I live in the basement of a really old building. It’s not like a storage basement or whatever, I’m not a crypt keeper. The building was renovated about five years ago, turned from a condemned factory into lavish apartments. The basement was the biggest apartment, with the foundation stretching a few good feet into the earth on all sides.
I originally moved into the apartment on the floor just below the top a few months after the renovations were done. I’d moved for a job, and they set me up here. If it hadn’t been for my pay bonus and my company paying for the first few months rent, there’s no way i could have afforded anything like this.
The woman who lived in the basement when i moved in was nice. She was probably in her mid thirties, black hair, nice eyes. I met her when i was getting my mail one day and we formed a sort of casual friendship. Her name was Lydia and she worked at a bank in the area. I would go to her place for dinner one night and she would come up to mine. It helped taper down the loneliness.
One of the quirks or “unique features” of this building as the brochure put it, was that there was an old service elevator that ran the length of the back of the building. Instead of closing it or repairing it, they took the elevator out and put glass in front of the opening on each level. In the basement they closed up the hole in the ceiling where the elevator had originally stopped (it didn’t go down to the basement i guess) with the thickest glass I’ve ever seen.
“They told me it was thicker than bulletproof, for insurance policies,” Lydia shrugged when I asked about it one day, “my guess is that in case someone accidentally, or purposefully, breaks the glass on another floor and falls through, they won’t break into my room and land on me.”
It made sense, honestly. I wouldn’t want that either.
About half a year after the apartments opened management decided that the glass needed to be switched out for something that was still strong, but let you see the old brick within the shaft. After that, I stopped seeing Lydia at the mailbox, and she stopped answering her phone. I shrugged it off, thinking she was really busy at work. A few days later she was reported missing.
The police came to my apartment and questioned me, asked me when I last saw her. My face obviously conveyed confusion, because they informed me that Lydia had been missing for over a week. I told them the last time I saw her was at dinner about two weeks ago, and after that nothing. I told them how I thought she was busy at work or I would have called someone sooner.
When they found the bloodstain under a carpet in her apartment below the elevator shaft, the case quickly turned from missing to murder. I was a suspect in the beginning, of course. As far as they knew, I was the last person that saw Lydia before she disappeared. I told them everything they wanted to hear, complied with every demand from them. Eventually they determined that the resident above me, an apparent registered sex offender with a prior in assault and battery, was the killer. He had a shrines worth of pictures of her strewn about his apartment, hidden in different locations. I’d only met him once before, when I needed to borrow eggs and I couldn’t get a hold of Lydia during that hazy time when she was missing but no one knew it yet.
I told friends and family alike who asked me about it how sick it made me that I had been in the same apartment that Lydia had been murdered in, borrowed something from a murderer.
He was arrested and charged, even though her body was never found.
I moved into the basement a year later, mainly because they had to lower the rent, since no one wanted to live in an apartment someone had been recently murdered in. Besides, the apartment was bigger too, and I didn’t think much about it being Lydia’s death place, but more so about it being the place she once loved and was very much alive in.
To this day the bloodstain is still present. They tore up the flooring and it had seeped into the concrete below. They put new floors over it, but we all know it’s still there. I have a rug over the spot, an added protection layer I guess.
Things were good for the first month or so. I was working late one night, my music was turned down low and I was falling asleep at my computer. What startled me to the most awake I’ve ever been was a loud thump, like something had just landed heavily onto the floor above me.
I looked up at the ceiling, wondering if one of my neighbors had fallen out of bed. After a few seconds of silence I went back to my work, chalking it up to that. The scratching started a few minutes later, like something sharp was being dragged over glass.
I got up then, turning off my music and grabbing my phone, 911 pulled up. The pit of my stomach was turning itself in knots as I walked cautiously through my apartment. All the mirrors were intact and my door was still locked. I followed the sound into my bedroom, where the glass panel in the ceiling was.
My bedroom was probably the biggest room in my apartment, so I’d divided it by using curtains. My bed was on one side of the room, and the glass panel was on the other side. It cut down on the minimal light that would filter down from time to time due to the residents having their lights on, and plus i didn’t like staring up into the shaft all night long.
I slowly pulled back the curtain, looking around the room, wondering if the panel had somehow broken. There wasn’t any glass around, but the scratching got quicker the longer I looked around. I looked up slowly and screamed.
There in the shaft, looking down at me from the glass panel was a . . . Thing. It’s leathery skin was grey and red patches, stretching tight across bone. It’s limbs were held at odd angles, like it had the anatomy of a human but something got mistranslated along the way. Jet black hair hung ragged and clumped around its face, and the side of its skull was caved in. It was clothed, but the dress it was wearing was stained a deep crimson and torn in several places. It’s nails were scratching against the glass and it leered at me with a wide, toothy grin, thin lips stretched over red teeth. It’s eyes were bloodshot to the point where only black pupils stared at me.
I yanked the curtain closed and ran out into my living room, throwing myself into the couch and covering my face. I willed myself not to cry, to stay strong, wondering if what I saw was real, or if I was so tired I was hallucinating.
I fell asleep that night to the scratches.
That was 4 years ago. She visits me every night now, always leading with that thumping. I waited for her once, staring up into the shaft, wondering how she achieved that sound. From what I can see, she materializes around the top of the shaft and falls down, landing on the side of her head that’s caved in.
I’m not afraid of her anymore. Sometimes the scratching brings me comfort at night. She never says anything, never does anything other than scratch and smile at me. I haven’t told anyone else, mainly because I know no one would believe me and this apartment is honestly my dream apartment and I worked so hard to get it.
