A family of seven moves into a moderately old and moderately sized, white, single-story house, in a moderately safe suburb neighborhood. Everyone moves in their own boxes and luggage bit by bit, except for the grandfather who is too old, and Marcas, who is carrying everyone else’s things, bulk by bulk.

“So did you end up calling the police for him?”, the mother asks from under the shade of the porch. 

“No. I told the carpenter that if he didn’t move out by tomorrow, I would call the police. The next day he was gone.”, the father standing next to her replied.

“Why did you let him stay here? Where did you even find him?” 

“Online. It said he was a carpenter, painter, and electrician. He was everything we needed. I even saw all of his certifications. He was also cheap for hire. It was a steal deal.” 

“That doesn’t make sense. Why was he so cheap?” 

“I don’t know for sure. I assume it was because he is too old and takes too long to finish. That’s why I let him stay here as he works. I didn’t think he would try to take over the place.” 

The father looks up at the cloudless sky, blocking the scorching sun with his hand. The cicadas sing to the heat shimmer from the crunchy grass and trees with limp leaves. 

“Phew! It’s hot out. Where’s Marcus?”, the father asked. 

“He’s inside drinking juice and watching videos on his phone. He still has things to take out the van. He’s so slow”, the six-year-old sister replied. She immediately looks at her dad then her mom with a smile. 

“Oh my— ugh! Why does he take so long to do everything?”, the mom said. She turns around and shouts through the door frame. “Marcus are you done yet?”. Marcus, a twenty-nine-year-old male, slowly walks to them with only a white undershirt and navy-blue basketball shorts on, dripping in sweat. With heavy breaths, he answers. 

“No, not yet. I still have my stuff to carry inside.” 

“What! Everyone is finished, why aren’t you done?”, the mother pointed out with her finger. 

“I was helping everyone else with—”

  “That’s enough talking, hurry up. We need to unpack.”. The mother carries Maranda, the youngest child inside. Marcus sneers as he walks back to the white moving-van that’s parked in the dingy, cracked, concrete driveway.

At the old dining table made for eight, the family sits together eating and chatting, except for Marcus who’s picking at his food in silence. The ceiling creaks. He slowly looks up at the many white, parallel wooden planks reaching from one end of the room to another without any breaks, with a haggard face. He thinks to himself. 

“It has been doing that all day. It’s probably how wooden ceilings sound, or it’s just old. Huh, there are a lot of small cracks.”. He continues to look up at the ceiling for a while as he eats. 

“What are you doing Marcus?”, the father asked. Marcus looks at him. He points to the ceiling with his fork. 

“Did you notice all the noise the ceiling makes?” The mother rolls her eyes with a grin.

“That’s just the house settling.” She rests her forearms on the old wooden table’s edges. 

“Speaking of settling, you have to do something with your life Marcus. You’re going to be thirty soon. I spoke with Uncle Tarquin so you can work at his bakery. He really needs the help. You can do something simple like mix the batter. Or sweep the floor.”.

  “And you can’t say no because they are family”, Margaret, the second youngest said. Marcus turns to her with a sneer as she smiles at the mother. 

“No, I’m not doing that.” 

“Well, you have to do something. You need to contribute and help us out since you are living with us.”, his mother said. Marcas clenches his jaw. 

“What are you going to do now?”, the father asked. Marcus stares at his food, poking it. After a moment of silence he speaks with his sight set to the side. 

“I want to do some coding courses. And maybe work my way up into cyber security”, he looks at the father. “Everything is digital nowadays. I feel like life will be better if I go down that path.”.

The father looks at him with raised eyebrows, and lips shut, stretched down. The mother hid her smirk behind a paper towel. 

“Wh-what? What did he say over there?”, the grandfather asked. Magnolia looks at Marcus with a grin and arched eyebrows. 

“He said he wants to be in cyber security”, she said looking at her parents. 

“I think you should. I’m telling you something has been following us for months. He’s probably hiding behind the curtains right now.”, the grandfather said shakenly, looking over at one of the four long windows covered with a nearly thin, black curtain. Marcus sneers at him. 

