I was just a little girl when our housekeeper told me this tale. She was hesitant at first, for she didn't want to spook me because I would only bother her by following her around the house while doing her chores. It was the summer I turned eight. The whole house was empty except for our housekeeper and me. My parents were always away for work in the city, which is a good two-hour drive, that is why they only go home on the weekends.

It was a huge, old house with enough space for a decent yard out front and a backyard with a rotten wooden fence and a broken gate that hang on the side of the post. My dad kept saying he'll fix it. Still, he never really came around to it, probably because he never saw that it needed fixing because nobody lived behind our house. It was the beginning of the woods behind our backyard. My father inherited the house from my grandmother, who passed away before I was born; God bless her soul.

By dusk, they expect me to finish playing outside the yard and to light a candle on the altar on the second-floor landing at precisely six o'clock. And I was not allowed to go into the backyard without a companion, lest I find myself wandering out into the woods.

One summer night, at supper, I kept bugging our housekeeper to tell me that scary story that I overheard her telling our neighbor. I was in the front yard playing with my dolls, and she was out in front of our gates, sweeping the sidewalk. Our neighbor, who lives two miles away, was walking home from the market. She came by to say hi to our housekeeper. I couldn't hear it all clearly because the gates were far from where I was in the yard. Still, I heard some fragments of it because our neighbor kept exclaiming how scary it was.

"All right, I will tell you," she surrendered. "But you have to finish your dinner first. And after I finish all my work."

There were two single beds in our housekeeper's room. I prefer to sleep in her room whenever my parents are not home. I always chose the bed on the corner for I love feeling the wall's coldness on my right side at dawn, and there was also a little window on the same wall where I can see the sky change color. A small side table with a lamp on it separated our beds in the middle. And on my far left was our housekeeper's bed with a massive window towering over the top of her bed.

I was in my pajamas and nestled comfortably in my bed, and I turned over to my left to face our housekeeper. "Tell me the story," I whispered to her. Our housekeeper turned to her right to face me, and before she could begin, I closed the lamp on the side table between our beds and giggled. Now the whole room was engulfed in darkness, and she began her story:

Several years ago, I was still a young girl, back in my hometown, far down south. It was more provincial and rural than it is here. I lived with my family; I have my mother, three brothers, and a sister. Our house was a small bungalow with a tin roof and with no ceiling. A week after my father left to work abroad to support the whole family, we were plagued by someone or something. It's been making noises on our rooftop come evening. It would go round and round in circles on our rooftop; the noise was like someone was dragging something metallic on the tin roof. This unexplainable thing would go on throughout the night, and my family and I would cover our ears with our pillows. By dawn, it would suddenly stop.

The morning after that first night, my three brothers went up the roof to inspect what might have caused the noise, but all they saw were tiny scratch marks that made circles all over the roof. My mother immediately ordered us to go to the market and to buy garlic. We were all ordered to come home before dusk because she said it wasn't safe. Before sunset, my brothers would throw cloves of garlic onto our roof because it was widely believed in our hometown that that drives evil away. But as the night began to deepen, like clockwork, the screeching of our rooftop would begin. It would go around in circles until a few hours before the sun comes up. It was like coils of aluminum wires are being dragged on our roof in circles every night.

Our housekeeper paused for a long time, and I thought she might be teasing me by keeping me in suspense. But I realized she might have fallen asleep. I called out her name in the darkened room because I wanted her to finish the story. She cleared her throat, and her voice sounded a bit croaky, probably from falling asleep. And then she continued:

A neighbor was walking home late one night after attending a fiesta in a neighboring town. He thought to himself that he was just too drunk when he saw a figure of a woman sauntering around in circles on our roof. "A woman walking?" I asked incredulously, "But we don't hear footsteps; we only hear something like metal being dragged around in circles." I said. "Oh," he said in a surprised manner, "Those are probably her wings."

Another neighbor reportedly saw a huge wild boar ambling towards our house at dusk. She immediately closed her windows because it was too huge compared to a usual wild boar.

After a week, my mother grew impatient due to lack of sleep. She waited for evening to come with a flashlight, which she borrowed from a rich lady she works for, in her hand. We had no electricity in our house, and as nighttime came, we would turn off all our candles and go to bed and cover our ears. But my mother had grit. Without her husband to rely on, she thought about confronting whatever that thing is by herself.

As it began to circle our roof, my mother turned on the flashlight and began to shine the light around her room. Her heart was pounding, and her feet and hands felt cold. She pointed the flashlight at every corner of the room. Then instinctively, she pointed the flashlight towards the top of the window. She saw the woman's stark white face upside down, watching my mother with a smile that never reaches her eyes. My mother realized that she was holding onto the edge of the roof, dangling upside down from her waist. And after realizing that, my mother let out a scream so loud it woke up the faraway neighbors. And after that night, she stopped bothering us. But you know what, I think she followed me here.

"What do you mean?" I asked her alarmingly because I was already feeling terrified. I felt so cold under the covers, and I was so frightened that I opened the light on the bedside table beside us. It felt as if a bucket of cold water was thrown at me when I realized that our housekeeper was fast asleep all this time. I looked at the window over her bed. It was the woman with the stark white face smiling at me. While hanging upside down from her waist and her claws hanging onto our roof, she was the one who continued to tell the story when our housekeeper fell asleep.

