Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. My uncle Ben ran this old
self storage place out near Kessler, New Jersey, just past
a bend on one hundred forty seven. His facility was
touched behind a line of overgrown pines and a rousted
chain link fence, with the gate to jowned if you
closed it too fast. Ben had been running that place
for years. I used to help him once in a
while when I was younger, changing locks, clearing out abandoned units,
spraying for spiders when exterminated didn't show so when he
called me one evening and asked if I could cover
the night shifts for a couple weeks while he recovered
from charlder surgery, I said sure. He said he'd pay
me in cash. He'd be easy to stay awake, lock
anyone who came in after iyres and make sure the
place didn't catch fire. I was between jobs at the time,
trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to
do next. So the time I worked at Plus, I
figured it might be nice to have some quiet time
to myself. I brought books, my laptop, snacks. Thought it'd
be kind of peace. The office itself looked like it
hadn't changed since nineteen ninety six. Dej everything dusty fate
plaid in the corner, a filing cabinet that stuck when
you opened it. The heater was ancient, and I swear
at cuff when it turned on. But there was a desk,
an old coffee pot, and a little monitor set up
that showed each row of units. The law had about
fifty units total, spread across two long rows, with a
single motion light above each door. Most of them were
vacant or hadn't been opened in years. The first two
nights were uneventful. I stayed in the office, streained some
old episodes of Mythbisters, and drank away too much coffee
from my Theramis. Thereat there was dry and sharp at night,
and the silence hit different. Not peaceful exactly, just empty,
the kind of quiet that makes you notice how loud
your own breathing is. Then came the third night. It
was around two point thirty in the morning. I'd just
finished a leucwm cuff of gas station chili and was
debating if I could take a nap without technically breaking
the rolls. That's when I noticed the light on the monitor.
It wasn't just flickering, it was full on Unit forty two.
That one always stood out to me because it had
its own interior light. None of the others did not
like that. Just along fluorescent strip bolted to the ceiling.
I checked the gate logs, no enterers, No one had
come in still. I threw on my jacket, grabbed the flasklight,
and headed out. The error was freezing. Each step crunched
hard against the gravel, like walking on broken glass. My
flasklight beam jumped across the rows of units, catching rust
and peeling paint. When I reached forty two, the door
was cracked open, just enough to see lights spilling out
from inside. Pollisy said that if a door was open,
I had to investigate and document it, so I called
out twice. I waited nothing. I pulled the door open
the rest of the way. A fullescent light boast above
me like it was struggling to stay alive. The unit
was full of the usual junk boxes with torn labels,
the treadmill with one handle missing, a craft rubber mad bin.
But there was something else in the back, leaned carefully
against a wall was a huge mirror seven feet tall
at least, with the thick, cough frame that looked like
like something from an old Estates sail. The wood had
these culling vine like patterns, and it looked weirdly pristine.
No dust, no nicks, not even any fingerprints. The glass
was even stranger, perfectly clean. It didn't match the rest
of the unit at all, which looked like it hadn't
been touched in a decade. I stepped closer, mostly just curious,
I guess I expected to see myself looking tired and cold.
But the second I got up closed, something fell wrong.
It was my reflection. Yeah, same closed, the same stance,
but my chest was moving. My reflection was breeding rapidly,
like it had just sprinted across the lot I was moving.
I frozen, just watched it for a few seconds, my
hand slowly dropping away from the flashlight. Then it stopped,
distilled back to normal. I backed out of the unit
without another word, pulled the door shut hard, and locked
it Back in the office. I called Ben. It was
almost three in the morning, and he answered sounding half asleep.
When I told him what I saw, he didn't even
pretend to be surprised, just said don't go back in there.
That unit's been strange for years. I should have warned you.
That was it. No explanation, No, you're seeing things, or
maybe it was a trick of the light, just a warning,
like he'd been waiting for this call. The next night,
I tried to ignore it. I even flipped the monitor
off and kept the blinds closed. I figured if I
didn't see anything, I wouldn't have to deal with it.
But around one point forty five, the monitor flickered on
by itself, just static for a few seconds, then a
clear image. The door to Unit forty two rolled open again.
I stared at for way too long before grabbing the
flask flight. I don't know what I thought I was
going to do, shoe away a ghost reason with the mirror.
The unit was empty, no light, no boxes, no mirror,
just cold concrete and the soft echo of my own footsteps.
I turned to head back, and that's when I saw
something move in the reflection of another unit's door, just
a blow, like some one ducking behind me. But when
I spun around, nothing was there. I ran back to
the office and slammed the door shut behind me. My
hands wouldn't stop shaking, I kept telling myself it was
to stress, just imagination. Then around four in the morning
came the knocking, not on the door, on the back window.
There's an arrow window behind the desk that faces the
gravel lot. I hadn't looked at it all night. I
moved toward it slow, heart pounding so loud it drowned
out the heater. When I peeked through the blinds, my
legs almost gave out. The mirror was back, propped up
against the outside of the glass, facing in the reflection,
staring at me. Was moving, wasn't blinking. The eyes were
wide just a little too why, like someone trying to
fake what normal looks like. I didn't move. I couldn't.
Eventually the sun started to rise, and just like that,
the mirror was gone. I left the keys on the
counter that morning, didn't even leave a note. I just
got in my car and drove home. Three weeks later,
Ben's wife called. He died in his sleep, stroke, they said,
but she mentioned something odd. When they found him, he
was upright in bed, eyes open, looking like he'd been
frozen mid thought. There was a shard of glass in
his hand, dried around his fingers. Nothing came out After investigation,
they said it was a natural death. Back then, I
was working nights at the Bellman Theater downtown. The front
looked nice, marble floors, shiny brass fixtures, all restored to
this slightly over the top version of his nineteen forty self.
I was the overnight supervisor for the clean up crew
ten p m. To six a m. One Thursday night
in early March, two of the regular cleaners, Morsel and Gina,
called out. I remember because they always brought coffee on
break and I missed it. With them gone, I had
to cover their rounds upstairs. It was one of those
nights where everything felt slightly off kilter. The upper levels
of the theater were always strange. The echoes up there
did something weird, like you'd hear footsteps a second after
you moved, or voices would bounce some ways that made
you pause and listen, but I'd gotten used to it.
Around midnight, I was in one of the supply rooms
off the second four whole log and cleaning supplies. I
had my tablet open, checking off what we had left,
paper towels, decrease or toilet paper. That's when I noticed
the red binder. It was just sitting there on top
of the Mott's sink, plain red, slightly frayed at the corners.
We didn't use physical binders. Everything was tracked online. I
thought maybe someone left an old doc up behind, but
I couldn't remember ever seeing it there before I opened it.
The first page was labeled stage left story dark, even
thick black pain underneath a lust of inventory boxes, props, lighting, gels, cables,
all handterton. I frowned. That section had been sailed since
long before I started. Management said the stairs were unstable.
