Speaker 1: Brain splatted down the alleyway in heavy curtains, Pulling beneath
the bin lads unwashing cigarette bus into slow, reluctant rivulets.
The stink of wet cardboard and all vegetable peel seep
into my clothes as I dug through the refuse behind
the old moss and court building, the place I'd lived
and watched and finally been cast out. Only the glove
from the half broken security lamb above the back door
gave the world shape. My knuckles scraped something rough beneath
a layer of crumpled circulars. Then my fingers found the
rigid edge of a plastic folder. It shoned ally in
the light, water already seeping under the cracked lip. There
was something invested in my surgerknee, not curiosity. It's surprising
what gets left behind when people want to scrub a
story clean. The folder had got them old staining as corners,
but clicked open easily enough. Inside pages stuck and peeled
apart in layers, application forms, coppers of driver's licenses, resume fragments, lises,
both signed and unsigned. All of them had the same
odd detailed places where dates had been aggressively scratched out
first with pen, then gone over so repeatedly you could
see grows worn into the copy paper. Over each in
a trembling blue ink was entered in a new date,
different for every file, none quite consistent. The signatures were
all there, but sometimes the names didn't match. The license
photoed huck behind a roberta, A Thomas a looser each
share and shaky over ittten numbers and letters. Thundercrack sharpened
immediate as I tried to shuffle through the growing stack
from the deeper shadows at the far end of the passage,
I heard a scuffer, herror its scraping movement. My hand
stopped midpage. In the uncertain glow, A figure slipped backward
in haste. I caught just a flick of her rain
soaked elbow, a hand vanishing. Then the ironside door banged shut,
and the sound of their feet faded. I scanned the alley.
Nobody else came. The folder's contents fluttered in my shaking hands.
The pressure of someone else's watch from was pressed heavy
and urgent, as if they had left a part of
themselves hying in the humid air, waiting for me to
mess up and drop the secret back into the mud.
I picked out one from the stack, had drive his license,
still fresh enough to have the reflective sheen along the edge.
The photo depicted a woman with a wary smile I
knew I had never seen before. The address was Mouston Court,
fourth floor. As for the issued date, it was off
by almost five years, stamped to neatly accept scrolled over
it the same blue ink fource last thirteen slash twenty one.
My pulse skidded familiar dread. Returning the official files would
have the real date, but I'd never seen her in
the holes. I tucked the folder beneath my jacket as
the rain stune my face, and moved away from the bins,
boot scratching in the muck in the deserted lot. The
slumming door from earlier echoed again in my mind, each
beat a warning. This was someone's job, or someone's mistake,
and they wanted to make it disappear. I felt the
olticle at the back of my frow, of the one
that starts when you've been ignored too long, Overlooked by design.
You can only be ignored so long before you wonder
if they're hiding something. I hurried toward the glow of
the distant intersection, hot pounding with a new rhythm behind
me in the dimmer rectingle of the unlocked basement window
assoft Fredbert curtain twitched. I didn't look back. All I
could hear here was the folders, thin papers, scratching together
as I squeezed it tighter, already knowing they'd be no
sleep to night. Before all this, my routines have been mechanical.
Save feven Boring, night watch work is a form of
structured dailination. He stroll around in circles, tracing the same
scratches in the linoleum, humming beneath flickering old fluorescence. It
suited me for a while. I'd walk the whole starting
at midnight, pausing outside each unit with a paint bubble
near the fire doors, checking for burned up bulbs, with
that sorrow tang of melty building up in the laundry chute.
Most nights, the corridors were empty. I'd take my first
cigarette break in a covered walkway outside the little security beoth,
casting a halfmin of dull light in the wet tarmac.
The city beyond the fence existed as nothing but distant engines,
and occasionally laughter echoing up from the laundromat barrels when
someone tried to keep their life on schedule a little longer.
Sometimes during the rounds, I'd bump into a tenant, misses
Quan from three Bead, always five minutes behind her own schedule,
rushing with a sob in toddler under one arm and
a laundry basket, and the other nodded at me but
never said a word. She'd fumble with her keys in
dark past, as if my mere presents risk delaying her escape.
The old man from two dep Mister Willoughby, would shuffle
in the shallow lcove by the elevator. His hands trembled terribly.
He dropped his mail and glare at the floor, waiting
for me to take the hint and move alarm. Sometimes
I wondered if any one had dead have spoken to him.
In a turn up of a whisper, kids from the
sixth floor Rawleigh Injay skated in the parking lot till
nearly one, m using the yellow cope as their jump,
their wheels clocked in the wet concrete, trailed by shouts
and daring each other to knock over the bins, I'd
lean in the shadows and pretend not to see. Mister Kersh,
the building manager, was a contrast to everyone else. He
carried himself with brisk efficiency, the heavy ring of brass
keys bouncing at his hip, and the clip charming tone
of someone who'd memorize the rules but rewrittened them for
his benefit. When I tried to ask him about extra
overtime or how to record a suspicious noise, he smiled
too thinly, offering a pat on the back that landed
just a bit too hard. Keep those eyes open, mister thorn,
he'd say, But remember whatever you hear after two, it's
just the pipes. It was the pipes that dim in.
Eventually there was a slow leap behind one AI, a grim, damp,
creeping sort of leak that grew until one morning the
carpet squelched beneath the sole of my butt, and mister
Kush appeared with the clipboard negligence on routine checks. He entoned,
showing me the log. My notes had a gap and
nervous night, a botched time entry. We need someone thorough,
and he concluded, in the gray light of six twenty
m he shook my hand and put the office keys
in his vest pocket. The dismissal, final and formal severance
paid my rent for enough weeks to watch the entire
building from my window at odd ires. At first her
curdled into embarrassment. Then it became something sharper, way to
pass time or reason to stay awake. I pieced together
the giggle sheet had started before a mindless habit turned
compulsion named apartment numbers, which lights came on at forum,
which mailboxes grew bloated with supermarket flyers. Pattens made the
days bearable, with Sesquin's slot always overflowed starting the first
week of every month, then emptied overnight. The sixth floor
boy's board went missing, and the mailbox with Roberty was
suddenly blank, the label peeled. I felt a twist of
recognitionscrolling through the local news woman fails to return to
work after sudd to move. The photo matched one of
the faces and folder I just found in the trash.
It was the kind of coincidence nobody would notice if
they weren't looking for lost things. But I kept the
spreadsheet dated anyway, refreshing each night as the apartment across
from mine, four Sea stayed dark day after day, the
parking spot acclaimed, even as mail continued to arrive. Sometimes,
when I stared long enough, I could convince myself none
of my building's residents really left. They just got written out.
After the discovery in the trash. I spread the crumpled,
water stained forms across my desk, careful to keep them
away from the margarine stains and stray ash. I tried
organizing them by apartment number, overlaying each move in and
move out against scraps of my spreadsheet, Guessing at when
I had last seen each person in the halls, when
the light had gone off in their window, when a
voice had last echoed up the stower. A pattern emerged,
precise and almost mocking, for each tenant I remembered disappearing,
for whom there'd been no moving track, no cardboard boxes,
no tearful good as the official record show to move
out dates, sometimes weeks sometimes months after they had actually
been seen. The corrections in bluing straight from their original script,
but the error was always in the same direction, as
if some one were struggling to mattiality to paperwork and
were always doing it too late. There were sometimes two
even three versions of paperwork for the same apartment, one
tight initials in their right boxes, and another hastily annotated
blue handwriting coursing out details. No pets became service animal
month to month over annual. The forms were layered with uncertainty.
Most affected units were clustered, stacked two per four ala
inside shaft, the ones phasing only the back wall of
the laundromat next door, where sunlight barely made at past nine,
each shared a view unto a grimy interior direction of
use so poured the window might as well be painted over.
