The breakup was particularly difficult. She got to keep the apartment, my DVD collection and the dog and I got to leave. I spent a week sleeping in the car or on the couch of a buddy’s house before I found the ad in the classifieds: A basement, fully furnished with a small kitchen and private bathroom. The rent was rather cheap and the house was only a few blocks from midtown.
Two days later, with my car and the single box of my clothes and belongings, I moved in. Just as the ad suggested, the place was small: a twin bed and dresser along with a tiny fridge and an outdated microwave were provided. The bathroom was more like a walk-in closet that just happened to have a toilet and a shower head. It was tiny, cramped and it had a light whiff of that mildew smell hanging in the air but it was mine and that was good enough for me.
My landlord, Mr. Schultser, was an elderly man. It had seemed that his wife had passed a few years earlier and was otherwise a rather private man. You know, the loner type. I had offered, on a few different occasions, to help him with carrying the groceries or with his errands but he usually offered me a half-assed smile and waved me off. Eventually we came to one of those silent gentlemanly agreements: he wanted to be left alone and I left him alone. After the first couple weeks, I would only see Mr. Schultser at the end of the month to pay my rent or if he had a package that been delivered to the house for me. He stayed private and guarded but was still cordial and at least offered a “Good morning” or “Good Evening” but little else in the way of small talk. By the few glances I got of the house, it seemed that Mr. Schultser kept it fairly tidy and clean and that he enjoyed a variety of hobbies like painting and making model planes.
He made relatively few noises. He liked to watch old westerns at a particularly loud level but I didn't let it bother me. They were usually over far before I turned in for bed and was a small price to pay on top of my low rent. Occasionally, I could hear a tool drop or a utensil, usually followed by a loud mumble or curse. On the occasion that I couldn't sleep I could sometimes hear him shuffle around the kitchen, the faucet turn on and off, probably a late night snack or cup of water or tea.
Sometime in August I awoke to a loud thump, followed by a few creaks and the sound of something rolling across the floor right above my head, which should have been Mr. Schultser’s dining room. This time no mumbling or cursing but a loud shuffling, much louder and longer sets than I had become used to. I listened intently for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple minutes. Once the shuffling moved away from my head and deeper into the house, I eventually nodded back to sleep.
The next morning, I debated whether to approach Mr. Schultser about the late night incident but decided that he might become annoyed with my curiosity and thought it a better idea just to make a mental note of the event.
I continued on with my life, with my job and planning a third date with a girl I’d met and didn't really notice the changes to Mr. Schultser’s lifestyle for about a week. One afternoon, as a flipped through one of those cheap weekday papers, I noticed the silence. Yes, it was usually quiet … unless it was time for Mr. Schultser’s westerns which should have been around that time. I peeked outside the small rectangular windows of the basement out to the garage to see the lights were glowing between the cracks of the blinds. I figured he must have been working on whatever hobby he had become engrossed in. When the loud shuffling began again a few hours later and I let the rest of my worries for the old man's health go. That night, as I drifted in and out of sleep, I heard a strange scratching across the floor above my head. It's slow and methodical pattern was almost hypnotizing. I began attempting to explain away the sound: Maybe the old man was sanding floorboards or maybe mice had gotten between my ceiling and the flooring above it. After nearly an hour, the scratching stopped and the room went quiet. Then a few moments of shuffling and then silence again.
After a few uneventful days, all without ever seeing Mr. Schultser, I decided to knock on his door. He hadn't called me about any mail, which after a few weeks I began to feel was odd. I knocked again and I swear I saw a shadow move behind the drape hung over the door's small square window. I felt a chill run through my veins, kind of like the feeling you get when you think you're being watched or that nervousness after a good, scary movie. I knocked again with no answer. I decided to head down to my room.
That night was loud. A heavy dull sound reverberated across the floor, like someone was dragging something heavy. Dragging it around and around, then setting it down, and dragging it again. Finally a loud crash and heavy thud. I launched out of bed grappling at the phone and called the police. I explained that I was the downstairs tenant, that I thought that maybe something bad had happened to Mr. Schultser or maybe someone broke in. I explained the loud thud. They quickly blew me off and it took two hours before a patrol car drove by. The officer took a quick circle around the house and mumbled about no signs of entry and the lights being off. He got back into his car and drove away.
I muttered a long string of profanity and turned back to the old lonely house, Now dark and seemingly lifeless. I thought I saw the blinds sway from one of the top floor windows. And for moment, there seemed to be a figure at the window, staring at me. It must have been tall because I couldn't make out anything that resembled knees.
That night I laid in bed, my nightstand lamp on the entire night. Every few minutes I checked to make sure my door was locked and that the latches on the window were set. Every time the house creaked, in such a way that would be normal for an old house, I tossed and jumped.
With no sleep, apart from a few minutes here and there, I decided to call in sick from work. I tried to take a walk in the morning to clear my mind. every lap around the block, I would glance at the house, Mr. Schultser’s house, the one where I lived. The one where no one was supposedly there and I swear, every lap, every time I would turn to look at the house, one of the blinds or curtains would sway shut again. I tried convincing myself that It could have been my lack of sleep, stress from work, or a mixture of the two, but when I returned home I found the door to the basement, to my room cracked ajar. My heart fluttered. I had never left the door open before, not by accident and not by purpose and I especially wouldn't have if I knew I'd be gone for awhile. I spent several minutes with my limp hand grasping the knob. When I finally gained the courage to open the door, I threw it open, hoping to startle whatever stranger was inside but there was nothing. No one. The room was the same as I left it. Or so I thought at first. Then I noticed small changes: the top drawer of the dresser was now cracked open slightly, a dirty pair of jeans was now outside my hamper and my phone charger now laid on the floor instead hanging across the nightstand. All minor things, almost like someone intentionally tried to cover up their break-in but did so sloppily.