No one went down there. I closed it and figured
it was just some weird left over from an old
inventory market has found. Tucked it under my arm and
brought it back to the front office. I locked it
inside the cabinet under the desk, double lock actually, and
wrote the time down in my shift notes. About an
hour or later, I was during another sweep, and when
I passed the same supply room, I saw it again,
sitting on the exact same shelf, exact same angle. The
office was still locked. I didn't even try to come
up with an explanation that made sense. I just stared
at it if a bit, then picked it up again
and walked straight back. This time I placed it under
the front desk camera, right in the middle of the frame,
so I could catch anything that happened to it. Fifteen
minutes later I checked the footage. It wasn't there. I
don't mean someone moved it. I mean it just wasn't
visible in the footage. One frame, it was sitting there
the next then like it skipped over the part where
it should have existed. I went back up to the
supply room. There it was. I didn I didn't touch
it this time, just stood there for a few minutes,
then left. I didn't even write it down in the
lock What would I write. Later that night, I walked
the upper hallway to lock up the restrooms. I passed
the usual row of dressing rooms and service closets, and
just as I reached the bignyard the back staircase, I
saw one door slightly open. It had a small plaque
before my lounge. That area was restored abt the walls
back there were still water stained. As far as I knew,
no one had been in there in years. Only one
key existed for me. I pushed it open. The air
was colder than the rest of the floor. I remember
the way it hit me, not like a see cold,
but still sharp, like the kind of cold you feel
on new gums when you bite into eyes. The room
was mostly empty. A row of vanity mirrors lined one wall.
Most of the bulbs cracked are missing thus clung to everything.
A few steel sat scattered across the space, one knocked over.
There was a folding dressing screen in the corner with
a long tear in the fabric, and in the middle
of the room the binder it was lying up in,
this time a different page. The handwriting looked the same,
but the heading had changed. This one said entries beneath
it five names first and last, no dates, no job titles.
I only recognized one of them, mine next to it,
written in small capital letters, filed. I closed the door
and left the building without saying a word to any one.
The next night I called and sick, send a half
hard a text about migraine, and stared at my phone
the rest of the night waiting for some response. Nothing.
Sleep well, kept thinking I was hearing the soft kind
of pipes or movement upstairs. By the following evening, I
felt ridiculous, told myself I was being dramatic, probably a
prank or some way had left of her from a
past employee. I decided to finish the week and quit properly.
Everything seemed normal at first, until I went back to
that mop room. The biner was in the sync, this
time closed. It wasn't just sitting there casually either. It
looked like it had been dropped hard when edge hanging
into a drain, like it wanted to slip away. I
opened it. The names were gone. There was just one
short paragraph in the center of the page under the
heading returned Erective. The handwriting was different, now shaky and small,
like someone was writing in a hurry. The ink was darker.
Tew led into the paper. It read rehearsal and complete
proceed a green room. We didn't have a green room.
I pulled up the floor plan on my dabbot. No
such label anywhere. But even as I told myself that,
I started walking down the hallway behind the stage, past
the orchestra pit entrance. Everything felt like the walls had
shifted slightly closer. Then I saw a door and never
paid much attention to a label set into the wall
like a fire exit of storage. I assumed it led
to electrical systems. I tried the knob. It opened stairs,
led downward. The air was stale and warm with an upstairs,
but there was light at the bottom, one single bulb
swinging slightly, making the soft almost imperceptible. Hum I heard
a piano, not a recording, a real piano, just a
few notes, played slowly like someone rehearsing scales, without much enthusiasm.
I stood there, not breathing, for maybe thirty seconds. Then
I shut the door and locked it in the hallway.
I pulled up my phone and tied to resignation email
right then and there no notice. I didn't even read
it over, just HiT's end. I turned around ready to
get out, and the binder was in the floor behind me.
I didn't even hesitate, picked it up, walked out the
main doors, crossed the street, and left it on a
bench outside a little sandwich shop across from the lot.
I drove home, didn't turn on the radio, didn't stop
for gas, just white knuckle the wheel all the way.
At the time, I worked for a property services company
based in southern Indiana. Our job was simple, haul out
whatever was left, document the condition, take photos, and prepped
the place for a locksmith or inspector. That Thursday, I
got sent to a single story brick house outside a
small town called Ashfield. It's had at the end of
a long wooded road with no sidewalk and barely any
cell service. I'd never been down that stretch before. The
property had apparently been untouched for over half a year.
No electricity, no running water, just a house full of
whatever the previous owner coudn't or wouldn't take with them.
When I pulled up, the driver was cracked and mossy,
and the mail box was hanging by one screw. The
grass had grown into stiff yellow stalks that crunched underfoot.
Nothing felt particularly speaky or out of place, just another
dead house on another forgotten road. I grabbed my gloves, flashlight, crowbar,
and clip board from the truck, ran through the checklist
in my head, and headed up to the porch. The
front door was already unlocked, which wasn't that weird. Sometimes
the bank's ends out of locksmith ahead of time. Still
something about it bugged me. The door frame looked slightly warped,
like the wood had shifted sideways a bit. Even though
there wasn't any visible damage. It was like the house
itself had leaned away from the door at some point
and never quite settled back. I made a mental note
and pushed it open. The air inside was dense, not stinky,
just still dry on a moving like a cross base
or sealed basement. You know that muffled silence. Yet when
nothing's been disturbed for a while, that was the first
thing I noticed. Even my footsteps felt quieter than usual.
The furniture was all gone, except for some thick bundles
of newspapers stacked neatly in the living room, tied with twine.
I checked the top copy out of Habit The date
was over five years old. That felt strange, even for
a foreclosure. I started in the usual way, checked the
front rooms, photographed the walls, looked for water damage. One
bedroom was empty, Another had a few broken hangers on
the floor and some mold spots near the window. Nothing
stood out until I got to the third room, which
had clearly been used as some kind of home office.
That's where it got weird. The walls were lined with shelves,
and the shelves were filled wall to wall with food cans.
Every single one had the label removed, just plain silver cans.
Most of them lightly rusted around the rooms. They were
organized carefully by size, tall ones on the left, smaller one,
stacked in pyramids. There had to be hundreds of them,
not a single label left behind. On the desks had
a rotary phone, one of the old beige models from
the seventies, completely unplugged. There wasn't even a phone jack
on that side of the room. Next to it was
a thick closed ledger book with a cloth cover written
across the top and black ink was a single word hail,
no title, no dress, just that name. I left it
a load. At first. I went through the closet, moved
some dusty file boxes, checked behind the door for any outlet,
nothing unusual. But when I turned back to the desk,
the phone was off the hook, just lying there on
the wood, with a cold cord stretched out, like someone
had picked it up and set it down gently. I
stood still for a moment, then I said out loud, okay,
not funny. Sometimes I talked to myself on jobs, not
like full on conversations, just quick things to stay rounded.
It's easier to feel like the one in control when
your voice is the only one you hear. I picked
up the receiver half expecting it to be dead. But
there was a slow hum, faint but steady. Not static,
not static, more like the vibration you get near an
old pow line or a giant transformer. There was no
electricity in the house. I'd confirmed it before I walked in.