I thumbed through my mental list. I recalled Massesquan complaining
months ago that the noises next door had stopped abruptly.
No more thumps from three c Several mail boxes on
the second floor were suddenly burn. Reliable neighbors who once
left their shoes out or heard windchimes on their bows,
had just evaporated, replaced by silence. That night, lying on
my back in the dark, the apartments off kittered with
the scent of wet newsprint. I tried to sleep and failed. Instead,
the buildings seen livelier than it had in months. Drops
echoed from the pipes, sure, but then there was a coffer,
real cough, the kind you only hear after midnight. A
floss sounded from somewhere that should have been vacant, strange
muffled thuds, as if someone was dragging a chair from
one wall to the other. I stretched from my bed
and crept to the door. The hallway outside radiated stillness, shoes, absent,
lights dark. I stepped silently. I pressed to the peep hole,
holding my breath until my pulse thunted in my ears.
Nothing moved, but the sensation lingered, anake underneath the skin
that someone was still out there, waiting, unseen, just one doorway.
It felt like the whole building was holding itself puff
at this, still listening for the moment had slip up
and give myself away. This was how the nights went
at first, suspicion not evidence. I decided to keep watch,
persuaded by the simple couldrade in my chest. Over the
next several nights, I took up my old post in
the ground floor, tiing my cigarettes to narrow. Bands of
quiet and pace in the stair were so my first
it's blowed With the elevators grown. It didn't take long
before something snapped into view tuesdays, for instance, where grocery
nights doorstep deliverers for a handful of units of box
for two B, one for four SEA, but four C
was supposed to be empty. The nam scrub from the
mail box since the previous move out, Yet someone collected
the back after midnight. If I left my window open
just enough, i'd hear the lock turn and soft featurefl
across the tiles, the grocery bag drawn in, and the
door firmly shut. The next day, the only signs of
occupancy a faint shadow undulating behind the curtain and a
whiff of cooking that never quite made sense. I wanted
to confront some one, any one, So I found mister
Kurshley in the lobby, pacing between the walls of mail boxes,
and mustered the nerve turnover seems higher than usual this month,
I said, hoping for a trace of encouragement. He didn't
pause in his counting. He's rattling in his palm. People
come and go in this building. That's life in the city,
mister Thorn. He don't live here any more. Perhaps you
should get some fresh air. His tone was final. I
walked out, sweating, the words still burning in my mouth
that night, driven by growing obsession, a pride to old
locks in the service stairwell, until a loose hinge granted
me access to the lowlit subbasement. The inner of the
building were cold and labyrinthine. Every surface layd thick with dust,
except the floor. In front of a new chiny padlock
on a closet door. I pressed my ear to the door.
At first nothing, then the brush of fabric may be
breath then so faint it might have been my imagination.
A muted murmur words unable to slip past footsteps, thundered
overhead a cursie's and now retreated heart, loaching the closet.
Secret and sturbed by day, I began to quietly question
the few tenants who still meet my eyes. Miss Esquint
breathless but polite, only shrubbed quite a lately, But I
like it that way. Willuff Be stared at his own
hands and mumbled that he heard a voiceter's wal some nights,
but the apartment next door ought to be empty. Maria,
the cleaning lady, confided it hessitately as she wiped down
the town stairs last night, two d sobbing friars I
tell mister Kershe he say it's nothing. He say empty.
Nobody there always empty, he say, Then he locks the door.
In the small hours, I dug into new methods. My
foreigns recording app open. I left it braced against the
vent between floors, hoping for more than just the cough
of machinery. Reviewing the audio, I caught something straight, muffled
voices overlapping them. I're not cut through, clearer than the
rest of repetition, plaintive, almost ritual, Roberta, Roberta. The next
day I haunted the public library, a pal of old
tenantsy listings, and achev textra seat sprawled across my table.
It was a mess of disconnected data, names filed on
Lisa's property, taxes paid most years, but with odd year
long gaps, entire period of occupancy missing from the record.
Residents I'd passed and stairwell seemed to have been a
race by bureaucratic sleight of hand. The building's reality didn't
match the outside world. Or maybe the paperwork was right
and I was the one untethered. I started to question
even that sleepless nights turning, I was into syrup. The
shadow on the three seas blinds, twitching a pale face,
stucking just out of the way. Maybe exhaustion was eating
me alive. Every night my sleep thinned, shreded by the
sense of being observed. Sometimes I worked to the sound
of my own door handle ratlinks low and hestined, as
if some one was testing the weight of the lock,
checking whether I too could slip away without anyone noticing.
Truth is if I wasn't the only one with secrets.
There was a strangled conversation half heard through the stairwell door,
Marie and mister cush. Her voice shot barely over a
hiss as she gestured with a battered grocery tote. I'm
not doing this any more, Maria snapped, voice flaring, Ye
make me clean for people who are supposed to exist.
Ye say they're not here, but I hear them. Ye lie,
kersh leaned in come as, always replying so quietly. I
had to press myself into shadow to catch it. It's necessary,
ye know how things are. We aren't the ones making
the rolls, Maria. She shoved the bag at him. Then
you do it yourself. Spending on her heel, she stalked
off toward the main stair He set the bag in
a low utility closet, whispering under his breath, Stay put,
I'll be back later. I hid behind the half open
fire door, watching. Afterward, I crept over and waited by
the closet for long minutes. No noise, just the tick
of a pipe and the hum of refrigerant lines. I knocked,
testing for a response. Nothing came, but twenty minutes later,
when I circled back, the closet was empty. Flag was gone. Restless,
I kept to the hallway that night, determined to see
who else might be moving through the darkness. Just after two,
I heard the creak of the elevator at the door
sliding open. I stayed pressed flat behind a chip potted plant,
my breath thin. As mister Kersh emerged. He scanned the corridor,
studded the darkness, and then produced a glinting ring of
keys from his jacket. He unlocked the door to three A,
one of the supposed vacant apartments. At stepped a slight
young woman with ham madded to her cheeks, her frame
rigid and resentful. Kersh murmured low, hand on her shoulder,
coaxing her gently onward. Together they glided potway down the hole,
and after kersh checked again, vanished into the restricted sub basement.
The woman's face never rose, and she wrapped her arms
around herself as she disappeared into the gloom. The realizations
on me. The missing tenants did not leave. They were hidden,
shuffled from one forgotten corner to another, officially erased and
practically invisible, but living, breathing, suffering only feet beneath the
rest of us, their identities overwritten on paper, their presence
rendered into a bureaucratic shadow that could be quietly moved, trivialized,
or denied. I stumbled back to my apartment, trembling, pulling
up the audio recording again and again on it. In
a brief silence between the sobs and repeated names, another
sound now registered, one I hadn't noticed before. A different
name tipped up from the dark, spoken with hope and dread,
repeating softly, before breaking into a low, desperate cry. It
was my name. A voice from somewhere beneath my feet
was calling for me, leaving me suspended between the urge
to flee and the awful magnetic pull to go back down,
Afraid not for what I might discover, but for how
many times I'd failed to notice it before. My hands
wouldn't listen to me. When I tried to dial the number,
ied memoris for the precinct thumb trembling. I managed three digits,
then let the phone rest against my knee, screen glowing
with my indecision. You'd think, under the circumstances, I would
have forced the issue, forced myself to cross one last
boundary into what I'd always told myself was someone else's business.
But I didn't. Instead, I replayed the tape over and
over until the sounds my name, her whimper became indistinguishable
from the roar of the pipes overhead. Morning returned in fits.
I wandered the block Amouslely's circling mast and court as
deliverers came in left. Marie appeared near the service entrance,
trailing her cotton bags, shoulders hunched under a fading blue
jack it with one eye and the curb. She hurried
through the side door. Before I could cross the street.
