The Damp Wall

I never thought I’d be afraid of a wall, but that’s what it came down to. When I agreed to housesit for my aunt Delia and her new husband, Roger, I expected a quiet weekend of bad TV and cheap wine. Instead, I got a crash course in the true meaning of ‘unsettling.’

The house was an old Victorian on the edge of a town I’d never heard of, all peeling paint and tilting floorboards. Aunt Delia had married into money, but the money clearly hadn’t been spent on upkeep. ‘It’s got character,’ she’d said, but I think she meant ‘it’s got something that makes the hairs on your arm stand up.’

My room was on the third floor, a narrow space with a sloped ceiling and a single window that looked out onto a dead oak tree. I’d only been there a few hours when I heard it: a faint, rhythmic dripping from the wall behind the bed. I checked the ceiling for leaks, but the plaster was dry. The dripping continued, slow and steady, like a metronome counting down to something.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The dripping was getting louder, more insistent. I got up and pressed my ear to the wall. I heard something else beneath the water sound—a whisper, or maybe it was just the wind, but it was too deliberate to be random. I pulled back, my heart thudding, and that’s when I saw it: a dark, damp patch spreading across the wallpaper, forming a shape. It looked like a hand, but the fingers were too long, the palm too broad.

I tried to ignore it. I threw a blanket over the wall, but the dampness seeped through, and the shape grew more defined. By the third night, the hand had turned into a full silhouette, pressed against the wall like someone trapped inside. I couldn’t sleep at all. I didn’t want to pass that wall, but I had to use the bathroom. On my way back, I saw something move in the corner of my eye—the shape seemed to shift, its head turning to follow me.

In the morning, I called Aunt Delia, but she laughed it off. ‘It’s an old house, dear. Pipes make noises. Don’t let your imagination run wild.’ But I knew what I saw. I tried to leave, but my car wouldn’t start. The mechanic said something about the fuel line being clogged with rust, but I think it was something else. Something didn’t want me to go.

On the fourth night, the dripping stopped. The silence was worse. I lay in bed, staring at the wall, now completely covered in a dark, wet stain shaped like a figure. Then the wall began to bulge, outward, like something was pushing from the inside. I watched, frozen, as the bulge grew, and the shape pressed against it, making the plaster crack. I heard a voice, muffled, like from under water, saying my name over and over: ‘Miranda… Miranda…’

I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my bag and ran out the front door, not caring that I had no car. I ran down the gravel driveway, my breath coming in ragged gasps, until I reached the main road. I hitchhiked back to the city, and when I tried to tell my friends, they laughed it off. I never told Aunt Delia the full story. She still writes to me, asking me to come back, saying the house misses me. And maybe it does. Because sometimes, in the back of my head, I hear that dripping. And I feel that cold, damp pressure on my skin, as if a wall is slowly closing in around me, just waiting for me to come home.