposes (yourself, my family and mine) I will avoid providing any names or locations. Also, you should know English is not my primary language.

I was born in a small town surrounded by hills, factories and railroads; its weather was mostly dominated by rain, hail and snow and its streets were poorly adapted to handle such drastic climatic changes. Being a small town, the places that you could visit during your spare time were limited, so it wasn't unusual that you saw half the town in the movies during the weekend or even buying groceries for the week. There weren't many schools to attend, careers to study or places to work. You just knew that if you lived there you would probably do the same things everybody else did, you'd had the same friends you grew up with and probably marry one of them. People there were comfortable with this monotony. Extremely boring if you ask me. I hated there. I guess the only cool thing is that whenever we had snow, school got cancelled and me and my brothers went outside to make snow angels and snow fights.

Well, it was in this old, forgotten and non-pretty little town that my parents bought their first house. It was relatively large. Considering the continuous movement of trains, tractors, and traffic, chaos that was common every day, they were lucky enough to get a house away from all that in a relaxed and familiar colony. It was originally a one story house, which turned out to be perfect as there were only my parents and my two brothers. However, after I was born, space became an issue so they decided to expand it and build a second floor. This is basically how the house was distributed: In the first floor was the dining room, the kitchen, one bedroom I shared with my older sister, a full bathroom and a small hallway that led towards my older brother's room. On the second floor was a TV room and at the end my parents' bedroom with their respective bathroom.

There was a small balcony with metal railing at the foot of the stairs to go to the second floor; it was pretty cool as you had a panoramic view of the TV room and you didn't need to go all the way downstairs to call someone, you could just do it from the balcony. It was poorly designed, I must say, as the ceiling was at such a high level that not even a six-foot-five-inches tall person could reach it. This abnormal height between the floor and ceiling caused everything to look darker than normal at night. Now that I think about it, it was a very strange house.

I have good and bad memories during the eleven years I lived there; you could say we were a close but dysfunctional family. I got along well with my two older brothers, although it wasn't unusual that we had differences from time to time as we were each five years apart. My parents however, used to fight horribly almost daily and unfortunately, my brothers and I were the main witnesses. These fights normally ended with my dad breaking something and leaving the house furious and my mom crying and cursing out loud in our presence.

My mom used to get very irritable and suffered from severe episodes of depression, she vented her frustration on us and exploited at the smallest detail by hitting us or saying things a child should not hear. After these episodes, she got full of remorse and promised us that it wouldn't happen again. It didn't matter how much we loved our parents and the fact that we understood that not everything could be perfect, we knew it would happen again. It was a vicious circle full of tension.

You might be wondering, why do I tell you all of this? Well, I think it's important. I've heard some people say that a negative environment attracts negative things, but to be honest, I'm not sure if it applies in this case. Yes, my parents had trouble but I always felt that these issues were intensified by whatever thing it was in that house. Trust me, It's not easy for me to recall all of these bad memories, but I really need to get it off my chest. There is something that up until today I can't get out of my head, and that is the terror I experienced whenever I was on the second floor and mostly, near those stairs.