Speaker 1: I graduated college three months ago, and it already felt
like a lifetime. The ceremony had been small and awkward.
My parents hadn't flown in. I stood there alone, clutching
a piece of paper that had cost me nearly seventy
thousand dollars, wondering how it was supposed to fix anything.
The degree was useless communications, some vague, frilly word that
had sounded smart when I was nineteen and sounded absolutely
idiotic now. Every interview ended with a half apology about
experience requirements or budget freezes. I finally landed something entry
level in the city, but the pay barely scratched the
minimum wage. I had enough in my checking account for
a single tank of gas and maybe two decent meals.
My savings, what little I had hoarded through part time
jobs during college, disappeared faster than I could even feel it.
Leaving the car became my home. I'd been sleeping in
the back seat for the past week, folded up awkwardly
across cracked faux leather that stuck to my skin. Every
morning I showered at the gym, I kept my interview
clothes folded on the passenger seat to keep them from
wrinkling too badly. I told myself it was temporary, but
every night staring up through the cracked windshield made it
harder to believe. The affordable apartments I could reach were
two hours away by bus from my job if the
bus even arrived on time, two hours each way, four
hours of my life every single day wasted before I
even clocked in. My body already ached by the time
I finished my shifts, and the thoughts of sitting stiff
and sweaty in a plastic while the city crawled past
the windows crossed whatever energy I had left. There was
another option. A building ten minutes from work, tucked between
a broken laundromat and an abandoned Peter's shop, dirt cheap,
less than half the rent of the units across the river.
The photos online made the place look rough, but at
that point I would have slept in a closet if
it meant a roof and a locked door. I barely hesitated.
Pride was for people who had choices. I signed up
for reviewing. The next morning. The landlord met me out front,
a thin man with nervous hands and a sweat damp collar.
He looked at me the same way somebody might look
at a problem they could not avoid. His greeting was short,
almost mumbled. I followed him up the cracked front steps
and through the main hallway, which smelt sharply of bleach
that had failed to mask a deeper, more sour odour.
Every doorway past seemed slightly off its hinges, and there
were dark patches and the ceiling that looked suspiciously fresh.
The unit he showed me was on the third floor.
He fumbled with the keys before getting the door open.
The walls had been painted once, maybe a decade ago,
but the color had faded into a sickly yellow green.
Chunks of paint curled up near the corners of the rooms.
The floors were stained soft in places where water must
have gotten underneath. The living room held a single ceiling
van that sag downward, spinning slowly and unevenly. The windows
were cracked at the corners, patched up poorly with clear tape.
There was no furniture, no appliances, beside a dented mini
fridge shoved against the far wall of the kitchen. I
wanted to turn around and leave, but there was nowhere
else to go. Sleeping in the car for another week
meant risking parking tickets I could not afford, or worse,
I kept my mouth shut as we tore the bedroom,
which was just large enough for a mattress and a
pile of regrets. When we reached the bathroom, the landlord hesitated.
He touched the door frame with his finger tips, then
gave me a stiff smile. You should take a look
at this, he said. I stepped past him and peered inside.
The bathroom was small, narrow enough that stretching both arms
would have hit either wall. The floor was lined with
cheap linonium tiles. A cracked mirror hung over a rustained sink.
The toilet looked usable, but sat slightly uneven, as though
the floor beneath it had sunk inward, My eyes finely
landed on the shower, a small box in cabin with
frosted tempered glass walls that had gun cloudy with age
at the bottom near the drain. Near the drain, there
was a jagged crack stretching across one panel, sealed over
sloppily with silicone colk. The patch job was so obvious
it almost drew the eye before anything else. The landlord
cleared his throat softly behind me, but said nothing. I
nodded stiffly, pretending to examine the rest of the room,
but I had already made my mind up. It did
not matter. I had no other options. I signed the
lease that afternoon. The building was already humming, with muffled
voices and the occasional slam of a distant door. When
I unlocked the apartment, the door scraped against the floor
as I pushed it open. I stepped inside and dropped
my duffel bag on to the cracked floorboards. Dust puffed
up in little clouds where it hit. I did not
even bother unpacking. I kicked the door shut behind me
and went straight for the bathroom, tugging my shirt over
my head as I went. The floor of the bathroom
was called against my bare feet. I twisted the shower
knob and waited, half expecting the water to come out
brown or not at all. Instead, a weak but steady
stream poured from the shower head. It was lukewarm at best,
but after days of Jim showers and cord gas station sinks,
it felt almost luxurious. The cracked patch near the drain
caught my eye again, but I forced myself to ignore it.
