The Stairs
I noticed the first staircase just after ten, behind one of the old buildings off Main Street. There was nothing remarkable about it. Wooden steps. A handrail. A single bulb burning above a door I couldn't see. But something about the way the stairs climbed out of the light bothered me. The staircase didn't seem to end so much as disappear. As I passed beneath it, a board creaked somewhere above me.
I stopped. Nothing moved. No door opened. No face appeared over the railing. I told myself it was an old building settling into a cold October night and kept walking. A block later, there was another staircase wedged between two buildings, steeper than the first and darker at the top. I was almost past it when I heard a footstep. One hard heel against wood. Then another. Someone was coming down.
I waited for whoever it was to appear. No one did. The footsteps stopped somewhere above me, hidden in the dark. For a few seconds I stood there listening, feeling foolish. Then a board creaked. One step lower. I walked away.
I kept walking, cutting behind the shops toward home. That's where I saw the next staircase. It rose from a narrow passage, its steps crossing through alternating bands of light and black before disappearing above me.
I should have kept walking. Instead, I stopped. I heard the first footstep before I reached the bottom. Then another, closer this time. The railing shuddered. Something moved through the darkness above me, descending one step at a time. I didn't wait to see what it was.
I don't remember walking home. What I do remember is locking the door and telling myself that old buildings make old sounds, especially at night. I checked the deadbolt twice. I stood in the kitchen for a while, listening to the refrigerator hum and the furnace kick on, ordinary sounds from an ordinary house. Eventually I laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because I had frightened myself over a few old staircases in the dark.
Then the floor creaked above me. I looked toward the stairs.
One hard heel struck the first step down.
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Technical Notes:
All images for this fictional piece were captured on a hot summer evening in Westminster, Maryland, using a Canon mirrorless camera and Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM lens. The aperture was set to f/2.8 with an ISO of 3200. The photographs were processed and converted to black and white in Lightroom, enhancing their tonal richness and texture. Frame ratios are 4:3.
