Hand Scraped

I'd just walked in the front door having worked later than I'd like, and tossed my keys and wallet onto the top of the entryway table, something I do every day when I get home. I casually aimed for the cheap ceramic bowl that sits near the center of the table, in between a dust-covered clock that is only correct twice a day and a photo of my grandparents when they were much younger. It's not unusual for me to miss the bowl, but this time, my keys slid across the top of the black table and knocked into the over-turned gray dish. The few pennies and nickels that could be found in the bowl were scattered on the table. After I looked at the unusual site for a few moments, I shrugged my shoulders and moved along down the entryway, kicking off my shoes in the process, leaving them haphazardly in the middle of the walkway to the living room area. I moved towards the couch and heavily plopped my tired body into the soft, worn leather, letting out a too-loud sigh.

I sat in the quiet, already dreading returning to the office tomorrow, thinking of the projects that I have let pile up, the meetings I forgot to schedule, the emails I forgot to send, and the slow dragging noise coming from the room above me. I didn't immediately freak out, it took several moments for the level of panic to slowly simmer its way to the top. The problem here is that I live alone and the one person who has an extra key to my place felt it necessary to lose said key when he moved to a new apartment across town. So, who, or what, was upstairs making this God-awful noise that I can only describe as something very heavy being dragged across the floor? Eventually, after what seemed like hours but was only a few short seconds, the noise stopped. I sat quietly for several moments, watching the light from outside slowly dim as the sun set. I began to try and process things, starting with which room the noise had come from. Just above the living room was the smallest of the bedrooms, which I had converted to a home office. It was also the only room on the upper level that had wood flooring, along with the hallway that led from the top of the stairs to the bedrooms and guest bath; all the others had carpet.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to investigate. Being the manly man that I am, I head upstairs carrying the pitching wedge from my golf clubs that I haven't used in years and are now just taking up space in my coat closet. The silence was deafening, as they like to say all too often. Every step I took on the hardwood-covered steps seemed to resonate throughout the entire house. If there was someone up there, I certainly didn't feel like I was going to sneak up on them. I passed the first guest bedroom on the right. The door stood open, the twin bed sat neatly made, as it always did, with the cheap nightstand covered in a thin layer of dust, matching the dresser in the opposite corner. The bathroom door on the left was also open and a quick glance inside showed nothing out of place. As I loudly crept down the hallway, knocking the pitching wedge against the wall as I did so, my body began to tense. I stopped just outside the door of the office, which stood partially open. This struck me as odd, as I rarely, if at all, closed the door. Just as I was about to take a step and turn into the room, I was stopped dead in my tracks by another sound. It wasn't the same dragging sound I'd heard previously. No, that would make sense. 

The tapping started quietly at first. A gentle, yet firm rap on the wood floor. This was followed by a scraping noise; like the sound of a fingernail being dragged across a heavy wooden table...or maybe a wood floor? The eerie duo of sounds continued on, very slowly getting louder with each repetition. I stood just outside the room for several minutes, trying to control the nerves and shaking that had commenced with the unsettling noises in the room next to me. I hesitantly and slowly peaked my head around the door frame, peering into the room that had just enough light coming through the window to light the area around the desk that had been overturned, its contents scattered across the floor. But that wasn't the most disturbing thing I saw. Just below the lone window in the room was a series of thick scrapes in the floor, the four lines spaced evenly apart. Having lived in this home for several years now, and knowing that I installed these floors myself last spring, I knew these scrapes were new. My stomach dropped as I stood in the doorway, realizing the knocking and scraping had ceased. 

I reached to my right and flipped on the light, filling the room with a white, artificial glow of an LED bulb. Reaching deep down into whatever resources of courage I had, I moved slowly towards the scrapes under the window, squatting down to get a closer look. Running my finger along them, I got a feel for how deep they really were, seeming more like gouges than scrapes. I stood, following these four deep and uneven grooves along the wall, moving various items from my overturned desk out of the way. The lines ran non-stop, eventually disappearing under the door to the closet. 

