Creative Works Of The Mind

Hearing Footsteps

Hearing Footsteps

I'm Julie and my parents are going out for the night. I am excited to have the house to myself. I'm going to sit out in the living room and watch what I want for a change while I eat the snacks that they keep hidden from me. Finally I will get to do what I want and my parents can't tell me otherwise. Plus I won't have to deal with having them around trying to tell me what to do. I really wish they'd leave me home alone more often.

They left me an hour ago, my dad is taking my mom out for dinner. He says he's doing this because they used to go out more often before I was born and he wanted to do something special for her, to remind her how much he still loves and appreciates her or whatever. I'm just glad that I won't have to be there.

I've been watching my favorite T.V. show on netflix, Pretty Little Liars and I'm at the part where they keep getting creepy texts from "A" and Allison's memorial was destroyed. I'm still only on the first season, but it's a really good, mysterious show.

I click the button to bring up the next episode then decide to pause it. I'm thirsty and I want popcorn. I get up and head into the kitchen. I pop the corn in the popcorn machine and drink soda from a bottle watching it pop. It finally finishes after what felt like an hour, but was more like five minutes, but PLL (Pretty Little Liars) is getting so intense and I hope to finish a lot of this season tonight.

I carry my popcorn and soda past the staircase and into the living room, but before I can cross the threshold I hear a noise. I turn around and squint into the darkness of the stairs. Oh well, it was probably just nothing. I turn around and after taking only one step I hear the sound again. I turn back around and look again, and again I find nothing.

I hurry into the living room and set my soda and snack down. I'm going to settle this once and for all, but when I reach the bottom of the stairs the noise comes again, but this time it sounds closer. I steady my breathing and listen carefully for a moment and the sounds makes its appearance again only this time I make out what it is.

My eyes widen and my heart hammers in my chest, footsteps. My parents are out and I'm an only child, we have no pets. How are there footsteps in an almost empty house? I turn the hall light on and glance up the stairs again. Some of the light makes it's way up towards the second floor, but most of the stairs are still covered in shadows.

I try to steady my breathing as I climb onto the first step and hear no noise from it under my feet. I ascend to the second stair, being careful to listen for other footsteps as well as my own. I proceed to the third and then the fourth step and still not a sound comes from them. I continue on until I reach the halfway point of the staircase, but still no sound from any of the steps or my feet and none of the steps I had heard before.

My heart leaps into my throat and hammers uncontrollably. Maybe this is a bad idea going to investigate. In the movies the pretty girl who goes to see what's making that noise always gets killed. I descend the stairs and when I reach the bottom I hear the footsteps again, but this time I choose to try and ignore them. I go back to my spot on the couch and press play.

Halfway through the episode I pause netflix and listen to the sounds of my house. I stand up from the sofa and make my way to the hall. I stand in front of the staircase for a few moments just listening. I take the few steps forward and stop just before the first step and keep listening. Still I hear nothing. I climb up onto the first step and nothing still so I test the second and third stairs and again nothing. I walk all the way to the halfway point and again I listen, hard, but again I hear nothing.

I walk back down the stairs and listen once more, but the same thing happens, I hear nothing, no footsteps as I had before. How can that be that I just hear them one moment and when I decide to stop listening to them and they disappear? Strange, very strange.