By Samuel Kay
Chapter One: Missus and Mister Harlow
The third room down the hallway from the entrance, belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Harlow, has always been somewhat quiet. Room 303 was supposed to be their retirement retreat, a sunny little escape from reality. They often arrive in the later days of June, during midsummer, when the temperatures are at their hottest. Which makes sense; there's a bay just two blocks from here.
Now that I think of it, someone nearby always seems to pick them up, delivering groceries whenever they’re here. I don't know why they chose to live in this apartment building rather than with them. Still, they never talk about the guy, so I have no idea who he is or their relationship with him.
Now, however, the apartment appears to have evolved more into a temporary shed than an actual living space. It's a tomb of rotten newspapers and sweaters eaten by moths, of clothes and textiles piled up on chairs, of broken furniture and old magazines scattered everywhere[正浴1] . It was starting to get harder and harder to monitor what was happening in there.
The next time I go up to adjust the camera, I need to look around and see if there's anything valuable. But they've stopped making their yearly trips to the apartment recently. The last time they came, they only put more stuff in. It won't hurt to write down the recordings of their last visit, though.
" ...Martha, I've been telling you for years, something's not right about that new fellow upstairs. He barely said anything when I bumped into him near the front door that time."
"Oh, Harold, you say that about everyone new. Remember when you thought Mrs. Patterson was a spy because she had too many locks on her door?"
"This is different, Martha. He seems normal… but he’s not! I swear there is something wrong with that man."
" Harold …"
"But it doesn't matter anyway. Mikey's moving away with his family, which means he isn't picking us up anymore. We'll tell the landlord that we won't be paying the rent and leave him to do whatever with this junk … Hey Mikey!"
I wonder who they're talking about.
Chapter Two: 402 Ms. Thompson and the Boy
I found the recording before I almost lost it. That would have been bad. Might as well write it down.
On the third floor, the room to the left of the elevator is occupied by Miss Thompson and a new kid who moved here recently. She still hasn't said his name yet, so I'll refer to him as just "Boy" for now. Based on previous conversations, the boy seemed to have lost both his parents in a nasty car accident. Miss Thompson was a close family member of the boy, so she’s now his legal guardian. Which isn't the best thing to have fallen upon the child; that woman is known for being extremely religious. They had an interesting interaction in the ground-floor hallway a few days ago. I'll write it down here.
"Miss, why does that man whom we passed walk so quietly?"
"What do you mean, my child?"
"In the elevator. He doesn't make noise when he walks. Almost like he's floating."
"Don't be silly, boy. It's natural that everyone makes noise when they walk."
"But he doesn't! And he has marks on his neck, like scratches. Did you see?"
"Boy, we don't stare at people or talk about them behind their backs. It's not polite."
"But Miss–"
"No more. Come on, you'll be late for school."
Unlike a few years back, you won't see anyone with wounds or scars walking around.
these days. The neighborhood has cleaned up considerably. Still, children tend to notice things
that adults learn to ignore. Hopefully, he doesn't go snooping around too much, especially in the basement. I wonder, though, if the kid's talking about the man with the leather jacket I saw entering from the back door. For someone his size and build, he should be making considerable footsteps, especially in an old building like this.
I can see that Ms. Thompson is trying not to scare the boy and protect him in any way
possible. So, that night, I caught her scrubbing the boy’s palms with holy oil, her prayers frantic as a heartbeat. She's been praying more lately, too, and checking the lock on her door more frequently. She may be trying to ward off some unspeakable evil. I wonder if she senses the same things the kid does. I don't know. I'm not the religious type. As far as I know, faith and whatever are just a bunch of baloney used to scare people who don't know better. If this building does end up being possessed by a demon, I would be surprised.
Chapter three: 601, 602, 603. Vacant
The sixth floor has always been vacant. Some time ago, a man rented all three rooms on this level under his name. He must have been making pretty good money – that is, until something happened to him and he ran away when the previous landlord was still here. A police
investigation was set up, and the rooms have been off limits ever since. I don't even know what's happening in there, and no one comes to this floor. Not until today.