“Be careful of what you say. You don’t want him to start another episode like last time, Marcus”, the mother stated as she looked over at him. Marcus looks away with a frown. 

“Marcus I think it’s in your best interest that you set more realistic goals. Why don’t you just work for Tarquin. This way there is a guarantee you’ll get the job and start contributing to the mortgage.” 

“We—” the father points at himself then at the mother with his fork— “have been working hard to provide for everyone to have a more comfortable life.”. Marcus looks at the father for a moment, then down at his own food. 

“Your dad has a point. We both have two jobs. Not one, two. Between me being a shampooer and part time laundromat worker, and your father being a desk clerk and part time bartender, we are overwhelmed. Not to mention we have to take care of all of your needs. Why would you want to waste time trying this cyber stuff? There is no prophecy that you’re going to succeed doing that.”. Marcus turns to her with his fist balled up under the water damaged table with lips tightly pressed. “Just work for Uncle Tarquin. You’re not doing anything useful right now anyways.”, the mother said as she prepared her fork for another bite. Marcus gasps with eyes widened. All four of his younger siblings look at him in silence, as all the other adults look down at their food. Closing his mouth, he looks off to the side. Moments pass. His eyebrows draw inward. He begins to speak. 

“But I always help out the family,” — the mother and father look at him— “I’m currently helping you take care of granddad,” he rolls his eyes— “In-in fact, I feel like I missed out on a lot of opportunities listening to your advice that’s usually about me helping family with their life —” 

“What are you talking about? You don’t do anything. You don’t even want to get a simple custodian job. You’re lazy.” 

“But if I do all the stuff you said, I won’t have time for—” 

“That’s enough talking from you. Your food is getting cold. Did you give granddad his meds yet?” Marcus looks down at his plate in silence, tightly gripping his fork. The father nudges him with a mouth filled with food. Marcus looks at him, then his mother. 

“Yeah.”, he mumbled. 

“Wow, so now you don’t want to talk to me”, his mother said with exaggerated head movement. “Anyways, how was school to my children who still respect and love me?” The younger sibling turns from Marcus with a raised eyebrows and ajar mouth. They look at mom who’s smiling at them. They smile back and begin to talk. Marcus becomes hot to the touch. His ears eliminate their voices while his hand clenches his fork.

After washing all of the dishes, he rushes to the total isolation of his unorganized room, cluttered with a few unpacked boxes. The wooden ceiling creaks as he punches his pillows. Marcus grumbles to himself. 

“If I had money for college I wouldn’t be here. Not only that, they made me miss out on a scholarship to help them with their problems. Like granddad’s meltdown. I hate having to take care of him. And I always do the laundry, cook, clean, and help other relatives with their businesses. How can she call me dumb when I’m capable of doing all those things?”. He sniffles. “I always help them. I can’t say no to my family.” A tear escapes from his eyes. “They don’t help me with my goals, and they treat me like an idiot baby.”. He suddenly begins to punch his pillow as tears fall from his jawline. “I feel like the family’s personal maid. I wanted to do something great with my life. I want to be free, and do things for myself for once. I don’t want to just do a random job and make pocket change. I will never save enough to move out that way. This life is horrible. Garbage. How can I possibly fix this?” He stops punching his pillows. “I should just end my misery. I’m almost thirty and I haven’t accomplished anything I wanted.”. After a while of staring at his pillow, he lays down. Looking up at the ceiling with watery, bloodshot eyes, bits of paint fall from the ceiling onto his face. “What is this? Dust? Old paint? That old guy didn’t do a good job. I know I would’ve.”. The ceiling creaks. “Maybe—” he looks up towards his forehead— “I should sign up for that five week course online. And maybe get a tech job.”. He looks at his hands. “If I can go a few weeks without working for my family, I could finish the course earlier. And maybe do more courses.”. He starts to smile. “I think I can do that. She doesn’t have to know.” His smile then weakens. “But what if I fail. Then that will be a waste of my last few dollars. I would have to beg them for money. I just know they will be difficult if I ask. Is this my life?” He drags his hands down his face. “It has been for a long while. I wanted it to be different.”.

