“You have a lovely night now! Drive safe!”
Paul, the manager who takes over my shift at the Endwater Lodge, yelled to the back of my head as the front door was sliding shut with a small hiss behind me. He never knew to watch his volume past 7 pm. It’s a small lodge, your voice travels throughout the entire building.
Instead of heading back in to lightly chastise sweet Paul like I normally would as a general manager, I just rolled my eyes and made the short walk to my car. It was a Friday before a very busy weekend, the lodge was packed and the guests were full of “I’m on vacation” wine coolers. They were loud, mean, and impatient.
But my unusual double shift was over, and all I could think about was my bed. Normally someone else took the afternoon shift on Fridays, but everyone but Paul and I was out sick that week. So I worked the morning to late evening, the first time I had ever done so in my years of working here. My schedule was the only one that didn’t change, it had stayed pretty consistent after I had been promoted—one of the only perks of being the GM.
The drive home didn’t take long, a quick 10 minutes through the densely populated suburbs that surrounded the lodge. This apartment was in the perfect location, a gift brought to me on a once silver, now patinated platter.
Coming upon the apartment that night, I could feel the unease building in my stomach as I looked into the dark windows.
Before living there I had lived with my parents, but they had informed me that I had a couple of months to find a place as they were moving to their final resting grounds. Florida.
I worked at the lodge non-stop for weeks, picking up extra shifts so that in the event an apartment came into my sights I could afford it. The listing practically found me, a flyer had been posted to the bulletin outside the lodge. A perfect little two-story for a very cheap monthly price. It had space for a craft room, allowed pets AND had a pull-in garage. No street parking for my old Buick.
It was the perfect place for me, so I scheduled a walk-through within 5 minutes of viewing the listing. I heard back in seconds. The viewing went perfectly, the landlord loved me and seemed quite desperate to have someone fill the vacancy. Either I was the only one who reached out about the listing, or he had a hard time keeping someone here. I could feel that he was buttering me up as we walked through, so I knew the catch was coming. The catch did, right at the end as I was about to sign the lease, in the form of “House Noises”.
That’s literally what my landlord called them. House noises.
He kept reiterating that it had to be the house settling, or the water heater clicking, or maybe it was the plumbing. It had been happening since he took on the property, and there wasn’t any explanation for it. He’s had pest control, inspectors and plumbers check every part of the house. They found nothing. He even showed me documentation that they had inspected the place. Reading through they seemed just as confused as the landlord.
Taking one look at the rent prices in any other place, I told him I had good noise-canceling headphones and that I’d take it. I can deal with “house noises” as long as the thing isn’t going to fall on me.
It definitely wasn’t going to fall in, the house was solid, I could see that just from looking at it. It was built in the 40’s, a craftsman style house in the middle of modern pre-fabs. I had my father who has a history in construction take a look at it, and he said the same thing as the others. A beautiful house with a strong foundation.
The noises persisted, even after confirming that they shouldn’t. They started out small, a scratch and a creak every now and then. An odd noise from the basement, a small pitter patter in the attic. I blamed the house settling, mice and the hot water heater for as long I could, but after a while I couldn’t reasonably blame the house. The red flags were waving so persistently, but I couldn’t bare leaving this gem of an apartment.
I also couldn’t leave the stray cat I was feeding. I had never seen it with my own eyes, but I kept finding mangled mice in my backyard. In hopes of getting it to stop leaving corpses everywhere I started leaving out a bowl of kibble every night. And every morning it was left sparkling clean, every last pebble eaten. I thought the cat was thankful for a meal it wouldn’t have to chase, but it still left corpses all over. Insatiable. I kept feeding it, hoping one day it would stop.
So I learned to try and co-exist with the sounds. Only one event was ever really concerning at the time.
I was getting ready to take on a last-minute afternoon to evening shift. Someone had asked to switch shifts last minute the night before, so I slept in through my normal morning shift. I was brushing away my late morning breath when I heard something move across my attic. A long drag of something heavy being pushed across the uneven floorboards. I heard it catch and fumble, as if it caught on something, and then I heard it resettle back onto the attic floor.
