Silhouettes & Your House Is Haunted

Something had been oozing from the walls in the hallways and stairs for who knows how long. Stains that made figures that I started identifying as I made my way up the stairs every day. The floors had no numbers, the doors barely held on to some of them, and even then, they were crooked. Mine was 529, but only had the number 9 upside down, and the outline of the other numbers were slowly fading away. And I'm not quite sure when I started seeing them, the figures around the building. They would watch me from the corners and wait at the entrance of the staircase when I got home. I should have stopped digging around to find out what they were. Things would have been so different. My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. The woman who rented me the apartment liked to call every once in a while through the intercom thing that connected directly to the lobby. Little news, things like how a new neighbor was moving in, or someone new had been hired to clean the hallways. It was sometime in September when she stopped calling. I remember because I was waiting for her so I could tell her about the water heater, the one that was making noise and didn't want to call her to wake her up. People at that age sleep at odd times, you know. But when it came time to pay the rent again, and she hadn't buzzed that phone by the kitchen counter, I sort of accepted that she wouldn't be coming around anymore. This one kind of looks like, she said, when she was showing me around the building for the first time. A tricycle, doesn't it? I continued for her. I was going to say a sitting dog, but yeah, I can see it. And then she laughed. These things were all along the walls. She complained about them a lot, even had them painted over once a year. But still, they would come back. Humidity, she would say, blaming the neighboring building. a thing that had been turned into a series of offices after kicking out all of the tenants. Sometime in the 80s, they had a boom of office jobs coming into town for a large corporation, but Mrs. Higgins decided to keep everything as is, never selling. Eventually, the building next door went back to being residential, and it was during those times when things started popping up on the walls in the hallways. Even the floors would end up with them, or so she said when they replaced the carpets in the hallways. Her son was going to be taking over. He came knocking on my door one day to tell me that his mother had passed away peacefully at the hospital after being sick for several weeks. What a shame. I had picked up a side job once I heard that my office was laying off people. Thankfully, I didn't get canned in that first round, but I wanted. To be ready. The job was at a bakery-style cafe not far from the apartment. I would pass by it every single day and would pick up a coffee every so often. but they would always give me decaf. There was a lot of carrying stuff around, mixing things in large tubs and buckets, and. A ton of scrubbing. Scrubbing absolutely everything. The prep crew would start showing up at around 3.30 in the morning, even though we started at 4. I think everyone needed that half hour to really wake up. Well, one morning, it must have been my second weekend, I noticed this small stain on the. Wall by one of the counters. The supervisor caught me looking at it once and said, Oh yeah, that thing. Murmuring. She grabbed her notebook and took some notes, telling me about it under her breath. She explained that she had looked at it several times, that the walls had gotten treatment, scrubbed, repainted, and they had done everything to get rid of them. It would go away, but always come back in that same shape. That one's going to start looking like a little kid waving at you. Watch, she said, getting closer to it and outlining it with her finger. I thought of Mrs. Higgins' theory of the building next door, which now seemed to make more sense as I heard that the office buildings expanded for several blocks back then. That was before they went back to residential ones. What that had to do with the stains, I don't know, but I mentioned it to the supervisor anyway. She asked me a bunch of questions about them, though. I was not expecting that. I think she had been getting in trouble and blamed for it and was desperate. For a solution. They also show up here. Look, she said. leading me to the dining room area behind one of the booths. Do you see it? She pointed at what looked to be another tricycle on the floor, or at least the silhouette of one. What do you think it looks like? She asked. Without knowing what to say, I said that it looked like a dog sitting down. Eh, kind of does, she said, looking at it before looking back over the kitchen and rushing back, with me following close behind. The work went as usual, and by eight in the morning, We were done and sitting on the stools by the back alley, a coffee in hand. I looked at the time and rushed back to my building, the morning sun rays messing with my eyes as I climbed up those stairs. I saw the tricycle, the baskets, two men shaking hands, even a clothesline with two t-shirts on it, all against the walls of these brownish, dark silhouettes that were all lined up. The stories I had made up about them were circling around me as I made my way up there. They were different when the sun was out, lighter in color, almost happy little stories of better days. But at night, those things were uneasy to look at. I only used to look at them briefly to remind me of what floor I was on if I had zoned out during the climb up there. I kept thinking of Serino's, the cafe bakery, that whole morning while I got ready for my main job. It was when I realized that there was something more than just humidity from the neighboring buildings. Something that was causing this problem. I got used to waking up early that week. I really didn't do much other than work and sleep while I saved up to move out. Plus, instead of firing me, the job I had ended up extending my contract for another year while they watched me, they said. They wanted to make sure that I worked up to my potential. At least, that was in the papers. It's a strange way to say it. but it didn't help that I'd see people come and go all the time now. I barely recognized their faces, though the customers mostly stayed the same. It was a little after three. In the morning when I stepped out of my apartment. I immediately felt a cold chill. This would happen every so often around there, when the silhouettes on the walls would still come alive. They would look at me from the corners of the hallways, sometimes peeking out of the door frames. places that had become empty already. As I