The Bathroom Count

It was the summer of my final year at St. Aldric’s Academy, a rambling Victorian pile of red brick and ivy perched on the edge of the moors. The school had a grim history, but the one event that clung to the walls like damp was the death of a senior named Marcus Whitfield in 1998. He had climbed to the top of the clock tower and thrown himself off, landing on the cobbled courtyard below. The clock had stopped at 3:13 AM, and no one had ever fixed it. From that day, the tower was sealed, and the story went that his ghost wandered the halls at night, counting the living.

I shared a dorm with my best friend, Daniel, and we were both preparing for the terrifying national exams that would decide our futures. The school was strict, especially about hygiene, rationing showers to Tuesday and Saturday evenings. There were only four bathrooms in the entire dormitory wing—two for boys, two for girls—and they were always crammed with desperate students. The rule was simple: everyone had to take a shower, and you had to line up in the hallway, single file, on a first-come, first-served basis. The pressure was immense, and the line could stretch for an hour or more.

That fateful Tuesday, Daniel and I had finished our evening prep and headed to the bathrooms at 9 PM, hoping to beat the rush. The corridor was already choked with boys clutching towels and soap, their voices echoing off the high ceilings. The air smelled of dampness and anxiety. We joined the line, chatting about our calculus homework and the upcoming mock exam. As the line inched forward, the clock in the tower—which still tolled the hours, despite its broken face—struck 10. The hallway began to empty as the first batch of showers finished. But the line seemed to move slower than usual. Daniel kept glancing at his watch, muttering that we’d never make it by the 11 PM curfew.

At 10:45, we finally reached the front. Only two bathrooms were operational that night; the others had signs saying ‘OUT OF ORDER,’ which was odd because they had worked the previous week. The bathroom we were assigned was the one closest to the tower, and everyone avoided it because of the stories. As we pushed the creaking door open, a blast of cold air hit us, and the light flickered. The room was tiled in pale green, with a row of four shower stalls, but only two had working water. The pipes moaned and groaned, and the tiles were streaked with rust.

Daniel went into the first stall, and I took the one next to him. The water was barely lukewarm, and the shower head sputtered. I was soaping my hair when I heard a sound beneath the water’s hiss: a faint, rhythmic tapping. It came from the wall behind me, like fingers drumming on the other side. I paused, pressing my ear to the cold tile. The tapping stopped, then started again, faster. Daniel’s voice came from next door, his tone hushed. ‘Hey, you hear that?’ I didn’t answer, but my heart began to pound.

The tapping grew louder, and then I heard a voice—a low, guttural whisper that seemed to come from the drain at my feet. ‘…nine… ten… eleven…’ I froze. The water turned icy. I yelped and shut off the faucet. Daniel did the same, and we stood in silence, wrapped in our towels, staring at each other through the gap under the stall doors. The whispering stopped. But then the lights went out.

We scrambled for the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It felt as if something heavy pressed against the other side. Panic seized us. We pushed and shoved, screaming for help, but the corridor beyond was silent. Then, the tapping resumed, now on the door itself. And the whisper came again, from directly behind us. ‘…twelve… thirteen…’

I spun around, but the bathroom was pitch black. I fumbled for my phone, and the flashlight illuminated a terrifying sight: the mirror above the sink had cracked, and in the shattered glass, I saw a reflection that wasn’t ours. A gaunt face with hollow eyes stared back at us, its lips moving as if counting. It was the face of Marcus Whitfield, aged and decayed, but unmistakable.

We screamed and ran to the farthest corner, huddling together. The whisper grew into a chorus, as if dozens of voices were counting around us. Then, in a sudden silence, a voice clear and close to my ear said, ‘You are numbers 14 and 15. Time to join the count.’

The door swung open violently, and light flooded in. We stumbled out, gasping, and found the corridor empty. The bathroom door slammed shut behind us. We sprinted to our dorm and locked ourselves in, not sleeping a wink. The next morning, we learned that the school had a record: every year, on the anniversary of Marcus’s death, a student would vanish. And in the main office, the logbook showed that exactly 13 students had disappeared in the years since 1998. We were to be the 14th and 15th, but we managed to escape.

Daniel and I never spoke about that night for years, but whenever we meet, we always end up talking about the bathroom, the counting, and the face in the mirror. To this day, I cannot take a shower without checking the drain. And in the dead of night, if I listen closely, I still hear that faint tapping, and the whisper counting upward, waiting for the next number.