I grabbed my phone and went to stand on my sidewalk while I waited for the police, dialing 911 before I even made it out of the house, slamming the front door harder than I meant to in my rush to get out. They made it in minutes, searching the house, the attic, and the basement but there was no one there. I went up with them to the attic after they came down with nothing to report, and found exactly what they found. Nothing.
Nothing had been moved in the attic. I started to think I imagined the whole thing. While searching for the intruder in the small attic space I noticed some odd markings on a dresser that was here when I moved in, five small mold spots sat like fingerprints on the corner. The only thing different or out of place since the last time I was up here.
There were no leaks or reasons for the furniture to get moldy, but the spots were present nonetheless. I cleaned them with bleach water and notified my landlord, they were still present but small after I scrubbed at them. The landlord was still in the process of hiring someone to clean it.
There hadn’t been any other sounds like that, but smaller noises continued. I was trying to pretend that they didn’t bother me, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t afford rent anywhere else, so I moved on as best as I could.
Leaving the lodge that night, the tiredness sat heavy behind my eyes, I let the unease sit in my stomach. No sense in fighting it. Once I was in bed, the comforter bundled around me, even the noises couldn’t penetrate that feeling of safety. I slept heavy, and that night I knew I would be gone to the world before my head hit the pillow.
The process of parking my car, unlocking my door, and throwing my work bag down was branded into my muscles at that point. Before I knew it I was stripped down to my underwear, leaving my work clothes in the hallway to wash the next day, and then I was making my way up the stairs to my bedroom.
Turning at the top of the stairs I took in the sight of my bedroom door, the feeling of unease was blaring in my stomach now, present all over my skin.
My bedroom door was closed.
I hadn’t closed my door when I left.
I never did.
My body cautiously took me to the door without me asking. My hand reached for the handle like a magnet to metal. My palm touching the smooth cold is what awoke me out of my stupor, taking my hand away the thoughts started to spiral behind my tired eyes.
- I should go down to my car and call the police. I should go back to the lodge and have Paul come search the house with me. I should call my dad -
Before I knew it my hand was back on the door handle, and I was pulling it to the side with the softest of clicks, taking caution in a house that only I should occupy.
I needed to see what had been plaguing me and this house for months, and I just knew the answer was in there. Something deep in me said to look upon this with only your eyes, and for some reason I listened.
I let the door follow it’s natural path to the wall but stopped it before it swung open fully. My eyes immediately fell to the bed, the only thing out of place in my dark room, the outside lamppost light illuminated my small room enough for me to take in the figure laying under my pale yellow comforter.
There was someone in my bed.
The first thing that hit me was the smell, a heat was present in my room that had never been there before. The smell of rot, festering and hitting my nose, coiling and almost causing me to gag out loud. The smell of cat food lingered in the air, it was an unmistakable smell.
I followed the figure with wide eyes, starting at the grey feet hanging off the end of my bed. My sheets barely covered their ankles, the sharp bones protruding and cutting against the pale paper-thin skin. The sound of gruff breaths took over the static in my ears. Long, raspy chokes filled the space between me and them, making my skin crawl whenever their breath would hitch and gurgle out. My eyes found their back, they were turned to me, oblivious to the fact the owner of the house returned.
Their back was covered in the same pale grey skin I had seen on their ankles, but it was pockmarked with odd black spots that stood out so harshly against their backdrop. My mind immediately thought of the black spots in my attic, the spread was the same.
I could see the bumps of their spine and the tips of their shoulder blades, they looked like they would slash right though the thin skin. Their spine was bent, hunched unnaturally and at such a severe angle. Spindly hair covered the head that was turned away from me, greasy and matted to the back of it’s skull, chunks missing in spots leaving nothing but pale rotted skin in it’s place. The hair that was left around the bald spots was long enough to trail across my white sheets like an oil spill. The black spots were spreading off their back and onto on my sheets, reaching all the way down to the side where my mattress and box spring met. Eating whatever it could find. This person, this thing, filled my bed like they owned it.