Many sleepless nights have passed. Marcus finds himself getting pills from the kitchen cabinet. The ceiling creaks as usual. 

“How long does it take for the house to settle?”, he whispers to himself with a long face. He enters the grandfather’s small room. “You know, you’re the only one I can talk to. Even though we don’t talk much. Everyone else is …” he looks at the grandfather who’s sitting in a rocking chair next to the window and in front of a large wooden bookshelf. Marcus sits on the edge of the bed, next to the chair. “You wouldn’t tell anyone right?”. The grandfather slowly turns his expressionless face to him. “I have to share this with someone.” Marcus smiles. “I’m almost finished with my first course. It’s a bit difficult, but so is mom.” Marcus chuckles. “She still doesn’t know about the course. I’m feeling good about this path.” He looks down with a smile. Marcus gives the grandfather a tiny container of pills. Marcus reaches for the grandfather’s reusable water bottle from the nightstand behind. The grandfather replies with a smile. 

“That’s great son. Let’s talk about something important. The food is gone.”. Marcus rolls his eyes with a smirk. “And there is someone lurking outside trying to kill me. I just know it. He is hiding somewhere, like in the cabinets. That is how he has access to all the food. Didn’t you notice some food items are missing? A-and they are always blaming you.” Marcus smirk drops. 

“Yeah. Whatever. It’s probably Madelyn who ate it and blamed me. Tck. I hate being the scapegoat.”, he murmured to himself.  Marcus then looks at the grandfather. “Why would anyone want to kill you anyway?” 

“I don-don’t know. I don’t remember everything. I probably kicked someone’s little behind a time ago. Now he wants revenge to satisfy his pride.”. Marcus chuckles. He then holds his chin.

“I doubt someone is in the kitchen though. If there is a killer, they’re most likely somewhere in the cockloft. I swear it feels like the creaks are following me round the house.” The grandfather starts to chuckle with a big smile, rocking in his rocking chair. Marcus turns on the small tv that’s on top of his horizontal dresser. Marcus looks up. “Hmm”.

Few weeks flew by. For the first time in days, Marcus joins the family conversation on his own, at dinner time. “Hey, I think there might be something up there.”, he said, looking up for a quick second. His mother looks at him with a crinkled face. 

“In the attic?”, the father asked. He looks at him. 

“We don’t have an attic.”, Marcus stated. With exaggerated head movements and a finger pointing up, his mother speaks. 

“So, what’s above us?” 

“It’s a cockloft.”, Marcus answered. His mother purses her lips.

“Mmh, okay”. She turns to Maranda. “How was soccer, baby?” She turns her head to her mother, as her eyes continue to micromanage her fork. 

“It was fine.” Her eyes then meet the mother’s. “Stacy got hit in her head with the ball and she start crying. And then Rebecca kick the ball in the goal, but I stopped it so it don’t go in. Stacy was still crying, so we take a break and then we play some more.” With a big smile the mother replies.

“Wow, that sounds exciting!” Maranda’s face lights up. 

“Yes, it was”, she said while nodding. 

Marcus turns to the father. 

“Do you hear the creaks? I hear it almost all the time, and the sound seems to move in and out of different rooms. Especially in my room.”. He points up at the ceiling with his fork. “I notice there are a lot of cracks and holes all over the place.”. The father sighs. He looks up. 

“It’s nothing. The house is kind of old. I guess the painter didn’t get up there either.” He looks at Marcus. “Don’t worry son, this house is structurally sound. Literally.” The father chuckles. Marcus smiles for a moment as he looks down at his food. He faces the father. “You know it has been going on for a while. And things have gone missing.” The father’s smile withers. 

“You’re just irresponsible.”, Margaret stated. Marcus twists his face. 

“No, I’m not!” The father interjects, looking at Marcus. 

“Hey, this isn’t a place for arguing.” 