I called up, just as she was shaking how mop
dry at the bottom of the stairs. Maria, wait, My
voice was rough, barely more than a whisper. She turned, startled,
her eyes bloodshat what you want. I don't talk to you,
mister Thorne, not any more, I hesitated. I know about
the basement, I said quickly, Her hands tightened over the
mob handle. I saw you leave the bags. Who are
you helping? She glanced up the stairwell, searching the air
for eavestroppers. No, she said, softly, not safe, never was safe.
Please leave me be, But her gaze lingered a moment
longer than necessary, pleading, warning both at once. I'm not
with kersh. I try. You can trust me, Maria. People
are being hidden down there. I heard someone calling for help.
The desperation in my voice must have registered. Maria compressed
her lips and shook her head, but didn't leave. Instead,
her gaze flecked over her shoulder, then toward the shadows
under the pipes. Without another word, she loaded her supplies
on to the rolling cot and disappeared around the corner,
her shoes squeaking in rhythm with my own mounting sense
of futility. By newing at excess did to day's reserves
of courage. I hovered by the main entrance, peering past
mirrored glass into the lowlit lobby. Kershe's reflection. Broad shouldered,
calm unhurried broke apart the patent floor tiles as he
crossed to the inner office. He didn't notice me at first.
When he did, he froze for the briefest instant, then
composed his features into a slight smile of their customer
service kind, settling another grievance. Mister Thorn, he calls voice pray.
I forced a smile just picking up something I left
in the mail room. My bluff was thin. You ever
worry about people getting stuck here, I asked, suddenly direct
getting lost between paperwork and reality. He frowned, polished the
keyring on his vest, and after a pause, shrugged. There's
always churn in buildings this size. Not everyone fits in.
Sometimes people move up before the paperwork, or the paperwork
moves before the people. His eyes didn't blink. That's not
your concern any more. My mouth ran ahead of my
good sense. How many people live here who shouldn't How
many a part gost do you keep locked in the books?
He drew himself up, losing the smile. If you have
nothing else here at, mister Thorn, I'd like to ask
you to leave. For a flash, I saw something dangerous
glutter in his gaze, as if a mask had slipped.
I turned away, more shaken than I'd let him see.
The rest of the afternoon I spent piecing together my
next move, taking stock of what I had and what
I could risk. I watched from across the street as
the cleaning crew arrived in shifts boxes supplies the remains
of a food delivery. An entire small ecosystem fed off
the building, oblivious to the currents running beneath its painted surfaces.
That evening, before dusk settled, I returned to my apartment
and check my recording. Nothing new but I'm being crohns
a cough, and the far off rimper of some one
repeating a littany in a voice roughened by tears. Each
time my names circled back, it came more faintly, as
if the speaker were moving away from the recorder or
drifting further from herself. Unable to stand the apartment any longer,
I took my keystell not reclaimed by management, and crept
into the stowell leading toward the sub basement at the landing.
I stopped dead there, tucked behind a fire hose crate,
was a collection of odds and ends, an emptied soup cahn,
a paperback with a covered torn away, and a plastic
hair brush missing half its teeth. Someone was living in
little pockets of the building, unable unwilling to retreat outside
its walls. I made my way down two flights, shoe
silent and the rubber trades, pausing when I reached the
lowest landing. The whole here was barely lit. A few
bulbs flickered overhead thou light, sickly and uneven. I pressed
my ear to the storage closet again, breath hell, I
listened inside the scrape of fabric, a sigh and then
quiet chook sobbing, heart racing, I looked back over my shoulder,
then pressed my pomp flat against the thin plye Oodor
are you there? I whispered silence. But only when I
started to leave did I hear the softest of responses,
a single word fading into a gasp fleet. I leank ol, sir,
but no further reply came. Defeated, I crept upstairs. For
the next two nights, the pattern became obsession. By day,
I haunted the library, pouring three years old Folice notices,
then fading property records. Epps abounded two three years, during
which Marston caught seemed all but vacant. Police calls listed
at the address simply stopped for long stretches, as if
the building had ceased to exist with an official memory.
At night, I lingered near the units facing the interior shaft.
Once I waited out of sight as Maria placed two
more grocery backs just behind the door of the old
linen closet. She hesitated, whispered something you name, and heard off,
her eyes glossy and ringed in exhaustion. This time I
waited in the empty stairwell footsteps hidden behind a row
of battered lockers. The door to the closet noted open
by itself. After five quiet minutes, fingers appeared, narl bit
and trembling. I hand snaked up, groped for the bag,
and drew it in. The door shut soundlessly. I couldn't breathe.
Here was a proof, living scared, hung reghosts not gone,
not moved out, simply swept into dark kniches and sealed
behind whispers and locks. That night, as I tried again
to sleep, my mind race, I remembered the names and faces,
but found myself unable to picture half the people I
had seen only months ago, the kid with the skateboard,
the tall woman with the docker's tan on her arms,
ghost and training, perhaps waiting their turn in the cycle.
It rained again, as if the sky were trying to
wash memory free of all that had gone before. I
slept poorly, and when I woke the next afternoon, I
discovered a scrap of paper slipped under my door, in looping,
unfamiliar print, do not speak, you're being listened to. A
prickle of old fear made my neck crawl. I crossed
the note, but saved it deep in my pocket. By
the next evening, I knew I'd have to see from myself.
I waited until I heard the shriek of the garbage
truck reversing outside a convenient distraction, and slipped down into
the half laked crawl space under the laundry room. This
choked the air at the scent of must, and something
coppery metallic lingered near the pipes. Crawling on hands and knees,
I made my way to the father's bulket, the one
adjacent to the abasement. Here at the wall was patched
with mismatching tiles and roughs amment, as if some one
had broken through and hastily sealed it. Afterward, I scraped
at the grout. The material crumbled, exposing a seem wide
enough for a finger. Then, too cautiously, I leaned close,
peered through the gap. Darkness pressed back at me, a
different kind of dark, occupied not by emptiness but by
the hush of muffled movement. Then, as my eyes adjusted,
I made out a dim, shifting outline, someone lying on
a thin mattress, culled beneath the heap of torn blankets.
A lamp flickered to one side, illuminating scattering of broken crayons,
a dented mug, and an old shoe whose laces had
been knotted together like a child's. I watched as the
figure sat up, stared at the wall, then covered her
face with shaking hands. He urged to speak her name,
nearly strangled me, but I held my breath behind me.
A sound, the scrape, the soft swish of a mop.
I jerked away from the wall in time to see
Maria shuffling into the coal space as wide she dropped
her cleaning rags. Fear and frustration warring across her expression.
He shouldn't be here, she breathed. I have to help,
I insisted, they're trapped. Why do you keep them hidden?
She closed her eyes, the pain obvious. It's not me.
I help, yes, But mister Cush tells us what to do.
If we don't listen, he finds ways to make us disappear,
he said, it's safer inside, out of sight. No one
wants to know these people exist, not police, not social workers,
not even the tenants. He makes them stay until the
names are forgotten. But there's nothing safe about it, I protested.
She shook her head sharply, you bring trouble if you talk.
This place eats trouble. She looked like she might cry.
I have to go. In three swift movements, she grabbed
her things and vanished down the narrow passage she come from,
leaving the crawl space, echoing with her panic. Back in
my apartment, I tried and failed to make sense of
my options. The building felt alive, flixing it to age
old joints, breathing through the vents and warp window frames.
Every rustle or thump registered in my body as a challenge.