I set the phone back in the cradle a little
harder than I meant to. I stepped back out into
the hallway. Half Way down was a closet door I
had passed her alier. It had been shut. Now it
was cracked up at about a foot and light was
spilling out from his side. I stopped walking. There was
no power, no light should be on, but through that
crack I could see the unmistakable yellow glow of a
single bulb. I pushed the door open all the way
Inside was a small utility closet, empty except for a
folded lawn chair in the center of the floor. It
was positioned to face the back. All directly on that wall.
Written in thick pencil in uneven lines were the words
I remember who left. I didn't go inside, I didn't
touch anything. I just closed the door slowly and walked away.
Back in the office, I finally opened the ledger The
first dozen pages were lists of initials and dates. Every
name was marked with a single daaconal slashed through it
like a running tale. But about half way through the
book the pattern changed. The entries turned into phrases front
door twice, cabinet twelve, bedroom, blanket off, and then the
last one, see if they notice. I closed the book,
carried it out to the living room, and placed it
on top of the box I was collecting with other removables.
That's when I noticed the newspapers. They weren't in stacks
any more. They'd been rearranged, laid out in a circle
on the floor, evenly spaced, each bundle pointing toward the center,
like spokes on a wheel. I hadn't heard anything, nothing
had moved while I was in the other room. But
I swear to you they weren't like that ten minutes earlier.
That was if for me. I loaded what I had
into the track, left the checklist half filled in the
passenger seat, and got ready to leave. But as I
reached for the keys, I realized i'd left my flashlight inside.
I sigh cursed under my breath, then walked back up
to the porch. The front door was wide open. I
know I shut it. I always shut it. It's part
of the routine, muscle memory, one of those small habits
you don't even think about until it gets interrupted. I
stepped back inside, keeping my footsteps quiet. This time. I
went straight to the office. My flasklight was sitting on
the desk, but the phone was gone. Then I heard it,
that soft, deliberate clicking sound, a rotary dial being turned
one number at a time, slow mechanical, coming from the
bedroom across the hall. I didn't want to go, but
I took a step, then another, and I looked. Nothing
in the room had changed, except now the rotary foe
was sitting in the carpet right in the middle of
the floor, still unplugged. The receiver was resting in the cradle.
The sound had stopped on the window of the bed
drawn backward, and the condensation with the same five words,
I remember who left? I turned around, walked straight out,
No running, no panic, just a very control, very steady walk.
I got in the track, locked the doors, and didn't
stop driving until I was back in town. Two days later.
My manager call to ask why I hadn't completed the checklist.
I told him the foundation was unstable and I had
a migraine. He didn't press it, just reassigned a job.
I was twenty seven when I moved into the basement
unit off Howard Street, just outside of Rochester, not far
from an old church in the sketchy looking tire shop
with a busted knee unsign that flickered even during the day.
I didn't love the area, but the rent was low,
and more importantly, I didn't need to put down three
months deposit, which felt like a miracle at the time.
The house was a red brick split level with a
front porch that looked like it had been sacking since
the nineties. My place was the basement unit. It had
its own side entrance, which felt like a bonus at
the time, more privacy. There was also a locked door
that connected to the main house. It led to a
narrow staircase up to Vince's place. We both have locks
on our side, but the stairs were still there, just
sitting behind a hollow corridor, like a weird little passage
nobody used. I could hear Vince walking around Uplu. Sometimes
he wore heavy boots, and occasionally I'd hear coughing late
at night. The guy sounded like he'd smoked a chin
as worth in his life. The first time I noticed
the cold patch was maybe a week after I moved in.
I was doing the laundry and stepped barefoot on to
something that felt wrong, not wet, not soft, just called
like freezer cold. A single dinner plate sized patch of
concrete right in the middle of the laundry room floor.
It didn't look any different than the rest of the floor,
but every time I stood on it, even in socks,
I felt this deep, metallic chill shoot up my leg.
I started stepping around it just out of instinct. I
didn't even question it at first. You know how your
body just sort of avoids stuff that feels off. It
was like that. By mid January, things got brutal outside Rochester.
Windows don't miss around, and this one came with single
digits in that sharp, dry, aired up bites you skin.
I kept a little space heater running in the bedroom
at night, mostly to stay sane, but even then i'd
wake up in the mornings and see my breath hanging
in the eh. The heater was working, it just wasn't enough.
The place felt like it was trying to freeze me out.
The night it happened. I gone to bed early, I remember,
because I'd fallen asleep watching something dumb on my laptop,
and when I woke up, everything was off, the heater,
the power, total silence. Now, silence doesn't usually feel like
a thing, right, but in that basement, with the heater
always humming and the occasional thud from upstairs, it was
the kind of silence that hits you in the chest, thick, unnatural.
I reached over to flick on my bedside lamp. Nothing tried.
The main lights witch also dead. Okay, power outage, I thought, annoying,
but not the end of the world. I got up,
mostly because I wanted minehiler colder and no ventilation was
a great combo for my asthma. I always kept the
inhalo on the corner of my dress of habit, but
when I reached for it, my hand landed on smooth,
empty wood. But I checked the floor, looked behind the lamp,
pulled the drawer open in case I knocked it him
by mistake. Nothing. And then I looked toward the window.
That tiny basement window always had just enough light from
the porch bulb to outline the edges. It was much,
but it let me know the outside world was still
there that night, though the glass look completely black, not dim,
not shadowed, just gone, like the window had disappeared or
been painted over. I leaned a little closer, trying to
figure out if maybe the light bulb had burned up.
And that's when I heard it, right behind me, a
man's voice, calm and close. You're not breathing. I jumped
and spun around. My whole body went cold. There was
no one there, but my chest got My chest was tied.
My trip felt like some one was slowly pressing it closed.
I couldn't get a full breath in. You know when
you suck for a straw with a crack in it
and nothing comes up. It felt like that, but in
my lungs. I stumble, dropped to my knees, tried to
crawl toward my phone. It was charging across the room, screen,
glowing faintly in the dark. My fingers barely worked. I
got maybe halfway her before my vision narrowed and the
floor came rushing up to meet me. And then nothing,
not then just blank. When I came to you, I
wasn't in the bedroom any more. I was in the stairs,
those locks, stairs to Vince's place. My head was resting
against the bottom step, and my phone was in my hand, unlocked,
emergency dial, screen open. I didn't remember walking there. I
didn't remember getting up at all. I definitely didn't remember
unlocking the door. I blinked a few times. My chest
felt like it was full of sand. Then I looked up.
There was some one standing on the landing above me.
Not fence. This guy I was younger, midman, as third
as maidie, shaggy hair, faded Bill's hoodie, just standing there watching.
Except he wasn't watching. He wasn't even facing me exactly.
His head was tilted down like he was looking at
the stairs, but his eyes never met mine. And then,
without turning, he stepped backward, smuth and slow, like he
was moving on rails, and disappeared into the shadows at
the top of the staircase. That was it. Next thing
I remember, I was in the hospital, tubes in my nose,
some one adjusting monitors beside me. Vince had found me
pass out against the door, barely breathing, and called an ambulance.
It was three point thirty in the morning at the hospital.
