Short Story: "The Lady Upstairs" by Allison "Chucky" Allen

Allison “Chucky” Allen is an emerging writer and photographer from Utica, Mississippi. Still developing her craft, she brings a visual eye and an adventurous imagination to her storytelling. “The Lady Upstairs” is part of her journey as a writer, and we’re pleased to share it with readers this Halloween.

Charles, a real estate photographer, looked over his latest assignment from his boss: an open house at 913 Old Oak Drive. The address was a forty-five-minute drive down an old dirt road, so he called a friend and asked him to come along.

They drove slowly, Charles scanning the roadside and muttering the address to himself, the way anyone does when searching for an unfamiliar place.

“Is this the open house?” his friend asked.

“Shii, that’s what it looks like, based on what Bossman sent me,” Charles said, frowning.

The house looked nothing like the one in the listing. It stood dark and crooked among the trees, its windows clouded with grime.

“Bruh, ain’t nobody gonna buy this house. Look at it—it looks like mummies live in there,” his friend said, lighting a cigar.

“Shut up, man. At least come inside with me. I just need a few pictures for the website.”

“Hell naw, Charlie. My nigga-ness is telling me we’re not welcome. We’re the only ones here, dude.”

“Maybe they’re on their way. The open house doesn’t start for another hour.”

“Say what?”

The two friends exchanged a look, then slowly approached the rotting steps. Termites had chewed through the banisters, leaving them pitted and fragile.

As Charles reached for the door, it creaked open. A chill settled over them. Then the door slammed shut behind them, sending dust and cobwebs swirling. They both jumped.

On a dusty brown table lay a stack of pamphlets. The top one read: Welcome to the Meredith House. We’re so glad you came. Explore.

The shutter of Charles’s camera snapped through the empty rooms as he photographed anything that caught his eye. As he wandered through the first floor, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he recognized some of the objects. They seemed familiar in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Charles. Charles,” his friend called from upstairs.

Charles climbed the dark, narrow staircase, each step groaning beneath him. At the top, he found his friend staring at a heavy iron door that looked almost like a vault.

They both studied it. The door looked as if it had been installed recently.

“I wonder what’s in there,” his friend said.

“It’s locked,” Charles replied, jiggling the handle. He pressed his shoulder against it, trying to force it open.

A low hum began to fill the air, rising and falling like a woman humming a tune.

“Yo, you hear that?” Charles asked, turning away from the door.

“Hear what?”

“Someone’s singing.”

“Bro, chill. I don’t hear anything. Hurry up with the pictures so we can bounce. You’re blowing my high.”

They started back down the stairs. Behind them, the humming grew louder, joined by a woman’s sobbing.

“Oh, what the fuck!” Charles cried, jumping and bumping into his friend.

“The hell’s wrong with you, man?”

“Come on! Let’s get out of here. Something just touched me!”

Heavy footsteps sounded behind them. The two friends bolted through the front door and didn’t stop until they reached the car.

That night, Charles tossed and turned, unable to stop thinking about the house—or why it was on the market in such a state of disrepair.

What was behind that door?

“I have to go back,” he whispered.

He grabbed his camera from the nightstand and scrolled through the images.

“Wait. What happened to the pictures?”

The photos showed a beautiful home, just like the one in the listing—not the crumbling house he’d seen in person. He removed the memory card and put it back in. The pictures hadn’t changed. He flipped through them all, but none showed the iron door.

“What the hell?”

He leaped out of bed and called his friend.

“Yo, bro, we gotta go back to that house. Something’s drawing me there. The pictures are perfect—not at all what we saw with our own eyes.”

“Nigga, who’s ‘we’? Do you know what time it is?”

“Okay, I know. You’re right. But first thing in the morning. I have to see what’s in that room.”

Knowing he wouldn’t get back to sleep, Charles searched online for the history of the Meredith House.

He found an article about a kidnapping and suicide that had happened there nearly thirty-five years earlier. The house had been vacant ever since.

The article named the woman as Meredith Katherine Black. She was twenty-one when she hanged herself on the second-floor landing, three days after her son, Charlie Black, was abducted. Law enforcement called off the search, having found no clues.

For two nights, neighbors had heard her crying. Her sobs had eventually given way to a lullaby she sang to her son.

Charles’s eyes widened. His hands began to tremble, and sweat gathered on his brow.

Am I Charlie Black? he thought. Is this my birth mother?

He had been adopted by white parents, who had raised him until he was eighteen.

As he drifted off, he dreamed of a woman running through the woods, calling for her son. He saw her pacing the staircase, crying and singing until the grief became too much to bear. 

She tied sheets together, climbed onto the railing, and clutched her son’s teddy bear. When she jumped, the sheets snapped taut. The bear slipped from her arms and landed on the floor, its stitched eyes turned toward her swinging legs.

The last thing Charles saw was the iron door.

“I have to get inside,” he said, jolting awake from the nightmare.

Morning came. Charles checked his email for the assignment from his boss, but there was no sign it had ever existed.

“What’s going on? I know that email was there. The pictures were there. Ahhhhh!” he yelled, slamming his laptop shut.

He gathered his things and headed back down the old dirt road.

When he arrived, the house was beautiful: shining stone panels, fresh paint, a white picket fence, and sunflowers and roses in full bloom. The grass was freshly cut, and bright green leaves covered the trees.

Charles rushed inside and ran upstairs. He stopped, stunned. The iron door was gone.

He fell to his knees. A cold rush swept over him.

Then the room appeared.

A whisper brushed his ear. “My son. My child is finally home.”

Charles took one last breath. At last, he understood: he had been dead all along.

Thirty-five years later, the body of a two-year-old boy had been found buried in the woods behind the old Meredith House.