I needed to leave.
With all of my willpower, I started to back away from the threshold, never letting my eyes leave the sleeping figure. I brought my hand up to find the wall, letting it be my guide back to the top of the stairs. I was only a couple of steps away from the top stair when my hand caught on something hanging on the wall.
A picture frame holding me and my father at my graduation. I had just placed it on the wall a couple of days ago, trying to bring comfort to this odd place. It started to swing back and forth, a perfect pendulum, scraping against the drywall and echoing in the silent house.
I could both hear and see the figure stirring. Their breath had caught in their throat, hacking its way out of their mouth with a wet guttural sound. It sounded exactly like the noise I thought the water heater was making, but now I could hear how unnatural it sounded. I don’t know how I ever convinced myself it was a manufactured noise.
I could see their arms pushing them up from the nest they had made, could hear their bones cracking and clicking. They were turning and turning, a large long unatural bend until their eyes met mine.
Deep-set eyes peered out from between the strands of long hair, sat above sunken starved cheeks and a long skeletal nose. The whites of their eyes took over, a cloud of milky white that bled across where there pupils were supposed to sit. The same deep black marks present on their back covered their face, spreading across their cheeks and nose, digging into their skin and eating at the flesh they were covering.
Their mouth hung open like a scream, stuck in a mimicry of horror. Their jaw swung on the same pendulum my picture frame had found, like it wasn’t attached to their skull. Hanging on by ligaments and muscle, thin skin stretching and spreading to keep it present.
The scream that released from me was unbidden, but it set off an important switch in my head. The switch to run, the need to flee.
Turning I stumbled my way down the stairs. I heard an odd muffled screech of something behind me, closer than I wanted it to be. It almost sounded like my name. A contorted version, but the syllables were there. It made me run faster, fumbling down the steps as quickly as I could.
I pushed my way off the wall at the bottom of the stairs, sending my body careening toward the front door. Not thinking, I ran straight past my work bag and clothes, it wasn’t until I was by the garage door that I thought about the keys sitting near the front door. Turning back the door was still wide open, but the thing wasn’t there. Instead of thinking any more about it, I ripped my eyes away and took off down the street.
My brain thought of the nearest safe haven, and my feet automatically took me to the lodge. Without looking back I sprinted down the dimly lit streets, my feet screaming as they hit the uneven hard sidewalks. I heard a muffled screech again but it was far away, contained in that house. I could almost feel that it stopped following me after I made it out the front door, but I wasn’t going to let feelings overtake logic. I wasn’t going to stop until I was inside somewhere that wasn’t my apartment or the outdoors.
It felt like an eternity, but finally, my eyes met the fluorescent lights leaking out of the sconces by the front of the lodge. My fists found the front door first, slamming like they could break through the key card locked metal.
Paul’s wide eyes met mine, taking in my almost naked appearance and ushering me in. He found a thin comforter in the backroom for me to cover myself with and sat with me holding my cold hands until the police arrived. Paul had called them, but they had already been called by my neighbors. Some had even seen me running down the sidewalk, awoken by the odd screeching they heard. I never even thought to slam on their doors. I had just wanted to get away from that house. To get to someplace I trusted.
With the police present, I started in on what I had seen. Paul listened as I told the story of what I found in my bed. If my mind were in a different space I would have known to omit certain details, details that made the entire thing sound impossible.
I took in the faces of the men listening to me after I finished with my story and could tell Paul was the only one who believed me, who actually took in the words I was saying. Three of the policeman left to search my house and the area for a “deranged homeless man”, leaving one policeman to keep watch with Paul and I at the lodge.
They found nothing. They searched the house from top to bottom and found no one. They found my spotted bed sheets, the twisted mess of comforter the stranger left for me, my clothes and work bag. They found everything I had mentioned, but no sign of anyone. Paul led me to a vacant room, checking all the nook and crannies for a pale man when I asked him to.
Paul came in late the next day to wake me, knowing that I hadn’t slept a wink. He had checked on me so many times throughout the night and morning, peeking in to check on my form but meeting my unsleeping eyes everytime.
He brought me breakfast and notified me that the police were back to ask me more questions. I had them come to the room to talk, not feeling like having this chat in the busy lobby. We discussed my story again, me reiterating the same information I told them the night before. They must have expected a different story, but I knew what I had seen and didn’t want to lie to make others more comfortable. They told me there wasn’t much they could do since they didn’t find the suspect, but that they would put out a BOLO for a man matching that description, and that they would have someone sit outside my house for a few weeks.
I told them I would not be living there anymore, I would only return to get my stuff. The only thing I asked of them is that they destroyed my bedding as I didn’t want to see it upon my return, and that they were present while I packed up my stuff. They sat outside on the front stoop while Paul and I messily packed up my things. I had called my landlord and left a voicemail with him about what had happened, but he never returned my calls.
While packing up the odds and ends in my bedroom and the adjacent hallway, I noticed that the picture frame I had bumped in to was gone. I looked all over the hallway, asked Paul if he had grabbed it and he said no, stating that he hadn’t seen a frame there to grab. After searching for a while I decided it didn’t matter.
Before I left, I felt called to the attic. To the dresser covered in spots.
I guess I felt the need to verify it, that the mold was real and I hadn’t imagined it. I’m still not sure why I went up there, to be honest. I remember painstakingly scrubbing at those spots, there wasn’t any need for verification. But my whole body said to visit that space one more time.
Paul followed me up without asking, which I was very grateful for. Walking toward the dresser my foot found an odd board. When my foot sat directly in the middle of it, the other side of the board clunked against the bottom of the dresser. Standing on either side of the board didn’t move it, the pressure had to be applied right in the middle.
I had never noticed it before, it was always flush with the floor when I was up here, airtight to the joists below. When asked Paul helped me move the dresser away from the odd board.
Pushing again on the middle, the board gave way, wiggling out of its tight space. Without the dresser there to stop it, Paul and I slide the board aside with ease.
Once moved the smell of rot and cat food filled the small attic space. My eyes watered immediately, my lungs sucking the fragrance into my nose, leaving me gagging. I heard Paul stagger backward, and when I turned to check on him he was holding the wall to try and steady himself.
Sitting below the joists, above the ceiling panels, and underneath the floors we were standing on, was my picture frame.
Mine and my father’s face was smiling back at me, mold dotting the glass surrounding our faces. The floor around the frame was covered completely in mold, the black taking up so much of the space that I couldn’t even see the ceiling panels anymore. Small corpses of mice were decomposing into the mold, bones poking out of the black, a quick meal for the void to take. With my hand covering my nose, I slammed the board back into place and pushed Paul toward the entrance of the attic.
I told the police about what I had found, what conclusion I had decided on, and left.
I haven’t heard back from them since the last time I called a couple of days ago. They stopped answering my calls after a while, not wanting to listen to deranged telling’s of a man eating mice in walls. So I left them with the house, left them in the past and tried to start the process of healing.
Three weeks later I find myself here, in Paul’s guest room. The entirety of my things packed and slid to the side, sans bedding and picture frame. I’ll be living here until I can find a new place, or until I feel comfortable to go out on my own again. Paul stated I could be his new roommate, and I’m thinking more and more about taking that offer. I don’t know if I can ever live by myself again.
Although, I wasn’t ever really living by myself now, was I?
Everything was going as okay as it could, considering the circumstances. Each day I could feel my paranoia lessen, each day I felt more like myself. Even Paul and I were starting to get closer, eating dinner with him most nights was starting to be something I looked forward to.
Things were getting better. They were really starting to look up.
Tonight when I returned from my shift at the lodge Paul was sitting on the couch, eating leftover stir fry that I made the night before. I rushed up the stairs to change into comfier clothes, ready to have some stir fry and complain to Paul about the guests of the day.
Reaching over my head to put my oversized night shirt on my eyes followed the side wall up to the ceiling over my bed, foggily grazing where the paint met the ceiling. In an instant, the fog cleared when my eyes met small pockmarks.
Black spots of mold were starting to spread across the ceiling like stars.