That was the last straw, I could no longer convince myself that I had suddenly grown a vivid imagination. I stood in my room, listening to the silence. Weighing which option made more sense: Mr. Schultser had been playing an elaborate trick on me, perhaps to get me to move out or if something horrible had happened to him and someone was living in the house in his place. Or maybe he was being held hostage, or worse. I had decided to make a loop around the house, try to find a window with a large enough crack in the blinds to peak in. I silently tiptoed back out my door and up the stairs, the windows in the dining room had both the blinds shut and the curtains drawn. The small kitchen window was too high to peer through without the chance of falling or making some sort of noise, on top of that it looked like the curtains were drawn there as well. I went around back to find both the windows blacked out as well but the right side window, the one I assumed was a bathroom or guest room window, had a dirty hand print stretched across it. The hand seemed far too big to be human and with what seemed to be thin fingers. I tried to pull the window open but it was locked.
Resigning my mission to failure, I returned to my room. As I sat on my bed, mulling over my next move, I heard the shuffling. It was quieter than usual and seemed to be only occurring directly above my head. It stopped and it was completely silent and right before I turned my gaze away from the ceiling I heard a nearly inaudible snuffling sound like a dog sniffing about a foreign scent. It went on for several minutes before the shuffling began again and trailed off to a part of the house I could no longer hear .
I began to imagine that something much worse than a murderer or a vagabond had moved in above me. I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night and I’m not sure what possessed me to even try. I dragged the dresser against the door and propped myself against the door with my pillows. My phone sat gripped tightly in my hands and I kept an eye on the small windows near the ceiling. My ear was peeled for any sound and my heart skipped at the sound of every shuffle and scratch that echoed from the house above me. It almost seemed like whoever, whatever, was up there was beginning to play with me. Eventually, and I’m partially embarrassed to admit this, I fell asleep.
That night I had a dream that was so vivid it was disorienting. I dreamt that I was comfortably in bed when I awoke next to the presence of a dark figure standing on my bed, near my feet. It was a tall and hulking creature, with a twisted and hunched figure. It’s skull was far too disfigured to be something human and it watched me sleeping, heaving deep breathes in a perfect pattern. It slowly reached its long, thin, and clawed hands for my neck and that’s when I awoke in a cold sweat. My dresser was still against my door, my phone had slipped from my hands and the room light was on. And then my gaze floated up towards the windows where my dread magnified. Two lengthy, pale legs stood directly in front of the small windows. The windows were too small to see beyond its knees but whatever stood there was definitely not human. The legs were the color of dead, icy flesh. And that skin was so thin, like plastic pulled tightly over bones, and were completely hairless. As if it was responding to me waking up: a pale, thin and knotted hand slowly dropped into sight and begun to tap it’s claw on the glass. After a moment of icy chill and my heart jumping up my throat, the thing turned and slowly hulked away. My eyes were as wide as they could get and i'm sure my face was pale as snow. I sat absolutely still as I listened to the the footsteps move around just outside my room. I heard a thundering thump as the door to the main house was thrown open accompanied by a screech that could only be described as the sound of a dozen dying cats being squeezed under a truck tire. I could hear the loud shuffling around the house above me, followed by scratching and crashing. I knew I only had one chance, I wasn’t even sure I had that. I pulled the dresser away from the door enough to squeeze through. And sprinted up the stairs and moved to run towards my car when I noticed the front door wide open. There was no sign of the thing from the window and I slowed down to take a few steps towards Mr. Schultser’s front door. I approached the door just enough to see the horrific scene of blood and sinew dried across the walls and floors. It was splattered all across the house as far as I could tell. My eyes were drawn to a partially decomposed hand and forearm in the doorway with the pinky and ring finger chewed away. The heavy rotting smell that wafted from the door was enough to twist your stomach and caused me to heave and gag. The screeched echoed from the house again and I knew I couldn’t stay. That I would be next. I turned back and ran to my car. I’m not sure, it may have been my fright, but I thought I heard the bellowing footsteps of something chasing behind me. I slammed the car door, turned the key and shoved my foot down on the peddle.
I never looked into the rear-view mirror or turned my head. I drove at a frantic speed. Once the house was no longer possibly in sight, I called the police. Told them about the blood and the hand. This time they believed me, this time they attempted to calm me down. I kept driving until I reached my girlfriend’s house. We stayed up until sunrise as I told her the entire story. Her face was pale as she attempted to nod with courtesy. I’m not sure if she believed any of it but I never returned to the house. A few changes of clothes and a couple small belongings weren’t worth my life.
Afterword
About a week after I fled the house, there was an article in the paper about the passing of a Ronald Schultser. The article mentioned that his body was badly decomposed and partially dismembered and that he had been found by his tenet. Evidently the coroner had ruled out foul play, noting that the most likely cause of death was a heart attack or stroke. That the dismemberment of the corpse was probably the doing of wild animals that had settled into the empty house. Quotes from animal control mentioned racoons or a displaced mountain lion being possible culprits. The article went on to describe some strange discoveries on the second floor but I couldn’t read on. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any other evidence to confirm my constant nightmares of what was really living above me for so many weeks.
Note:
The body of Richard Kansas, the presumed author of this piece, was recently found dead. His mangled and broken body was found along with the dismembered parts of his girlfriend, two months after the Schultser incident, in her apartment. The neighbors reported the strange sound of scratching and shuffling days before the discovery. Police have reported that they ruled out foul-play, instead insisting that a mountain lion or similar animal was to blame.
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