Doorbells

The first thing I noticed was the doorbells.

Not because they were loud. They weren’t. You only heard them when you got close to a house. Just a faint electric buzz, like someone was holding a finger against the button on the other side of the door.

Every house had one.

The whole estate was grey. Not dark, not night time, just that sort of miserable overcast sky you get before it rains. The blocks of flats looked old. The grass was patchy. There wasn’t anybody about.

A rubber ball landed in front of me.

I don’t know where it came from.

I looked up but couldn’t see anyone.

The strange thing was I already knew what I had to do. I had to take it somewhere. I couldn’t have told you where, but I knew I’d know it when I got there.

I picked it up and started walking.

The further I went, the more certain I became that I was running out of time.

I cut through one of those little playgrounds they build between housing blocks. Everything was wet. The swings were moving slightly even though there was no wind.

Another ball landed nearby.

Then another.

Not thrown hard. Just dropped, almost. They didn’t even bounce. Like somebody was standing above me and placing them down gently.

I remember stopping and looking around, and that was when I saw the staircase.

It was one of those huge iron outdoor staircases attached to the side of a building. Rusty. Painted green years ago maybe. It went up higher than it should have.

I couldn’t see anyone on it.

But I knew something was standing at the top.

I knew it in the same way you know somebody is staring at you before you turn around.

The balls had stopped coming.

The only sound was the faint buzzing from the nearest front door.

For a second I thought about climbing the stairs.

The feeling I got is difficult to explain. It wasn’t fear exactly, it felt more like breaking a rule. Like I wasn’t supposed to go up there.

I stood there for what felt like ages.

I left the ball there and walked away. I knew I was making a mistake.

As I did, one of the doorbells stopped buzzing.

I didn’t look back.