User:Goatsintrees101

Footsteps- by Freyja S.

I was but a boy, a traumatic event for me to take in. I barely knew what to do when I scratched a mosquito bite and it started to bleed. I was about four feet tall and I had short, brown hair, evenly spaced out on my forehead. I usually wore jerseys for the Packers and sports shorts- I was a pretty active kid. I grew up in a very stand-up household, no drama, fighting, or money problems. Life was really good for me. We lived in a nice home, it was a five bedroom, two bathroom house. I had a room upstairs, it was fairly large with nice, purple carpeting and baby blue walls. I was, some may say, spoiled, but I didn't understand what that meant then. I didn't understand what a bad life was. One winter day, it was decided. My dad lost his job at the hospital and we couldn't afford to live in our luxurious home anymore with only my mother's income. We had to move. Now, back when I was only five, I hated moving. We moved once before, but I was but a baby, so the memories didn't stick very well. I hated every process of it. I hated packing all my things, loading them, and saying goodbye to the house. I hated it all. It was winter break, so we could all look at houses as a family. We looked at a couple houses before one of them really stood out to my mom. "I've seen this house before just driving by to go to work... this one... it's so pretty, can we get it, Steve?" My mom made her eyes shine, in a begging tone at my dad. He glanced at her and sighed. "We'll see. Let's see how rough it is inside, first," my father replied. My mother took my hand and we walked up the driveway and into the house as a family. It was a pretty cool house, really, there were large windows with pretty patterns stamped into them, it was a maroon color on the outside due to bricks, and there was the prettiest flower garden in the back, waiting to have things planted in it. The yard was huge with many large maple trees with so many branches you couldn't even count. The inside, however, was a different story. It had two bedrooms right next to each other and one bathroom. The kitchen was fairly large with old and chipped granite counters. The walls were peeling and there was spray paint all over the walls. Mostly "X"s with circles around them in red, all over. The basement made the upstairs of the house look cute. I separated myself from my parent's leisure walk that was way too slow for me, for they hadn't even walked through two rooms yet. I looked for a place to escape and saw a promising looking hall. I crept away from my parents and ran down the hallway. It was in rough shape: there was more spray paint and there were holes in the walls. The wood floor below me didn't feel too sturdy, either. After a while of running through the torn up hallway, I approached a set of old, baby blue wooden stairs. Hesitant, I slowly traveled down, alone, the rickety stairs, afraid that they'll all collapse and I'll fall down with nobody to come rescue me. I finally touched my foot to the cold, dirty, cement basement floor. The cold sent a shock through my body, I felt my nerves go cold. It was pitch black, and I couldn't see my own hand in front of me. It smelled like mold and death, and as soon as I got down there my mouth went dry. There was a layer of dust about an inch deep on the floor and spiderwebs everywhere. I began to panic. I wanted to be with my parents, for I didn't like being alone there. I felt a feeling I had never felt before, and it wasn't a good feeling either. It almost felt like I was really nervous, I wanted to throw up. I quickly turned around and ran up the squeaky stairs, my feet propelling faster than they ever had before. Although I was moving quickly, it seemed like I wasn't moving at all. I ran down the unstable hallway and turned into the kitchen trying to find my parents, holding my breath the entire time. "Mom? Dad?" I couldn't find them. I went back into the hallway and collapsed on the ground. I buried my face into the wooden planks that made up the floor and began crying for a couple minutes. I abruptly stopped when I noticed how my tears went through the cracks and made an audible noise, a splat, if you will. I opened my eyes, and, although I couldn't see very well due to the tears and dirt in my eyelashes and the small space I was looking through, what I saw, well, the only way to describe it was footprints appearing on the basement floor that was barely being illuminated by the light coming through the giant window. They were appearing upon layer of dust on the cement floor. In shock, I sat there and stared at it. It wasn't anything I had ever seen before. They were appearing below me very slowly, from heel to toe. I observed them for a minute, then shot my head back up from the floor and felt a bit dizzy due to moving my head too fast... "Jeremy? Jeremy, honey, wake up!" I opened my eyes to meet with my mother's. I moved my blurred vision to my dad squatting on a wooden stair next to my mom, holding her shoulder., both with their heads slightly tilted in concern. "W...w...whe-" I stuttered. "Jeremy, you fell down the stairs or something, you have been here for twenty minutes or so," my mom said, having a sound of concern and worry in her voice. "Don't wander away from us like that again Jeremy. We need you to be with us at all times when we are out, okay?" My dad scolded. "Footprints... basement..." I went off into gibberish after those words and fell into a deep sleep. Again, I dreampt about the footprints. I was in the basement, seeming endless, and