The water pattered against my skin, washing away three days
worth of grime. In exhaustion, I leaned against the wall
and closed my eyes, letting the sound of the water
drown out everything else. For the first time in days,
maybe longer, my muscles loosened. The worry, the fear, the
constant hum of hunger and anxiety that lived behind my
ribs eased just a little. I do not know how
long I stood there before it happened. At first I
thought it was the pipes, a faint noise buried under
the rush of the water. Then it sharpened, frantic shuffling sounds,
as if someone were dragging themselves back and forth across
the bathroom floor. Behind that, rising up in broken waves,
came the unmistakable sound of screaming, faint but filled with
a raw, ragged panic. My eyes snapped open. I stumbled backward,
slamming my shoulder into the wall of the shower cabin.
The sound stopped instantly, cut off mid scream. All I
could hear was the water splashing against the plastic floor
and the frantic pounding of my own heart. There was
nothing now, no shadow moving under the crack of the door,
no handle rattling, no shape looming in the steamed up
mirror across the room, as I'd feared. It took a
full minute before I managed to breathe properly again. I
wiped the water from my face and gave a short,
humorless laugh. It had to be stress, sleep deprivation. Maybe
something I had read online was playing tricks on my brain.
I remembered to read it thread buried deep in a
horror of bread it where people talked about hearing strange
noises if they closed their eyes too long in the shower. Still,
it made more sense than anything else. I finished rinsing
off as quickly as I could. I dressed and crawled
onto the bare mattress I had dragged into the bedroom.
The ceiling van creaked and shuddered with every rotation. Sleep
came slowly, weighed down by a knot of her knees,
and I could not shake loose. The next day at
work was worse than anything that had come before. My boss,
a red faced man with a voice like a broken radio,
found new ways to humiliate me. Me Every mistake, every
misst memo, every delayed email was met with a fresh
round of public brating. I spent the whole day swallowing
my words and smiling through clenched teeth. By the time
my shift ended, I was barely upright, my feet ached,
my spine felt as if it had been compressed into
half its size. My head pounded with the dull pressure
of a migraine creeping in. I needed a shower. I
needed to scrub away the stink of the day before
it soaked into my skin. My body moved on autopilot.
I peeled off my work clothes, tossed them into a
sad heap in the corner, and stepped into the bathroom.
The shower groaned. When I turned the knob, the lukewarm
water drizzled out, and I stepped in, letting the spray
hit my face and chest. I closed my eyes. The
screaming hit almost immediately. It clawed at my ears, shuffling heavy,
dragging footsteps. Just beyond the shower door. Before I could
even react, a loud thud echoed through the tiny bathroom.
It was as loud as what I'd imagine a grenade
going off is like. I jerked my head up, so
burning into my eyes, blinking against the sting, I saw
my shampoo bottle lying on the floor of the cabin,
spinning slightly as it leaked bright blue. My heart pounded.
I wrenched the door open and stepped out into the bathroom,
dripping water everywhere, searching for something, anything. I stood there
for a long moment, breathing so hard my vision blurred
around the edges. There had to be an explanation, so
I decided to check. I started with the apartment up stairs.
If someone was messing around up there, making noise, it
would explain everything. I trudged up the narrow staircase, the
carpet crunching. I knocked, waited, knocked again. The hallway lights
flickered weakly overhead. No answer. I knocked louder, my hands
stung with the effort. Still nothing. A door downstairs creaked open.
I headed back downstairs and saw a woman poking her
head out, white hair pulled into a messy barn, glasses
perched low on a nose. She looked at me with
a curious tilt of her head. You looking for someone, dear,
she asked. I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling foolish. Yeah,
sorry to bother you, Just trying to figure out if
any one lives right above me. I thought maybe there
was some noise coming from that unit. She smiled a soft,
patient smile and made a look even older. Nobody's been
up there in months empty. You must have heard something else.