I saw the man with the leather jacket snooping around there. He was pacing around the hallway, looking nervous. The signal to the camera was weak, so I could barely see his outline through the static, but he was there. He stayed there for quite some time doing nothing. After ten minutes or so, he must have made up his mind because he walked to one of the rooms and
proceeded to knock on the door. No one answered. But what happens next confuses me. I think he kicked the door down. The camera had completely lost connection after that, so I went up to check. Everything was fine. Nothing changed; everything was like how it was ten minutes ago. The doors were all still locked. He was definitely on the cameras, though. Did the cable accidentally get rerouted to another building?
Chapter Four: 701. Mrs. Kim
Mrs. Kim was having a conversation on the phone with her daughter in the bedroom.
"Sarah, I haven't been sleeping well since that man moved in upstairs."
"Ma, you live on the Eighth floor. How can someone five floors above you affect your sleep?
"You don't understand. There are sounds. Dragging noise, heavy objects being moved at all hours.’
"Have you filed a complaint with the landlord yet?"
"What would I say? That I hear things? He'd think I'm crazy. Sarah, it wasn’t digging. It was clawing. Like something buried six feet deep finally found its way up. From up there."
"Digging? That is just impossible."
"I know what I heard."
Ms. Kim's insomnia isn't the only problem. I've been catching some scraping and
dragging sounds on some of my audio equipment, sounds that directly match her descriptions. I've been documenting it, and none of it makes sense. It hasn't happened before; the sounds seemed to have popped recently out of nowhere.
No renovations are happening on the thirteenth floor. No maintenance requests, no orders that ever came through. What is anyone doing up there that needs something to be dragged so much? The sounds have a pattern: they come every so often, then they disappear over the clutter of something else. I want to understand what's happening, but my audio recording just regurgitates a jumble of static. I have no idea what's causing it. The interference seems to be at its worst around times when the mysterious sounds are loudest, as if it's actively disrupting the signals. Mrs. Kim isn't losing her mind, and neither am I. Something genuinely strange is happening up there, and I have no way to record it.
I need to go up there sometime.
Chapter Five: 803. The O'Conagher Twins
There's not much to say about those two teenagers living in 803. They’ve been a constant nuisance ever since they moved here to go to college. Their parents were from Ireland and
moved here to the U.S. in search of a golden opportunity. The American Dream. They sure were disappointed with what they discovered, though. Both of them work as dishwashers in the same small Italian restaurant. Based on the phone calls, they are even more disappointed at the two little rascals they sent to college. Who, supposedly, aren't studying, but instead are skipping lectures to go hang out with their smoke “friends”. The number of times I have gotten odor complaints because of them is unbelievable.
This interaction was recorded in the living room at around 2:40 a.m. after both of them had been smoking weed.
"Jaysus, I'm telling ya, I saw him in the laundry room in the basement yesterday."
"Patty, you're off your head..."
"My mind is clear right now, okay? I went down below to the laundry room cause I spilled a tin all over myself, and there he was, just standing…"
"So..? He ran out of clothes, didn't he?"
"He was there for forty minutes. He stood there, opened the washer, looked inside, and turned it on again. I know it's him because he has that big-ass scar on his neck. I don't think he even has many clothes in the washer, he's just outta his mind."
“He's definitely been gettin' his supply from that mad bastard downstairs..”
“That lad bugged off years ago.”
"Ah, right… Well, geez, it’s strange; I’ll give ya that.
"Yeah, but get this, Avery - when I finally left, and I looked around, he was gone. Completely gone. Like he teleported or something."
"An' you're back to coughing bollocks again."
Everyone seems to be talking about that man these days. It's as if he's everywhere. Sometimes I feel like he’s watching me.
Chapter Six: 903. Charles
I'm not sure what to say.
Mr. Charles, the good businessman of the Hillview apartment building. If you ever meet him, you’ll know who this person is. Tan blazer, brown fedora, the only man in the building still living in the 1960s. He always carries that big smile around with him, as if he's not got a worry in the world.