They told me it was a chemical reaction, severe respiratory inflammation,
like an allergic attack, but worse. They asked if I'd
been exposed to insulation ceilants were rubber fumes, stuff like that.
I told them no, but Vince filled in the blank slater.
I was twenty eight when I took a night job
at a small roadside a hotel just outside a town
called Red Hall Pines. The hotel wasn't part of any chain,
just one of the squat, single story buildings with twenty
rooms in a U shape around a gravel parking lot.
After the rooms had burnt up porch bulbs. The sign
up front used to say Cumberland Lodge, but most of
the letters had peeled off, so it just said come low.
The locals thought that was funny. I did two the
first week. I worked the overnight shift ten to six,
no other staff. The owner lived in New Jersey and
came up once a month to breathe heavily over the
books and change the filter in the ice machine. The
manager lived in Iraway and only showed up as something broke.
That meant I had the place to myself. Most nights
were uneventful. I'd sit at the desk in a tiny
front office, drinking terrible coffee and watching mu to crime
shows and the TV bowlted to the wall. The vending
machine would hum in the background like it was trying
to fall asleep, and every so often a tired truck
or a guy on a business trip would roll in,
bleary eyed and grateful. I'd hand over one of those
fat brass keys and point them down. The whole were
like a concierge in purgatory. I liked the quiet, Honestly,
after years of dancing between dead end retail jobs and
temp gigs with fluorescent lighting and four small talk, sitting
alone in a slightly musty room didn't feel like the
worst thing. There was a kind of piece in knowing
that nothing much was expected of me. That night didn't
start off feeling different. The wind had picked up around midnight,
not storm exactly, but the kind of dry gusts that
make the leaves shuffle around like there looking for something.
The lobby door was one of those old automatic sliding types,
a kind that operates like its on its last legs.
Every time the wind blew across the sensor, it would
drag itself open an inch or two, make disexhausted mechanical
wheeze and then snap shut like it was offended. It
was annoying, but not unusual. I even laughed at it
once or twice, like yeah, buddy, I feel that too.
Around two in the morning, I was wrapping up the audit,
everything balanced. I shut the registered drawer with a satisfying
little snap, stretched my back and was just reaching for
the light switch behind the desk when the front door
side opened again. I looked up nothing. The parking lot
outside was still, no headlights, no silhouettes, no sign of movement.
Then the door slid shut with a soft hiss. I
figured it was the wind again, but I walked over
to check anyway, habit I guess. I pressed my hand
against the glass and looked out empty. Just my beat
up Corolla sitting alone under the flickering security light casting
a nervous little shadow, and the gravel, no fresh tire tracks,
no footprints, just a uneasy stillness where everything looks normal
but feels not. And then behind me, something hit the floor,
a sharp metal thunk. I turned fast. One of the
room keys, the six, was lying just behind the desk,
a couple inches from the pedboard way. It usually harm.
The hook was still there, not bend or anything. The
key had just dropped all on its own. They weren't
light either. These were solid brass with thick leather tags.
They didn't just fall off for no reason. Still, I
picked it up, maybe a little too quickly, and hung
it back like that made things normal again. I took
one step back and another key fell. This time it
was eleven, and it didn't just drop straight down. It
bounced off the hook below. It clattered in the counter,
then hit the floor. That one I didn't hand back up.
I just stared at it a second and stepped away.
The lobby fell, not cold, but thick, charged, charged, like
the air before a thunderclap, or right after someone says
something unforgivable and the whole room forgets how to breathe.
I walked over to the door, fit the censor off
and locked it manually. Then I sat back down behind
to ask every hair on my arm, standing up, telling
myself I was overreacting. Then the phone ram internal line
Room four. I stared at the blinking extension for a second.
No one was in four. It had been vacant for
over a week. I'd even walked past a DRLL that night. Doorshit,
curtain pulled, same as always. I picked up slowly, front desk, nothing,
not even static Allo, nothing, then a click, just that.
I sat there for a moment, still holding the phone.
Then it rang again, Room nine. My stomach clenched. I
picked up, tried to sound board, front desk pause. Then
a voice, small, high pitched, definitely a child's voice. Are
you alone? I hung up that time. I didn't wait.
I told myself it was a glitch, that maybe the
phone system had cross wires, that maybe some guess kid
had got in hold of the receiver. But I already
knew none of the occupied rooms had kids in them.
I checked the checkings myself, two eight and twelve, all
solo travelers, all adults. I opened the system again and
double checked, same result. Still, I printed out the occupancy
report and stepped out from behind the desk. Figure what
the hall confirmed? Nothing weird was going on the hallway
was its usual self, thin brown carpet, buzzing overhead lights,
that faint sire's smell of air freshener, trying to fight
milview and losing. I knocked on room for nothing, same
with nine. Then I rounded the corner and everything stopped.
Room six's door was wide open, not half way, not
cracked wide. I pushed slowly, listening. The hallway was dead quiet.
I leaned in and flicked on the room lie. Everything
looked and touched bed, perfectly made, remote still sitting on
the night's and nothing out of place. No bags, no guess,
no movement. But the bathroom light was on. The door
was shut. I stood there in the doorway, staring at it.
Every part of me was yelling to leave it alone,
but I couldn't HULLO. I called, this is hotel staff.
If some one's in there, e're not supposed to be nothing.
I walked in, put my hand on the knob and
turned it slowly. Empty, light buzzing from the fan, no
towels disturbed, no mirror fog, just an ordinary, very empty
bath room. I turned off the light, left the room,
locked the door behind me, and made my way back
to the desk. When I got there, my stomach dropped.
Three keys were on the counter now four nine six.
Their hooks were empty. I hadn't taken them down. Then
the front door, still locked, clicked open on its own,
that dragging, breathy sound as it slid wide. I turned around.
There was a little girl standing just outside, barefoot, hair
matted like she'd been out in the wind, fryers, no coat,
no parents. I stepped forward, heart in my throat. Hey,
I said gently, are you okay? Are you lost? She
didn't answer, didn't even look at me, just stared down
the hallway. Then she said, very softly, I need to
go back to my room. What room is that? She
raised one arm slowly and pointed to the one where
I died. I didn't move. I couldn't. My legs felt
like sandbegs. She stepped inside without another word, walked right
past me. I washed her leave wet footprints across the
tower as she headed down the hall. It hadn't rained
that broke me. I left, didn't even grab my phone,
just got in my car, hart hammering in my chase
and drove until I saw light at a gas station
ten miles down the road. I sat in the parking
lot for almost twenty minutes before I called the manager.
Told him something weird had happened and I couldn't finish
the shift. Didn't explain, he didn't ask. He confirmed what
I already knew. No kids had been booked that night.
No vamilies, just three adults. I never went back, texted
him two days later and quit. Took a job at
a bookstore that only opens during the day. Months later
I got curious. I looked up the hotel. It had
closed that winter. The burst pipe had flooded half the
rooms never reopened. I found one old article by the shutdown,
just a short blurb, but buried near the bottom was
a line about a woman who had filed a lawsuit
years earlier after her dog to die during a weekend stay.
