thegruesomeblog-blog

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Bay, 2012

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, 1994

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Before I Wake, 2016

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Prince of Darkness, 1987

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Strangers, 2008

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Autopsy of Jane Doe, 2016

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Wailing, 2016

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Jaws, 1975

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Scream, 1996

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Neon Demon, 2016

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Exorcist, 1973

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

American Psycho, 2000

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

House of Wax, 2005

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The House of the Devil, 2009

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

Bedevilled, 2010

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Devil’s Backbone, 2001

[thegruesomeblog-blog]

The Stairs

I remember as a child I would make my grandparents prepare a couch for me to sleep on. I refused to sleep on the bed they had in their guest room. It was the stairs. Their guest room was on the second floor and I hated those stairs. I hated how they were so isolated and dark.

Their looming presence and the way the darkness seemed to stare down at me from their peak. The way the light from the hallway used to barely leak onto those creaky old steps. It was enough to give me nightmares.

As I grew older I would realize I was being silly. There was nothing to fear from a set of stairs, but every time, I would have my grandparents get me sheets and blankets for the couch. It became a tradition that I would sleep there and so, as I grew older, I never had to face my irrational fear of those stairs.

When my parents passed and I moved in with my grandparents I still refused to sleep upstairs. I preferred the dark shadowy basement to those damned stairs. So that's where I lived for five years. I remember I would force myself to try the stairs sometimes, but only during the day. I would occasionally get around half way up and become so overwhelmed with fear and anxiety I would rush back down, nearly falling at times.

You may find it strange the way those stairs would haunt me. I wish I could explain better the way it seemed like any moment those stairs would open up and devour me. Most will brush it off as a silly childhood fear, but I knew there was something unnatural about those dreadful stairs.

I was happy to rid myself of those stairs when I moved out. I was finally free of what would fill me with dread. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to live without constant fear looming over you. It didn't take long for me to shove that dread in a far off corner of my mind. By the time my grandparents passed away, it was a distant memory. That is until I had to deal with their estate.

With my parents gone, their house was left to me. When I first arrived I was so consumed by grief that I almost didn't realize why I was growing so uncomfortable, but as darkness fell and I began considering where I should sleep, it all came rushing back like a wave of dread smothering me.

I tried to sleep in the master bedroom, but with my recent loss, it was too painful. Memories flooded me and I was too full of grief being surrounded by my grandparents things. I considered the couch and the basement as well. Maybe it was the sorrow or maybe it was all the change I was experiencing, but I decided that I was finally going to conquer that stupid childish fear. I was going to climb those stairs.

I would like to say I was brave and that mounting the stairs was as easy as most would assume. I cannot even tell you how long I sat at their base wishing nothing more than to turn and leave. I even considered getting a hotel so that I could once again free myself of those blasted stairs.

It felt like ages before I could summon the courage to take that first step. I am not sure if I even remember doing it. What I do remember is that feeling of helplessness once I was halfway up that first step. With my leg in midair I felt stuck, almost as if going back was just as dangerous as continuing at this point. The house behind me had never felt so foreign and daunting.

Lifting my other leg took all my effort. The shifting weight cause a groan that seemed to echo about my consciousness. I suddenly felt as empty inside as the house I had inherited. Reaching the second step did nothing to ease my racing heart. I became lost in time with the seconds seeming to stretch on indefinitely.

Around halfway I turned around and felt such a sense of vertigo I almost collapsed. My knees grew weak and my vision narrowed making the first floor seem an unattainable distance away. A whimper escaped my lips as I realized I was unsure of what to do. I had come this far and yet I felt no closer to the top. My childhood fear didn't seem so childish when I was attempting to conquer it. Those stairs were suddenly deadlier than ever in my mind.

