Free Giving Up the Ghost by Eric Nuzum Page A

the thuds. Not a distant thud, like something outside the house. It sounded close, like something heavy and thick hitting the attic floor directly above me.
    I ran out of my room and up the attic stairs at the end of the hallway. When I got to the top, I could see moonlight coming through the windows of our playroom, one of the two attic rooms. While it was normal for toys to be strewn over the room, nothing seemed particularly out of place. There was nothing big on the shelves, so nothing could have fallen to make the noise I heard.
    Without turning on any lights, I turned toward the door tothe room in the back of the attic. As soon as I looked at the door, I was overwhelmed with panic. I felt like I was stuck underwater and couldn’t breathe. We’d lived in that house for a few years by that point, and I’d never given that door or that room a second thought. Now the sight of it left me unable to move or even consider turning on a light, let alone try to find out what was on the other side. It just felt like something was present in that room that had never been there before. Something I wanted nothing to do with.
    Then I started to wonder if whatever was in that room had come over into the playroom and pounded on the floor, summoning me, knowing that I was right underneath, knowing I would come upstairs to investigate. Now it was in the room across the hall, waiting for me to come to it, or to come after me.
    I stood there in the dark, not sure what to do. Going back downstairs meant walking right by that door, easily within arm’s length of whatever was on the other side. Eventually I mustered up the courage to run back downstairs to my room and sit with my heart pounding in my throat. For the rest of that night, any noise I heard was evidence that whoever or whatever was up there might be coming downstairs.
    For a long time afterward, I would do anything to avoid going up there. I’d swap chores with Michael, find an alternative to whatever was stored up there, not play with certain toys. Anything to not be in the attic, especially at night.
    Eventually, I had to go up for some reason or another. I was nervous but felt nothing even remotely similar to what I experienced that first night. In fact, it felt so confusingly unscary that I ended up exploring the entire attic—each room, closet, and crawlspace. I was fine.
    But every so often I’d be up there and I’d get that feeling.It was like being surrounded by something you felt sure was there but wasn’t. I could feel all the warmth drain out of the room, then an abrupt and extreme sense of danger. My heart and mind would both race, I’d start to hyperventilate, and everything would suddenly go out of control. It always happened when I was looking at the closed door to the spare room, and always when I was alone. I would be overcome with fear, drop whatever I was doing, and run.
    I can’t tell you when the dreams started exactly. Or why they started. Around the time I entered my teens, they just suddenly became part of my life.
    Standing in the woods. Then the clearing. Then the picnic table. Then the people, including the guy in the cheap wolf costume pointing to the other side. Then the second path.
    Then Her.
    She is probably eight to ten years old. She has straight blond hair that goes a few inches past Her shoulders. She wears a simple powder-blue dress with no ornamentation or frills. She is dripping wet. Her cheeks are a little hollow, but otherwise She looks perfectly fine. Our eyes lock as soon as I see Her. She doesn’t look sick or dead or particularly stressed about anything—until I get close.
    Then She starts talking in something that sounds like gibberish or an evangelist’s prayer tongue. The closer I get, the louder and more agitated She becomes. It’s like She’s scared of me; She doesn’t look angry. It’s almost like She thinks our time together is running out and She becomes more and more desperate to connect, for me to understand