From Dark Corners

Written by: Michael Maimed

Of course, James and Kyle had heard the stories about people finding mysterious stairways in the woods. Kyle had a friend who had a friend that said they had come across one of these stairways while on a hike. But that’s how it always went with those kinds of stories. It was always hearsay and never from the person who saw the anomaly. James and Kyle had long ago dismissed the tales as just that. A tall tale told around campfires. The Appalachian Mountains and the Great Smokies National Forest were full of such tales. That is not surprising considering the age of the mountains. Some of the first colonists had eked out an existence in these mountains. Those settlers had made their homes in places reclaimed by the woods long since, and James figured that’s where the stories got their origins. Some intrepid soul had come across the remains of a colonist’s house, which time and nature had worn away until only a weathered stairway remained.

James and Kyle were ginseng hunting, deep in the Appalachian forest. After pushing through a nasty patch of thorny undergrowth and vines they saw a stairway. Only this set of stairs didn’t look like it came from an old colonist’s house. If James remembered right, colonists used wood and rock for their buildings and homes. The steps weren’t anchored to anything. They were just there as if they were floating in the air. There were six stairs in total. They were made of worked grey stone inset with thin lines of gold-flecked obsidian. A silver hand railing ran up their length. Like the steps, the rail wasn’t attached to anything. They hung in the air at hip height and ran parallel to the steps. The stairs reminded them of the kind you find in large school buildings or hospitals. They looked like the steps you would take in a big building instead of riding the elevator. The two young men shared a look, then moved to inspect the stairs.

James and Kyle halted five feet from the steps, eyes wide with amazement. “What the ever-loving Jesus are we looking at Jamesy?” Kyle asked not sure if he trusted his eyes.

“You’re seein’ it right Kyle,” James answered as if reading his friend’s mind. “I reckon you’re seein’ the same thing as I am. Those stairs are floating, plain as day or my name ain’t James.” He finished. Something else was nagging his thoughts, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“You hear that Jamesy?” Kyle asked, a curious expression on his face.

“I don’t hear nothin’.”

“Exactly. No birds chirping’ or squirrels chattering. Just nothin’ but us talkin’.” Kyle sounded amazed and curious. He moved around the steps, giving them a closer inspection. “It’s like these stairs got one of them silence spells from that dungeon game Keith used to play when we was kids,” Kyle said finishing his inspection stand next to James.

“Maybe the stories are true.” James gestured to the stairs, “We got magic floating stairs in the woods. So, maybe it’s like a portal or something.” He paused, “You know, to somewhere else.”

Kyle was nodding. “Could be.” He said and grinned. “We gotta check it out. See for ourselves. None of them stories ever tell about where the steps lead to.”

“If they lead anywhere,” James bent down and grabbed a small twig from the forest floor. “Come on.” He said, motioning for Kyle to follow. James moved off to align himself with the bottom of the steps. Kyle followed behind closely.

James aimed the stick up the middle of the steps, brought his arm back, and lobbed it into the air. They watched the twig as it arched over the steps. The spinning twig disappeared just as it passed the top step. Their eyes widened. “No way.” They said together.

“Whoa! Okay, let’s try one more. Just in case, you know.”  Kyle said, moving off to yank a good-sized branch out of the undergrowth. “Let’s try this.” He finished.

Kyle aligned himself with the steps as James had. Slowly, Kyle moved the tip of the branch over the threshold, and it disappeared just as the smaller stick had. Kyle could feel rhythmic vibrations traveling down the length of the branch in his hands. Whoa, he mouthed. Kyle shifted the branch to the left until it met with resistance. The tip of the tree branch had run into something solid because there was nothing to impede it on their side. It didn’t take the two long to determine the dimensions of the portal. It was five feet wide and extended upward seven feet.

Next, they tried a clump of wild grass that had grown tall. Holding the clump toward the top of the steps, James eased the long green shoots over the threshold. Like the other experiments, the ends of the shoots vanished into the portal. James felt the vibrations, but these felt different than the ones Kyle felt. The vibrations traveled up James’s arm in rapid pulses. After a moment, James pulled the grassy shoots back out of the portal. The shoots were still green. Neither Kyle nor James could see anything different or off about the grass. So, they tossed it aside and considered all they had learned.

