The Third Floor

I jolted awake, it was another sharp, distinct clack. The first one had caught me at that point where you’re not sure whether I was asleep or not. But this time round I was alert enough to know the difference.

I lay wide awake in the dark, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling of our rented apartment. My girlfriend, Maya, was fast asleep beside me, her breathing slow and even. I couldn’t help thinking about it. It had sounded like something slow and deliberate. Kind of like the dull echo of footsteps on a wooden flooring. But we’re up in a third-floor apartment and our landing outside was bare marble. I tried to convince myself that I must have been dreaming. What else could it have been? I turned onto my side, clutching the sheet to my chest, and closed my eyes in the hope of drifting back to sleep.

I tossed and turned but I found myself staring in the dark at the door, my right ear propped up to check for any tap, any sound. But nothing, just Maya’s deep breaths and a dreaded silence that seemed to mock me.

I couldn’t help but recall that day. It must have been three years ago at least. Three years to the day I had met her. I’m not sure if “met” is the right word to use but whatever it was, my thoughts dragged me right back. Back to that wretched, centuries-old house in the old part of the city.

We had been looking for a place to settle when Maya’s Aunt Liz called. She had come across a grand town-house going well under the local market rate. It was too good to be true. It had to have been a mistake, but what did we have to lose? Liz had set it all up - we met the landlady, and she drove us straight there.

She parked in the square as the old cobbled alley was pedestrianized much like most of the old town center. The whole place smelled of damp stone and musty cellar air blowing up through metal floor grilles. Once inside, it wasn’t much better. A strong smell of mold and damp hit us as we entered. The building was stark, echoing, and stripped bare. Peeling paint, cold stone, empty rooms, not a single nail left in any wall. If there was anything striking, it was the bare emptiness of those rooms. No furniture, no chairs, no tables, no paintings, damn, not even a box to let on that someone had even been there. Whoever had lived here, had certainly done a great job of emptying the place.

We climbed floor after bare floor until we reached the third level, where the stale smell of an enclosed place seemed strongest. Maya pulled a face but refrained from commenting.

“It’s an old home,” the landlady offered. She crossed the room towards an old closed balcony and struggled to force open the small wooden windows there to let in some fresh air. “It has been closed for a while,” she explained.

Looking around the equally bare room, I noted a solitary closed door on the landing.

"Go on in," the landlady urged.

Behind that old ceramic knob lay a room that made no sense. Unlike the rest of the empty house, this room was fully furnished and inexplicably lived-in. An old style bed between two nightstands, a matching chest of drawers, and a vanity unit in the corner. It was one of those period pieces, the ones with the three way mirror, only the mirrors looked somewhat faded. It wasn't just the furniture, a hand-knitted cotton bedspread covered the made-up bed. A woman’s shawl at the foot of the bed; a man’s silk shirt draped over the back of a chair; things all over the place.

It was just odd. What was a used bedroom doing in an otherwise stripped and bare house? It became weirder once inside the room. My eyes started taking in the small details. On the vanity unit there was a large comb and some loose hairpins beside it. To the left, a silver hairbrush with strands of grey hair still woven into its bristles. To the right, a framed faded sepia photograph of what looked like a married couple.

Maya picked it up. "He kind of looks like you," she exclaimed.

I glanced at it, not sure what she was on about. The couple looked like they were from another era.

"No, he doesn't," Aunt Liz interjected.

"Just look at his eyes," Maya insisted.

"I said he doesn't." There was something strangely sharp in her voice. “Don’t touch anything!”

Maya shrugged and put the photograph back.

At that moment the air in front of the vanity mirror turned ice-cold - a chill that made the hair on my arms stand up.

Panicked and eager to leave, I noticed a low wooden door in the corner by the bed. It was secured by a simple sliding latch. For some reason I felt drawn to it.

"That leads to the roof," the landlady called from the landing. "Go on up." Strangely, she had remained there, glued to the threshold, never entering the room.

I stepped into the dark passageway and the girls followed. Before I could take three steps, the heavy door creaked and slammed shut behind us. The latch dropped into place with a definitive click.

"It won't open..." Maya whispered, her voice trembling in the near pitch black.

"Oh my God, she locked us in here," her aunt gasped.

I made my way back past them and sure enough the latch wouldn't budge. “It’s just an old door,” I suggested, trying to keep my cool. “Let’s just head to the roof.”

Fumbling through the narrow passage, we found a spiraling stone stairwell. We rushed up toward the daylight, bursting onto the open roof and the fresh evening air. But the relief vanished the moment we looked over the parapet. The roof of the neighboring house had completely caved in. Charred rotting rafters, crushed furniture, and wild vegetation choked the wreckage below.

