In the fall of 2000, I was cleaning out a repossessed house in Lansing, Michigan. I had a small business cleaning them out, performing repairs, keeping up the yard, etc. This home is about two blocks from the Capitol building, in one of the original neighborhoods surrounding the Capitol. Loads of stuff I hauled out of there, it took me about a week just to clean it out. The previous owner was a builder, and had left a lot of unfinished projects around the house, as you can imagine, and so another two weeks of finish work was required.
Cleaning up after I had finished some painting and other finish work on the second floor one cold fall day, night time was approaching fast. As there was no electricity in the house, I was trying to wrap it up before I couldn't see my way to the door. As I finished each room on the second floor, I would shut the door so I knew I was done and hadn't left anything behind. I descended the stairs, checked the front door locks, and headed out the back, through the kitchen to my truck. Until I heard footsteps upstairs. I was feeling cocky, and bold, so I turned right around and went upstairs to give someone hell for sneaking in. Broom in hand.
The house was what you would expect from one of it's age, loads of stained wood, single pane windows, wood floors, one outlet per wall, etc. You can hear pretty well where someone is walking on the second floor when you are on the first. I could tell that the person was walking from the stairs towards the back of the house, so I wasted no time hustling up there to give them some stern words. As I rounded the corner in the stairwell, I saw the last door swinging open at the end of the hall, the master bedroom. The other doors are shut still, so the bum must have gone in there. No way in hell someone is going to hide from me, cocky mc badass says.
I stormed in there with that broom, like I was on a mission to clean the living hell out of someone. But nobody was there. Not even in the closet, because like I said, I was feeling bold, right up until that moment when it suddenly became winter. And awfully dark. I turned on my heel and started toward the hall, the only exit from the second floor. And that's when cocky mc badass disappeared, because every one of those bedroom doors was now open, including the one with the wee staircase to the attic. Remember, these are old doors, they aren't silent like new house doors. And that attic door was like one of the gates to hell. If there was something behind that door that night, it was the stale breath of the dead.
And when I tell you that on that night I was an Olympic relay runner, you would have believe me because I RAN. And I don't run for anything. But by god I ran that night, down that hall, past the gate to hell. I probably left ten dollars worth of rubber in that driveway and street out front. I did NOT go back at night again, and I made damn sure I was done well before evening from that day on. I
never went back to that second floor, and when the representative from the bank inspected the house, I stayed in the kitchen where it was bright and sunny.
This is the house.
http://goo.gl/maps/puEB
The yellowish house with the reddish door. The little windows up top are the attic. The small window on the right is the stairs. I think you can still see my rubber in the shared driveway.