They said Delores Bishop cursed my father. I never believed it—until I heard the sixth step.
We lived in a small house near the water in Benedict. My dad was a crabber, proud and stubborn. When I was twelve, we were behind on rent and groceries, so he tore down the small dock behind our house to sell the lumber. The problem was that the dock had been built by Delores’s father. Everyone in town knew not to mess with her family’s things. But my dad didn’t care about town talk.
The next morning, there were six feathers nailed to our door. Not chicken, not goose, something else. I remember them vividly. Long. Iridescent. Like crow feathers soaked in oil. Dad pulled them down, spit on them, and burned them in the grill.
That night, I heard creaking on the stairs.
We only had five steps from the back door up to the kitchen. But I heard six.
I got up, thinking maybe it was my dad. I found him already in the kitchen, frozen. His hand was trembling as he held the door handle. “Go back to bed,” he said. But I knew he heard it too.
It happened again the next night. And the next. Always six steps. Always after midnight. He told me it was nothing. But he stopped sleeping.
Then things started to change. First, his right eye turned blood red. The doctor said it was a burst vessel. Then he started choking at random, like his throat was closing. He said it felt like someone was standing behind him, just out of view. “Whispering in an accent I can’t place,” he said.
By the end of the month, he couldn’t walk. Legs just… gave out. Doctors blamed a rare nerve condition. But at night, I still heard the sixth step. Every night.
After he died, I moved away. Didn’t come back to Benedict for over 20 years. But when my mother passed, I stayed in the old house again. Just one night.
At 12:14 AM, I heard it. Five steps. Then one more.
I opened the back door and looked out. Nothing. Just the tide lapping against the rocks.
I went to see Delores the next morning. She was in a nursing home by then. Could barely talk. But when I introduced myself, her mouth curled into this… knowing smile. She raised a shaking hand and traced the number six in the air.
I didn’t sleep the next night.
I moved back to Waldorf and never returned to that house. But sometimes, especially after rain, I hear phantom footsteps in my kitchen.
Five. Then six.
And when I look in the mirror afterward…
I swear I’m not alone.