I'm a proud man, but I'm not too proud to admit that upon that discovery, I quickly backed out of the room, turning out the light as I left, loudly closing the door behind me. I stood in the hallway, using the door of the office to hold me up as I attempted to gain my composure and reduce my heart rate to a level that wouldn't frighten my primary care doctor. After a few moments, I took a few wobbly steps down the hall to my bedroom, where I took a quick shower and changed into my nightly TV-watching uniform of sweats and a t-shirt. Looking to forget the madness in my office, I nonchalantly ran down the hall to the stairs, and, taking them two at a time, made it safely to the main floor where I went to the kitchen to reheat a pizza that had been screaming my name since I walked in the door. 

The rest of the night went on without a hitch. Having devoured the supreme combo pizza and two cans of whatever beer was in the fridge, I eventually nodded off to sleep, with the sound of Friends reruns serenading my slumber. Of course, that didn't last long as the sudden sound of what seemed like a bowling ball being thrown against the floor above shook me out of my sleep. Instantly, my pulse began to rush and a cold sweat started to form along my receding hairline. In what I don't consider to be one of my finest moments, I  stood up, grabbed my trusty pitching wedge that I had leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs earlier, and slowly made my way up the stairs once more. As I took the final step at the top, taking my first step into the hallway, the unmistakable sound of a loud tap filled the air, followed by the familiar scraping. I looked up at the ceiling, closed my eyes, said a meaningless prayer, and took a deep breath before moving towards the unnerving sounds. 

As I neared the doorway to the office, a new sound echoed down the short corridor- the creaking of the door opening. A triangle of moonlight spilled into the hallway, widening as I moved closer. Just as I was about to turn the corner into the room, the tap-scrape sound halted. I took another deep breath, and with my pitching wedge raised, I leaped into the room ready to take on whatever was occupying the room. Of course, no one was there. I stood, looking at a perfectly organized office. A contradictory scene to that which I had witnessed just a short time before. Looking towards the floor, just below the window, however, I saw the same four gouges, leading directly to the closet. Only this time, there were four new scrapes, running along the floor about a foot away from the first set. 

Not sure what to do with this information, I set the pitching wedge down, leaning it against the wall near the door. Since there was so much moonlight coming through the oversized window, there wasn't a need to turn on the light. I made my way towards the far wall in which the window was set, trying to piece together the puzzle before me. I squatted down once more to get a better look at the newly added scrapes on the floor, not noticing the door to the closet slowly and soundlessly open behind me. 

Before I knew it, my feet had been pulled out from beneath me, causing me to land on my torso with enough force to knock the air from my lungs. I felt my legs being pulled slowly towards the darkness in the closet. I reached out in front of me with both hands hitting the hardwood floor with a familiar tap. My hands instinctively formed claws, with each of my fingers trying to find traction in the flooring beneath me, scraping the surface as I was being dragged across the floor, my thumbs finding no traction at all. In my panic and terror, I looked out past my now bloodied hands and broken fingernails, I saw eight gouges in the dark-stained wood as the scraping noise I'd heard earlier in the night once again filled my ears. 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl at that moment, with the darkness slowly consuming me. The pain of my nails being torn from their beds and the splinters of wood digging their way into my fingers was the only thing that kept me from succumbing to the pitch darkness around me. I dug down deep one final time and began to kick and flail my legs, trying to break free from the icy cold grasp of whatever held me. Time began to speed up to its normal pace once again and the searing pain in my hands grew more intense, giving me the energy and desire to break free. 

Now, as I lay on the floor of my office, bathed in the moonlight pouring in from outside and with my bleeding hands tucked into my armpits to try and ease the pain, I'm doing my best to not have a total breakdown. While most people would be trying to figure out what entity just tried to drag my body into the depths of hell, I'm just upset that I didn't choose the smooth finished floors and instead opted for the hand-scraped hardwood.