Chapter 5: The Third Floor

Chapter 5: The Third Floor

“We’re not going up there,” Leo repeated, his voice a raw, ragged thing. He had taken another step back, putting more distance between himself and the bottom step of the grand staircase, as if it were the precipice of a cliff.

Sam turned fully towards him, her flashlight beam pinning him like an insect. The intense curiosity in her green eyes had curdled into sharp annoyance. “Don’t be ridiculous, Leo. What’s the matter with you? It’s the only place we haven’t looked. Are you going to let a little dust scare you off now?”

“This isn’t about dust,” he shot back, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The scar on his palm throbbed, a hot, angry pulse. “This place… something is wrong with this place. We need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving until I get something for the drive,” she said, her voice dropping, becoming manipulative. “We came all this way because of your story. The least you can do is see it through.”

James stepped between them, a reluctant peacekeeper. He put a heavy hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Hey, lay off him. Look at him, Sam. He’s genuinely terrified.” He then turned to Leo, his own face tight with a worry that was rapidly eclipsing his earlier bravado. “But she has a point, man. We’re here. Let’s just go up, take one quick look around, and I swear, we are gone. Five minutes. Top to bottom. Then we’re out of here. For good.”

It was the promise, the appeal from his best friend, that broke through Leo’s wall of terror. He looked at James’s earnest, loyal face, then at Sam’s unyielding stare. He was trapped. Goaded by pride, and cornered by friendship. Taking a shuddering breath that felt like inhaling powdered glass, he gave a single, jerky nod.

The ascent was agony. Leo went first, a condemned man leading his own procession. Every step he took onto the ancient wooden stairs was met with a deep, sonorous groan from the house, as if he were treading on its very bones. He kept one hand on the wall for balance, the peeling wallpaper cold and slightly damp beneath his fingers. His flashlight beam trembled, casting frantic, dancing shadows that seemed to lunge at them from the corners of his vision. The air grew colder and heavier with each foot of elevation, and the sickly-sweet smell of rot intensified, becoming a nauseating presence that clung to the air like a fog.

They reached the landing where the staircase split. For a heart-stopping moment, Leo was paralyzed by indecision. Left or right? Both paths led up into the same oppressive, absolute darkness.

“Right,” Sam whispered from behind him, nudging him forward. “Let’s just be systematic.”

The second floor was a disorienting labyrinth of decay. A long, straight hallway stretched before them, flanked by a series of closed doors on either side. It was a gallery of ghosts. Each room they opened was a variation on the same theme of emptiness and ruin. A master bedroom with a collapsed four-poster bed, its canopy rotted into lacey tatters. A nursery with a single, overturned rocking horse staring at the wall with a painted, unblinking eye. A study where shelves had torn from the walls, spilling a pulpy, mildewed carpet of books onto the floor.

In every room, the kudzu was present. It had crept up the outer walls and punched through the window frames, its tenacious green tendrils exploring the rotten floorboards and climbing the water-stained walls. It was a constant reminder that they were inside a structure that was being actively, slowly digested.

“There’s nothing here either,” Chloe said, her voice on the verge of breaking. “It’s all empty. Just like downstairs. Can we please go now, Sam? I feel like the walls are watching us.”

Leo knew what she meant. The feeling of being observed had become a near-constant pressure at the base of his skull. The house was silent, yet it felt like it was screaming. He moved down the hallway, his light scanning the remaining doors, a frantic desperation setting in. The sooner they looked in every room, the sooner James’s promise would be fulfilled. The sooner they could flee.

There was only one door left, at the very end of the long hall. It was smaller than the others, made of a plain, unvarnished wood, and set slightly apart. It looked like a servant’s entrance or a closet door. It looked wrong.

“Last one,” James said, his voice a low rumble meant to be reassuring.

Sam pushed past Leo and grabbed the simple iron knob. It turned with a rusty squeal. She pulled the door open, her flashlight beam cutting into the space beyond.

It wasn't a room. It was another staircase.

This one was the antithesis of the grand, sweeping stairs in the foyer. It was narrow, steep, and enclosed on both sides by claustrophobic, plank-wood walls. It went straight up into a square of perfect, impenetrable blackness. It was a throat leading to the attic. The third floor.

The sight of it hit Leo like a physical blow. The world dissolved into a dizzying, sickening roar in his ears. The dusty hallway, his friends, the oppressive heat—it all vanished, replaced by a memory so vivid and terrifying it stole the breath from his lungs.

He is ten years old. His hand is small, sweaty, and lost in the rough, calloused grip of his grandfather. They are standing in this exact spot. The air is cold, and the sweet, rotten smell is overpowering. His grandfather is muttering something under his breath, a prayer or a curse. Leo doesn’t understand. He is just a child, and he is scared. He looks up the narrow, dark staircase, up towards the closed door at the top.

“Don’t go up there, Leo,” his grandfather’s voice says, a harsh, panicked whisper. “Never. Do you hear me? Never.”

But it’s too late. As he watches, a thin, vertical line of light appears on the door above. It creaks open. Just a few inches.

Something is looking down at them from the sliver of darkness.

It is a face. Pale, gaunt, and stretched tight over a skull-like frame. The skin is smooth and waxy, like old parchment, utterly featureless. There are no eyes, no nose, just a canvas of blank, white skin. And then, the canvas splits. A dark, gaping maw opens in the lower half of the face, a black, wet hole that seems to suck all the light and warmth from the air. It doesn't make a sound, but Leo feels a scream in his mind, a shriek of pure, primal hunger.

His grandfather yanks him back so hard he stumbles. Leo’s hand slips, and his palm scrapes against a nail protruding from the wall. A sharp, searing pain. He looks down at the blood welling up in a crescent-shaped gash, then looks back up at the top of the stairs.

The face is gone. The door is closed. But the image is burned onto the inside of his eyelids forever.

Leo gasped, stumbling back into James. The memory faded, leaving him trembling and drenched in a cold sweat. He was back in the hallway, his friends staring at him with wide, concerned eyes. He clutched his right palm, the old scar burning as if freshly cut.

It wasn't a story. It wasn't a squatter. It was that… thing. That face.

“Leo? What is it?” James asked, grabbing his arms to steady him.

Leo could only shake his head, his eyes fixed on the black square of nothingness at the top of the attic stairs. “It’s here,” he whispered, the words tearing from his raw throat. “It’s always been here.”

As if in answer, a sound drifted down from the darkness above them.

Creeeeak.

The slow, deliberate sound of a single footstep on an old wooden board.

Every head snapped up. Every flashlight beam converged on the top of the narrow staircase. For a second, there was nothing but the thick, swirling dust motes caught in their lights.

Then, a shape detached itself from the deeper shadows.

A tall, unnaturally thin figure emerged from the darkness at the top of the stairs, its long, skeletal limbs moving with a silent, horrifying grace. It stooped to fit under the low doorframe, its pale, featureless face turning slowly downward to gaze upon them.