“We can’t just walk away, can we?” Kyle asked him. “Think about it. We would be the first to gaze into another world. We would be famous. I expect they will give us one of those Nobel prizes for science. It’s not every day two good ole boys travel to another plane of existence.” Kyle said in a rush, his mind excitedly fixed on exploring the other side.

“Yeah, I guess,” James replied slowly. Feeling that they should be cautious he said, “Look, we don’t know if it’s hot or cold there. There’s no air to breathe. What if we get through…” James never got to finish what he was saying. Kyle rushed up the steps two at a time stopping for a moment before crossing the threshold. “Kyle! Wait.” But it was too late.  Kyle squeezed his eyes shut and thrust his hand through the threshold. For a moment, James watched Kyle’s image blur as vibrations thrummed through his friend. Then, he was gone. “Kyle!” James screamed. He ran up the steps, three at a time, bowed his shoulders, and charged through the portal. James’s vision went fuzzy as the vibrations thrummed through him. Then, he was gone.

When the vibrations left his body and his vision cleared, James found himself in a stairwell. His head ached miserably. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. A wave of nausea washed over James. Kneeling, he focused on his breathing until the vertigo passed. His head was still throbbing. There was no sign of Kyle. The only familiar thing James saw was the stick he had thrown through the portal. It lay on the bottom step of the ascending section of the stairwell. James turned around looking at the space where he had stepped through. The steps continued down three steps before being swallowed by a strange darkness. The longer James looked into the darkness the funnier he thought it looked. It looked more like a mass of a thousand thick black inky scribbles rather than darkness. The scribbles twitched and writhed obscuring his view of the lower stairwell. James fished a quarter from his pocket and flicked it toward his entry point. He watched the coin fly past the threshold and into the dark writhing tangle..

James felt a sinking feeling in his gut. We could be stuck here forever. The thought was demanding his attention, but James forced it away. Kyle first. I gotta find him. Then we can worry about getting back. James thought and started up the steps. James passed four landings. Each was identical to the last. The same worked grey slabs with gold-flecked obsidian sections complete with silver handrail. “Kyle,” James called in a muted shout, but his voice echoed up and down the stairwell. The reverberations sounded like a cacophony of a dozen different voices, all calling out “Kyle,” at the same moment. James cursed as a chill ran through him and goosebumps broke out all over his body.

“Where are ya, buddy?” James whispered and started to climb up the stairwell. He passed another two identical landings. The third landing was different, James saw a large metal door set into the wall. The door was made of the same silvery metal as the railing. On the wall, next to the door, was a metal box resembling a push-button intercom. James didn’t care about anything except Kyle at that moment, because one of Kyle’s boots was wedged in the doorjamb. It looked like the door was slammed on the boot.

James knelt next to the door for a closer inspection.  Kyle’s boot had prevented the door from closing all the way. He noticed a single drop of red soaked into the beige laces of the boots. James had to apply a good bit of strength to get the heavy door to get it off the boot and open a few inches. There was a smear of blood rubbed onto the inside of the doorframe. A bloody fingernail stuck out from the seam of the doorframe. where the blood smear ended. James knew in his heart that his friend was in trouble. Filled with a sense of urgency and fear. James pushed the door open enough to slip through the opening, taking care to leave the boot so that it kept the door cracked as it was moments ago. They would need to come back this way. What if we can’t get back that way? It didn’t work for me. James thought wryly. He quickly forced the thought away. Find Kyle first. You can freak out later. James sighed and turned his attention to his new surroundings.

(Part Two will be coming soon From Dark Corners. If you like this story and want more tales like it, then let me know in the comments. If you have a prompt for me, want to collaborate on a project, or have some feedback then feel free to message me by e-mail, or my authors page on Facebook. Thank you for the support.)

Michael Maimed