Carbon monoxide leak Room six. Back when I was twenty one,
I was working the closing shift at this Snurfrall's twenty
four Iri jyin just outside Aldridge, Virginia. The place was
called Richburnd Fitness, though that made it sound fancy than
it was. Most nights were uneventful. I vacuum wipe things down,
checked the bathrooms to make sure no one fell asleep
in a stall, then locked the doors by midnight and
head out easy enough. The jim sat right up against
this patch of woods everyone around town called Ashfield Timber.
Locals always had some story pits disappearing weird light at
night don't go in the kind of stuff, but that's
just small town folklore. I'd bark in the side lot,
which faced those woods directly. At the end of my shift,
I'd just cut across the back lot with my keys
and flashlight and go home. I didn't think twice about it.
That night started normal for round tent. There were just
two people left, Rob, a regular who did late night cardio,
and this other guy I didn't recognize. Young, may be
seventeen or eighteen. He wasn't working out, though, just sitting
on the stretching mats near the wall of mirrors, cross legged,
staring at his reflection like he was waiting for it
to move. I figured he was killing time, maybe waiting
for some one. But after a while I walked over
and asked if he needed anything. He didn't even fully
look at me, just said I'll leave soon, And something
about his voice stopped me. It was flat, like someone
talking in their sleep, not slowed, just distant. I paused,
kind of watching him for a second, longer than I
probably needed to, then went back to the desk. By
ten point thirty, Rob had left, the kid hadn't moved,
still sitting there facing the mirror. I cleared my throat
and let him know we were closing. He stood up, slowly,
walked straight past me, and left without another word. I
locked the door behind him, shut off the lights, did
my final sweep of the locker rooms. Everything looked fine.
But when I came back into the lobby, the little
red mushed censor near the entrance blink once. That usually
only happens if someone walks by. I double checked the doors,
still locke looked out on to the side were completely empty.
Figured it was just a glitch. They happened so sometimes humidity,
power surges, whatever. I shut everything down, grabbed my back
and stepped out the back. And that's when I saw it.
My car's headlights were on, not bright, just the dim setting,
but they were definitely on, casting too long, pale beams
right into the trees. And here's the thing. I never
leave them on. Never. I've got this little routine I
follow every night like clockwork. Check the doors, shut the lights,
keys in my hand, then walked to the car. I
don't even touch the headlight switch, it's automatic. I stood
there for a minute, just watching. No one else was
in the law, no sounds, no signs of anyone around.
The car looked like it had just pulled in light,
still humming faintly. I walked up slowly. Both doors were shut.
I glanced around, trying to convince myself this was just
me forgetting something, but it didn't feel like that. I
unlocked the door. The lights went off immediately, not faded,
snapped off like a breakus which had flipped. I got
in and started it. The engine came on just fine.
Nothing I felt wrong, except the domelight didn't turn on
when I opened the door, Just darkness overhead, like the
car didn't want me to see inside. I backed up
faster than usual and pulled onto the road. Glanced in
the rear view as I left. There was someone standing
in the middle of the lot, same hoody, same stillness,
just standing there, but his head was tilted all the
way back, like he was staring straight up into the sky,
not moving at all. I didn't stop. I didn't even
slow down, just kept driving and told myself I was tired,
that I probably imagined it. I didn't bring it up
to anyone. How do you explain something like that without
sounding ridiculous. I chalked it up to stress and went back.
The next night, everything seemed normal, but that mirror in
the stretching area it gave me a weird feeling. At
one point, I saw a movement in it, just for
a second, a quick flicker, like someone walking behind me.
When I turned around, there was no one there. I
told myself it was my reflection, maybe a light catching weird.
Tried not to make a big deal out of it.
Then about a week later, I was in the locker
room cleaning when the front door chime went off. It's
a very distinct sound, loud, can't miss. It only happens
when someone actually opens the front door, but it was locked,
always is by then. I rushed to the front, no
one there, parking lot empty, lights still off. I checked
the security feed and that's when I got goosebumps. The
camera footage cut out for exactly thirteen seconds, just before
the chime. Then it came back, showing me walking into frame, confused,
no one entering, no one leaving, just a missing chunk
of time. I brought it up to my manager the
next day. She brushed it off, said the cameras were old,
that they cut out sometimes, told me not to worry.
I tried to believe her, but then a few nights later,
I saw the kid again. He wasn't inside this time,
he was sitting across the parking lot on the curb,
just watching the front doors. Didn't move, didn't flinch, just
sat there like he'd been waiting. I called my coworker, Tony,
asked if he could pick me up. Left my car
behind that night. When I came back the next morning,
there were three deep scratches across the driver's side door.
Not like someone keyed it. These weren't straight. They were uneven, jagged,
almost like claw marks. I told the manager I had
classes starting back up and couldn't do the late shift
any more. No one pushed back. A new guy took
over nights. Two weeks later I heard he quit without
giving notice. Someone said he saw a person standing in
the back hallway. He wasn't supposed to be there. When
he went to check, no one was around, but every
mirror in the locker room had fogged up, like someone
had just breathed on them. Sometimes I dream about that mirror,
that kid in the dream, his reflection still moves, but
he doesn't. The house had been empty for about a
year before I moved in. It was this old, two
story farmhouse outside a little town in southern Indiana, Culver
and sy. I'd never lived anywhere that, but after the
break up, I'd just gone through. It sounded like a dream.
The rent was low, the landlord didn't ask many questions,
and I needed a reset, some space to breathe. The
first two weeks were honest great. I got into a
routine up around eight, walked through the morning, then walked
the perimeter of the fields in the afternoon. Sometimes I'd
go down to the crete that ran along the back
of the property and just sit with my coffee. I
left the windows open at night. The air was perfect,
just that early autumn col crisp enough to feel fresh,
but still warm enough to sleep under a light blanket.
I actually started feeling okay again, like maybe this weird
old house in quiet town were exactly what I needed
to get back to myself. Then came the alarm clock.
I kept it on the foe next of the mattress,
no nights, and yet one morning I rolled over and
saw it blinking three point thirty three, not making noise,
just blinking like the power had cut for a second,
except nothing else had reset. The kitchen stove still showed
the correct time, so did my phone. No storms the
night before, no wind, no flickering lights. Weird but not
worth sparreling over until it happened again, and then again.
Three nights in a row, I woke up and the
alarm was blinking three points thirty three exactly, no more,
no less. The fourth night I got curious enough to
do something about it. I set up my phone to
do time laps and left it pointed at the clock.
When I checked it in the morning, the video ran
fine until three point thirty two, then it just stopped.
The last frame was a mess, just grafe, was like
the old static on a broken VHS tape, and then nothing,
no explanation. The file wasn't even labeled as corrupted, just frozen.
I watched it three times like that was going to
change something. Then I deleted it and told myself I
must have set something up wrong. But then other things
started to shift. Just small stuff at first, like my keys.
I always put them on the little hook by the
front door, same place every day, but one morning they
were laid out on the kitchen counter, lined up in
a straight row, evenly spaced, like someone had measured it.
