Short scary stories

Wooden Staircase

There was an old apartment building in Japan that as seven stories high. The apartments were very small and decrepit and the building had to elevator. There was only a large, dilapidated wooden staircase that spanned seven flights of stairs. Each one had seven steps.

On the first floor of the building, there was one apartment, directly opposite to the stair case. The landlord who owned it had a hard time finding tenants to stay in the apartment. Whenever he managed to rent it out, the tenant would suddenly leave, without ever giving  an explanation. Every tenant left less than a week after renting the room.

One day a young man came to look at the vacant apartment. He was a college student and didn't have very much money. The apartment was every small, but the landlord was asking for a very low rent. The man decided to take the apartment and moved his belongings in a few days later.

The first day that the young man spent in the apartment was a Monday. During the night, he was roused from his slumber by a strange noise. It sounded like a child's voice, echoing in the stair case near his front door.

"I have reached the first step on the wooden staircase.

"What is a child doing out of bed at this time of the night?" The man wondered to himself. However, he was tired from transporting his belongings and just went back to sleep.

The next night he was again awakened by the same voice calling out. "Two steps of the wooden staircase I have climbed!"

One Wednesday night, the voice cried. "Three steps of the wooden staircase I have climbed!"

The man jumped out of bed and ran to the front door. When he opened the door and looked out, he saw that the staircase was empty. An unnerving thought crossed his mind. "Could it be possible that the staircase is haunted?"

And so it went on the sae way, on the fourth, the fifth and the sixth day.

Every night, the man heard the child's voice calling out. Each time, it seemed to get closer and closer.

Sunday finally arrived and the man was trembling in his bed. He thought about moving out, but told himself that he must be brave. He refused to allow himself to be c=scared off by a ghostly voice.

In the middle of the night , he woke to hear something scratching at his door.

A voice whispered through the door, "I have reached the seventh step..."

A shiver ran down the man's spine as he heard his locked front door slowly open.

The next morning, the landlord arrived to collect the rent. When he knocked on the apartment door, there was no answer. Suspicious about the whole situation, he took out a spare key and let himself in.

Sprawled across the bed, he found the tenant's mangled body. His face bore and expression of unimaginable fear. The police came and examined the body, but no cause of the death could be determined.

 It seemed as if the man had been scared to death.