I nodded, feeling heat rise into my face. She introduced herself,
said her name was Missus Cartwright. She lived across the
hall from me. She mentioned her grandkids used to visit,
but they had moved away recently, and now it was
just her. I thanked her quickly, said something about needing
to get to work, and retreated down the hall before
the embarrassment could root itself any deeper. Back inside my apartment,
and I locked the door and leaned against it, breathing
out slow. If the place upstairs was empty, and if
the place next to mine housed an elderly woman who
needed help carrying her groceries, then who had been making
those noises. I chewed on it for the rest of
the day, even at work the next day while my
boss barked orders and slammed drawers. The thought gnawed at
me from underneath. By the time I got home, I
decided to test it. It felt stupid, superstitious, but there
had been a pattern, and I had ignored it. The
noises only ever came when I closed my eyes. Every
single time it started the moment my vision went dark.
That had to mean something. I stripped down, stepped into
the shower, and twisted the knob. The water sputtered and
spat before settling into a weak stream. I let it
run over me and kept my eyes wide open, staring
straight ahead at the fogging walls. Nothing happened. The minutes
dragged on, the air grew heavy with steam. My arms
prickled from the temperature drop every time the water pressure stuttered,
but the bathroom stayed silent. I let out a slow
breath and decided to push it. I closed my eyes instantly.
The bathroom exploded into chaos. Screaming, furious and desperate rattled
the walls. Heavy dragging footsteps stumped around the outside of
the shower. The shampoo bottle bounced off the floor with
a sharp crack. Once again, I yanked my eyes open.
The sound vanished so fast and left a hollow ringing
in my ears. I had proven something to myself, but
it did not feel like a victory. It felt worse
if I'm being honest, But I was stubborn, and admittedly
I was curious. I decided to try again. This time,
I would keep my eyes closed longer. Maybe it would stop,
maybe it would burn itself out. I shut my eyes,
squeezing them tighter to brace against the expected noise. The
screaming came fast, roarer than before, as if whatever it
belonged to had been waiting for me to test it.
It built into a frenzy. The temperature around me dropped sharply,
cutting through the steam with a damp, icy edge. I
felt something brush against my back, a cold, wet hand
that smeared water across my skin. I flinched, but kept
my eyes shut, muscles locked. Then came the pane. A sharp,
raking sensation tore across my upper back. It was deep
and hot, blooming into immediate agony that stole the breath
from my chest. I screamed and staggered forward, slamming into
the shower wall. My hand scrambled for the door handle.
I shoved it open and tumbled out, falling onto the
cold linonium of the bathroom floor. I gasped for air
every inch of my back, screaming at me. Water splattered
onto the floor beside me. My hand shook as I
pushed myself upright, moving straight for the mirror above the sink,
I turned, craning my neck. Three long scratches ran diagonally
across my back. The skin was torn in uneven lines,
angry and red, already starting to bead with a thin
trail of blood. I pressed the towel against the wound,
wincing as the fabric stuck to the blood. My mind
spun with explanations, each one weaker than the last. There
had to be a reason, There had to be a
way to understand. It was the shower haunted. I hated
using that word. I had already started feeling like a
lonesome reditor, screaming into a dead subredded about ghosts. Yet
I couldn't deny what was going on, not when I'd
just been attacked physically. I did not sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, even for a second,
I felt the memory of the scratches burn across my skin.
Morning came slowly bleeding through the cracked blinds in sickly
strips of light. I got up, already dreading the day.
I sat at the kitchen counter. If the battered slab
of plywood could even be called that, and opened my
banking app. I knew it would be bad. I had
been ignoring the low balanced alerts for days, pretending that
if I did not see the number, it would not
be real. Thirteen dollars and seventy three cents. I stared
at the screen until the numbers blurred. Rerent was coming up.
Food was becoming a luxury gas for the car was
hanging on by a thread. There was no money for
anything else, not even small indulgences. Forget moving out. I
was trapped in a place that was clearly haunted. I
pulled up a search bar and typed in cost of exorcism.
The results made me laugh, short, brittle laughter that cracked
and died in my throat. Hundreds of dollars for consultations alone,
thousands for anything serious. Half the websites looked scammy. The
other half looked worse. I slammed the laptop, shot and
rested my forehead against the counter. I could not leave.
I could not fix this. I could barely afford to
stay alive. The next few days blurred into something heavier
than exhaustion. I went to work, I came home, I slept.
I avoided the bathroom unless it was absolutely necessary. I
stopped showerings. It was manageable, deodoran, wet wipes, anything I
could find to scrub away the worst of it. But
as the days stretched on, the smell clung to me.
It wrapped around my clothes, settled into my skin, buried
itself into every inch of fabric and hair. I caught
people at work wrinkling their noses when I passed. My
boss started mentioning personal hygiene standards during meetings, staring pointedly
at me when he spoke I no longer had a
gym membership. I thought I was going to be fine
now that I had a place, but clearly I was wrong,
and now with rent, I could no longer have forward one.