Go on, prove you matter. Twice. I saw Kersh in
the lobby that week, accepting a parcel from a uniform courier,
signing for it with the knee looping script had seen
in blue ink. After the courier left, Kersh ran his
hands over the package riverly before locking it away in
the office. I lingered near by, half concealed by a
battered fichus. A few minutes later, he unlocked the concealed
door had seen before entering the restricted sub basement. Reemerging
ten minutes late, alone and visibly tense, wiping sweat from
his brow. Compelled, I followed a distance, nearly losing him
in a haze of spring rain. He entered the main
elevator and pressed a coat of one I guess from
prior observation. A slipped up the back stairs to the
fourth floor, crouching behind a columnus cush She used his
key and four sea he slipped within, leaving the door.
Jar I moved closer, silent, catching fragments of conversation the
same calm, repeated phrases in his measured voice. No, you
can't leave yet, it isn't your time. YE know the rules.
It's better this way, I promise soon you'll have your
life back. A faint muffled reply followed, a woman's voice
strained with resignation. I recognized the cadence, the sorrowful inflection.
It was the young woman I'd seen the night before.
She protested, but only as much as it seems she
was allowed. Kersh emerged, locking the door behind him, humming
low in tuneless as he clipped his keys back to
his belt. Only when he was gone did I dare
trace my fingers along the seam of the framed slick, immaculate,
no signs of falced entry. Later that night, in my apartment,
I'd discovered an eerie pattern in the faded blue files
i'd taken from the trash. Some names had not been
crossed out at all, instead tiny notations and a different
InCred this time read hold o'er repending. These people weren't
being erased, they were being retained. I barely slip. My
mind reeled with scenario was how it Kirsh managed to
hide them for so long? Whys the liability, the endlessly
what force in an ordinary run down apartment could have
turned a missing person's story into a buried epidemic. The
following night, my tension snapped. I rose before midnight, dressed
and prepared for war, phone charge, flashlight in my back pocket,
the lock picks I had kept from my old night
watch days in hand. My plan was loose and desperate.
Catch curse in the act, gained proof on tape rescue
at least one person, if I could. Maria had left
her cart near the stairwell door as quietly as possible.
I turned her pasky in the low lock and descended
the sever stairs to the sub basement. The grind that
grew and checked in the daylight upstairs seemed even denser.
Here the air was thick with the cloying sense of
old bleach and human sweat. My flashlight, pressed tight to
my palm, revealed a low maze of pipes and a
corridor lined with bassett doors. I heard voices, three maybe four,
whispering not English, the words tumbling, quick and urgent, as
some un pleaded. A shap rerotor cut the exchange, followed
by abrupt silence. I pressed a against the chill concrete,
inching along until I reached the door. With the out
of vineou scoffed and stained. It was a jar by
a hair through the crack the scene. Unfolded Curse stood
facing two figures, both the sheveled one weaving quietly. He
leaned close and said softly, you know this is the
only way. If the system finds you, things will be worse.
Ye stay here. No one cares he leave. You're forgotten
and the only one who keeps your memory safe. The
younger of the two, her hair tangled, skin gaunt but unbruised,
shook her head. Just let me out, please, mister Kersh,
you promised, his voice hardened, Be patient Lyusha. When it's
clear you'll have another name, your old one will be gun,
and so will your travel. Isn't that what you wanted?
I snapped a photo, careful to silence the shutter. My
hat thumped so loudly I feared I would betray myself.
As he exited, Kush paused and seemed to look straight
through the darkness toward my hiding spot. I froze, but
he simply shut the door with deliberate care, pocketed his
key and slipped quietly up the stairs. Relief washed over me,
replaced instantly by surge of adrenaline. I had seen enough.
I waited count to fifty, then forced myself to move.
I gently pushed open the door. The room was cold, cramped,
a portable heater purring in one corner. Sheets tacked over
the tiny window. Piles of notebooks and magazines started the floor. Lusher,
her eyes hollow, powerless, blinked up at me, thinching instinctively.
I'm here to help you, I whispered, I'm going to
get you out. She drew her knees to her chest,
stirring at me in disbelief. The older woman, huddling on
the mattress, reached for her protectively. Who are you, she choked.
A friend, a former night watched. I know what Kersh
is doing. Hope and skeptics is a mingled in Lucia's face.
We can't go, not yet. He checks every iron. If
he finds you, he'll lock you up to We can
try the back. I told her there's a crawl space.
I can open it, but quickly now before outside footsteps
the sound of keys a surtiviiced, haror. I cursed under
my breath, impressed a woman back, closing the door gently
behind me. As the footstif grew closer, I retreated into
a gap between two water heaters. Squashed flat against a wall.
Kersh paused, turned the door knob and peered in. Everything
all right, he asked, his tone light falsely concerned, Yes,
Lucia said quickly, voice subdued. Refine his attention lingered. No
one else come by, not the cleaning staff, and no
it came, the whispered answer. Satisfied, Kurse nodded and moved on,
continuing his patrol. I waited, praying my phone hadn't given
me away. When the sound of his steps finally faded,
I slipped out and hurried up the nearest stairwell, lungs burning,
legs shaking. Back in safety of my room, I fumbled
as I transferred the recording the images po of physical
and digital into a hidden folder on my laptop. When batted,
the rain spatted glass, and for several interminable minutes, I
half expected a knock at the door, a call from
Kerse summoning me for confrontation I wasn't prepared for. But
nothing came. The only sound was distant to child's voice,
humming softly, rising and falling, as if putting herself to
sleep in a place where daylight couldn't reach. I fear
became feverish focus, the picture tip, the testimeness. They were
all pieces, but the urge to expose it had to
be weighed with reality. Who would believe any of this?
The police, the press, the other tenants already kept their
heads down, grateful for whatever quiet the new management imposed.
Stale I couldn't stop. Over the next days, I started
noticing details everywhere. A sudden pile up of delivered packages
that never got picked up, a fire exit propped open
and then slam shut with more force than wind could manage,
a faint persistence, and of something antiseptic. As I passed
near apartment Free, I spotted Maria twice more, always weighed
down by bags and glancing nervouslyep at every moving shadow.
The third time she slipped a folditude into my hand
without a word. When I opened it later I discovered
an complete map, routsdrawn and trembling barrow between safe rooms
and the main Stainwolf the guide to a place within
a place. It was an invitation and a warning. Late
on a Thursday night, unable to wait, I traced her
map down to the furnace room. The locks resisted, but
the picks worked, as they always had a pinsjuggle, the
tumblers clicked, and the thickyin door creaked in ord Inside,
I found not emptiness, but a living worn ham made
petitions divided the wide room into cells, blankets drawn between
the it exposed beams, battered chairs, food wrappers scattered everywhere against
the wall, a child's drawing. Three stick people beneath the
smiling sun. As my eyes adjusted, I caught the scent
of a ma washed body's bleach and canned meat. A
present stirred. A shape half hidden behind stack crates rose up,
fear in every movement. Don't be afraid, I whispered, I'm
here for you. Can you walk? He blinked at me,
then nodded, cautiously rubbing his hands together to coil the shakes.
How many are done here? I asked. He hesitated, gaze,
scattering sideways, and finally answered four five with Maria suntiins.
Some get moved to storage for day, some have been
here for months, I blinked, Reeling stealing myself, I urged
him come with me now, before cush the woman. I
had seen Lucia emerge from another partition and trembling on
the frame. What's happening? She whispered. I'm getting you out.
We'll go up through storage, come out near the back lot.
You'll be visible, I said, thinking aloud, but at this
hour no one's watching. I led them as quietly as possible,
following Marie's hand drawn passed through gaps in the heating ducts.
My own breath came short. The air too, thick tuesire
all around the building seemed to press closer, resisting, as
if it knew I was ruining the order it had
enforced for so long. We barely reached the foot of
the stairs when the lights flickered above, illuminating Kosh's silhuett
at the top. He wasn't armed, but his posture was warlike.
