The Floorboard Giggler

In the spring of 2019, my partner Alex and I bought our first condo in the historic district of Millbrook. The place had character, but the floors were a mess—scratched hardwoods that creaked even when you stood still. We decided to refinish them in July, starting with the master bedroom. That’s when the flickering started.

One night, while we were sleeping, I woke to a rhythmic tapping on the floor, like someone drumming their fingers. I thought Alex was having a restless leg spasm again, but when I turned to complain, he was dead still. ‘That’s not me,’ he whispered, voice tight. We lay there, listening, and the taps moved across the room, too deliberate for a drip or a mouse. Then a small giggle, high and breathy, near the window. I flicked on the lamp. Nothing. But the air was cold.

I chalked it up to old pipes and my imagination, but the next night, at 2:30, I had to pee. As I passed the bathroom, I saw Alex standing at the sink, his back to me. ‘You okay?’ I asked. He didn’t turn. He just mumbled, ‘I’m not Alex.’ The voice was higher, like a child’s. I froze. When I called his name again, he whirled around, the face in the mirror was not his—it was a pale boy with round glasses and matted blond hair, wearing a grey t-shirt and torn jeans. The boy smiled, showing neat teeth, then vanished. Alex came in from the bedroom, yawning. ‘Who were you talking to?’ he asked.

The next day at noon, I was in the kitchen fixing my cat’s medicine, when I saw a small shape slipping out of my peripheal vision—just a flicker of a grey sleeve behind the pantry door. I spun, but nothing was there. But a sour smell lingered, like wet dust and rust. I decided to investigate the history of the building. The condo records showed that a family had lived here in the 1980s, and the previous owner had a son named Elliot who drowned in the bathtub at age four. The description matched: glasses, blond hair, blue shorts. The records said the family moved after the accident, but I knew that death leaves splinters in the wood.

We tried to ignore it, but the boy grew bolder. He’d leave wet footprints on the floor in the morning, tiny handprints on the mirror, and the sound of a rubber duck squeaking in the bathroom when it was empty. One evening, we heard a child sobbing from the closet. Alex, brave but foolish, opened it and found nothing but a pile of clothes that had been torn from their hangers. That night, I lay awake watching the shadows, when I heard Alex giggle in his sleep—a high, childish giggle that wasn’t his. He sat up, eyes wide, but not looking at me. He pointed at the foot of the bed and said, in a small voice, ‘He’s under the floor.’

I grabbed a flashlight and pried up a loose plank in the corner of the bedroom. Beneath it was a hollow gap, and there, nestled in the dust, lay a small, waterlogged toy—a plastic boat, painted sailor blue, with the name ‘Elliot’ scratched on its side. I touched it, and the whole building seemed to tremble. The lights flickered, and from the bathroom, the tap of feet, running. The giggles turned to shrieks, and the floorboards began to bulge, as if something was trying to claw its way up.

We ran to the front door, but it wouldn’t budge. The walls dripped with condensation, and the air grew thick with the scent of mothballs and chlorinated water. A small voice whispered my name, right behind me. I turned, and the boy was there, no longer transparent, but solid and dripping wet. His glasses were cracked. He held out a hand, his fingers tiny and pale. ‘Play with me,’ he said. His smile was wide, and there was a gap between his teeth like a black pit.

We didn’t play. We nearly broke down the door, fled to our car, and never went back. Friends say the condo is still for sale, but the agents refuse to list it. They say the floors groan even when no one walks, and sometimes in the dead of night, through the walls, you can hear a child’s giggle and the patter of small feet, as if the boy is still playing hide and seek in the hollow spaces, waiting for a new family to join his game.