And to think, the shower used to be my safe space.
The building was new. Seven floors, thirty-five units. My apartment was number 23, sandwiched in between two floors. The walls and fixtures practically sparkled–but it wasn’t long before I realized that the builders had cut more than a few corners.
Like noise installation. When my neighbors had a party, a fight, or a kinky boss-secretary roleplay, I could hear everything. It felt like being underwater in a crowded pool, all those distant, muffled voices that surrounded me on all sides…
The shower was the quietest room in the house, at least when the neighbors weren’t using their bathrooms as well. I scheduled my bathroom time to avoid theirs, putting on some tunes while I showered and shaved, taking a brief vacation from the universe of noise outside.
The first time I heard it, I thought it was just water burbling in the drain.
The second time, I figured my downstairs neighbor must have a new shift. Why else would I hear voices coming up the drainpipe at midnight?
A female voice, too…which was strange, considering my downstairs neighbor was a fortysomething male truck driver. Maybe he had a girlfriend. I finished rinsing off, and heard no further noises from downstairs.
I was steaming up the mirror with hot water and humming along to the radio when I heard her again: a distant, mumbling voice from beneath the shower. I couldn’t make out the words, but it wasn’t loud enough to disturb me. She kept repeating something over and over in the same tone and cadence–it made me wonder if maybe she was singing too. The thought brought a smile to my face as I brushed my teeth in the foggy mirror.
“New girlfriend?” I found an excuse to ask my neighbor about the mysterious singer downstairs during one of our awkward elevator conversations about sports and the weather. He snortedand shook his head. “It’s just…” I went on, “I thought I heard singing from your bathroom…”
“Son, I’m a trucker. I usually shower on the road. Half the time I’m not here, and I know that no girl has ever sung in my shower.” My downstairs neighbor gave me another odd look over his shoulder as he shouldered past me and out of the elevator. My comment had been pretty personal, after all–maybe I should’ve left things alone.
But the voice in the shower had other plans.
Not five minutes later I heard it again, while I was washing my hands. It sounded like it was coming from right beneath me–but from several miles away at the same time. I felt like a creep, but I turned the water off to listen anyway.
…the echoes…
That was it. I blushed. Maybe she was talking about me. I finished up and left the bathroom.
The next time I heard her, I actually leaned a little closer to where the sound was strongest: the shower floor. Now it came through more clearly:
The echoes…
So dark…
So cold…
So far away.
As I’d thought, she kept repeating the same words over and over, like a song or a prayer. I was starting to get a little concerned–not only for my over-the-road neighbor who might have a squatter, but also for myself: there was something eerie and a little bit insane about those words:
The echoes…
So dark…
So cold…
So far away.
It made it hard to concentrate on my shower. The shadows behind the curtain took on a life of their own. Every time I closed my eyes to shampoo my hair, I imagined opening them to see a starved, cadaverous, insomniac face–the kind you get by doing nothing but singing in the shower in the dark all day–inches away from me, licking its bare gums hungrily.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
But the mysterious voice still kept disturbing my showers. No matter how high I turned up the radio, I realized that those whispers would always feel like they were right behind me. Finally, a night of bad sleepy and sticky, stressful day at the construction site pushed me over the edge.
“HEY!” I yelled into the emptiness. “Would you knock it off already?!”
The repetitive words stopped, and I felt bad almost instantly.
…you…you can hear me…
The echoes.
“Yeah, I can.” The awkwardness of this bathroom conversation set off my nervous tic: I started scratching my neck. “So, look, uh, if you could just not–”
So dark…
So cold…
Bend down…
I have something I need to tell you…
It was a bad idea, and I knew it was a bad idea–but I bent down anyway.
…Closer…
…clooooser….
I kept going until my cheek was almost touching the cold, wet tile. This was the stupidest–
Pale fingers with too many joints shot up from the drain and grabbed my ear, pulling me down. I moaned and squirmed, but those thin fingers held me against the wet tile as the voice in the shower whispered on. I felt moist, dead breath against my cheek–
…Shhhh.
…I just want to warn you…
…don’t look up.
…The thing that did this to me…
…it’s crawling above you…
…right now.