“But—” 

“Did you finish all your chores?”, his mother asked. “It seems like you have nothing better to do other than listen to the house creaking. Get used to it because you live here now and you have responsibilities.”. The father looks at the mother. Marcus groans. “Your father works hard to buy this house, so stop complaining about it. If you’re so bored, go work for Uncle Tarquin.”. Marcus rests his head on his fist with a pout. “No elbows on the table, Marcus!”. His mother glares at him. Marcus looks down at his food with a sneer and hand clenched tightly under the table. His mother continues on. “What’s going on in the attic has nothing to do with you. You need to…” The father looks at Marcus, then back at his food. He sighs with a long face as he looks at him again.

A few days passed by. Marcus finds himself in his messy, dark room. Marcus shuts his laptop. He pushed himself away from his small worktable. He grabs his face and rests his elbows on his thighs. 

“This is so hard. I don’t think I can do it. Why did I sign up for so many courses? What if mother was right”, he said as his voice crumbled. “I’ll never succeed in anything. I should just give up and settle with working for my uncle”. He starts to choke on his words as tears stream from his face, “I’ll just live here forever. I will be miserable but, at least it’s something.” His tears dampen his thighs through his gray sweatpants. “My life is almost finished.”. He wipes the mucus from his nose. “I don’t have time left for failures. The uncle routine will atleast get me somewhere. But not anywhere happy.” Marcus stands up and kicks his chair. “I don’t want to live like this! I hate it! I just want to be happy.” He throws his head back with his face still covered. “I can’t get away from this lifestyle. It’s so hard. I hate living. I should just end this pain. This life is not worth it.” He drops down onto his knees. “This life is trash. I’m trash. Pathetic excuse of a man. No one is going to miss a lazy piece of trash like me.” He slowly removes his hands from his face. He stares at their prunes as the ceiling creaks. Suddenly, there is a knock on his room. He immediately wipes his face in a nearby towel. 

“Are we still going for our walk?”, the grandfather asked. “I want to build up my appetite for lunch.” Marcus looks at the door. 

“Yeah. I’m coming now”, he said with a deepened voice.

The two walk around the park near noon, as usual. After several long minutes, Marcus looks at the grandfather for the first time since they started walking. 

“Hey. Do you think I can become successful?” 

“Why would you care what I think?” 

“Because you’re family. Not biological, but still.” 

“I’m not you. We are a different entity. The only person who should believe in you is you.”. The grandfather sets his sight away from the scenery and looks into his eyes. “Do you think you can succeed?”. Both stopped walking. 

“I don’t know?”, Marcus said, looking away. The grandfather twisted his face. 

“Why? Have you not been yourself this whole time? You should know.” 

“I never accomplished anything great.” 

“Did you try anything great?” 

“I did, but … I stopped. Because my family needed …  my … help.”, Marcus eyes widen. 

“So, you never tried and stick to it.” 

“No”, Marcus replied looking at him. The grandfather looks away and begins to walk. Marcus follows. “I wonder what would have happened if you stuck to your goal. Wouldn’t you want to know?”, the grandfather asked. Marcus looks ahead. 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Marcus looks down at his feet. 

“What if it’s the wrong thing for me?”

“There is only one way to find out.” 

“What if I fail?” 

“There is only one way to find out.” 

“What if this is not the right time?”

“There is only one way to find out.” 

“What if I …”. The two walk off into the distance chatting away.

Many weeks slip by. Laying on his back, Marcus kicks and punches the air with his phone in his hand. He sits up straight with his toothy grin. 

“Finally, I’m finished. I can finally move out and live the life I want!”. He takes a deep breath and exhales. “This feels great. I need to update my resume.” He opens his laptop and begins typing. “So in addition to me being security+ certified, and my GIAC. I’m now an AWS certified security specialist, and a CCNA. It’s only a matter of time before I get an offer. I can finally live the life I wanted!” He closes his laptop and looks up with his grin. The wood above creak. His grin slowly disappears. One of his eyebrows raises as he strokes his chin. He leaves his room. 