It felt to me as if any step could be my last. A specter of death hung in the darkness of those stairs. I have never been so sure in my life that I would never see tomorrow. How I managed to press on still eludes me. At that point it seemed as if it was no longer even my choice. The will of the stairs kept me going, pushing me further and further into a fear fueled madness. For so long it had seemed as if the stairs had kept me away, and yet, now they were dragging me in, forcing me further into their gaping jaw. I felt I had lost my will to refuse, lost my power to stop, lost myself to those god forsaken stairs.

By the time I reached the top I could not thing. There was no celebration, no rejoicing. If anything I felt more trapped and afraid than I ever had. Every part of my being cried out for me to leave, to run and never turn back. To hell with this house, to hell with these stairs. My whole world seemed to go dark as I stood at the top of what had haunted so much of my life. I felt as if I had lost control over my own body. Then it happened.

Every nightmare I had ever had became reality as I stood on the landing and heard a creak from behind me. A very definitive movement on the bottom step. Someone, or something, was on those stairs. I didn't want to turn. I didn't want to see what it was. I wanted to be anywhere else. My heart pounded in my ears so loud I though it impossible to hear anything else but I was wrong. I heard something that still haunts me to this day an unmistakable second step up those stairs. What a dreadful noise. So benign and yet so capable of making me shut down out of fear.

Again, as if the stairs were enacting their will through me, I found myself doing exactly the opposite of what I wanted, I was turning to see what was shadowing me. I hoped and prayed to turn and find and empty staircase. I was not prepared for the alternative and when I had turned and found a shadowy specter at the bottom of the stairs it was more than I could handle. I let out a cry and collapsed, tumbling down the stairs. The fall could not have seemed slower as I fell. All the while I knew I was falling towards the accumulation of all of my fears. What fate was waiting for me at the foot of these stairs?

I collided with the figure causing us both the sprawl at the bottom of the stairs. Tangled with the anonymous entity I could think only of survival. I rolled onto that demon that had come for me. I was done being pinned down by my fear. My cowardice turned to wrath as my body engaged its fight or flight.

I don't remember much after that. I remember a lot of noise. I can't be certain how much of it was me, but I am sure I heard some guttural cries that seemed to come straight from hell. I remember my left hip aching an incredible amount from the fall down the stairs. I remember having to remind myself to breath at points because I was so overwhelmed that even breathing did not come naturally. More than anything though, I remember my hands curling around the neck of what had come for me. I remember the veins in my hands swelling. I remember how white my knuckles got while I struggled to strangle the life out of my assailant. I remember it's legs kicking underneath me almost causing me to lose my balance. If only that had been the case.

In my fear and rage induced state I lost control and blacked out. When I came to, I had almost forgotten what had happened. Waking I almost believed it had just been another nightmare. Then the pain in my hip shocked me back into reality. I jolted to my side expecting to see a demon or a devil that had come for my soul. What I found was much paler, much smaller, and much more terrifying.

Lying next to me at the foot of those devilish stairs was the corpse of my grandparent's neighbor. A high school boy around the age of sixteen. His eyes open and glazed over. His hair shaggy and messy. His lips pale and blue. Worst of all, his neck red and purple with hand shaped bruises. Bruises shaped like my hands.

The best anyone can guess is that Tyler, knowing the house was likely empty decided to break in. His parents insist he was just looking after the house and I am not one to argue. While inside he must have heard me whimpering my way up those stairs and gone to check it out. To this day, I still can't explain why I didn't realize it was him. My lawyers claim an emotional and fear induced psychotic break. They even said it might be possible to claim self defense since he had been breaking and entering and was technically trespassing. I would have nothing to do with that. In the end, with a plea bargain for manslaughter, I was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a possibility of parole in five.

My whole life I had lived in fear of those stairs and rightfully so. Those stairs are where my life would end. Nothing could ever be the same for me. There was some part of me that always knew there was evil that made those stairs its home. I guess what I am trying to say is that a childhood fear should not be taken lightly. Next time you feel afraid of some old stairs, a dark hallway, or even something under your bed, don't brush it off. Be afraid.

Source: /r/nosleep