Another time, my shoes turned up on the back porch,
dry clean, perfectly placed side by side, like I just
stepped out of them. Only I hadn't been outside the
day before. Little things, but they it up. I kept
trying to come up with explanations. Maybe I was sleep walking,
maybe I was so distracted that I didn't remember doing
it myself, or maybe a raccoon had found its way in,
or a stray cat. But the doors were locked. Every night,
the windows were closed. I checked or checked. I even
started snapping photos of where I left things, just to
prove to myself I wasn't losing it. Then came the hoodie.
I'd fallen asleep on the couch again, a documentary playing
low in the background. I woke up around furry. Felt
it before I knew it, a kind of cold that
makes your breath feel feel sharp in your throat. I
sat up, confused because the heat was on and all
the windows were shut tight. It wasn't just chilly, it
was wrong, like freezer air. I reached for the remote,
not on the table. I leaned down and something soft
brushed against my foot. It was the remote, wrapped in
my old navy hoodie I hadn't worn that hoodie in
over a week. It had been upstairs in the laundry
basket the last time I saw it. I picked it
up and instantly regretted it. The whole bundle reeked like
swamp water, that slimy, i'llgie heavy smell you get nearer
the edge of a stagnant pond, wet rotting vegetation, the
kind of smell that makes your skin crawl. I dropped
it and turned on every light in the house, but
again nothing. Everything else was right where I'd left it.
The next morning, I found long, pale smears across the
floor near the sink. Not quite foot prints, not hand
prints either, just long, dragging marks wet fibers, almost like
something had been pulled across the wood. I got paper
towels and started scrubbing, without even thinking, like if I
cleaned fast enough, it wouldn't be real. I told myself
maybe an animal got in through the crawl space. That
made more sense than any of the other thoughts calling
around in the back of my brain. So I drove
to the hardware stor bought sea lent traps Heavy Dutiful,
spent that afternoon plugging up every possible gap I could
find That night, I stayed out later than usual, caught
dinner in town, lingered over coffee, wandered the aisles of
the twenty four iro grocery store like I needed something important.
I told myself I wasn't scared. I just didn't want
to fall into a routine. But I left every light
on when I got home, pulled the space heater into
the living room. We didn't till almost too went to bed,
mattress still in the middle of the room. At exactly
three point thirty three, something slammed against a wall behind me.
Odd I didn't move, didn't breathe just stared at the ceiling,
waiting for whatever was next. The heater hum from the
living room. The silence pressed in. Then it happened again,
a single heavy bang, like a fist from inside the wall.
I rolled over slowly and pressed my ear to the wall. Nothing.
That was the night. I stopped sleeping properly. I started
staying up until morning and crashing for a few hours
after the sun came up. Something about the dark eyes
felt unsafe, like that time of night didn't belong to
me any more. I didn't talk to anyone about it,
didn't even message friends what would I say? Around five
one morning, I was rinsing a mug in the sink
when I heard it, the sound that finally broke me.
The back door unlocked, n creaked, not jiggled, unlocked, A
clean shop click, followed by the slow turn of the knob,
A frozemuked still in my hand. My heart dropped so
hard I actually felt dizzy. I hadn't touched that door
in daze. The only other key was in the glove
box of my car. I stepped quietly to the hall
and flipped on the porch light. Peered through the window.
No one, nothing, The yard was still and empty. I
stood there for what felt like an iron. Didn't open.
The door, didn't turn off the light. When I finally
did check it, the lock looked fine, no scratches, no
sign of tampering. I shoved my kack key into the
keyhole from the inside and left it there. Later that afternoon,
I called the landlord, said I needed to break the lease.
Didn't offer a reason, just said I couldn't stay. He
was quiet for a second, then said, did you leave
the back bedroom anty like I told you? I hesitated.
I've been using it for storage. Someone opened boxes, a
few coats, nothing big, yea, I said, why, he sighed,
just make sure it's locked before you go. Then he
hung up. I didn't wait. I packed everything into my
car that day and left by noon. My uncle I
asked me if I could look after his cabin while
he and his wife went to visit her family out
in Washington for the week. The place is up near
the edge of a nature reserve in Northernisconsin, where the
rose twisted threw dense trees, and the nearest neighbors about
quarter mile away. I'd been there a few times growing up,
mostly summer weekends with my parents, but I hadn't seen
it in years, never stayed there alone. Mike handed me
the keys a couple days before they left and said,
just grabbed the mail and shovel. If its nose, it's
peaceful up there, you'll like it, And honestly I did it. First.
The first two days were solid, quiet. I missed simple mills,
read on the porch in the afternoon, took a few
short hikes round the trails nearby. But by day three
I started feeling the difference. That evening, i'd just gotten
out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, still wiping
water from my face. When I heard the scraping noise
from the kitchen. It wasn't loud, just enough to catch
my attention, like the Sunday chair makes when someone pushes
it back from the table. I walked out, still dripping,
half laughing at myself, thinking maybe it was the window,
some pipe knocking against the wall. Everything looked totally normal,
nothing out of place. The chairs were tucked in, the
front door was still locked, and there wasn't even a draft.
I opened the pantry for some reason, like I expected
to reckon, to be hiding behind the float or something. Nothing.
I went back to finish trying off, but I was
more aware now, listening harder that kind of alert wear
skin feels one size too small. Ten minutes later, same sound,
that dragon chair scrape. This time I came out of
the bedroom a little faster. One of the dining chairs
was pushed back from the table, not far, just a
few inches, angled, like someone had stood up from it
and didn't bother to push it back in all the way.
I froze, not because it was terrifying yet, but because
there's this weird moment when something's just wrong enough to
miss with your head, but not enough jacked on. I
stared at the chair, trying to figure out if I'd
left it like that. Maybe when I put my bag down,
maybe I bumped. I'd pushed it back in slowly and
stood there a few seconds longer, just kind of testing
the air, like maybe i'd hear breathing or catch movement
out of the corner of my eye. Nothing. Just silence, dense, close,
kind of silence where you start to feel like you're intruding.
That night, I left my bedroom door open a crack.
I don't usually do that. I'm the type who likes
everything shut and locked, but I wanted to hear if
anything moved around out there. Round two may be closer
to three. I woke up, not jolted awake, but slowly,
like something had been nudging me toward consciousness. It was
the sound knocking, but not from the front door. This
was inside, quick, soft, two knocks at a time, almost polite.
I held still and listened. There it was again, two knocks,
a little louder, closer. I sat up slowly, every muzzle tight,
like if I moved wrong, something would notice. It sounded
like it was coming from the hallway closet just outside
the bedroom. Two more knocks, then nothing. I got up
and flipped the whole light on. The sound stopped. I
stared at the closet door for a while before opening it.
Courts an old boot tray, a flashlight, nothing new. I
left the light on and went back to bed, but
I didn't sleep, not really. I just laid there with
my eyes open, listening for the knocking to come back.