Also because I think I deserve it, in a way. I am the one who pushed her, after all.
I originally moved into the apartment on the floor just below the top a few months after the renovations were done. I’d moved for a job, and they set me up here. If it hadn’t been for my pay bonus and my company paying for the first few months rent, there’s no way i could have afforded anything like this.
The woman who lived in the basement when i moved in was nice. She was probably in her mid thirties, black hair, nice eyes. I met her when i was getting my mail one day and we formed a sort of casual friendship. Her name was Lydia and she worked at a bank in the area. I would go to her place for dinner one night and she would come up to mine. It helped taper down the loneliness.
One of the quirks or “unique features” of this building as the brochure put it, was that there was an old service elevator that ran the length of the back of the building. Instead of closing it or repairing it, they took the elevator out and put glass in front of the opening on each level. In the basement they closed up the hole in the ceiling where the elevator had originally stopped (it didn’t go down to the basement i guess) with the thickest glass I’ve ever seen.
“They told me it was thicker than bulletproof, for insurance policies,” Lydia shrugged when I asked about it one day, “my guess is that in case someone accidentally, or purposefully, breaks the glass on another floor and falls through, they won’t break into my room and land on me.”
It made sense, honestly. I wouldn’t want that either.
About half a year after the apartments opened management decided that the glass needed to be switched out for something that was still strong, but let you see the old brick within the shaft. After that, I stopped seeing Lydia at the mailbox, and she stopped answering her phone. I shrugged it off, thinking she was really busy at work. A few days later she was reported missing.
The police came to my apartment and questioned me, asked me when I last saw her. My face obviously conveyed confusion, because they informed me that Lydia had been missing for over a week. I told them the last time I saw her was at dinner about two weeks ago, and after that nothing. I told them how I thought she was busy at work or I would have called someone sooner.
When they found the bloodstain under a carpet in her apartment below the elevator shaft, the case quickly turned from missing to murder. I was a suspect in the beginning, of course. As far as they knew, I was the last person that saw Lydia before she disappeared. I told them everything they wanted to hear, complied with every demand from them. Eventually they determined that the resident above me, an apparent registered sex offender with a prior in assault and battery, was the killer. He had a shrines worth of pictures of her strewn about his apartment, hidden in different locations. I’d only met him once before, when I needed to borrow eggs and I couldn’t get a hold of Lydia during that hazy time when she was missing but no one knew it yet.
I told friends and family alike who asked me about it how sick it made me that I had been in the same apartment that Lydia had been murdered in, borrowed something from a murderer.
He was arrested and charged, even though her body was never found.
I moved into the basement a year later, mainly because they had to lower the rent, since no one wanted to live in an apartment someone had been recently murdered in. Besides, the apartment was bigger too, and I didn’t think much about it being Lydia’s death place, but more so about it being the place she once loved and was very much alive in.
To this day the bloodstain is still present. They tore up the flooring and it had seeped into the concrete below. They put new floors over it, but we all know it’s still there. I have a rug over the spot, an added protection layer I guess.
Things were good for the first month or so. I was working late one night, my music was turned down low and I was falling asleep at my computer. What startled me to the most awake I’ve ever been was a loud thump, like something had just landed heavily onto the floor above me.
I looked up at the ceiling, wondering if one of my neighbors had fallen out of bed. After a few seconds of silence I went back to my work, chalking it up to that. The scratching started a few minutes later, like something sharp was being dragged over glass.
I got up then, turning off my music and grabbing my phone, 911 pulled up. The pit of my stomach was turning itself in knots as I walked cautiously through my apartment. All the mirrors were intact and my door was still locked. I followed the sound into my bedroom, where the glass panel in the ceiling was.
My bedroom was probably the biggest room in my apartment, so I’d divided it by using curtains. My bed was on one side of the room, and the glass panel was on the other side. It cut down on the minimal light that would filter down from time to time due to the residents having their lights on, and plus i didn’t like staring up into the shaft all night long.
I slowly pulled back the curtain, looking around the room, wondering if the panel had somehow broken. There wasn’t any glass around, but the scratching got quicker the longer I looked around. I looked up slowly and screamed.
There in the shaft, looking down at me from the glass panel was a . . . Thing. It’s leathery skin was grey and red patches, stretching tight across bone. It’s limbs were held at odd angles, like it had the anatomy of a human but something got mistranslated along the way. Jet black hair hung ragged and clumped around its face, and the side of its skull was caved in. It was clothed, but the dress it was wearing was stained a deep crimson and torn in several places. It’s nails were scratching against the glass and it leered at me with a wide, toothy grin, thin lips stretched over red teeth. It’s eyes were bloodshot to the point where only black pupils stared at me.
I yanked the curtain closed and ran out into my living room, throwing myself into the couch and covering my face. I willed myself not to cry, to stay strong, wondering if what I saw was real, or if I was so tired I was hallucinating.
I fell asleep that night to the scratches.
That was 4 years ago. She visits me every night now, always leading with that thumping. I waited for her once, staring up into the shaft, wondering how she achieved that sound. From what I can see, she materializes around the top of the shaft and falls down, landing on the side of her head that’s caved in.
I’m not afraid of her anymore. Sometimes the scratching brings me comfort at night. She never says anything, never does anything other than scratch and smile at me. I haven’t told anyone else, mainly because I know no one would believe me and this apartment is honestly my dream apartment and I worked so hard to get it.
Also because I think I deserve it, in a way. I am the one who pushed her, after all.