I felt it. I felt every minute a sickly, oily
grime that no amount of wiping could scrub away. It
made my skin crawl. Still. The thought of stepping back
into that shower of closed my eyes, even for a second.
While trapped in that narrow coffin, rooted me in place.
I told myself I would figure something out. Maybe find
a cheap motel for a night, maybe find a public
pool where I could sneak a rinse. One night, after
another shift, spent awake and fully miserable, I collapsed onto
my mattress and opened my phone without thinking. A notification
blinked at the top of the screen. A friend request
a name jolted something in my chest. Allison. We had
shared two classes during my second year of college. We
had laughed over terrible group projects and late night coffee runs.
We had made promises to keep in touch after graduation.
I hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Then I accepted.
The messages came fast. Hey, long time, no sea. How
have you been? What are you go up to these days?
I lied, said work was keeping me busy. I said
the city was treating me well. Before I could second
guess it, she asked if I wanted to grab a
drink sometime, catch up properly. She would be my part
of town over the weekend. I stared at the message,
heart hammering. I thought about the shirt tugged in the
back of my chair with dried sweat. I thought about
the sour, greasy smell that clung to me so stubbornly
I could barely smell anything else. I did not have
a choice if I showed up like this, I would
be dead in the water before the night even started.
I needed a shower. I needed a step into that
cursed rotting shower. I tossed my phone on to the
mattress and stared up at the ceiling, counting the slow,
uneven rotations of the ceiling van until I could convince
myself to stand. I peeled off my clothes, feeling my
stomach twist into knots. Every step toward the bathroom door
felt heavier. My hand trembled. When I reached for the knob.
I pushed it open. The air inside was thick and heavy,
still damp, even though I had not run the water
in days. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
I twisted the knob on the shower. The water came
sputtering out, colder than usual, but steady enough. I waited
until the cabin filled with steam before stepping in. The
door clicked shut behind me. I tore myself. I would
keep my eyes open the entire time. I would not
let them close, not even for a second. I repeated
the promise in my head as I reached for the
shampoo bottle. As I scrubbed the layers, of filth that
coated my skin. As the water poured down steadily, I
tilted my head back to rinse out the SuDS, careful
to keep my eyes open. Soaps stung, the foam slid
down into my lashes. My eyes stung, and my body
almost betrayed me, but my eyes stayed open. The cabin
shook slightly as I managed to keep my vision going.
That surprised me a little. Things would only happen when
I closed my eyes, never when I had them open.
Minutes crawled by, I washed, I scrubbed, I rinsed, and
through it all I kept my eyes wide open, fixed
on the walls. Reliefs started to creep in at the
edges of my mind, a dangerous feeling, but I could
not help it. I was almost done. I could towel off,
get dressed, leave this nightmare behind me. I reached for
the forest to shut the water off, and suddenly the
pressure in the shower changed. The steady stream faltered, stuttered,
then surged back stronger, hammering down against the floor, Something
shifted in the air. The temperature dropped hard enough to
suck the breath from my chest. A scream irrupted from
all around me. It sounded furious and almost sad. The
walls around the shower shuddered, vibrating so hard I thought
they would tear themselves apart. Was this thing mad that
I kept my eyes open the entire time. The floor
underneath my feet jumped and twisted. Bottles shot off the shelves,
slamming into walls and the floor with heavy, wet cracks.
Something dense and heavy banged against the outside of the
shower door, over and over again, loud enough that the
entire cabin shook under the force. Ice cold water was
getting into my eyes, blurring my vision. The drain beneath
me gurgled, heaving upward instead of pulling the water down.
Thick clumps of hair, long and matted with something black
and sticky, twisted free and floated up toward the surface.
Small jagged objects bobbed up alongside it, teeth tiny and cracked,
some still speckled with dry blood, something red roseen, thick
slow bubbles staining the water in white pink streaks that
swirled around my ankles. The cabin floor pitched under me,
and I nearly slipped. I forced my fingers against my
water filled eyes and rubbed them hard enough that bright
spots exploded across my vision. It hurt, but I managed
to keep them peeled open. The world came back into focus.