It didn't. But the next morning the holy light was
off again. I know I didn't touch it. That was
the first thing that made me feel watched. I turned
it back on and stood there a while, trying to
convince myself it was a bad switch. Then I saw
the boots. They were sitting by the back door, right
where I'd left them, But they were wet, not soaking,
but damp enough to leave a faint ring on the mah.
Thing is I hadn't worn them since the day before,
and I hadn't been outside since mid afternoon. No snow
was tracked in, no puddles, just the boots resting exactly
where I left them. Only now they looked used. I
didn't know what to do with that. I called my
Koranyon and asked if any one else had a key
to the cabin. He laughed, said no, just me and him.
Why you're getting spooked up there? I made some big
joke about weird noises and told him the place had personality.
I didn't bring up the boots. That night, I locked
the bedroom door again and wedged a chair under the knob.
I even put a couple of pans near the base
of the door, figuring i'd at least hear them as
someone tried to come in. I didn't care if I
look paranoid. By the fifth night, I started hearing movement
in the attic. It wasn't footsteps exactly, just slow, muffled shifting,
like something was dragging itself from one beam to the next.
The attic isn't finished. It's just a coral space with
exposed beans and some insulation, no storage, nothing you could
even stand up in. But something was up there. The
axis panels in the hallway just a flat piece of
wood that sits flushed with the ceiling. I'd noticed on
day one and barely gave it a second thought. But
now I was lying in bed, staring at it through
the open door and picturing a face pressing down against
it from the other side. In the morning, I pulled
the step sol up from the shed and popped the
panel up empty. No mice, no nests, no signs of
anything living or ever having lived up there. I poked
a round with the broom handle. This infra squeaks was
scurrying nothing. It somehow felt worse after I checked before,
at least I had no known. Now it was just
silence and the creeping sense that I was looking in
the wrong place. That last night, night six, I couldn't
handle staying inside. I threw on a jacket, baled a
small fire and pit up back and sat there until
the sun went down. The cold helped gave me something
else to folks on. But when I came back inside
everything felt different. The ear was heavier, like it had
been waiting for me. The whole way light turned off
right as I passed under it. I stopped, flip the switch.
It came back on thirty seconds later. It clicked off again.
That time I didn't bother fixing it. I went straight
to the bedroom, locked the door, whiched the chair back
in place, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
I didn't even bother change in clothes. Just after midnight,
I heard the front door open. It didn't bang or creak,
It opened smoothly, deliberately, like someone who knew how to
move through the space without making noise. Then came the footsteps,
soft even crossing the living room, passed the kitchen, heading
straight down the hallway. No pauses, no hesitation, just slow,
certain movement, like they knew where they were going. I
sat there without moving for over an hour. Every now
and then I'd strained to hear breathing off Fritztead's walking away,
but there was nothing, just the dead silence, again pressing
into my chest. When I finally opened the door, the
hallway was empty, the front door was closed, and the
boots were gone. The next day, Mike and his wife
pulled up just before noon. I handed him the keys
and told him very calmly that he might want to
check the added panel. He gave me a look I
couldn't quite read, kind of a half nod, like he
already knew there was something weird about the place, but
didn't want to have made it out loud. I haven't
been back. My cousin Morrow and I were living in
this old duplex in the edge of Clermont, a quiet
little town in upstate New York. She had just gotten
out of a message of oars and I needed a
cheap place while picking up over night shifts at grocery store.
So we split rent and moved in together. The unit
had been empty for more than a year before we
got it. The landlord, a guy named mister Hartley, said
the last tenant got weird and left without a word.
I worked nights stocking shells, so I'd usually get home
around one or two in the morning. When I wasn't working,
I kept to a weird schedule, reading, folding laundry, watching
TV until I crashed. That night, it was maybe three
a m. I was in the couch folding a load
of laundry when I noticed the basement door was open.
I always kept it hut. It creaked loudly when it moved.
Anea that came up from down there smelled off musty,
a little metallic. I figured mar had gone down and
just forgot to close it. I walked over to shut it,
but stopped before touching the knob. The whoay light was on,
but the stairs looked too dark. The bottom wasn't visible
at all. It wasn't just shadows. It was like the
light gave a paffrey down just this thick, dead black
space weather should have been steps. I stood there for
a second, staring at it like an idiot. Then I
told myself to quit being dramatic and shut the door.
A few minutes later I heard this soft scraping noise
from the kitchen, slow and steady, like something dragging across tile.
I froze for a second and got up and checked nothing.
The back door was lock, chairs tucked, and everything was
worried should be I even open the fridge, thinking maybe
the compress. I made a weird noise. Nope, just regular fridge.
How I shook it off and went upstairs. A round
four thirty, I heard it again, the same dragging, but
this time it moved through the hallway toward the foot
of the stairs. I sat up in bed, hard in
my throat, just listening. I stopped. Then I heard a
single creak, like someone putting weight on the bottom step.
I didn't move. Nothing followed, no more steps, no sound
at all. After five minutes, I crept out and leaned
over the banister. The stair wall was empty, but the
basement door it was open again, not why, just enough
for a sliver of black to show. I didn't go down.
I locked my bedroom door, got back in bed, and
stayed there until daylight. The next morning, Morrow was already
in the kitchen. First thing she said was did you
go down, sirs last night? I told her now. She
said the basement door was wide open when she came
down for coffee. I said I must have left it, ajar.
She gave me a look but didn't push it. Nothing
happened The next night, or the one after. I was
starting to let it go. Then I got off work late,
close to two and came home to quiet house. Ma
was asleep. I made tea and sat on the couch,
flipping through a book. That's when I heard the laundry
machine beep. I hadn't done laundry. I went to the
basement door. It was shut. I stood there for a second,
trying to decide how stupid I was feeling that night,
then opened it slowly and flipped the switch. The light
came on, but halfway down the stairs I realized it
wasn't reaching the back of the basement again. Same thing
as before, just this dead zone with the lights stopped working.
I kept going hand on the railing. The air felt
heavier the lower I got cooler too. At the bottom
I saw the washle it open. Inside was one of
my shirts, damp, stretched and was shapen, like some one
had grabbed both sleeves and tried to pull them in
opposite directions. I hadn't even washed it yet. I closed
the lid, backed up the stairs, shut the door, and
lock it. Didn't sleep that night. After that, things started
changing in ways that were hard to explain. Drawers left
half open. My books were out of order, some flipped
upside down, others stacked differently than I left them. I
found a note on the fridge in my handwriting that
I had see her memory of writing. It just said
leave the door shut. I finally tried bringing it up
to morrow. Every time I did, she brushed it off,
said old house's creak were tire. Maybe one of us
forgot something. Until one night I found her sitting half
way down the stairs staring at the basement door. It
was closed, but she looked frozen, hale and wire, like
she'd been holding her breath. I asked what happened. She
said she heard some one moving below her room. Not
walking exactly, circling, dragging one foot like a limp. She
thought it was me until she realized my car wasn't
in the driveway. I told her I was calling some one,
a priest maybe. She said not to. Don't make it worse,
she said first time, she admitted she'd been seeing things too.