You don't understand what you're doing, he called, calm, but
bleeding with menace. If you open that door, you make
it worse for all of them. They aren't safe out there,
Lucia whimpered, shrinking behind me. The man hesitated, looking between
us and Kersh fear choking his voice, Kush took a
step down. You believe in rescuing people good, but rescue
means nothing if it erases them from everything. Do you
know what happens when the system finds them. You want statistics,
mister Thorne, I've read every discharge, every police report, most
so data lost within months of freedom. Kosh's footfuls paused
halfway down the stairs. We stood frozen. The iron door
to the sub basement gave him behind us. My heart
pounding so loud I felt it in my wrists. Lucia
helds onto my arm, her trembling barely contained, while the
man beside her, thin anxious, wiped his palm across his
cheek and seemed to shrink with each new step kersh took.
He didn't bark for ittz or shout for help. He
just looked at us with a weary patience that made
the silence suffocating. Olusha, mister Alleby, please, you know how
things go when outsiders get involved. He'll let the silence
hang his shadow and complete with a week stairwell boll flickered.
Mister Thorn, I can't let any more lives get thrown
away for the sake of a headline. Come with me.
You know you don't want to ruin what's left of
this place. For a few moments, I genuinely believed he
meant it. His eyes found mine, not the coal, dismissive
glance from months ago, but something searching, almost desperate. I
almost pitied him. Then Lucia let out a shivering gasp.
He said, if we made noise, we'd be arrested or
lose our papers. I didn't do anything wrong, It's true
at Allerby whispered a voice tense. He threatened us kersh
closed his eyes, exhaling, none of you are in danger
from me. But this world, it has no patience. No
forgive us. Down here there is at least a namee
ador somewhat to sleep. His eyes flicked to the notebook
I touched where I'd hurriedly stuffed the documents in the phone.
If you show them that, you destroy years of work
keeping people safe. I forced a breath through grit teeth.
He keep them trapped, shuffling paperwork, erasing them on a whim.
That's not safety, that's a grave. No one can see
the memory of the folder rain, soapd and battered poles
in my pocket. They have a right to exist, not
just in your files, out in the world. He shook
his head. It's simple on paper, but out there were
just another number on a list for another body in
the system. He stared at Lucia, then at me. You
honestly believe anyone outside will care for them more than
this building ever did. His calm was unmaveling, now ThReD
by thread, though his voice remained touched for fear of
attracting attention. There's a balance. Too many eyes and the
wrong people start asking questions if they don't want street
people cluttering up the place, or trouble with the city offices,
or his gaze hardened attendants who make themselves crosses to bear.
I looked past him, Maria's maps still pressed in my hand.
I calculated our distance to the main stairwell, fifteen paces
lest maybe if we sprinted, could we get past him?
Did he have a key to every lock? Still, Lucia
clung harder to my sleeve, her voice a whisker above
a whisper. Please, I don't want to die here. I
only wanted time. I banged somewhere upstairs, broke the impass,
some one shouting a tenant, perhaps were just a maintenance cot,
battered against a wall, cush tents, keys tumbling at his waist.
He risked glancing back, and that was all it took.
I jerked my arm from Lucier and pushed her head mah,
I hissed. Allerby was quick to follow, stumbling a little,
hands groping the rough concrete as we dashed past Kush.
He snatched up my sleeve of cordwomy fabric. Lucier head
now bolted up the steps, her bare feet, nearly silent.
Kersh's voice, soft and hoarse, floated after us. You don't
know what's waiting out there, but he didn't chase. Instead,
he turned and thundered down the corridor, slimming shut the
doors as he went, locking each with a practiced twist.
I heard the snap of dead bulls as panic field
adrenaline carried us up the steps, through the staff hallway
and across the lobby, where the battered fight stood. A
silent witness the burst into the outer air line, me
blinking tears from my eyes. For the briefest moment, with
the night breeze on my skin and two terrified tenants
clutching my arms, I thought it might be over, but
the city beyond was empty at this ire. A stray
car idle two blocks away. Indifferent. I pressed the phone
to my ear thumb in the emergency shore at no signal,
of course, not Kersh must have cut the local antenna again,
as he always did during maintenance. Ellerby started for the
parking lot, staggering, but luciannelt by the hedge, struggling for breath,
freezing with the enormity of it all. Come on, I
urged softly. We can't stay here, not now. We hurried
behind the delivery ramp, ducking into the loading alcove. Head
Lights flashed near the end of the block of patrol
car Maybury or another driver just passing through. I waved desperate.
The car kept moving till lights receding into the distance.
My heart started. Lucia clutched the sleeve of my jacket, shivering.
Please call my brother or any one, she pleaded, Tell
him I'm alive. He stopped picking up my calls. We will,
I promised, more to occupy our panic than out of confidence.
Another bang from d inside the building, the pounding of
the five door told me Kaush was back to securing
his weld one lock at time. Ali Be looked down,
half collapsed, hans still stained from wherever he'd been made away.
What happens now? We go to someone who is in
part of this place, I said, voice firmer than I felt.
We make them listen. But as the last echo of
Curs's footsteps faded, the dread returned. I had proof, Yes,
witnesses for now, But everyone who tried to fix things
here disappeared from the narrative, sometimes literally, sometimes because the
cystant neglected to notice their absence. We slipped into the
shadows of the alley, crossing into the next block. I
dialed emergency again, voice raw, no static. Finally a long
dead rain, then a despatcheous, bored voice. Yes, what's your emergency?
I steadied my words, made myself slow down. Marston Court apartments,
head and residence locked in the subasement there alive danger.
Please you have to send some one. Building managers keeping
people against their will. They were threatened if they tried
to leave a pause, sir, your name? A cow called passed,
slowing as its headlights fixed on as huddled by dumpster.
Please I can prove it. I have evidence, recordings, photo documentation.
There are people who can tell you, please, just to
just send an officer. The operator's voice suddenly curious, we
don't have that address on file. Are you sure you
mean Marston Court? No recent occupacy reported at that location.
My blood ran cold. It's there, It's been there for
fifty years. Check proper detached records from last quarter. Sir,
I need you to calm down. Some one is on
the way. Static. Then the lion went dead. I let
my phone drop to my lap the damp of the night,
pressing in stealing whatever false comfort outreach gave. Lucia watched
the road, silent tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks.
We sat in the dark, watching the world ignore us
for another hour, until the distant blow of police strobes
let up the damp facades of the block. Maria hustled
around the corner toward us. I shot wide. I called them,
She whispered. I said, there's trouble, so much trouble. They listened. Finally,
you must show them nonow before it's too lay through
the storm of confusion as officers spilled out, shouting first
to put their hands up, then to dropped them. Then,
realizing we were nothing like a threat, came the relief,
frayed and threadbare, of a kind of rescue. I shouted
at them, voice horse downstairs sub basement, hears them locked in.
They need help. The last thing I saw before being
hastily loaded into the patrol car. Was cursed. Framed in
the lobby doorway, regarding the arrival of the uniform chaos
with cold winded dignity. He didn't run or plead to
just watch, as if nothing could possibly surprise him any more.
Police warmed the building, Maria briefed them, and broken rushed English.
Elaby and Lucia huddle together, unwilling to fully trust the
new guardians of their fate. I surrendered the phone. A
foot is the precious tangible proof I'd risked everything to obtain.
The rest of the night passed in Blow's questions, intike forms,
explanations shuffled across metal desks. In the pale side room
of the precinct. Maria sat in the hall, face drawn,
hands shaking as she signed her witness statement. Somewhere down
the corridor, Lucia called her brother, tended of hope, flickering
at the edge of her words. By morning, rumors chased
the sunrise, raided basement apartments ahead, and tenants abandoned paperwork.