Moments later, he sets up a ladder in the hallway, under a square with a wooden frame on the ceiling. The grandfather peeks from his door. Marcus turns to him.

“Hey, I’m going to check if someone is actually up there.” 

“So, someone is in here!”, the grandfather said with a gaping mouth. 

“No, no! Shi—” 

“They’re going to get me. I won’t allow it!”. The grandfather screams, running back into his room and locks the door. He loudly shuffles things in his room. A big thump then rattles the door frame, followed by silence. Marcus quickly tries to pick the lock to the room door. The grandfather suddenly shouts. 

“Don’t go up there, they’ll get you.”, the grandfather pleaded. Marcus smirks. 

“I’m a grown man. There’s nothing that could be a threat to me.”. More shuffling comes from the grandfather’s room. “Ugh, I have to give him his meds. I hope this won’t take long.”

After several minutes of fighting, Marcus gives the grandfather his prescribed medication. 

“The house is a mess,”, Marcus said to himself as he walked to the ladder. “I’ll clean this up later. I have to check this out while they’re still out. It’s just so weird. And I don’t want her to start a whole fuss. ‘Stop talking about it’”, he said mimicking his mother’s voice. “I don’t need them belittling me. I can’t wait to leave for good.” He pauses while stepping on the ladder. “What if I need them to help me like I helped them …Would they even help me?” He sighs and rubs his hands down his face. “This is it. I wonder if my family is worth staying with. I have been stuck with them for years … I’ll never get those years back and I was generally not happy.” He begins to tap his foot on the ladder. “I’m capable of doing things, right? I finished four courses over the past few months. I can do things. I can do anything!” Marcus stares at the ground. “Years wasted as a false failure. Listening to them was a mistake.” The ceiling creaks. He looks up at it. “I’m going to check really quick. Do my chores. And then look for more opportunities. I might have to be homeless for a bit, or I can stay without them knowing my opportunities.”. Marcus shrugged his shoulders.

Finally, he climbs the ladder. He moves the square cover to the cockloft.

“Okay Marcus. In and out.”, he told himself. Marcus pokes his head in. Immediately, he is surrounded by humid, putrid, noisome air. “Uck!” He climbs in and pulls up the ladder. “Just in case.” He turns on the flashlight on his phone as he ducks to fit under the dusty, low lying, diagonal wooden beams that structure the roof. Marcus does a three-sixty, scanning his surroundings with his shirt covering his nose and a twisted face. There is a pile of blankets laying on top of each other, all flattened out between a pair of dusty wooden beams. A large plastic juice bottle filled with brown liquid is cramped in the far corner of the area. Various food wrappers and cans litter the dust filled ground. A flurry of fresh air greets Marcus from the eave vents.

“Welcome, my love”, said a deep voice from behind. Marcus’ body becomes stiff. Suddenly, a knife slips under his chin. “They don’t appreciate you, but I do.” A sensation and the rancid smell of another body emerges behind him, hugging him. “We’ve never met face to face. I’m the guy your daddy hired a while ago.” Marcus tries to wiggle free. The knife comes closer to his neck. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. If you do what I say, you’ll live long enough to get your dream. Now be a good boy.” Marcus begins to whimper as the man aggressively covers his mouth with his grimy, scaly hands. His foul, gritty tongue slides down Marcus’ cheek. Licking his tears.

Nearly an hour later, at the main level of the house, the rest of the family returns. 

“What the fu— Marcus!”, his mother shouts. 

“Oh hell”, the father said.

“Ohhh, Marcus is in trouble”, Maranda giggled. 

“Marcus! Why do you have the place looking like this?”, his mother shouted. 

“Where’s grandad?”, Margaret asked. 

“Oh, my G— did he have an episode?” The father runs to his father’s room. He rapidly bangs on the door. “Open the door!” The grandfather slowly opens it. 

“Why are you shouting? It’s alright.”. The mother pushes through. 

“Where’s Marcus?”. The grandfather answers with a smile.

