The last time I visited my friend’s apartment, it was raining. The apartment was on the 5th floor of a walk-up, and as I climbed the stairs I had to awkwardly lean against the wall of the stairwell for balance, as I was struggling with a heavy package I was carrying in both arms. When I finally reached the 5th floor I managed to open the stairwell door with my elbow, and my wet shoes made a squelching sound on the carpeted hallway floor as I walked to the apartment door.
After setting the package I’d been carrying down beside me, I fished the key out of my pocket and unlocked the door. Picking the package up again, I stepped into the apartment. Before closing the door behind me, I flipped the foyer light on with my elbow, then walked in a bit further and did the living room lights as well. Only then did I close the door behind me. This done, I walked into the living room and set the package down on the coffee table. Although the sun still wouldn’t set for another hour, the rain and overcast sky made it as dark as the night would be. Although the lights in the living room were on, there seemed to be a lingering gloom in the corners and the dark hallway which led to the rest of the apartment. Despite this, though, there weren’t many complaints I could make about the space.
My friend’s apartment was always a treat to visit, even when my friend, the main draw of the place, was not there. It was airy and spacious, with high ceilings and a row of tall windows on one wall overlooking the river. It was one of those incredible old Victorian places, with the original molding and woodwork still in perfect condition and the wide planks of the hardwood floor dark and glossy. But the best part was the art. My friend has an extensive art collection, and really tasteful too. Some really beautiful Italian tapestries. When they were away, which was often, they would get any packages due to arrive shipped to my place and I would bring them into the apartment directly. With them not there to buzz the delivery guys in, packages would often just be left in the front lobby, where they often mysteriously went missing. It was a bit of a hassle lugging the bigger ones over from my place, but I didn’t mind. My friend always paid when we went out to eat, so I figured it all evens out. And I got to look at the art too–on this visit, as almost all my visits, after putting down the package I turned to study one of the tapestries hanging on the walls. I could’ve turned on more lights to see them better, but I wasn’t going to stay for long. They were better in daylight, and I wanted to leave in time to get a bubble tea before the shop closed.
Even as I looked at the tapestries, though, I found my gaze drawn out those big windows, the darkness of the early evening shallowed and diluted by the glow of the streetlights. My friend must have had the windows double-glazed, because while I saw the rain falling and cars passing, the apartment was silent. It was the kind of silence that seems to almost be a sound, when a place is so still and empty that it almost creates a hum of static. Leaning forward, I rested my forehead against the cool glass and watched the street.
After a few minutes my forehead started to feel a little numb from the cold glass. I was just lifting my head from the window when I heard behind me a whistle. It wasn’t a loud whistle, or long. It sounded like someone in one of the rooms to the back of the apartment had whistled the first note of a tune without continuing it. I immediately froze, and a deep sense of dread crashed over me. I listened sharply to try to catch the sound again, because it had been just quiet enough that I started to doubt if I’d actually heard it. But as I stood there unmoving, all I heard was the static silence, which seemed to somehow get louder. Unblinkingly I stared at the window, but now not at the scene outside, but at the dim reflection of the room behind me in the glass, but it was too dim to make anything out clearly. Standing there frozen with dread, I tried to parse the source of my fear. If there was someone in the apartment, I felt, perhaps overconfidently, that I could handle it. But that sound was something—uncanny.
After hearing nothing for some number of minutes or hours, though, I very slowly began to turn. As more and more of the apartment came into my view, my fear grew, my heart beating and beating. Finally I saw the dark hallway which led further into the apartment, and although it was just how it had been it made me sick with fear to look at.
Slowly, very slowly, I began to move across the living room to the foyer and apartment door, staring into the dark of that hallway, staring, staring, staring—at any second I expected a figure to appear, a figure or—something, to appear—when I heard it again, two notes this time, no louder than before, and I knew somewhere down that dark hallway, something whistling, something down there in the dark, whistling, there was—stumbling, I ran backwards out of the living room, through the foyer, arms feeling blindly for the doorknob and staring, never taking my eyes off that dark hallway as I practically fell out the door, slamming it, turning to run to the stairwell and practically throw myself down it, glancing back up the stairs at every turn to look for something up there, behind me, not sure if I heard that whistle again or the echo of my sneakers squeaking on the floor as I ran. As I flew out of the doors of the lobby and onto the dim street I became aware that there were tears streaming down my face. I didn’t stop running until I ran into the grocery store a few blocks away.