The ghost boy

My grandparents’ house was haunted. Or at least, it used to be.

I haven’t been there since I was fourteen. They’re both gone now. The house was sold, remodeled, and turned into something unrecognizable. Fourteen was the last time I saw that house or my grandparents. They lived in Bountiful, Utah—a nice neighborhood near Washington Elementary. Now, their home exists only in memory, frozen in time, untouched by the years that have passed.

It was an odd bi-level house, built in a way that never quite made sense. When you entered, you either came through the side door into the kitchen or the front door into the living room. If you took the stairs to the right, just past the living room, you’d find yourself on the second floor. But if you went left, through the kitchen, the stairs led downward—first to a basement. Hidden on the right side was another set of stairs leading even deeper in the opposite direction. That lowest level sat beneath the living room, a strange, almost secret space with a couple of extra rooms.

When I was really small, the basement was cluttered with boxes, furniture, and storage containers, making it feel like a maze. Some doors were hidden, and little passages formed between the stacked containers, leading to unexpected parts of the house. As a kid, I played in the basement rooms often, unafraid of ghosts and strange noises—at least, during the day.

My grandmother had one rule when it came to spirits, a rule we were always to follow: “If you see a ghost, put out a hand. If they try to touch you, run away. If they don’t, they are harmless.”

My grandparents had lived with their ghosts long enough to understand them.

They also slept separately—something that made more sense as I got older and realized how tormenting a loud snorer could be. Sleep keeps you sane. Grandpa slept on the lowest level, tucked away in that strange bottom floor, while Grandma stayed upstairs, on the second floor. The basement, as basements tend to be, always felt a little off. I remember moments of unease down there—shadows that stretched too far, the weight of something unseen pressing against my back.

Nighttime was worse. My brother and I would sleep on the pull-out couch, tucking our feet carefully under the blankets, listening to the creeping noises in the dark.

But my ghost story didn’t happen in the basement.

Not this one.

It happened on the second floor. At the very end of the hallway.

I was fourteen. Not a little kid. Not someone prone to flights of fancy. We had flown out to visit, and I was given the room across from my grandmother’s—a small, cozy space with a little couch in the corner. They set me up on an air mattress on the floor. The room itself was unassuming and rather bland.

Except for the dolls.

Grandma collected them. Dozens of little porcelain faces stared from their shelves, their cold eyes catching the dim light. At fourteen, I wasn’t about to admit that dolls unsettled me. After all, they were just dolls.

I fell asleep eventually, the room wrapped in darkness. Not complete darkness—there were always tiny blinking lights from plugged-in electronics, giving off a faint glow. Sometime in the night, more light seeped in through the curtained window.

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up, only that something was shaking my bed.

Whatever dreams I’d been having melted away as my groggy mind caught up with reality. I was on an air mattress. At Grandma’s. And my bed was moving.

Anyone with a little brother knows they live to be a nuisance, pushing your buttons for the sheer joy of it. My stomach has never handled motion well, so waking up to my air mattress jerking beneath me was instantly irritating.

I groaned, rolled over, and muttered, “Knock it off.”

The shaking stopped for a second.

Then came a harder kick—sharper, deliberate.

At the bottom corner of the bed. Near my feet.

Pissed off, I bolted upright, already cursing my brother, ready to shove him away.

I stopped mid-curse.

A cold shock jolted through my chest.

A pale figure sat on the edge of the couch.

It was the same size as my brother. Its little leg still kicked my bed, a dark, shadowy shoe on its foot.

My breath caught as I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. My brother… didn’t look like that.

My heart pounded as I opened my mouth to tell him off again—

And then the figure turned toward me.

Not my brother.

A child. Maybe eight or nine years old. Ghostly pale, skin almost luminous in the dark. Short blonde hair combed straight back. The kind of face you’d expect to see in an old black-and-white photo—washed out, unnatural.

We stared at each other, frozen in the stillness of the room.

Then, slowly, it smirked.

And kicked the mattress again.

The jolt snapped me out of my paralysis.

I didn’t stop to think. Didn’t try to rationalize what I was seeing. I launched myself off the air mattress, and sprinted for the door, fumbling for the light switch as I went. My hand smacked painfully against the wall before I flipped the switch, already halfway into the hallway.

I barely felt the carpet beneath my feet as I bolted into my grandmother’s room. I shook her awake, breathless and trembling, as I scrambled into her bed.

Ghosts aren’t supposed to touch things.

At least, that’s what I had always thought.

Grandma stopped snoring and slowly sat up. “What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say it at first. I was shaking, and embarrassed, but I knew what I had seen.

Grandma got up, looked into the room, flipped the light off, and told me I could sleep with her.

Embarrassment didn’t stop me. I curled up next to her that night, listening to her snores, wide awake until morning.

For the next several nights, I refused to sleep in that room. Instead, I camped out on the hard, uncomfortable couch in the living room—with a lamp on.