“He’s going to get the killer and get him really good.”

“Really now. There’s a killer?”, the mother turns to the father. “He probably went out. He never wants to do anything, now look at him.”, she points at the grandfather with her hand. “He’s going out with friends while leaving his responsibility. Why would he ever leave the place like this? Does he want attention or something?” The ceiling creaks. They all look up. Magnolia walks past and heads to her room. 

“I’m not cleaning this up.”, she said as she walked past.

“You’re right. Nobody is cleaning this up but Marcus. He’s going to come back home and take responsibility and help me.”. Margaret joins them in the hallway. 

“Look mommy, he didn’t even clean the bathroom”. The mother sneers. “He’s so lazy.”. The grandfather drowsily shuffles back to his room.

“He’s not lazy”, he said, “he’s fighting. He’s a security now. I’m proud of him.” The mother rolls her eyes. The father clenches his fist.

“I can’t believe he would leave dad alone. He could’ve hurt himself. Look at his room. It looks like a war happened! Did he even get his meds? This family was going smoothly, then he had to ruin the peace.”. The father huffs. The mother holds his arms. 

“Babe, calm down, we’ll speak to him when he gets back.”.

“My clothes are not clean”, Madelyn said. 

“Marcus didn’t do the laundry.”, Magnolia responded. The mother glares.

“So useless. He needs to get his act together if he is going to live with us forever.”.

Upset, the rest of the family finishes all of Marcus’ chores, hours later. Exhausted, they finally sit at the table with their dinner in front of them. 

“Where’s Marcus?”, Madelyn asked.

“He’s probably out wasting time.”, the mother replied.

“He’s probably taking his time to come home because he …”, the father stops and looks at the empty space with a plate of food in front of it. The father frowns. The mother looks at it as well, longingly. 

“Do you think we put too much on him? I don’t understand why he would leave this place a mess. Now that I think about it, this is unlike him. Why would he separate the family like this? I don’t understand.”, the father said. The mother’s eyebrows draw inward as she clenches her fork. 

“I don’t understand why he would leave at all. He should be home. We give him shelter, food and his own room. Why would he leave me— us, why would he leave us?”. Her grip loosens.

“He is almost thirty. I guess he needs his own space.” The father then looks at the grandfather. “And my dad … I guess I have to figure something out. This is not working. We need to fix this so we don’t fall apart.”

“Yeah … an adult”, the mother said as she poked her food. The ceiling creaks during the long silence. The mother twisted her face. “That doesn’t give him a reason to just leave like that. At the end of the day, he is my son. He needs to help out around here.” The father looks at her with a slight grimace.

A rhythmic sequence of loud creaking emits from the ceiling. 

“Something might be in the cockloft.”, Madelyn said. 

“What?”, Magnolia replied.

“The cockloft.”. Madelyn shows her the definition from her phone.

“That’s what that is?”, Madelyn said with a raised brow. 

“Didn’t Marcus use that word before?”, Margaret asked. Maranda turns from her chatting sisters.

“When is he coming back?”, she asked her parents. 

 “We don’t know what’s going on with him. Just know he’s in big trouble for leaving. Especially in a mess.”, the mother said. Maranda slouches in her chair, looking off to the side.

  “He didn’t bother telling us where he went. I hope he’s alright. I’ll maybe call again later.”, the father said. 

“He better not ruin his life, even more.”, the mother said while rolling her eyes. The father scowls at her.

“... Marcus did use that word. I remember now. He did say someone is up—” she points up— “in the cockl—” 

“Eat your food, Madelyn. Don’t say anything relating to you know what.”, the mother said pointing up. “It will trigger your granddad.”. 

Margaret smiles. “Maybe Marcus isn’t so stupid, he knows what, that is.”. 

“Okay that’s enough talking about that. Eat your food before it gets cold.”, the mother said with a twisted face. The siblings look at each other as their smiles withers away. They then look at their mother. The family of six eat in silence in the moderately old, single-story house, located in a moderate safe neighborhood, below the moderately quiet cockloft.