Pressed against the inside of the shower door, directly in
front of my face, a palm flattened itself against the
tempered glass. The skin pulsed faintly, as if breathing. There
was no arm connected to it, just the pale, bloated
hand flexing his fingers against the door. I fumbled backward
until my spine hid the opposite wall of the cabin.
The water kept pouring from the shower head above me,
colder than ice, now soaking through to the bone. It
stung across the half field, scratches on my back, and
made my teeth chatter so violently I could hear them clacking.
I reached for the knobs to shut the water off.
My fingers slipped once, twice, three times, but I finally
managed to twist them both shut. Nothing changed. The water
kept blasting at full force, roaring against the cracked floor,
splashing high enough that it sprayed over the doorframe. The
drain only vomited more filth up into the small confined space.
Hair wrapped itself around my ankles tightening with every shift
of my weight. The water level was rising. It climbed
past my ankles up to my shins. The coald bit
deeper with every inch. I grabbed the door handle and yanked.
It did not budge. I pushed harder, using both hands,
now throwing all my weight against it. The shower door
groaned under the strain, but held. I slammed my shoulder
against it once, twice, three times. Still nothing. Another handprint
bloomed beside the first one. The fingers splayed wide across
the surface, some longer than others, joints bent at strange angles.
The prince pressed in, dimpling the plastic, as though something
immense leaned on them from the other side. Who was
trying to trap me in here? I screamed high and panicked,
raw air tearing out of my throat. I punched the
door pane, lancing up my arms. As my fists met
the unforgiving glass, My knuckles split on the rough edges.
Blood smeared across the door in messy, broken arcs. I
punched the gain again. The water rose past my knees,
swirling with hair and teeth and bitter of something too
small to name. The hand Prince did not pull away.
They pressed harder. I could barely feel my fists anymore.
My knuckles throbbed with every heartbeat, slick with a mixture
of blood and water. The shower filled up hire lapping
up toward my waist, the freezing water numbing everything it touched.
The hand Prince leaned in harder, the plastic bowing inward
under the pressure. I knew I could not keep hitting
the door. My arms were spent. I needed to do
something else. I braced against the wall of the cabin,
sucking in a breath so cold it burned the back
of my throat. I lifted my knee and slammed it
against the crack section near the bottom of the door.
The impact sentered sholt through my bones, rattling my teeth together.
The crack widened, spider webbing across the surface, jagged, uneven lines.
I pulled back and did it again, putting every shred
of strength I had into it. The third hit split
the tempered glass completely. The pressure of the water burst
the door outward with a violent pop, sending a tidal
wave crashing across the bathroom floor. I was carried with it,
thrown against the base of the sink. My head cracked
hard against the cabinet, and for a second the world
spun into dizzying, colorless shapes. I crawled backward on shaking
hands and knees, slipping across the flooded lenonium, gasping for air.
My body shuddered uncontrollably, soaked through to the bone, every
muscle twisted up tight with fear and cold. The bathroom
lights flickered overhead. Somewhere behind me, the water sputted to
a from a broken shower, the last of the water
pouring across the floor in steady, unstoppable waves. I pressed
myself into the corner, panting, watching the shattered door swing
uselessly on its broken hinge. When I finally stood, my
knees buckled. I grabbed the door frame for support and
staggered into the main room, leaving a trail of wet
footprints behind me. I did not step back into that
bathroom again. The next morning, I made a decision. It
was not a proud one, it was not a brave one.
It was what I had to do. I knocked on
Missus Cartwright's door, standing awkwardly in clothes that smiled faintly
off panic. She answered quickly and knitted shawl wrapped around
a narrow shoulders. Her face softened and when she saw me,
I asked if she needed any help around the house.
Grocy runs heavy lifting, anything at all. I told her
I'd be happy to do it. I told her it
was no trouble. She smiled a real smile, the sort
of smile that lit up a whole face, and said
she could use her hand now. And then I mentioned,
as casually as I could, that my shower was broken.
I asked if she would mind letting me use hers
once or twice a week until I could get it fixed.
She agreed without hesitation. From then on, I spend as
little time in my own bathroom as possible. I brush
my teeth of the kitchen sink. I used the bathroom
only when I absolutely had to. Luckily, the date went well,
Allison did not seem to I noticed the faint stiffness
in my posture. I returned home and decided to hang
up curtains just past the kitchen sink so I wouldn't
have to look at the shower anymore. I don't know
what to tell my landlord about the damage, but he'd
have to deal with it. I'm sure he knew the
place was like this, and he never decided to tell me,
so I won't tell him either,