The Empty Room’s Tenant

When I first moved into the old farmhouse on Gable Road, I thought the creaks and groans were just the house settling. But after the first week, I started hearing footsteps, heavy and deliberate, coming from the room above my bedroom. It was a dusty, cobwebbed space we never used, filled with forgotten furniture and old trunks. My roommate, Jenna, and my boyfriend, Marcus, dismissed my fears. ‘It’s just the wind,’ they’d say, or ‘You’re always hearing things.’ But the footsteps grew more constant, sometimes pacing back and forth for hours, sometimes stopping right above my bed as if listening.

Then Marcus left, his departure sudden and cold, leaving me and Jenna alone in that house. Weeks passed, and the footsteps continued, but I tried to ignore them, convincing myself it was my imagination. One night, I came home late from work to find Jenna in the garage, sitting on a rusted lawn chair, smoking a cigarette. Her face was pale, and her hands trembled. ‘You’re not crazy,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. I stood there, confused, as she recounted what happened.

She had been in the upstairs bathroom, washing her face, when she heard steps in the hallway outside. Then a sound like fluttering, like a thousand moth wings against the walls. Panic seized her, and she ran out of the house, not stopping until she reached the garage. She said she saw the door handle to the bathroom twist, as if something tried to open it, even though she had locked it.

That night, we sat together in the kitchen, avoiding the stairs. I told her about the footsteps, and we decided to investigate the empty room. Armed with a flashlight, we crept up the narrow stairway. The door was ajar, and a cold draft seeped out. Inside, the room was littered with old toys, a rocking chair, and a cradle draped in a yellowed lace. Dust covered everything, but in the center of the floor, there was a clear path, as if something had walked there recently. And against the far wall, a small, child-size handprint pressed into the grime.

We backed out and slammed the door, but as we turned to go downstairs, we heard a faint, pitiful crying from within the room. It was a child’s sobs, muffled and desperate. We didn’t sleep that night, and the next day, we called a priest.

The priest arrived with holy water and a Bible. He insisted the room be opened. As he entered, the air grew thick, and the crying grew louder, now mixed with laughter. He commanded whatever was there to leave, and in a fury, the room shook, pictures fell from walls, and the windows rattled. Then, a small, half-transparent figure appeared in the corner, a boy with hollow eyes. It pointed at us, then pointed at the floor, before vanishing.

After the priest left, we investigated the floor beneath the room, the old cellar. Behind a shelf, we found a hidden door, sealed with rusted nails. We pried it open, revealing a tiny, dirt-floored chamber. In the corner lay a tarnished silver locket and a child’s shoe, too small for any adult. On the wall, scratched into the stone, were the words: ‘MY ROOM’.

We later learned from a neighbor that the house had been built over a spot where a young boy had gone missing decades ago, and his body was never found. The old owners had boarded up that part of the basement, fearing what they might uncover.

That night, as we packed to leave, the footsteps returned, but now they followed us, room to room, as if pleading. The crying grew so loud it filled the whole house, and then, suddenly, silence. We drove away, vowing never to return. But as I look back in the rearview mirror, I see a small figure standing in the upstairs window, waving goodbye.

Now, months later, I’ve moved to a new apartment. I thought I was free. But last night, I heard footsteps in the hall outside my door, and a faint cry of a child. I opened the door, and there was nothing. But the sound echoed from the room above me, the empty room I had just moved into, its walls bare except for a single, childish handprint high on the wall.