Here is the first of a two-part spooky story I've written, in honor of Halloween! Happy haunting!

I’ve finally decided to enter the old house I pass every day on my way to school, the one that looks abandoned and just…off. Something is definitely wrong with this building, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I park my car and pocket the keys, wrapping my fingers around the slightly warm metal. It’s comforting, somehow, as I tiptoe carefully up the worn, wooden steps to the front door. Still clutching my keys with my left hand, I slowly reach forward with my right and grasp the doorknob. I can feel how loose the worn, tarnished knob is in the door, so I turn it carefully. The threshold squeaks under my feet as I make my way through the door and into the building.

As I peer into the darkness, the light behind me from the open front door makes a square patch on the floor. I can see that the carpet is worn thin, even completely bare in some spots, showing dark floorboards beneath. Dust dances in the light, spiraling and twirling through the air over the staircase to my left, drawing my attention towards it. I try to look further into the house, but it’s too dark to see anything, so I begin inspecting the wall closest to me for a light switch. The wallpaper is a hideous, pea soup green with yellow damask patterned across it, and I find myself squinting, this time not from the lack of light, but from how blinding the design is. I chuckle quietly as I wonder why on earth someone would ever think this would look appealing, but am disappointed to find no light switch and the chuckle dies out quickly. Just as I am about to take a step forward and look along another wall, I hear a creak above me.

I freeze, suddenly aware of how hard my heart is beating. I take a small step forward and squint even harder into the darkness. “Hello?” I call out, my voice quivering. “Is someone there?” Silence. Maybe I’m not alone here after all...I think, placing my hands back into my pockets and clutching my car keys tightly. Should I really stay here? Who knows what could be living in this old building! Or who…

I wait another beat, my ears straining for another noise from above, but I heard nothing. After what seemed like an eternity, standing frozen in place, I began to feel a little silly. It’s just an old, creepy building. It’s probably just settling into the foundation. Maybe when I opened the door, I kinda made things move a little. Encouraged by my own little pep talk, I move towards the staircase. I’m still a little freaked out though, so I decided to move up the staircase as quickly as I could. Taking the stairs two at a time, I leap my way towards the second floor. The last step gives way underneath me as I make my last jump and I feel the wood splinter and cut into my ankle as I (not so gracefully) land in an even darker hallway than the one on the first floor. I try to yank my foot out of the hole I’ve created, my breath whistling through my teeth as the jagged wood fights against my attempts to free myself. When I finally pull myself free, I take out my cell phone with shaking hands and shine it on my ankle. A few scrapes and a little blood, but nothing major. I pull my pant leg back down over my ankle and stand. Testing my weight on my foot, I find that it only stings a little, so I push the incident out of my mind and try to ignore the slight throbbing I can feel in my leg. My heart is racing from the experience, though, and I take a few minutes to catch my breath before exploring further.

As my breathing evens out, I start to take in my surroundings. I hold my phone up like a flashlight, and again see that revolting wallpaper from the first floor. As I am again pondering why anyone in their right mind would choose such an eyesore of a decoration, I begin to notice a smell. Not a pleasant smell, like cookies baking or clean laundry, but a nasty smell. A disgusting, ghastly, putrid smell. The second I notice it, it becomes stronger, and I find myself gagging and pulling my sweatshirt sleeve over my hand to cover my nose. It reminds me of the time I crawled under my house to look for Easter eggs when I was in second grade and found several dead rats staring back at me with lifeless, beady black eyes. I remember screaming and bursting out from underneath the front porch like a bat out of hell, covered in dirt from head to toe and sobbing. Just as quickly as it arrived, the smell vanished. I slowly pull my hand away from my nose and sniff the air cautiously, expecting to be hit with another wave of the wretch-inducing smell, but there’s nothing. The air smells like normal air. A bit musty, sure, but nowhere near what I had just experienced. Confused, I move away from the staircase and farther down the hall.

The further down the hall I move, the farther it seems I have to go until I reach the end. I look behind me and see the staircase maybe ten feet away, but when I turn forward again the long, ominous hall seems to stretch before me as though I have only just begun walking. The hallway walls are covered in picture frames, so many that you can hardly see the horrid wallpaper behind them. The frames are filled with black and white photographs of families or children, all wearing very outdated clothing and serious expressions. Some frames have paintings of nature scenes in them, scattered haphazardly between the black and white photographs, and draw my eyes away from the disturbing faces towards their more cheerful, serene images. Something seems a bit off about one of the photographs, though, so I step closer to get a better look. When I’m about a foot away from the frame, I feel my stomach drop into my shoes and the hair on the back of my neck raise simultaneously. The man in the photograph is sitting on a barstool, looking forward with a very somber expression, a top hat perched on his head and a cane clasped between his hands. He’s wearing a very pale, almost white coat, and this is what caught my attention. I wish I hadn’t moved closer, though, because now I can tell why the coat looked so strange. Now I can see exactly why it seemed so strange to me. “His coat…he’s wearing a coat made of human skin,” I whisper.

TO BE CONTINUED