Officials spoke to the press, careful not to name exactly
how many people had been found living in rooms that
didn't exist on any blueprint. I returned to Marstoncourt under
the battter gray of post rain sky trail by a
pair of detectives and local reporters. Police take crisscross the entry.
Forensic teams worked in the basement, bagging up forms, these copies,
cash sledgers, even bags of groceries, evidence of life sustained
in secret. They escort at the former residence, passed the
lobby is, broken tiles, and out into daylight, most blank. Wildly,
stunned by the raw air and the prickle of eyes
that didn't glance away, Kirsh stood to one side, wrists
and dull metal cuffs, but regal with the survivor's defiance.
He met my gaze as they led him past, and
for an instant a trace of respect, muted, rueful, passed
between us, as if we had both played our necessary roles.
To the bitter end. News crew circled for days. New
management swept in promising reforms, blanketing the building in fresh
pain that could not disguise the warped seems or erase
the echo of hidden steps. The paperwork had recovered, circulated
through the department and order to fit for the forgotten
file shelf, the kind of case it gets referenced on
slow news nights, but leaves no mark. CRUSH's trial was
brief and inconclusive. Lawyers argued about intent. Some called him
a monster, others a madman with missplaced compassion. Are the
head and tenants, Only four were named, others their names
changed too many times by blue ink in trembling hands,
faded into the system, misfile, confused by mismatched reckets. Lucia
eventually found a relative, but she never set foot in
Masson Court again. Alleby fled the city, yearning for anonymity
among strangers. Marie disappeared, without a word to any one.
Her caught abandoned in the Serb's corridor. Keys stole dangling
from a ring worn smooth. The months blowed, the building changed,
yet nothing really changed. New cameras were installed, door locks
replaced the en Flocks of new tenants brought a different
sort for ease, one born from rumor. Yet every now
and then the hush of footsteps descending into rarely visited
cellos were a waft of bleach in the Stowell suggested
the place retained old habits, relics of the cycle that
had governed it for so long, I found myself drifting
through my days directionless. The spreadsheeted my obsess of catalog
of shadows, sat and touched on a board laptop. When
pressed for interviews, I was briefly lauded as a whistleblower,
then swiftly written off as unreliable. My conspiratorial ramblings indulgently
referenced by blogs and local news a tragedy of oversight.
The headlines called it the failure. But no crime of malice,
no crime, just slaves written with the wrong pen. At
the run moment, sometimes in the sleepless margin between four
and dawn, I imagine going back walking the corridors as
I had before during the night, to produce a cough
of flushed toilet or a sob from behind a new door.
But the new management kept the place too clean, too bright,
No one looked twice at me, and the faces in
the elevator changed too quickly to register. After a while,
even those odd shivers, reminders of something lost or something unfinished,
became easy to forget. I focus on building daytime work
at a storage facility. Numbers instead of names, locks instead
of keys that opened traps, I made a kind of piece.
By rationing my memory furdy Dale's fewer questions, I convinced
myself it was done. That's why when the envelope arrived
at the plane on LaRock kind slid between bills and
weekly flies, my hands trembled with more than just surprise.
The return address was a hollow nothing as the IP
code that matched no records printed in navy blue. Inside
A single plastic car tumbled into my lap. A drever's license,
fresh glossed, bearing my own wary phase. But the name
was one I'd never owned. A tangle of latters, plausible
but rom The birthday was almost correct, except the yeverered
off i fore and the issued eight read yesterday's day.
My pulse stuttered on the back in unmistakable trembling blue
and cacurtious handywork. A quick looping scull its eared her
welcome home. I stared at it, turning it over, feeling
the rough ridges where someone had frantically scratched out and
rewritten the information. The edges still smelled of plastic and bleach.
A noise drifted under my apartment door. A child's muffled
whimper quickly stifled, followed by the faint echo of someone humming,
breathless and raw. I got up and checked the corridor.
The lights flickered overhead, casting odd, rippling shadows along the
new paint. Doors stood resolutely closed, marked by generic gold
numbers that meant nothing to anyone not already memorize. Down
at the far end, a door had never given much
fold to stood open a sliver. I heard soft crying, distant,
barely there yet drawing me like an old familiar dream.
I closed my own door and sat on the edge
of my bed, letting the cheaply would creak beneath my weight.
The idy cod lay before me, patient as a trap.
I understood then what ker should tried to teach me,
or what he become when belief in the world's in
difference failed him. Here the cycle was in horror but persistence.
It didn't matter if people left or stayed or vanished.
As long as some one remembered them or pretended to,
the building would accommodate the new name and the new place.
Only when memories ran out did a person truly disappear.
I waited until the first light trickled and through the
blinds clutching the license in my fist, I listened for
another sign, another footstep behind placed walls, or whisper in
the vents, the low, ceaseless rob of a place that
only pretended to forget, and outside the corridor remained empty.
That the echoes and napri d'nhash began to answer back,
one by one from every closed door. I waited, listening
the hush out in the corridor, interrupted by some distant crush,
maybe a neighbor dropping a paste or slamming a closet.
But the sound was too light, too brief, to explain
the chill setling between my shoulders. The card still pressed
into my palm, I thummed a courtious trembling signature, feeling
the slight indentation his pen had left. The handwriting was unmistakable.
My name, no a name grafted on to my face.
It made me feel less like I had survived, and
more like I had been filed away properly. At last,
a heavier steps unded outside. I moved softly, pressing my
ear to the flimsy composite panel of the door. However,
it was shuffled, perhaps pausing to check a number. I
peered through the peephole. Nothing The lench showed, only the
warped gray green strip of florescent spill. My pulse dadded
a practice resignation. My whole life here had been a
training course in the art of waiting for the next
thing to go wrong. But it was the next thing.
It was the same old thing, cycling back around, names erased, thin, rewritten, less,
sealed behind bureaucracy, pained and habit sooner slept, if only
to escape. The following morning's light seeped in between warped
slats and caught the corner of the ID card glinting
off the laminatee. I picked it up and turned it
over in my hand, again, weighing whether to snap it
or destroy it. Instead, I slipped it in my wallet.
That part of the old routine came easily. I went
about my obligation's IROs of the warehouse and packing boxes,
reshelving the barely labeled detritus of other people's lives, keeping
my head down. I trained myself. I now to speak
only when spoken to you, to drift from task to
task with nothing left of the building manager's worried tidiness.
Yet at lunch, biting into a stale sand which in
the break room. I pulled the card out and laid
it foot by my elbow. No one noticed me stirring by.
The train ride home the city felt wrong, the motion
of the carriage, the thin briefly illuminated faces turned downward,
none of a produced comfort or novelty. When a step
from the platform to the cot a rain began again,
always rain, as if the world was gently washing its
hands of responsibility. One more time. There was a new
notice posted in the front glass at Marson Court. I paused,
dripping water from my hair and re attention management remodeling
unoccupied units. Residents please report suspicious activities to building support
line below. The phone number was written in a different
blocky hand new manager, I guessed. I considered calling. I wanted,
almost desperately, to believe that some one was now actually
in charge. The habits persist, and across the foy silently,
badge tucked away, smile fixed. The empty lobby plants had
been replaced, The ficus was gone, and in its place
two plastic ferns washed each other across the tile like centers.
But behind the shallow newness, the undercurrent of neglect persisted.
A brown water stain had crept out from below the
old radiator. The air held the scand of stone in
something faintly medical. Inside the elevator, the panel's beef for
basement had been drilled out and filled with the popsy.
I ran mathem over the scar and pressed forth from
my unit, at least the one I inhabited, now not
so different from the last. As the door was shut,
a woman voice called in my conversation down the whole
clift herd nothing more than don't forget they are still
hear it, and then a soft bluff that faded into silence.
As the elevator hunduput. I washed the numbers climb, third,
then fourth, fourth was clean. All the scoffs and kicks
by the baseboats had been painted over, but not yet
dulled by life. The main lights worked again. I stepped
out automatic and checked my door. The lock had a
fresh face plate of security upgrade, I supposed, but it stuck,
groaning as I twisted the key inside. I made tea,
Setting the cup down by the window, I stared out
toward the alley with us at all began later, when
the day's traffic had trickled away, and the light dull gray.
I drew the curtains and waited for some sign that
anything truly had changed. It was close to apron when
a knock came. Show up and quick through the peep hole.
Nobody only the unbroken strip of fluorescent mesh. I hesitated,
then opened the door. On my feet rested a box
sold Amazon shipping, A dressed in thick marka large and
clumsy Forner, current resident a eighty four CE. The box
itself bore no sender, no postage, yet the tape was fresh.
A brief, nasty surge of dread took me. I glanced
up and down the hole, saw nothing but closed doors,
and lifted the box inside. It weighed less than I guessed.
I slid the tape inside layers of office print outs.
I'm still damn wrapped a cheap digital recorder, one of
the clunky kind I'd used in the security booth for
noise complaints all late night incident looks. On top lay
a single slip of blue stationary pin so tremulously the
ink blood in places. Listen and remember that handwriting again.
The recorder clicked to life with up protest. At first
I heard silence, a hiss foone line sadock, then voices.
One was mine, clipped and awkward at taking a tenant report.
Who's there? The recorder played, and then the answer, A woman, Lucia,
still here. You told me, don't leave, they'll forget my name.
I snapped a player off. The memory of nights spent
pace in the holes, chasing down those faint, hopeless voices
rose up until it nearly overwhelmed me. It had been
easier to accept the explanation cursh always gave that some
people drifted in then now again. And it was my concern.
The cards in the trash, the discrepancies on the spreadsheets,
emergencies of forgetting, not of malice, but the voices on
the tape, carrot accusations. I could not shift that I
had watched the cycle grow and done nothing. Ill I
stuffed the recorder, print out and ID card into a backpacks,
laying it over my shoulder, my hands barely Shook had
already decided the new management needed of reckoning. I would
walk something into their evening office, demand action, show them
the shirts of two regimes, both building and breaking memory
in equal measure. Perhaps I'd be believed, Even if not,
I outed Telicia to Alby, to Maria. The manager's office
was brightly lit, newly painted with pamphlets about ten in services.
Behind the glass, a young woman with cropped hair sat
at a desk, phone pressed to her cheek, shuffing a
folder of keys. Her eyes flicked up when I knocked
on the window. Can I help you, she called, voice precise,
polite but expectant. I took a breath, holding my backtack
strap in both hands. I have information something. The policemiths records,
residents who went on the books, hidden units, dance stirs.
It's important. She raised an eyebrow, then gesture for me
to wait as she finished to call a replay the
speech in my head. A littany born of too many
sleepless nights. Sorry about that, you were saying. Back when
Kersh was in charge, he kept people hidden in the basement.
There's proof. No eames don't match up. Several missing others
listed as moved out, but they never left. There are recordings.
I think it's still happening, The words shot out in
a gasp. She regarded me for a long second before
weaving her fingers together on the desk. Our team audited
the last three years of records, full turnover, security upgrades.
Police found no remaining irregularities. If you have additional materials,
you may email corporate compliance. That's the procedure. She slid
a business card under the glass. How professional smile didn't
reach her eyes. Anger kindled somewhere beneath my skin. They'll
disappear it, just like always. I assure you anything important
will be reviewed, she said, But she was already scanning
the computer screen behind my shoulder. I pressed the recorder,
sack of forums and knew id card against the glass.
He should listen to this to day. Someone put this
under my door, my face for all name ishity. Yesterday.
They send it to me. It means something. She didn't flinch.
Leave it if needed, We'll get in touch. She buzzed
the secure drawer open, then took the items with gloat
hands and dropped the recorder into a plastic evidence bag.
The folder she slid into a locked box. We'll handle it.
I watched as the lock snap shut. That it, I said,
just put it away. She stood up, signaling our time
was over. Is there anything else I can do for
you tonight? Mister? She hesitated, glancing down at her monitor.
I realized then that she was reading from the room line.
My unit's label was already reset. She fumbled blatly with
the attempt at my name. I left the office without
another word, my sense of urgency curbling into the bitter
after taste of waste. The hallway felt brighter, newer, but
they I remained thick, heavy with the kind of dadness
that resists improvement. Carpets replaced, but the under padding still
held mildy. For all the changes the new management had made,
security cleaning a digital wreckass system, no one seemed able
to truly replace a resident once the building itself had
let them slip away. Outside the mail room, a frantic
energy hovered new tenants I'd meet with guarded interests. No
one asked questions, but their faces wore the tension of
people worried about things occurring. Two doors down, I caught
bits of whispered conversations as I passed. Mos of them
clipped mid sentence when they saw me. One man, hands
deep in jacket pockets, nodded at me, but didn't return
my smile. An older woman paused by her door, glancing
up and down the corridor, keys clinking. I watched her
watch me, and as I moved past, she snapped, you
stay here, lawn it just a while, I replied, honest
as I could manage. She nodded, satisfied, and ducked inside
without another whird. At my own door, something in me faltered,
that low, insistent worry I carried for months, crept back,
sliding cold between spine and ribs. I turned the handle
and entered, pausing as I heard the distinct sound of
running water from the pipes. The sink, of course, was off.
The shore head didn't leak. The noise was coming from
the shared wall, exactly where the service chaise cooded between units.
A rhythmic patter stopped, then started again. I pressed my
hand to the drywall, listening deeper. Some one next door
was moving slow and careful, as if not to draw
attention to themselves. That shouldn't have been possible on the
floor plan. No one was living in the adjoining unit
this week. It had been empty since the last resident,
a quiet man who never made a fuss, had moved
out three days ago. I had seen the movers myself,
stacking worn out boxes and the last batter chair on
to the elevator. There laughter echoing up the shaft, Yet
the unmistakable lull of a voice carrying through the thin
partition drew me closer. At first I thought it must
be the plumbing. Then the voice resolved a woman reciting
a phone number over and over, as if hoping to
etch it back into memory. The number changed as it
looped one digits, which then too, and the cadence grew distressed.
I pulled back, suddenly afraid, I grabbed my coat and
slipped into the hole, careful to close the door soundlessly.
There the corridor's hush returned, broken only by the muted
steps of some one descending on the fourth floor stairs,
perhaps a delivery or a late shift coming home. I
paused by the unit next door with that empty one.
A faint light flickered beneath the crack at the base
of the frame, testing the knob, I found it locked.
I dropped to my knees, pretending to tie his shoe,
and pressed my ear to the seam. The recitation continued,
lower and faster now until it faded into a shivering
and familiar sob. I rose and looked around for the
first time since the raid, since Lucia and eleby had
been led blinking into the fresh air. I felt the
old nase sitting certainty. The building had simply adapted. A
cycle close, a new one opened, but the appetite for
secret lives was unchanged. It was never a but crush alone.
The structure, the management, the system only ever wanted someone
in anyone, to keep the quiet rooms filled and the
paperwork up to date, no matter whose names made the
ink back in my apartment. I tried to shake it off,
but through the thin wall, the muttering persisted, barely audible
above the white noise events. Eventually, the voice shifted to
song the Lawlla by Simple and sad Son, in a
trembling alto that ate with loneliness. I recorded a snippet
on my phone, impulse and tread, both guiding me. I
played it back, wondering if I'd imagined it, but the
notes were there, wavering and incomplete. Sleep elluded me again
that night. The day there followed bled into one of
unfinished tasks. I managed little at work. The tape of
the voice next door played in my pocket until the
battery died. I bought a new notepad on the way home,
and by evening had drafted nearly a dozen variations of
complaint letters, each more measured and less likely to make
a difference. I called to support line for the building.