did most mornings, I rushed down the hallway and made my way to the staircase without looking up at the walls. I passed them all, hearing their whispers against my left ear as those lights passed over my head faster and faster. I finally made it. It was an uncomfortable week. Every once in a while, the silhouettes would do that, start coming around. Sometimes even waking me up at night with those strong lights for my room. I almost never remembered at all to write it down, you know, like I normally did in my diary. But I can pinpoint when things started changing. A new landlord, they said. He had come up to me one evening after work. I was still wearing the hairnet and everything when I heard him knocking. Hey, I'm going to be fixing everything around here. What do you need help with? The silhouettes is what I thought at first, but I knew that whenever I talked about them, people would get weird around me. The walls, they haven't been cleaned like how Mrs. Higgins used to clean them. He nodded. I wanted to tell him that I would move out, threaten to fix them somehow, but he seemed nice. Plus, there was no way I'd be able to afford another place like this. Will you really fix everything? I asked him. Yes. He grabbed the clipboard and the pen back over his ear before walking away. And about these walls, what have you been seeing? I told him. I told him about the tricycle and the woman who would hang clothes. I said that she would move occasionally and expected him to get weirded out by it, but instead he grabbed his pen and made a note. He wouldn't have to worry about that, he said. He was going to make some changes around there. And that, he did. Changes that made me realize that none of this made any sense. After that talk with the man, the new landlord, things did begin to change. We must have had overnight painters come by because the walls were white again after a couple of weeks. Of course, it would get dirty again, but this time the response was a lot faster. I started hearing voices through the intercom again, whenever a new tenant would come in, and even more announcements from the landlord, I know that not a lot of apartment buildings are like that, but here, people really seem to know each other. They weren't exactly friends, but at least they wouldn't avoid each other in the hallway or wait for the other to leave before opening their front door. But, like with life, things had to get worse before they got better. There were several times when I was chased by these silhouettes on the walls. Now, I know it sounds like a thing from a movie, They would turn corners, and some of them would leave the wall altogether to come after me. It was Thursday when I stepped out of my apartment to head down to the bakery and coffee shop when I first noticed it. Immediately after stepping into the hallway, at the very far end, I spotted a small cart. What looked like to be one of those red wagons that kids use as toys. I hadn't seen that silhouette before, so I decided to ignore it. But as I started heading toward the staircase, I heard it. The squeaking of the wheels right behind me. I turned around and saw it. An older woman wearing all black, not even with black shoes actually, but like this dark shape, this darker than black figure standing right behind me. I don't think I've ran faster in my life. I rushed to the staircase. I heard the wheels stop at the top of the stairs and this raspy whisper calling my name from up there, telling me to come back. Then three more figures came out from the walls. They chased me all the way down the stairs. The building had installed these new maintenance booths at the front and I started knocking on the tiny door for someone to come out, but no one did. The emergency exit door that was always locked was to the left of the booth, and without thinking of it, I rushed toward it, depressed it. An alarm went off, and suddenly an entire group of silhouettes was behind me, shouting. My name over and over. This young woman in a dress, looking as she had just left the dance floor, came up to me on the corner of the street and grabbed me by the arm. She asked me if I was okay. Over and over, she asked, until she spotted the group, these silhouettes now out of their walls, rushing at me. The woman got scared and started stepping away. They're after me, I yelled, trying to stay near her. They're going to help you, you'll be alright, she said, disappearing into the shadows of the nearby cars. I tried to run, but I brushed my leg against the bumper of a car that must have had something, I don't know, sticking out of it, but I felt this gash on my leg. I never felt so hopeless before in my life. But you know the strange part of all of this? I woke up in my bed. I looked around me. I saw the window, my things neatly organized on the chair next to it. The alarm clock radio playing Basket Case by Green Day. The radio DJ interrupting near the end to talk about the next song. I felt relief at first, knowing that this thing had been a dream. But as soon as I took the blankets off me I noticed something was off. I looked around me in case things had been moved around, yet they. Looked the same. But it was when I stepped out that I felt it. A sharp pain on my leg. I looked down and saw the bandages, white cloth wrapped tightly around it. It had been real. And yet here I was, in a brightly lit bedroom in the morning as if nothing had happened. And yet everything was different. More people started coming around my apartment. I started making friends with them, almost. It would come by so often that I started leaving my door unlocked and expected them at certain times of the day. Even at night, they would end up knocking. The maintenance booth at the front of the building started handing out small cups of water and candy for the tenants. I'd be happy to come back every day. The hallways were more white than dirty now. They may have gotten to the root cause of those stains and fixed it. But not everything was right. At least, not all the time. I always felt watched, as if cameras were always on and I needed to behave properly at all times. I finally understood everything one evening after coming back from the coffee shop. I walked up, my mind clear of stories with the lack of silhouettes on the walls. My shoes were making muffled sounds on the carpet of the hallway. That's when I spotted someone behind me. I turned to look. and I could see a figure all the way at the end. I rushed toward my door and shut it, only to hear someone knocking against it immediately after. I looked at the peephole and saw a woman, young, with black hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Hey, just checking in on you. How are you