Speaker 1: Calarugus Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Ghost Scary Stories and the October Records, a
month long Halloween nightmare. This is episode eight The Apartment Building, Part.
Speaker 3: One, October eighth, nineteen seventy four. Silas Crane The Millbrook
Arms apartments seven stories of modern living, they advertised when
it opened in nineteen seventy seven stories of convenient downtown housing.
Now it's becoming something else. It started on the seventh
floor with Walter Holloway in Apartment seven G. His neighbors
called the police when they hadn't seen him for four
days but could see his shadow pacing behind the curtains
ways pasting day and night. When the super unlocked his door,
they found nothing and everything. The apartment was empty of Walter,
but full of water, standing water with no source. The bathroom, kitchen,
bedroom all flooded with three inches of black water that
reflected nothing. Walter's clothes floated in his bedroom though there
was no current. His furniture sat in the water, dry
above the water line, wet below. But the water itself
defied logic. It didn't flow, it didn't drain, it just existed.
Then they found the words written on the windows in
condensation going down one floor at a time, bringing the
deep up with me. By this afternoon, every resident on
the seventh floor had stopped answering their doors. Twelve apartments,
forty three people. The police broke down doors to find
the same thing in each unit, empty of people, full
of water, and shadows still moving behind curtains, Shadows that
pace and pace and pace. The sixth floor residents have
started complaining about water dripping through their ceilings, but when
maintenance checks the seventh floor again, its bone dry, no water,
no moisture, nothing but the shadows and the smell of
deep lake mud.
Speaker 1: I arrived at the Millbrook Arms at seven am October eighth,
twenty twenty five. The building stood against the gray morning
sky like a monument to nineteen seventy's optimism, concrete and
glass reaching up seven stories, each floor identical. Each window
reflected the same clouded October light. But something was wrong
with the reflections. They showed water where there shouldn't be water,
showed a movement where no one was moving. The current
building manager, David Park, met me in the lobby. He
looked like he hadn't slept in days. You'll hear about
the water he said, not a question. What water follow me.
The elevator ride to the seventh floor felt longer than
it should. The numbers climbed slowly, two, three, four, between
four and five. I could have sworn I saw another
number four point five, a floor that shouldn't exist, But
then we were at five and climbing the seventh floor
hallway was wrong. The carpets squelched under our feet, though
it looked dry. The fluorescent lights flickered in a rhythm
like breathing, and the smell lake water, something dead and wet.
Started October first, David said. Mister Holloway in seven G
called about a leak. Said water was coming through his walls,
not from pipes, through the actual walls, like the dry
wall was sweating. He showed me to seven G. The
door stood open inside impossible. The apartment was flooded and
dry simultaneously. I could see water, black still water covering
the floor, but when I stepped in, my feet stayed dry.
The water existed without existing, present but not present. Mister Holloway,
I called a shadow passed across the far wall, a
man silhouette pacing, but there was no man to cast it.
He's been gone since October second, David said, but his
shadow never left. Neither did the others others. He led
me down the hall, opening door after door with his
master key. Every seventh floor apartment was the same, empty
of residence, full of impossible water shadows moving independently on
the walls. In apartments seven B, I found something else,
a journal floating in the not water. The pages were
dry despite being submerged. The handwriting was fresh. Day one,
the water is speaking. Day two, I understand what it's saying.
Day three, I'm going down to join the others. Day four,
we're all going down floor by floor, bringing the deep
up with us. The sixth floor. I said, what's happening
on the sixth floor. David's face went pale. The same
thing started yesterday. Water complaint, shadows wrong, three families already gone.
We took the stairs down. The sixth floor was beginning
its transformation. Water stains spread across the ceiling in patterns
that looked deliberate, purposeful, like a map or instructions. Elderly
missus Holloway in sixth CE answered her door when we knocked.
Her apartment was pristine, but she stood in three inches
of water. I couldn't quite see it's climbing, she said,
matter of factly. Al, we're sinking. Hard to tell the
difference anymore. My nephew, Walter said it would be like
this before he went down. Walter Holloway from seven G
he's your nephew, was is will be time works different
in the water. He's on every floor now. All the
Holloways are where the pipes the water rises through. As
she spoke, I noticed her reflection in the hallway mirror.
It showed her submerged hair, floating, eyes open underwater. But
she stood before me, perfectly dry. The building is the
eighth point, she continued. Eight was always ambitious, the mill
brook arms reaching up. But everything that reaches up must
also reach down, and we've reached too deep. The lights
flickered in the darkness between. I saw the building differently,
not seven stories rising up, but seven stories sinking down,
a structure that existed equally above and below, with the
ground floor as the surface of something vast and dark.
How many Holloways live in this building?
Speaker 2: I asked?
Speaker 1: Thirteen? Missus Holloway said, one for each floor, and six
extras for the floors that don't exist yet. But they will.
By Halloween, the building will be fourteen stories, seven up,
seven down, a perfect reflection behind her, The water I
couldn't quite see, began to rise, or she began to sink.
Her ankles disappeared, then her knees, though she never moved. Tomorrow,
the fifth floor, she said, as the invisible water reached
her waist, Then the fourth, then the third. By October fourteenth,
the whole building will be submerged. But don't worry. The
residents won't drown. We'll learn to breathe water. We'll become
the water will be the tide that spreads to the
other buildings, the other blocks, the whole town. Eventually the
water reached her neck, she smiled. The Holloways were always
the water bearers. In seventeen seventy four, we maintained the wells,
in eighteen twenty four, we ran the water works in
eighteen seventy four, the reservoir in nineteen twenty four, the
flooding in nineteen seventy four, This building, and now wear
the water itself. She disappeared beneath the surface that wasn't there,
but her voice continued bubbling up from nowhere. Tell the
others the pattern isn't a symbol. It's a depth chart,
showing how deep each point will sink. The apartment building
goes deepest seven stories down, seven stories of remembering how
to drown. When I returned to the lobby, I found
water seeping under the stairwell door, but when I opened it,
the stairs were dry. The water existed in some other
version of the building, a version that was slowly superseding
our own. David Park stood at his desk, surrounded by
tenant complaints, all about water, all from different floors, all
describing the same impossible flooding. What do I do, he asked,
How do I stop it? I couldn't answer, because I'd
noticed something in the lobby directory. The building had seven floors,
but the directory showed fourteen seven up seven down. Floors
negative one through negative seven were listed with the same
apartment numbers, the same tenants, but all the names on
the negative floors were followed by the same date. October
thirty first, nineteen seventy four. Tomorrow I'll play October ninth.
Tomorrow I'll learn how deep the water goes. Tonight, I'm
researching the building's history. It was built on the site
of the old Millbrook Reservoir, the reservoir that failed in
nineteen twenty four flooding the lower Town, the flood that
killed exactly seven people, all named Holloway. The pattern isn't
just marking points, it's marking depths, and the Millbrook arms
is showing us just how far we're all going to sink.
Speaker 2: Ghost Scary Stories is a production of Calaroga Shark Media.
Some elements of AI may have been used in this
production that it was written at, Mixed and produced by
Real Live People Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott