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I almost laughed.

Who the fuck did he expect to answer?

Another thud came from upstairs, that time directly above him. Then another followed, slow and heavy, moving from the direction of my bedroom toward the staircase.

The son quickly stood up. “Dad, somebody’s up there!”

“Nobody’s up there.”

I made the first stair creak… then the second… then the third.

The father’s face finally changed.

The daughter whispered, “No, no, no! What’s going on?!”

Fourth stair.

Fifth.

Sixth.

The old wood gave a different groan beneath each invisible step, making it sound exactly like somebody with some weight on them was taking their sweet-ass time coming downstairs.

All four of them stared at an empty staircase while the sound came closer.

Then I stopped… right before the bottom.

Silence swallowed the entire house.

Nobody moved… even the movie kept playing behind them without anybody paying attention to it anymore, the sound low enough that every settling pop of the house suddenly seemed louder.

The wife grabbed her husband’s arm in a panic. “We should call someone!”

“For what?” he asked calmly.

She looked at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “For whatever the hell that was!”

The son tried laughing, but there wasn’t much humor in it anymore. “Maybe this place really is haunted.”

“Shut up!” his sister snapped.

Oh, but I wasn’t finished.

A cabinet slammed in the kitchen.

The mama screamed.

By the time they turned toward the kitchen, every upper cabinet stood wide open. The pale light above the stove threw long shadows across the counters, and for a few seconds nobody seemed willing to take another step.

The father moved toward the kitchen.

I slammed every last cabinet shut at the same time.

The sound cracked through the first floor so hard all four of them jumped.

He stopped.

Yeah.