doing? I stepped away for a moment and took a deep breath. I looked around my lifeless apartment, and I saw the TV on the wall, the small table and chair. By the window. the tall bed that wasn't my own. Everything was missing. I was in the wrong place. The door opened and standing before me was this woman wearing white scrubs like a nurse. Hey there, how are you doing? She repeated. Things started becoming clearer then. The trips to work were the tasks that they would give me to stay busy, to learn. Real life skills. Talks about the silhouettes weren't curious people trying to understand the mystery of the figures on the walls well not in that way exactly they were trying to solve something and it wasn't until this new landlord I'm sorry I meant this new doctor came in that I started seeing everything the candy and the paper cup were actually multicolored pills the confusion lasted for several hours as I sat there on the bed looking out at the garden from my window. I left the psychiatric hospital in November, about a month after things became clear. I stayed with a couple of friends for a little while. All those times I had gone to work had never happened. I soon realized that there was no job, but rather an endless list of activities and appointments with different doctors and therapists. And every once in a while, I think back on that apartment. And I think about how real it felt being trapped by the silhouette. Watching my every move. And it happens sometimes now when I pass by a certain building downtown. A place that my mind seems to remember. A place full of silhouettes. Watching over each other. Unaware of reality. Your house is haunted. It was a moonless night when the power went out again. I fumbled around for my phone and finally felt it at the edge of my bed as it was about to fall. I made my way to the door. Someone had been. Knocking on it for about 30 seconds before the person on the other side lost their patience. I'm coming, I yelled, angry about hitting the corner of the hallway with a dirty sock on my foot. The knocking got louder. My goodness, I said under my breath. I walked up to the door and then stopped just before unlocking it. It was as if the person on the other side knew that. I had gotten there. And it's what made me think twice. Two steps and I got to the window on the side of the door, moved that ugly yellow. Curtain cover and looked outside. It was a small boy, no older than eight years old, with a jacket that was too big for him, a beanie and rain boots. A large man was running up behind him. I quickly unlocked the door and asked him if he was alright. The boy took a look back and then, all in one breath, said, Your house is haunted. There's a tiny door by the end of the hallway. My brother and I saw it there. It comes out at night and even our parents believed us because they saw it too. He took a deep. Breath and asked if I had ever seen him. No, I said, smiling nervously as a large man called out to the boy. His name was Davey, apparently. The boy didn't seem scared of him. I'm coming, Dad, he looked back and said, waiting for me to continue. I haven't seen anything around the house, but thank you for the warning. I will keep an eye out for it. What does it look like? Davey, I heard the boy's father say. I'm sorry about this, sir. We were out walking the dog around here and this troublemaker just took off running. No way I was going to catch up to him, right? He said, tapping on his belly. The boy looked at me and continued. He's tiny. It's like a crumpled up jacket, a black one, that crawls along the floor and then sneaks back in there. Thinking about this now, I'm kind of getting shivers. Thank you so much, sir, I said. I will probably have to install security cameras or something, right? Hey, if you catch anything, can I see it? He said. I nodded, just as the man was coming up to my porch, asking the boy to come back, that they had to go home. Davey's shoulder was under his father's hand now, and they were turning around when the man looked at me one last time and apologized. You probably told you about the ghost, right? I smiled. I wouldn't worry too much about it, he said. He had a nervous smile on him, something that, I don't know, made me not believe him. Before I knew it, they were at the sidewalk again. A woman was walking up behind them with a tiny dog on a leash. I turned back to the living room and shut the door behind me. The alarm clock on the counter said that it was only nine at night and yet it felt so much later. I turned back toward the hallway to head back to the room, smiling after being woken up in such a strange way. The boy telling me that my house is haunted by this crumpled up jacket that moves around. I just moved in four days before. I didn't even know the hallway had a tiny door, so I flicked on the light and made my way back to the bedroom when I spotted it. A tiny door, maybe one foot by one foot, pushed slightly inward near the end of the hall. I took out my phone and walked up to it with the flashlight. My heart started beating loudly as I got near. Something about the image of a thing roaming around the house made me nervous, and it didn't even seem like a joke anymore. I was three steps away. And the light was able to cast a shadow in this hole in the wall, and I had to stop. Again, getting that uneasy feeling that whatever was on the other side knew I was there. So I stood there, frozen for what must have been, I don't know, ten seconds, debating whether or not I wanted to check this out now, but curiosity was going to get the best of me, and I took a step forward. I craned my neck toward the door, was about to take another step when slam the tiny door shut right in front of me it was the one and only time i ever felt anything strange around the house though i did think about it for weeks you see the rest of my family had moved in a week after that that's when my two kids started mentioning this strange little ghost they said in their own words moving along the floor that it would follow them from room to room at night, that they were scared to go to the bathroom. I started thinking of that warning from that little boy. And it wasn't that long after when we decided to cancel our lease. I don't think anyone has ever experienced such a thing, or even aware of what it could have been. But I wasn't going to risk it. Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me, Edwin Covarrubias. For ideas or comments, please reach out to me. All info is in the description of this episode. And if you want to get the podcast without any ads, check out Scary Plus. You get two weeks for free so you can see what it's like. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.