If only that were true. I know what his room looks like. Crates of empty bottles. Torn
pieces of plastic and cardboard are everywhere. A bedsheet covers the windows. Barely any sunlight comes in.
His life is a mess. He got thrown out of his job. He's been moving from state to state to find work, without much luck. Now he hasn't got anything much of value to his name. When he got here, he never really talked to anyone. He was a shut-in, coming back to his room drunk late in the night. He held up his facade. Looked for any opportunity to get more money and gambled his life away.
I always felt bad for Charles. I talked to him a couple of times, and I almost even considered him a friend. At heart, he was a good man.
If anyone finds these notes, what would they think of me? They might think of me as some cruel monster or some beast that hides in the shadows of society. I think that sometimes, too. Maybe that’s true. But I can tell you.
I was truly surprised when I heard the news that he had jumped out of his room’s window. I didn’t even realize. Apparently, he has been hearing some weird noises in his room. He thought that somebody was haunting him. That slowly caused him to lose his mind.
The police didn’t find out that he had a collection of notes hidden beneath one of the loose floorboards. Most of these notes featured a vague sketch of a man, while the others were covered in ink with the words: “Where are you?”
Charles broke, but not because of the hole he found himself in. Something else took his breath away. I promise I will find out whatever that may be.
Chapter Seven: 1101. The Bell Family
The family left. They packed their things and ran the moment they could. My instincts tell me to call the police, but then I wouldn't be able to explain how I know this happened.
It was around 3:33 AM, and everything was quiet. Only the O’Conagher twins were awake then. Mr. Matthew Bell sat in the living room, asleep with the book he was reading flung over his face
A sudden thud came from the door.
The man woke up, putting his book away. He wasn't expecting any guests.
"Hello?"
The knocking split the doorframe, wood groaned like an animal.
"Who is it?" The man now stood up from his armchair. "Who's at the door?"
The knocking suddenly stopped. An unclear mumbling came from the door, but Mr.
Matthews seemed to have understood what was being said.
"I think you're in the wrong place?"
Everything returned to silence, until the door suddenly fell on Mr. Matthew. Static filled my equipment the moment after. However, I was able to recognize one line from the intruder after he broke into the home.
"Don’t play games with me now! Where is he?!”
I didn't dare go up there. I think I was too scared, or I didn't want to get the police involved any more than I already was. I only went up to check in the morning. When I got there, I found Mr. Matthew’s table flipped over, and a decent-sized crack ruptured through the wooden face. Cabinet's doors hung open and drawers were yanked out, devoid of their contents. The mattress in the bedroom was thrown off and put to the side. They didn’t take a single belonging. But the family photos? Every face scratched out; they were looking for something—or someone.
It's clear now. All the weird things that are happening are connected to the man on the thirteenth floor. I was uncertain before, but now things are getting out of hand. People are
getting injured; that is not something I'll turn a blind eye to. By tomorrow morning, I'll go up there and confront him.
Chapter 8: 1301. I am gone
I went up there. I finally went up there. Who am I kidding? Nobody is living on the thirteenth floor. The room has been empty for some time. I found the obituary of the man who was living there, Jack Foreman, or whatever his name was.
The last resident there was a friend of the dealer on the sixth floor. He was a heavy addict. Things didn't go well for them, and they ended up getting into a fight. He couldn't find him in his room, so he started confronting everyone else who was a client of the guy. The dealer was killed in the end, but the man didn’t run far. The police shot him a mile down the road. He's been dead ever since.
But he's still here. He's everywhere. He's in the cameras. He is the static in the
recordings. He sees everything. I can't leave. He knows where I am. He sees me. He knows what I am doing. There's no escape from him. He is everywhere.
I'm leaving. I don't care if they find my cameras. I don't care if I'm leaving my notes behind. I don't want anything to do with this place. I am gone. I am living another life, away from here. Away from everything.
But if only the knocking could stop.
[正浴1]This kinda confused me a little, rephrase for better flow