When we finally forced our way back down the spiral steps, I led the way back into the dark passageway. I had in mind to kick that door open but the latch that was stuck just moments ago, inexplicably offered no resistance this time round.

The landlady was still waiting on the landing just outside the room, exactly where we had left her. She appeared completely unbothered, acting as though she hadn't heard a thing. Once we were all out of the dreaded room, she proceeded to close the balcony windows at which point we gladly hurried down the main staircase.

On reaching the ground floor she asked if we wished to see the basement. We didn’t even have to look at each other before we all blurted out that we were fine, thanks. So in no time we were all out in the street with a sigh of relief.

As the woman was locking the main door, all three of us kind of stepped slowly backwards, kind of afraid to look away. Suddenly from just behind my left shoulder a shrill shaky voice rang out and I literally jumped.

“The windows are open,” the old lady stated pointing upwards.

She must have been over eighty years old, frail-looking and seemed rather poorly dressed. I had backed up right across the narrow street and the old lady had apparently popped out of a doorway behind me.

Windows? I could have sworn the landlady had closed them before we descended.

I looked up and sure enough the windows of the closed balcony on the third floor were all propped up.

The landlady hadn’t seemed to have heard her, so I pointed out the windows to her.

“Oh,” she said, somewhat surprised.

“Could you go up and close them for me?”

“No way I’m going back up there…”

“Please, it’s three floors,” she pleaded.

“Just leave them open,” I shrugged, making it clear I had no intention of going back up there.

Resigned, the landlady went back inside. Once she was out of earshot, the frail woman beckoned me closer.

"Are you interested in that house?" she asked, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

"No, just looking," I stammered.

"Don't buy it," she ordered flatly, her sunken eyes staring right through me.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just... don't.”

“But why? What's wrong with it?" I insisted, a chill running down my spine.

She ignored the question, pointing a bony finger toward the caved-in ruins next door. "I used to live there," she said matter-of-factly, before retreating back into her doorway.

On the drive back, we never said a word. I guess we were all still taking in the whole thing. But later that evening inevitably we brought it up.

“Damn, that was scary,” Maya said.

“And that room on the third floor, like what was that all about?”

“That sure was creepy as hell!”

“Not as much as the old woman!”

“What old woman?” Maya looked surprised. “The landlady wasn't that old!" 

“No, not her. Down in the alley,” I explained. “The woman who was talking to me.”

“I never saw any woman. But then again, I was like still staring at the door, like half expecting something coming out of there I guess. Anyhow, what did she tell you?”

“She wanted to know if we’re buying the place. She was kind of adamant we didn’t!”

“What? Like why?”

“I don’t know, it was just uncanny!”

We didn’t know what to think of the whole thing. The incident had left us unnerved and we kind of avoided ever mentioning the episode again after that.

That was until about two years later when one evening we happened to be back in the area. We were taking a stroll through the old picturesque alleyways when inevitably the subject turned to the old house and our little misadventure. We couldn’t help wondering what had become of the place. Curiosity got the better of us and we decided to head to that narrow cobbled alley.

From the corner, it was already evident that something about the house had changed. Its upper balcony was clearly renovated and the large green door freshly painted. We of course wondered who would have dared to go for it when a middle-aged couple entered the alley from the far-end walking towards us. Sure enough, we pretty much came up to them right by the old house, and the man started fumbling for his keys as we stared at them in disbelief from across the narrow street.

Suddenly, a voice whispered from inches behind my ear. I literally jumped. The same frail old woman stood there just behind me in the exact same open doorway across from the dreaded place.

"You like that house, don't you?" she mocked in a low, wheezing whisper.

"No," I managed to whisper back, my skin crawling. "I wouldn't want it even if it was free."

“Why did you come back then?" Her voice was low, almost a hiss.

That caught me off-guard. I stepped back, confused, almost stumbling over myself, not knowing what to say.

Instantly, the old woman raised her voice, shrill and clear across the narrow street, addressing the couple at the door. "This young man here is just telling me what a lovely house you have!"

Mortified, I ducked my head, grabbed Maya’s hand and literally ran out of the alleyway.

“What just happened back there?” Maya was confused.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to talk about it.” I was breathless and shaken. Who was this woman and what is her obsession with the old house? Coming across her once is easily put down to a casual encounter but twice? Was she somehow guarding the place? And why was she tormenting me and the new owners? It’s one of those stories that you simply do not find an explanation for, so you put the whole thing to coincidence and kind of avoid mentioning it.

