Short Stories of the Supernatural

When Emily and her six-year-old daughter, Lily, moved into the old Victorian house on the hill, it felt like a fresh start. The house creaked and groaned with age, but it was theirs. A new chapter. The first night, Lily stood in the hallway with wide, tearful eyes. "Mommy, I don't like my room." Emily sighed softly and pulled back the covers. "Come on, just for tonight." They curled up together in the queen-sized bed, the silence of the house punctuated by wind rattling old windowpanes. At 2:37 AM, Emily woke to a soft scratching sound. She blinked in the darkness, holding her breath. It was coming from behind the large dresser against the far wall. She rose slowly, careful not to wake Lily, and crossed the room. The sound stopped. With effort, she shoved the dresser aside, dust swirling in the air. Behind it was a door—small, faded, and strange. She reached for the knob. Locked. A chill crawled up her spine. Without another thought, she moved the dresser back into place and returned to bed. Morning came, and they spent the day unpacking downstairs. Lily sat cross-legged in the living room, watching cartoons. Emily was in the kitchen when she heard footsteps upstairs. Heavy. Deliberate. She froze. Peering into the living room, she saw Lily, eyes glued to the screen. Heart pounding, Emily crept up the stairs. The bedroom door was ajar. The dresser had been moved again. No. She knelt in front of the hidden door. Still locked. She searched the room for a key, any key. Nothing. She called a locksmith. He couldn’t come until tomorrow. That night, the house was colder. At 3:12 AM, the rattling of the doorknob woke her. She sat upright in bed. The sound stopped. She stood, trembling, and moved the dresser again. The knob was still. Then she looked through the keyhole. An eye stared back. She screamed, staggered back, and scooped Lily into her arms. Together, they fled downstairs. She locked the bedroom door behind her and dialed 911. “There’s someone in the house,” she whispered. “Behind a locked door upstairs.” The police arrived minutes later. Two officers swept the house. When they reached the hidden door, they took turns peering through the keyhole. “There’s nothing there, ma’am. Just darkness. You’re safe.” But Emily didn’t sleep. The next morning, the locksmith arrived. She led him to the door. He examined the old brass lock. “Hasn’t been touched in years,” he muttered. The lock clicked open. The door creaked on its hinges, revealing a narrow, dust-choked space. A closet. But at the far end of the closet… was another door. Smaller. The locksmith bent down. “Looks like this one’s jammed.” With some effort, he managed to unlock it. The door swung inward. Inside was a tiny room. No more than a few feet wide. A stained, rotting baby mattress lay on the floor. Curled on top was a child-sized skeleton, its arms wrapped around its knees. Emily choked back a sob as the locksmith stepped in, flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. The walls were covered in scratch marks. Etched into the back of the door, in a child's shaky hand, were the words: "Momma, please let me out. I'm sorry, Momma. I love you." The coroner’s van arrived within the hour, followed by more police. The tiny skeleton was gently placed into a child-sized body bag, the officers handling it with a reverence born of horror. No one said much. What could they say? Emily stood on the stairs holding Lily close as the remains were taken out through the front door. The little girl didn’t cry, didn’t ask questions. She just watched, silent, head resting on her mother’s shoulder. “It looks like it's been decades,” one officer told Emily quietly. “We’ll investigate. Maybe there are records. But… it’s likely whoever did this is long gone.” They closed off the upstairs closet with crime scene tape, but offered little comfort. Eventually, they left. The house was quiet again. Too quiet. --- A Week Later Emily tried to get life back to normal. She scrubbed the kitchen, made pancakes for dinner, and unpacked the last of the boxes. Lily returned to school. The days seemed okay, but the nights were still hard. Worse, something in Lily had changed. She no longer begged to sleep in Emily’s bed. Instead, she wanted to be in her own room. Alone. She sat at her little tea table for hours, talking in whispers. Emily chalked it up to imagination—a way to cope with the trauma. But it didn’t feel innocent. One afternoon, Emily passed Lily’s bedroom and heard voices. One was Lily’s. The other was… softer. Higher. But Emily couldn’t make out the words. She crept closer, holding her breath. Lily's voice rang out clear: “No, she’s my mommy and I love her!” A pause. “No! I don’t want her to die!” Emily's blood turned to ice. She pushed open the door. Lily was sitting alone at the tea table, eyes wide and tearful. “Sweetheart… who were you talking to?” Lily glanced at the empty chair across from her. “The little girl. She lives in the wall.” --- That Night Emily lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Every creak of the house made her flinch. At some point, sleep took her. She awoke with a start. Lily was standing beside the bed, small hand clenched around something. Emily sat up. “Lily? What are you—” The moonlight glinted off the blade. A kitchen knife. “Lily!” Emily lunged forward. “Give that to me!” The child blinked. Her face was blank. Her voice was not her own when she whispered: “She said I had to.” --- The morning sun crept across the floorboards of the bedroom. Emily’s body lay still in a pool of blood, eyes wide, frozen in fear. The house was silent—until the sound of dragging filled the upstairs hallway. Tiny footsteps. A child’s sobbing. And then, the scrape of something heavy being pushed into place. The dresser. Later, the room was empty. All that remained was the whisper of a little voice behind the locked door. “I said I’m sorry, Momma. Please let me out. I love you.”