Strange But True 2 - Footsteps On The Stairs Poem by David Harris

I was a store man in an engineering factory,
during the early 1960’s when this story took place.
The company had rented and old tailor shop
as an extra storeroom just down the road.
It was time to do a stock take,
in the shop there on my own.
I had been in the building many times before on my own.
That day seemed no exception.
The building had three floors,
the ground floor, and the first floor
where I would be working and the second floor,
which had at one time been a flat.
I was seventeen at the time.

Therefore, I began my work
and began counting the stock,
when from the floor above I could hear
what sounded like a woman’s shoes
pacing around on the wooden floor.
My heart began to beat faster,
as I knew I was the only one in the building.
I said to myself if whatever it was
began to descend the stairs, I was going to be gone.
Then it happened,
my dread.
The footsteps reached the stairs
and began to descend.
I dropped what I was doing,
and down to the ground floor ran.
Once outside I locked the only entrance door
and ran back to the factory,
swearing I would not go back there anymore.
A supervisor saw the fear within me.
It took him an hour to calm me down.

He finally persuaded me
to accompany him back to the shop,
so he could prove to me that there was nothing there.
We would search the shop from top to bottom.
I reluctantly agreed.
The first floor that we checked was the one
where I heard the noise.
It was an empty space;
there was nothing there at all,
only wooden floorboards covered with a layer of dust.
No footprints to indicate someone had been walking there.
Everywhere we searched,
but nothing could we find.
Eventually he said what I heard was only in my mind.
A couple of months went by
and a story about the shop emerged.
A young woman had hung herself
on that floor many years before.
Now you may think the story is over now,
and you would be wrong.

Every year in the summer,
we would have some students come to work during their college break
the following year was with no exception.
The two that came were in my charge
and had to move some stock within the tailor shop.
I had to go back to the factory
and would check back on them in a half an hour.
When I returned I found them cowering in the corner.
They accused me of never leaving,
that I would not answer when they called.
I just kept walked about trying to scare them there.
They did not know what I had experienced on that floor,
nor did they know the story of the woman.
The building is no longer there,
pulled down and replaced with offices many years ago.
The mystery remains. Was what I heard made up in my mind?
If this is the case, what did a year later,
did those two students hear?