That is until some months later. Maya and myself had been visiting her aunt Liz. At one point, talk inevitably came to that day.

“That dark passage still gives me the creeps,” Maya started.

Aunt Liz laughed. "It's funny now but I could have sworn the landlady had locked us in there that day!"

“It was an old door," I offered. “The latch was probably rusty." 

“Well, whatever, that was one weird place,” Maya said.

“It does have a somewhat colorful story, though,” her aunt replied.

“What do you mean, colorful story? I thought you just came across it by chance!”

“Kind of,” Liz started. “But I asked around and got to know some stuff about the place. A bit of an urban legend, really.”

“What do you mean legend? Like what?”

“Well, they say the mother died tragically next door and the daughter killed herself over there overwhelmed by guilt.”

“Guilt over what?”

“The story goes that the daughter had married against her mother’s wishes. What's more, her destitute husband wanted to start a new life somewhere else to make ends meet. The mother was desperate. Apparently one night, a fire broke out in her home next door - the whole place caved in and the mother died in there.”

“But what did that have to do with the daughter?”

“Seems the mother couldn’t accept it. Some say she killed herself, others say she was drunk at the time, probably dropped some lamp that started the fire. Whatever it was, I guess the daughter felt responsible for her passing.”

“What about the husband?”

“People say he was heartbroken but he had no choice but to move on.”

That kind of put things into perspective. But to my rational mind, it just still didn’t make sense. I tried to convince myself that my fear had been entirely imagined, the strange room upstairs was somehow still being used, the woman across the street just an eccentric neighbor, the cold spot was a draft, and the story of the woman and her daughter was just local gossip.

It's probably nothing, I’d lied to myself, over and over, trying to bury the memory. But some memories refuse to go away. Especially on a dark and sleepless night like this.

What if it was the mother, after all?

Thoughts drifted around in my head. Unanswered questions, blank faces, distant voices. A tiredness enveloped me and I drifted slowly away into blissful nothingness.

That was until there it was again. Another sharp, distinct clack.

I jolted awake, my heart instantly hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I lay frozen, staring up into the dancing shadows around me, straining to hear past the rush of blood in my ears.

It wasn't the dull groan of the house settling, it was the heavy, bone-sharp strike of stacked leather against the bare parquet outside the door. A step, slow and agonizingly deliberate. Someone was there.

I sat straight up in my bed, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness around me. There was a knitted cotton bedspread up to my waist, while I was wearing a white silk vest that looked unusual. I looked around me. Next to me a woman was sound asleep in equally strange garments, a silky gown with ruffles around her neck and wrists, and a bonnet of sorts around her head.

“Mary Beth?” Hang on. Who’s Mary Beth? I don’t know where this name is coming from.

I looked around me, unsure of my surroundings. In the far corner ahead, a three-way mirror multiplied our reflection in the dim light. I was confused, I did not know where I was. Yet in a weird way, this place felt oddly familiar.

That is when I heard the noise again, this time clearly just behind the door. The ceramic knob was turning slowly and deliberately. I froze in place, unable to move watching the door open to reveal a dark figure of a woman out on the landing holding a flickering burning oil-lamp in her left hand that filled the bedroom with a warm glow. Momentarily, she paused there and drew a shallow, restricted breath. Then she entered with a distinct strike of a stacked leather boot and a strange, dry crisp, sweeping sound as heavy garments rasped against the wood paneling.

It was Beth’s mother, in her massive dark Victorian gown. As she turned to face me, her face was contorted in a mask of pure fury, her eyes wide and completely bloodshot, her right arm raised, fist tightly grasped around a butcher’s knife that glinted in the lamp light. The moment she locked eyes with me, she let out a raw, guttural scream.

“You will not take her away from me,” she shouted, before lunging across the bedframe, knife swinging towards me.

“Nooooo!” Mary Beth threw herself between us, intent on stopping her. It was too late, the knife descended tearing through flesh and bone. Her limp body dropping before me. I screamed into the night…

“Wake up! Wake up!” Maya was shaking me rapidly.

I snapped my eyes open. The night lamp was on. Maya was sitting upright beside me. I was still in bed.

“Wake up, you were having a nightmare.”

I sat up, still out of breath, looking wild-eyed and confused. Maya got out of bed to fetch me a glass of water. I took a deep breath, relieved that it had all been an ominous dream. I glanced back over at the doorway, which looked far less eerie under the warm light of the lamp.

It was all a bad dream. I had just let my imagination run away with me. We were three stories up in a rental apartment after all. We were safe here.

That’s when I heard it again, clear as day.

A sharp, distinct clacking sound outside on the landing...