The Thirteenth Step

At the frayed edge of Elder Pine Lane, the house squatted. Empty. Two decades of neglect. Windows nailed shut, blind as cataracts. Paint peeled like charred skin, curling into ash. The roof groaned, buckling under rot’s weight. Children, breathless, dared each other to brush the gate’s rusted teeth. None entered. None, until Sam.

Sam. Sixteen. New to Elder Pine. September’s chill clung to him. His eyes—too old, too shadowed for a boy. Parents gone. A fire, they murmured. Now he lived with his aunt, her house a heartbeat from that place. The one with the staircase. Thirteen steps plunging down. Only twelve crawling back.

Ghosts? Sam sneered. Fairy tales for fools.

It began with a hiss.

Walking home, dusk bleeding into night, Sam heard it. A whisper, thin as a blade, slithering from the house’s direction. Childlike. Brittle.

“Come. See the thirteenth step…”

He stopped. Spun. Nothing. Just the street, empty, and the house—a grinning skull under twilight’s bruise.

Next night, it returned. Hungrier. Closer.

“Come see. Once. They wait.”

Sam blamed grief. New town. New faces. Loss coiling in his chest like smoke. But at midnight, sleepless, he saw it. A flicker. The house across the street pulsed with light. A candle’s flame, writhing in the basement’s throat.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The glow lingered, burned into his lids.

By the third night, it owned him. Completely.

Some unseen hook snagged his soul, dragging him across the street. The gate screamed—a banshee’s wail devoured by wind. The front door yawned, unlatched, inviting. Inside, air choked with mildew, thick with something older—something that smelled of forgotten bones. Floorboards whimpered. The living room, gutted, gaped like an open wound. The kitchen festered, mold blooming black as plague.

But the hallway. That hallway. A door to the basement, ajar, exhaling frost.

“Count them. Every one.”

A child’s voice, jagged with yearning. Candlelight flickered below, pale as a dying star. Sam’s hand shook. He pushed the door. It creaked, reluctant.

Thirteen steps spiraled into gloom.

He stepped down.

“One,” he rasped.

“Two.”

“Three.”

Cold clawed his skin. By the sixth step, his breath hung in clouds.

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

A scratching sound skittered below. Claws on stone. Faint. Wrong.

“Nine. Ten.”

Shadows twitched. Something not quite human stirred.

“Eleven.”

“Twelve.”

He paused. The final step loomed, drenched in ink-black dark. He descended.

“Thirteen.”

Silence. Deafening.

The basement was barren. Dirt floor, damp and cold. Stone walls, slick with something that wasn’t water. A lone candle flickered, impaled on a rusted nail, its flame trembling like a trapped moth.

Sam turned to climb back. Counted aloud, voice fraying.

“One.”

“Two. Three.”

The candle dimmed, gasping.

“Four. Five.”

Scratching again. Louder. Closer. Something skittering in the dark.

“Six. Seven. Eight.”

A breath grazed his neck. Wet. Cold as a grave.

“Nine.”

“Ten. Eleven.”

He didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

“Twelve.”

He reached the top.

No thirteenth step.

Sleep fled Sam. That night. The next. By the fifth day, his eyes were caverns, his skin ashen. His aunt watched, worried. Asked questions. He didn’t speak of the breath, heavy with rot. The door slamming shut, unbidden. The lights in his room flickering at 3:13 a.m., every dawn, like a heartbeat skipping.

One confession slipped out:

“Something’s in that house.”

His aunt’s face drained. She knew. Had always known.

That night, it came.

Tap. Tap. Tap. On his window. Rhythmic. Like knuckles of bone.

Sam’s eyes snapped open. Curtains swayed, though the window was locked. Frost bloomed inside the glass, fractal and cruel, like veins of some frozen beast.

“You left someone behind.”

No whisper now. A demand. Cold as iron.

He didn’t want to go. But it had him—tendrils wrapped around his marrow. At 3:13 a.m., Sam dressed. Crossed the street. Entered the house.

The candle burned below, impatient.

No counting now. He knew. Down he went, step by step, into the cold’s jaws. At the bottom, he turned.

The room wasn’t empty.

Figures lurked in the corners. Silent. Still. Children, their faces pale as moonlight, eyes hollow as screams. Mouths stitched with black thread, leaking something thicker than blood.

One advanced. A boy, Sam’s age. His lips parted, thread snapping, oozing dark.

“You forgot the last step.”

Hands lunged. Dozens. Ice-cold. Claws of frost and bone. They dragged him down, into the dirt, where the candle’s light drowned.

Dawn broke. The house was still. No light. No sound.

But children on bikes whispered. A new shadow in the window. A boy, eyes wide, empty as graves.

The bold ones crept to the porch. They heard it:

Footsteps.

Ascending.

One. Two. Three.

Four. Five. Six.

Up to twelve.

Never thirteen.

Silence.

Until someone else comes to count.