HOUSE SHARE

HOUSE SHARE (Longlisted by Brilliant Flash Fiction "Wow Us" writing contest 18.09.17)
Shrouded in the darkness she lay awake unable to sleep. It was the noises downstairs again. Not unusual as the big old house where she lived alone often made strange noises at night. The creaking floor boards mimicked ghostly footsteps while the wind blew through poorly sealed windows like hushed voices. But she could not stop thinking about her discovery earlier that day. How many times, and for how many years had she looked at the house from the expansive lawn and never noticed there were too many windows? It was a big house - a big house with small rooms. Thick walls. Very thick walls. Although she had not previously noticed the additional window which did not correlate with any of the rooms from inside the house, she knew about the locked door. It was supposedly a door to a storage space which the previous owner had lost the key to. She realised that the window and the door indicated a room which she never knew was there. As the noises in the house began to take on new meaning, things she could not explain came back to her mind. Items in the kitchen food cupboard going missing, furniture which looked like it had been moved and then placed back, but not quite in the right place. And the night her husband left their bed to investigate what sounded like an intruder, only not to return. The police had searched the grounds and beyond and found nothing, not even any sign of a break in. She tried to clear her mind but the noises in the house would not let her. Noises like voices, but angry voices, and footsteps coming slowly up the stairs, pausing at the top, then moving towards her bedroom.