A robot took my message. No one returned the call.
At dinner, I heard movement overhead, a thumb, then a
scrape of heavy furniture. I went out onto my balcony,
looking up and saw some one moving behind the curtain
in five be The silhouette was unfamiliar, stooped, but as
the figure passed the window, a scrap of blue cloth
swung in their hands. Something about the color the way
glowed against the street light made me think of Maria.
I returned and saw just in time to hear a
knock on the wall, not at the door, on the
share partition, the same spot where the woman's voice had
been sinning. Three slow taps, deliberate. I hesitated hand inches
from the drywall. Then, almost without thinking, I rapped back,
saw atlence, then three sharp knocks from the other side.
Cuspump scolded up my fore arms. I pressed my palm
flat and leaned closer. Her vorse muffolds. Are you still there?
I nearly dropped my phone. Yes, I whispered, so quietly
it was barely sounded all. The next morning brought no answers,
only escalation through the wall. I heard nothing by knew
construction clatter from downstairs suggested the super was tearing up
flooring for the latest round of renovations. I caught him
in the lobby, his cover all spatted with paint. Any
one moved into four be lately, I asked, pretending nonchalance.
He frowned, rifling through his mental files. Not yet, Lee
starts next week. Someone supposed to sign today, Cancil last
Minute has been empty since Monday. He wiped a hand
on his jeans, peering at me. Why came home? Thought
I heard voices, maybe the pipes. He grunted and convinced,
and went back to wrestling cardboard through the fire door.
I stopped the mail room afterward, scanning the boxes. Sure enough,
four Bees slot was empty. No name, blate, no flyers,
nothing to indicate a life lived, just the blank promise
of future occupancy. I made note that something new caught
my eye. The slot for two D, long since purged,
now displayed a hastily handritten tagger Joe Anson. I didn't
know the name. It was fresh, the paper still culling
at the edges, crossed the lobby. An older man shuffled in,
hands loaded with two battered bags. He stopped when he
saw me watching, adjusted his grip, and nod at once
before disappearing into the lift. His face looked familiar at
too familiar shape from old security logs maybe, or an
echo of one of kershe's raised. Tenants names change, but
the building's hunger doesn't. Three days went by. I tried
to focus on anything else, work, errands, even sitting with
the chatty neighbor as he recited stores of his grand kits.
But in the quiet late evenings early mornings, the sensation
of being watched returned, and a pattern asserted itself again.
Mail moved at strange eyurs. Footsteps crossed the hole outside
my door at two or three I never heard, always
measured as though rehearsed. One wet Friday, coming home late,
I saw silhouette leaning against the far wall, hoard up
feature shaded. As I approached, she stepped directly into the
glow of the hallway light. It was Maria. Her eyes
flicked over my shoulder, testing the boundaries, then back to
meet mine. He can't stop it, she said, softly. They
just do it again and again, only new names. He tried,
But it's built into this place. Her cheeks looked pinch,
her hands chapped and row. She held a battered shopping
bag bulging with groceries. Are you hiding again? I whispered?
How did you get back in? Her smile was small
and sad. No one asked. They just let me walk in.
Everyone is new, I become cleaner or visitor. It's always
possible to join if nobody really sees you. Who's in
the old room? Naw, my question was pointed abrupt She
shook her head. Another one not safe, not really scared
to just alone. She'll stay until her least ends, and
then the next one comes. He saw how it works now. Yes,
he could go to the police again, give names, real accounts.
They can't ignore it. Twice Maria's gaze darted away. They
write different stories each time. Ye think they care, Ye
think the city cares. A bitterness, deep and exhausted kersh
He tried to protect some others he trapped. But all
the new management wants is quiet, no complaints, no news.
She looked, ready to cry. We keep watching, but nobody
changes anything. Maybe that's the real job. I watch you,
watch the building, likes having some one to remember. She
pressed the back into my arms, sudden and decisive. Take
it to the woman next door. Don't say it's from me.
I took it, nodding silently. Marie turned, walking away without
a backward glance, fading so quickly into the new brightness
of the hole that it felt like she was never there.
Inside my apartment, I opened the bag, food, yes, but
also a thin noteok with a battered cover, the kind
used as a ledger o' lock. I thumbed through names, states,
brief recordings of habits. The handwriting shifted uncertain, as if
multiple people had been updating it over time. At the
back a page called messily if you don't remember the girl.
I looked again at the wall where I'd heard the psalm.
The dreader turned, twined tightly with guilt. I knocked three times,
the faintest shuffle from the other side. I placed the
bag against the wall, then stepped back. No reply, but
a few minutes later, when I checked, it had vanished.
Only the notebook remained, now lying open to the inside cover,
where a message was written in bluink thank you. That
night I dreamed of corridors without doors, of name shuffled
in decks where the faces never quite matched the cords.
I woke, sweating the new daylight, cruelly indifferent. I made
a decision the next day at the library. I used
the public terminals to hunt for every scrap of Marston
Court's history it could find. Deed, change hands, Complaint records
ended abruptly, no matter how far back I went. Property
tax files revealed in time, months missing from the digital ledger,
gap years, unit numbers that didn't belong even in the archives,
the building of vative clarity. On my way up, the
librarian caught me. You researched city structures, don't you, She asked,
gentle curiosity masking awareness. I remember you from before, just
this building, I replied. She considered all places keep seacrets. Sometimes.
I grew up three blocks from Marston, which children weren't
to play in, nearly too many stores about people getting lost,
missing kids, stray dogs. A woman who never collected her
post parents said the apartments always its base, even when
the rest of the street overflowed. I waged whether to
push Did you know anyone who went missing? She nodded,
years ago my mother's friend. But the police just showed
to couldn't trace her. I'll lie Dlow told stories about
changing locks and forgetting which units were for like the
building needed as many people to be absent as to
be prison. Her eyes were sad. You know what it's like,
don't you. I could only nod. Armed with scraps of
old legend, I returned home the next evening. I set
up a small voice recorder in the vent. Microphone pointed
at the wall between myself and four B I wrote
a letter, simple, as anonymous as possible. If you're trapped,
if you want out, knock three times. I'll help. I
slid it under the baseboard, where only some one inside
would find. All night I have her waiting. The knox
never came. At dawn, I heard the shudder of a
lock disengaging next door, barely audible over the city's early chaos.
Pew shuffled, a plastic bag creaked. I cracked my door open,
purring into the corridor. There are young woman, little more
than a gull emerged Puddy pull tight heavy back back,
cunch against her shoulders. She glanced at my door, but
didn't meet my eyes. Her steps shuffled and her, but
not truly afraid. The rhythm said release, not escape. She
pressed the elevator call. When it arrived, she stepped in
and was gone. I have returned to my room. The
wall was quiet now whatever circle had just completed, and
NOLLA would soon begin. Outside, the sun hit the alley
just wrong, revealing a new dumpster. For a long moment,
I stood at the window, staring out, waiting for lightning
to strike or the wall to shift again, but the
patents remained. A week later, another envelope identical to the
lass my new face, new name, newday, Slightly needed handwriting,
but the message unchanged. I stared at the corridor, clean,
bright and yielding. The doors waited, patient as always. Someone
cried at the far end, and the cycle that all
persistence continued, indifferent to whether the watch is cared. It's memory,
not fear, that keeps the occupants in place. The building
does not let people disappear, not until every trace in
every name is gone. I closed my door, pressed the
card into the back of my wallet, and sat on
my striped bed, listening once more. Someone someway began to say.
I listened, and I remembered, and in that the bill
thing was satisfied for now,