After that, we made an unspoken deal. No one went
down there after dark. That lasted about a week. One
night I came home late and found Mars standing in
the open basement doorway. The light was off. She was
just standing there facing the dark light. She was waiting
for something. I called her name, nothing. I grabbed her shoulder.
She jumped so hard I thought she was going to
fall over. Her whole body was shaking. She said she
didn't know how long she'd been standing there, that she
heard someone say her name and just followed it. We
went upstairs. She cried in my room for almost an hour.
The next morning, the basement life was on again, door
wide open. I shut it, locked it, and bushed a
chair against the knob. That day I stayed home and
dug out the lease. Nothing about deaths, no reports, no
word history, but the tenant agreement for the last guy
had a word gap between his movement and move out
dates over six months off. I called mister Hotley and
asked about it. He paused, then said the guy wasn't
well and left it out notice no forwarding address. We
pat bags that afternoon and went to stay with our
aunt a few towns over, just for a couple days,
we told ourselves. Before we left, I went back up
stairs to grab some things from my closet that shuret
The stretched one from the washer was folded neatly on
my top shelf, still damp. Underneath it was a single
sheet of paper, a print out I didn't recognize across
the top at re Innit Sea basement access records. It
listed dates, times, names. My name showed up three times.
The last line just said pending. We left that night,
took what we could carry, and didn't come back for
over a month. When we finally did, it was to
move out. Mister move out. Hartley didn't ask why, just
nodded and said, you're not the first. Now I won't
live anywhere with the basement. I don't care how nice
the place is. Back then, I was working nights as
an inta coordinator at a long term care facility in
rural Kentucky. The building had a strange history. It used
to be a tuberculosis hospital back in the day. They
converted it into a geriatric grahab center in the early eighties,
slapped on some new paint, put in elevators, but you
could still see where they bricked off the old quarantine wings,
long narrow halways that didn't lead anywhere, dead end doors
that looked like they hadn't been opened in decades. I
only lasted about six months in that job. It wasn't
the work itself. I could handle the paperwork, the late ires,
even the crankyff family, but something about that place it lingered.
And one night in particular still follows me. We had
a resident named Ruth eighty seven. Tiny woman, not even
five feet tall, but she carried herself like she owned
the building. Sharp, snappy, and very clearly not interested in
making friends. Most of the staff gave her a wide breath.
She didn't lush out or anything, but she had this
way of looking at you like she already knew your
weaknesses and was just politely choosing not to say them
out loud. Her husband, Ellis, had died in the facility's
hospital wing the year before I started. They'd been sharing
a room for almost twenty years before he passed from
a stroke. According to some of the older nurses, Ruth
had barely cried, just sat by the window fires after
muttering to herself. She never really stopped talking about him,
but it wasn't the kind of grief people expected. She
didn't say she missed him or wished he was still around.
What she kept repeating over and over in different ways
was how he hadn't rested right, or how he never
got to say goodbye. The staff mostly ignored it, just
shock cut up to old age and a bit of personality.
That was the default explanation for anything strange around there.
If a life flickered o, someone felt watch, people just
said it's an old building and kept moving anyway. It
was a Thursday night, middle of March, cold and tamp
one of those nights where your bones feel heavier than usual.
It was a round two point thirty in the morning
when the fire panel by the intake desk lit up
false alarm. Room two hundred fourteen, that was Ruth's room.
I was in the office with Jess, one of the
newest y enneal nights, she was young, early twenty is
still a little too chip of her graveyard shifts, but
she was kind and she treated to residence with real patience.
When the alarm buzzed, we both got up to check
it out. Not unusual. Those panels went off random me
at least once a week, usually a censor issue or
some of microwaven. Something weird. The hallway to the rooms
was quiet, no t be on, no nurses around, just
our footsteps and the soft hum of those overhead fluorescence.
When we got to Roos's door, something felled off before
we even opened it. The smell he first burnt matches,
faint but definitely there, and something else laid underneath fall powdery,
like the kind of puffum you only smell in antique
shops or at your grandma's house. It wasn't strong, just
enough to raise your neck hairs. We stepped in slowly.
Ruth was sitting up in bed ram rod straight, not
looking at us. Her gaze was fixed on the recliner
in the corner. I asked Ruth everything all right. She
didn't move, didn't blink. Jess said very clearly, he's been
here for a while, just watching. He wants to talk
jet shifted beside me. She tried that soft sea and
a voice, calm, careful, Ruth, do you know where you are.
It's the middle of the night. There's no one here
but us. Ruth didn't look away from the chair. That's
not true, she said, he was here before you walked in.
That's when the room felt small or heavier. I glanced
at the chair. Nothing there, just that worn beage recliner
every resident had, but Ruth's eyes never left it. I
asked if she needed water or help. Lying back down, Anne,
That's when she finally looked at me. Her face was
tired in a way I hadn't seen before. Not angry,
not stubborn, just worn out. He can't rest, she said,
he needs someone to see him, just one person. Then
the recliner creaked. It wasn't loud, more like a breath
of hand, a soft chrift, like someone adjusting their weight
after sitting too long. Jess took a step back. I
saw her hand twitch, fingers flexing like she wasn't sure
whether to grab mine or bolt. I didn't move, crudn't
My chest felt tight like the air had thickened. Ruth's
force was quite now he died angry alone. They didn't
let me be there, but he's trying again. Then she
nodded slowly toward the chair, like she was giving someone permission.
I told Jess to go get the nurse supervisor, something
about having another person that suddenly felt really necessary. She
didn't argue, just turned and left quickly. I sat down
on the edge of Ruth's bed. I had this whole
thing in my head about how our minds cling to
familiar shapes when we're grieving. Sometimes we imagine things to
feel less alone. But before I could say anything, Ruth
whispered something I'll never forget. He just wanted to face,
just one person to look at while he left. Then
she closed her eyes just like that. I put my
hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. Nothing.
When the nurse arrived, we checked her pulse. Ruth was gone, peacefully,
no signs of pain, no struggle, just gone. Her chart
had flied her for congestive heart failure, so medically it
wasn't surprise, but still Jess refused to re enter the room.
She just stood outside, pale as chalk, rubbing her arms.
After they moved Ruth's body, I was asked to back
her belongings and lock them in the intic closet for
her family. The room was silent when I went back in,
still cold, still smelled faintly of smoke and perfume. I
picked up a few of her speatters, folded them into
a bane, and then the recliner shifted again. That soft creak,
the same one. I looked over the chair rock or slightly,
just once, as if some one had stood up. It
shouldn't have moved at all. It was one of those
bulky medical recliners electric, the kind you operate with a remote.
I walked over and checked the plug. It wasn't even
plugged in. I stood there for a long second. Then
I backed out, slowly, shut the door and said nothing.
Didn't even write it up. Three resident in two hundred fourteen,
a woman named Angela. She didn't even make it one night.
By morning she was commanding a new room. She told
to nurse some one had stood by the chair all night.
A man didn't blink, didn't speak, just watched her. After
that they turned the room into sworage. No one wanted it,
and the chair still in there, And that is the end.
Thank you for listening. And I will see you in
the next one.