When I was five, my family moved to a big two-story house with a full attic that had stairs leading up to the 3rd floor from a door in the second-floor hall. Before we had moved into the house, the man who had lived there had committed suicide, not in the attic, but in an enclosed porch downstairs after hearing that auditors were making an unexpected visit to the bank where he was an officer. The auditors soon found irregularities in the bookkeeping, which explained our previous resident, Horace Smith’s quick demise.

The attic was naturally spooky but especially so because in the middle of the floor was a large chest that held Horace’s old clothes: a military uniform from World War II and coats and hats that required a mothproof box. As the next to the youngest of six kids, that attic was a place of many pranks played on me by my pesky brothers, who loved to scare me.

One day, my two older brothers were up in the attic with me, and we were looking through Horace’s old clothes. They smelled of mothballs and were stiff from not being moved in several years. Just as I was peering at a military pin on his Army jacket, the lights went off, the door at the bottom of the stairs slammed shut, and the key turned in the lock. Soon, my brothers’ laughter wafted up the stairs to where I stood in utter darkness with that mothball smell wrapping around me like bony fingers.

I banged the lid on the box, bolted down the dark staircase, pounded on the door, and called for help. No sound came from the second-floor hallway—my brothers had clearly run away, fearing the trouble they’d get in. I banged again but got no response. Instead, I heard a loud creak at the top of the staircase, followed by another, as if someone in heavy boots was descending. Heart racing, I screamed at the top of my lungs. Soon, my father turned the lock, opened the door, and grabbed me.

“Quick, shut the door,” I yelled. “Horace is coming!”

From my brother’s bedroom, I heard loud giggles erupt.

I didn’t return to the attic for a long time, and I still swear I heard footsteps on the stairs. Of course, now I realize that if Horace had been descending, he might have been coming to comfort me.