they were appearing in front of me as I slowly walked in the dust instead of behind me, as if I was following somebody closely behind. I glanced straight up through a hole blasted through the cement ceiling revealing the wood floor above. I saw a mass upstairs through the cracks in the wood, and heard sobs and cries coming from it. Are you okay? I asked the mass. I felt a little patter of wetness on my head. I wiped it into my hair and walked past the mass. The sobs stopped and it abruptly lifted its head. I kept walking, not caring about a single thing. I woke up lying down in the backseat of our van. "Mommy, I dreamed about the footsteps again," I softly stated. "What do you mean, Jeremy? What footsteps?" I explained the dream to my confused mother, and my father, who didn't seem to care at all. I saw her eyes widen in the rear view mirror as she pulled into our driveway. "About the house we visited today?" She asked with concern. "Yeah, ma. I don't know what it means," I replied as I watched the automatic door of the van open up. We all got out of the vehicle and entered the garage door in silence. I kicked off my shoes and quickly ran up the stairs, for I no longer liked stairs, or basements. I spent a long, long while in my room, sitting completely motionless on the side of my twin sized bed. I was changed emotionally, it seemed. I thought about every bad thing I could, completely destroying any good mood I would want to be in. Suddenly, I heard loud arguing downstairs. "He was knocked out, its fine. Don't worry about it!" "I'm not going to have footprints appearing in my house!" "But, remember-" "No. We're not moving there!" "Let's ask for Jerem-" "Shut up! Let's be grown ups and make our own decisions!" The yelling went on, eventually turning into the most cursing I had ever heard, the only cursing I had ever heard out of my parents. It abruptly ended with loud stomping into my parent's room. The thing was, I liked the house. I really did. It was beautifully structured and built, and it had magnificent looking sunbeams coming through the giant windows that lit up the whole house. The wood floors were a smooth dark brown. It was a pretty house, really. I managed to fall asleep after about twenty minutes of crying, for I wasn't used to arguing and swearing, but I told myself I might have to get used to it. It was midnight, and I wasn't used to going to bed at that time. I was so tired I couldn't even understand my emotions. "Jeremy... you... honey..." I awoke to my mother's calming voice next to me, seeming even more calm in comparison to the yelling the night before. It was still dim in my room. "I what? Please let me go back to sleep ma, I'm tired." I shuffled in my bed, trying to get my point of discomfort across to my mother. I whined and huffed, really trying to get her to go away so I could finally get some good sleep. I could barely see out of my droopy, tired eyes. "Jeremy, I'm worried. You woke up screaming. I came in here and there was this on your arm... I'm not sure if its a pen or..." my mom cleared her throat out of discomfort,"cut..." She lifted my arm from its position of dangling off the bed to confront my face. There, clearly cut into my thin skin, was the pattern I saw spray painted on the wall in red, the "X"s with the circle drawn around it. My stomach sank. "Mom!" I started yelling incomprehensible things at her, my emotions going insane. I cried and whined, not knowing what exactly what to do or how to react. "Shh! Jeremy, I know this is... uhh..." she paused for a long while, seeming to not be able to find a word to use to describe the event presently happening, "but daddy's still asleep," my mother quickly whispered, looking around in my room. "Why... what... wouldn't he need to know this?! Wouldn't he hear me scream?!" I loudly replied. I bawled and wailed some more and went into a whimper. "Jeremy... just, come into the bathroom, you probably just scratched yourself in your sleep. We'll put a nice bandage on it and it'll be better," my mom said to comfort herself. She held my hand and led the now shivering me down the hallway. While getting a bandage applied, I glanced at the digital clock in our big bathroom. 2:45AM it read. I widened my tired eyes in shock, I hadn't ever been up this late in my small life. "Owie!" I yelled, a shock of pain pulsing through my arm. "Stop mommy stop!" I batted her arm away from my cut and started gently blowing on it. It stung like I was being electrocuted. "Did you put the stingie cream on it? Please don't ma... I don't like that," I whined. I fell on my butt on the floor, creating a loud thump. My mom cursed and squatted, trying to put the bandage on my wound. I took deep breaths, and sucked the pain back in. Finally, the little patch was on me. "All better! See, it doesn't hurt anymore, right?" My mom stood up and clapped in satisfaction and relief. I glanced up and down her body and stopped, my mind completely frozen in thought. "Mom... you have one... too." I whispered, scared. My mother jumped and surveyed her body. "Honey, no I don't, what are you seeing?" I took a step forward and pointed to where I saw her "cut". There was nothing there. "J...Jeremy... nothing is there, are you joking with me?" My mother tried to give herself an explanation. She liked to do that, she would always try to force the best outcome possible for things to comfort herself. "No ma! Look!" I started to press hard on the spot with my finger, the same spot on my mom where the cut was on me. "Jeremy, let's go back to bed, honey. You're probably