#HorrorStory #ShortStory #Horror #Supernatural

There is someone upstairs. Sometimes I can hear her sweeping the floor with a stiff broom that glides gratingly on the floor. Sometimes her muted laugh is audible during random days in the quiet of the afternoon and the dead of night. Sometimes I hear her footsteps as she paces back and forth gingerly inside her room. Sometimes I would go quietly up the stairs to catch a glimpse of her, but she hides away fast. My dog stopped going upstairs the third month that we are here. During the first month, he would only go upstairs if I carry him, and as I drop him onto the floor, he immediately skitters right across the room and hides under the bed, where he stays throughout the night. These days the noises that she makes are getting louder when they used to be faint. But my main problem, dear reader, you see, is that it is only my dog and me in here.

My dog and I would usually stay downstairs because the upstairs would be unbearably cold throughout the day, and hanging out upstairs for a long time makes me feel claustrophobic even though there is ample space. Sometimes I can hear her making noises upstairs like she’s going through some of her things, and I would play music loudly on my speakers to drown out the sound. One day, I played music loudly when my speakers suddenly stopped, and I can hear static coming out of them instead. I turned them off and turned them on, and I tried to play music through them again. I realized that they don't work anymore because the left speaker doesn’t play any sound. The right one still works, but even though it can still play the music, the music that comes out of them is somewhat muted, not as crystal clear as before. I was so disappointed because these speakers cost me a lot of money. Money that I scraped by for months from my crappy job.

During my first month of stay here, I find it hard to sleep. I turn off all the lights because I read on the internet that for me to get a good night’s sleep, my room should be dark and cool. I close my eyes and try my hardest to fall asleep, but my mind keeps wandering to the dark corner beside my door. My eyes are closed, but I feel like someone is watching me from that corner. I quickly turn on the lights with my heart throbbing and immediately feel silly because no one is there. And from then on, I would fall asleep with the lights turned on because I find it more comforting.

As the months passed, I can hear her mumbling in the other room on the edge of the hall, and the sounds that she makes keep getting louder and louder, closer and closer. I keep telling myself that I should move out because I am not getting enough sleep, and I keep falling asleep and making mistakes at work. But I don’t have enough money to move out because my crappy job pays crap. And besides, I get to rent a vast, two-story house for a small amount of money; it’s a steal. I tried looking for a roommate, but nobody answers my advertisements. I guess nobody’s interested.

On my sixth month of stay here, I fell into a profound sleep like I’m submerged underwater where I couldn’t hear anything from the outside. I’m still inside the house in my dream, but everything was moving too slow, and everything was dark. And as I reached downstairs, everything I see was warped and twisted, and I felt a massive headache coming on, so I lay on the couch to sleep it off. I slept in my dream, and inside this dream was another dream where I found myself floating up from the sofa, right through the stairs, and into the second floor. I can see through the walls, and I saw her sweeping the floor with her rigid broom. She never looked up, and her long black hair was partially covering her face, and everything was black. And then I woke up and was inside my bedroom on the second floor, drenched in sweat and my heart palpitating.

I’ve been here for a year now, and all my plans to move out have always been thwarted in some way or another: five months ago, the house that I am supposed to move into caught fire; four months ago, the roommate I was supposed to have, gave away my slot to another because he was able to pay two months in advance; three months ago the money that I’ve been saving up for a new place, bundled up in a sock, suddenly disappeared from my drawer; two months ago, my right knee began to ache with a sharp pain whenever I walk and put my weight on it. I went to specialists only to hear them say that they can’t find anything wrong with me, and a month ago, I lost my job, and I have nowhere else to go. I feel like I’m going to be stuck here for a long time.

Tonight, I am lying on my bed and trying to get some decent sleep, which I’ve never really had since moving in here. I turn off my night light and close my eyes. I waited for the pain reliever that I drank before going to bed to finally kick in and dull this throbbing pain in my right knee. It’s getting challenging to walk and to go up and down the stairs.

And as I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come, I began to hear her mumbling again. And then her mumbling came out from the room and into the hall. This time her mumbling became interspersed between her terrifyingly course laugh. I can hear her footsteps just beyond my door, and I tried to keep my eyes shut. I pulled the covers over my head, and I can listen to my heart, pounding in my ears. The room became densely cold, and I knew she was standing on the dark corner near my door, humming. And then the humming stopped after a few minutes. She’s been standing there for a long time now, and I can feel her gaze burning through the covers and into my face. I never moved a muscle so as not to make a sound and wait for morning to come and for light to flood my bedroom. Everything is quiet and still, but I can still feel her inside the room. And then she suddenly cackles right next to my left ear very loudly that I can hear her inside my head and I felt her weight next to me on the bed as she kept on cackling and cackling, that dreadful laugh that gave me goosebumps all over, and pulling the covers from me so I can see her face.

#HorrorStory #Horror #ShortStory #ShortHorrorStory