Post by Jaden on Jun 17, 2008 5:49:21 GMT 10
I wasn't sure where to put this as I saw only a place for horror stories for the contest and then the Urban Legends forum. So, um, yeah.
- He woke up, gasping in sweat. Covers were pulled to the young boy’s chin as his crazed eyes glanced toward the ceiling. Footsteps echoed from above in the attic, slowly at first and then quickly, like a sprint. He could hear it ascending closer and then descending away, and like a pattern it came and went repeatedly. His eyes stayed as they were, wide open for the remainder of the night.
- Yawning, Chris, the young prepubescent, entered the kitchen glancing around. His eyes were expressing exhaustion, shrouded by black circles, similar to a victim in a fight. His mother had screamed and nearly dropped the cereal when she noticed his face. The scream had startled Chris into staring at the ceiling again.
- “Honey, Chris, did you get any sleep last night?” The woman asked, stroking the boy’s soft brown hair. The boy shook his head in response and pointed to the ceiling, as he did for the third day in a row.
- “Chris, come on, we’ve been over this already. There’s nothing up there.” She sighed.
- “There is! I keep hearing footsteps.” He protested, but to his despair she shook her own head standing up quickly with a raise of her hands to show she had given up.
- “I’m taking you to a therapist today, Chris. This is getting outrageously ridiculous.”
- Chris pouted, folding his arms promptly with a hateful glare at her as she turned away, the bowl of cereal set before him. Reluctantly he began to eat and then headed upstairs, bidding farewell to his mother.
- He brushed at the door, pushing it slightly open, watching as it moved on its own to allow him in. He headed toward the set of drawers across the room by the window, pulling out a pair of worn jeans. With a glance toward the street downstairs, he blushed quickly as he saw his own reflection of himself in boxers, and also upon realization of the girl watching from across the street. She gasped and quickly closed the drapes before Chris could make a move.
- Putting on his jeans, he hopped over to the closet, banging the old door open. The hinges creaked in pain as the old, rotten board slid toward him. Chris had let out a short scream before he was quickly buried in an immense pile of clothes and toys from when he was little. Fighting his way to the surface, he whimpered. Something was grabbing at his ankle but he couldn’t see what it was. He could tell it was cold and somewhat soft, though, and the first thing that came to mind was a severed hand that was alive. As his head popped out of the pile, he reached in to attempt to fight it off.
- He grabbed it by the collar and pulled it out to discover only a shirt, his favorite black tank shirt. He slipped it on quickly, loosening his jeans to make them appear baggy.
- “Mom! Have you seen my black lipstick and eye shade?” He called out after a few minutes of tossing things around in a frantic search for his makeup kit. They had just moved in a month ago but hadn’t really much time to unpack and put things away neatly.
- “It should be under your pillow!”
- Smiling, he reached in. Sure enough, he pulled out the kit and sighed out of relief.
- “I wish you weren’t such a gothic boy, though! It’s hot out there and you’re going to be sweating! And it’s going to be hard for you to make friends when you wear makeup like that!”
- Chris only groaned with a roll of his eyes as he began to adjust the lipstick, but froze as he noticed the ceiling shaking in the mirror. It was directly behind him, vibrating as if someone was jumping up and down. But the noise was mute. A thought came into mind, Could it be a ghost? One of those invisible kinds? He shook his head, shuddering at the very image.
- An hour later he headed out the door, his mother calling after him to take out the garbage. Of course, he was a growing boy. His teenage hormones would kick in a few months later, but he was already practicing the ignorance of his mother, and even smoking as his neighbor came bouncing up to him. Gregory Paddles was Chris Rose’s best friend forever. They had not always lived so close to each other but they were both attending the same private school in their younger years. He handed Chris a cigarette when they were sure they were out of anyone’s sight. Smoke fluttered around their faces as they coughed, stammering at first, and then began talking like grown men.
- “So I heard it again last night,” Chris said quickly. “And I saw it, too. Sort of.”
- His friend gaped at him in surprise, “You saw the Thing?”
- He shrugged, “I heard footsteps, like walking and running. And then I didn’t hear it but I saw it. I was putting my lipstick on-”
- “Why do you wear makeup, anyway?” He started but quickly stopped once he noticed the glare Chris was giving him.
- “It’s cool, you chicken butt. But anyway, I saw the ceiling shaking, you know, as if someone was jumping upstairs. But I didn’t hear anything at all. Isn’t that odd?”
- His friend only shrugged. Gregory then put up a finger and made an expression, to show that he had come up with a good idea. “How about I spend the night, and we try to find out what it is? I know there’s supposed to be a child there who was abused by his father before he died. Maybe it’s the wild child?”
- Chris only shrugged with a hesitant smile. He had a feeling it was something else. Something much worse.