just tired." She patted my back and led me out of the bathroom, not turning the light off behind her. She led me by my back back to my room and tucked me in. She kissed my forehead and slowly walked out. She tried to hide it, but as soon as she turned out of my room she began bawling. I couldn't sleep. At all. The cut still stung, I was crying, and my parents were arguing again downstairs. "Oh, he just got that from his fingernails, he's fine. They're long anyways." "He's hallucinating, honey!" "Jane, it was three in the morning, why wouldn't he be hallucinating?" "Please, Steve, I'm sure he's having trouble sleeping because you won't stop arguing with me! He's stressed!" "Don't blame all of this on me, I'm completely ignoring all of it. He's a kid, let him have fun." "Steve, your definition of fun is cutting yourself and thinking of these dermented things that make you cry all of the tears you have?" My mother screamed. "Jane," my dad started to mock my mom,"I'm sure he's having trouble sleeping because you won't stop arguing with me! He's stressed!" "Steve!" My mom shrieked. "Stop Steve! Please!" She screamed multiple times and, after a while, stopped. There wasn't a single peep in the house for the rest of that night. I finally got a little bit of sleep, and had dreams about murder and death, something that I wasn't familiar with, making it a lot scarier. I woke up to more yelling, this time, in a more angry tone. "What did you do to me last night?!" "You passed out! I swear!" I heard a loud slap. "Jane, what's your problem?" My stomach sank as my parents went into a fit of cursing from downstairs. My dad hit my mom. I thought my mom didn't have anything to say so she just screamed and fell asleep. My dad hit my mom the night before. It went through my mind a million times. This was getting bad. I wanted to go downstairs and break it up, but I didn't dare. I sat up and clutched my head in my hands, putting a finger in each ear, trying to block out the swearing. I rocked back and forth, crying. I didn't know how to react, I had never experienced fighting. I sat and cried until I heard: "Get a divorce then!" "Maybe I will!" My head quickly rose, my fingers ripped out of my ears causing me pain. I hadn't ever heard that word out of my parent's lips before: Divorce... I was scared. I heard a door slam, and all was quiet. I slowly got out of bed and crept down the stairs. I saw nothing. I slipped around the kitchen counter... I went into a fit of freaking out and crying. There, written in red, was the pattern. The "X". I was in a trance with it. I searched the area, and saw footprints of bare feet that circled the pattern. They looked like, whosoever footprints they were, was walking around the design. I glanced up and back at the mysterious presence. I dipped my toe in the red, and it was wet, and stuck to my toe. I sat and looked at the liquid, thinking of what it could have been. It dripped off my toe, making a small pool of the substance underneath me. Then it hit me like a bullet. Its blood. I scolded myself for being so stupid and not knowing that, and wiped the blood off of my toe onto the floor. I stood and ran into my parent's room to report my sightings, and saw what nobody should ever see. My dad had a knife in a raised hand, and was sitting on my mother with a taped mouth. He prepared to bring the knife down and pierce my mother, but I screamed. I screamed with all of my emotion and heart, all of my tears shooting from my eyes. The feeling of sadness and betrayal never being stronger. I felt powerful, shooting all the sound my little body could produce out of my wide open mouth. My dad glanced back with scared but determined eyes directly into mine, a sort of craze in them. I instantly felt guilt. My dad extended his arm and dropped the knife off the bed, his arm shaking like the tip of a rattlesnake's tail. He abruptly got up and hugged me tight, trying to apologize without words. I asked what he was doing, even though I already knew. "Jeremy, hush," my dad whispered. I didn't want his cold, murderous hands on me. I was afraid, and I knew it was a bad thing to be afraid of your own father. I looked at my mother, tied up in rope with tape sealing her lips shut, crying. We cried together for a long while, a touching moment that nobody should have. I shoved my apologetic dad aside and weakly untied the ropes from my mother's body and slowly removed the tape. My mother grabbed my head and moved it downward toward her mouth and whispered: "Call the cops." She handed me her cell phone that was deep in her pocket and I dialed, slowly. It was difficult to dial due to my shaky hands. After what seemed like forever, the police showed up. My dad was nowhere to be seen, for I believe he ran away when I shoved him aside. "Are you the young man who called?" There was a buff policeman at the door. "Y...yes sir, my ma is still alive..." I was still hesitant and scared, very shaken up. "Well that's good, can you tell me everything that happened?" I told him every detail from when we looked at the house to screaming to stop my dad from stabbing my mother. My father ended up getting arrested. It was just me and my mother now, and we ended up moving into the house we looked at. We restored it and it looked absolutely beautiful. I never saw the design or the footsteps again, and I can happily visit the basement without a problem. Not everything was perfect, however. Every night I dreamed of seeing my mother so close to death at the point of a knife being held by my dad, who I never got to see again.