The sound didn’t stop when he fixed the step. A heavy layer of wood glue mixed with sawdust was nothing against the creaking that escaped each time he walked up and down to the cellar. Well, it wasn’t exactly creaking–it was something far more disturbing than that–but ultimately, he had to call the sound by some name, and that was the closest he could get. Really, it was somewhere between creaking and whirring and a soft bellow that vibrated beneath his feet. While other steps sounded hollow, this one almost sounded full of something.

 

Doc used to go down to grab sodas or cheese or milk twice a day, but subconsciously, he had taken to drinking water with his breakfast and dinner. He had switched from making a tomato and cheese sandwich for lunch to canned tuna and crackers.

 

On one particularly hot day, he was craving a cold bottle of soda to sip on his front porch while he waited for Jane to come home. He hovered his foot above the top step for three seconds before turning back, for the first time realizing that he was afraid.

 

Why am I scared of a creaky step? He wondered to himself, sitting on the porch holding a glass of water with no ice. But it wasn’t just creaky.

 

The next day, he woke up thinking about the step. He had dreamt about it, muttering words from beneath his feet as he opened the refrigerator, cursing at him each time he stepped on it.

 

Look at me, it begged. Please, look at me.

 

He wanted to look at the step then, if just to prove to himself that it was only a dream. It was only a dream.

 

 Still in his pajamas, he crept down the stairs, holding onto the handrail as he skipped over the ninth one. He then stared at it, eye-level, standing barefoot on the blotchy cement.

 

It was difficult to determine the exact issue, as the lights in the basement no longer worked. It had been just two weeks prior that Doc pulled on the long chain that dangled from the exposed wood ceiling all the way down to chin height. The light had flickered, spitting a spark or two into the glass bulb before diminishing into nothing. Though he wasn’t usually scared of the dark, something was eerie down there. Though he hadn’t known what it was at the time, now he did. Something was wrong with that damned step.

 

Cautiously, Doc lifted the slat a couple of times to see how far it could be raised. Since the wood glue hadn’t really worked, he considered just taking the thing out and putting in a whole new step. He had a pile of scrap wood in the garage that could do the trick–all he’d have to do was ask his neighbor for the tool kit.

  

He grasped the half-inch of protruding wood on the side that hung over the edge of the frame and tugged. It was a tough stick, but after a minute or two of trying from different angles, he got a corner loose. After that, it came off in one big riiiippppp, and the boards were in his hands, blameless as a newborn.

 

For they had not been the problem after all. To his horror, where the kind wood had lain, there was now a face.

 

A flat face.

 

A looooong face.

 

A face that had seen years of shoe soles, socks, and slippers. Malnourished and stepped on. Cheeks disintegrating, pug nose squashed and breathing with great effort, pale as the moon from a lifetime of darkness.

 

Then it smiled at him, with lips that pulled back in a hideous snarl, and eyes that crinkled at the corners in a way that made Doc think that he didn’t really know how to smile at all. There was a soul behind those filmy gray eyes, old as the universe. Eyes that had seen absolutely anything and everything. Eyes that knew his greatest fears.

 

Then it spoke, in a voice that croaked and crooned, begging for mercy.

 

“Finally…you’re here.”

 

The world went dark.

 

###

 

Doc was staring at the ceiling as if he had just woken up from some sort of sleep. A terrible sleep, where he had dreamt of a face under that creaky step that he just couldn’t fix. It wasn’t his usual popcorn ceiling, though. It was wooden and slanted down, as if he were in a hallway. A stairwell. His stairwell.

 

He panicked, hoping he hadn’t slipped on his way down the stairs. Everything felt numb.

 

I must have fallen, he reasoned, trying to pull himself to a seating position. Only, it seemed he had no body to sit with. Only a face, which hurt when he tried to breathe. It was as if he had been squashed down by a bulldozer.

 

“Welcome,” said a familiar croaking voice. “It’s good to have some company.”

​

Lucy Nece is a fiction and journalistic writer based in Seattle, WA. She enjoys Stephen King, and is on a mission to complete reading his entire corpus of works.