Walls.

Miguel Anabalón.

My parents are teachers so I used to spend a long-time during summer holidays visiting my

father’s relatives. I specially remember my uncle Waldo and his house. It was a big old wood

house, it was built by my uncle and his family. My uncle and my aunt had three sons and four

daughters.

Every year we stayed with them for a couple weeks, but suddenly one year we didn’t stay with,

the next year we didn’t stay neither. We continued to visit them, but we never spent a night again

with them. I was little, so I didn’t give it too much though. Last year I asked my parents why we

didn’t stay with them anymore. My mother gave a heavy look and left the room saying that she

wouldn’t like to hear the conversation, I asked my father why my mother acted like that. My

father gave me a serious look. After a while he told me the story.

We were visiting them as usual. My uncle Waldo was very sick. The doctors didn’t know what

was wrong with him, but his family always supported him. My parents shared this feeling and

decided to stay there to show their support too. It was a hot summer night, and my uncle

condition got worse, so his family took him to the hospital. Two daughters, a friend of them, and

the youngest son were in the house with us. My parents were with them and me and my sisters

were sleeping already, completely oblivious to what was going to happen.

Old houses, and especially wooden ones tend to be noisy, every step you take can be heard as the

wood from the floor slowly cracks. My father told me that the sounds they heard that night

weren’t of those that you normally hear in the house. The walls of the living room started to

sound like someone was hitting them with something. It was unnoticed at first, but the sound got
louder and louder, but no one was there. Then they realized that the sound came from inside the

wall, and then it started to move through the entire house. At this point the sound was like a

hammer striking the walls, crawling through the walls like a giant reptile hitting the walls with

its tail. Suddenly the sound stopped. My cousin’s friend started to feel sick too. A strange rotten

smell started to surface covering the living room. The stench of death was growing with the pass

of time, getting more and unbearable. They started to look for the source of the smell. It wasn’t

the walls, neither the kitchen or the table. The smell was coming from a sofa, under it to be

precise. They were expecting to find something underneath so they armed themselves with

brooms and sticks. They lifted the sofa, but nothing was there, even the smell completely

vanished. By that moment, everybody was feeling anxious and scared. This atmosphere didn’t

disappear, as the sound slowly resurfaced, but not as loud as it was. My parents decided to go to

sleep and that was the last night we spent at uncle Waldo’s house.