The Fourth Buzzer

The Grove Apartments were a modern marvel, all sleek concrete and glass, built just three years ago on the edge of a sprawling university campus. I moved in with three roommates—Mara, Theo, and Jens—into a corner unit on the fifth floor. The first few months were ordinary: unpacking, late-night study sessions, the faint hum of the city beyond the double-paned windows. But the first crack came in October, when Mara’s coffee mug tipped off the kitchen counter mid-sentence, shattering on the tile. No one was near it. We laughed it off, blamed the uneven flooring. Then my copy of ‘The Shining’ slid off my desk while I was in the shower, landing face-down, open to the chapter where Jack goes mad. By November, we’d grown used to the small things: a chair scooting an inch, a door creaking open on its own, a cold draft that lingered in the hallway even with all windows shut. We started joking about a ghost, but the jokes felt hollow.

The first major event happened on the first Friday of November. I was alone, hunched over a stack of papers, when a voice—clear and close—called my name: ‘Riley.’ It wasn’t a whisper or a distant echo; it was a warm, intimate voice, almost like my mother’s, but I knew she was 300 miles away. I spun around, heart hammering, but the room was empty. My laptop screen flickered, and the air turned a shade colder. I called out, ‘Hello?’ Nothing. That night, I texted my roommates, and Theo confessed he’d heard a woman humming in the hallway at 2 a.m., but he’d assumed it was Jens’s girlfriend. Jens swore he’d been asleep. We all agreed something was off, but we chalked it up to nerves, to the stress of midterms.

Then the footsteps began. Not the heavy tread of a neighbor above, but soft, deliberate steps that would pace the length of the living room when no one was there. We’d hear them from our bedrooms, always at odd hours—just before dawn, or late enough that the city lights dimmed. Mara, the logical one, set up her phone to record sound overnight. The recordings picked up nothing but the hum of the fridge and the distant sirens. But one morning, we found the kitchen faucet running, hot water steaming, though no one had been near it. The water bill spiked.

The most terrifying event came two weeks later. I was alone again, studying in my bedroom, when the apartment’s intercom buzzed. I ignored it—we never got visitors without a text first. Then it buzzed again, longer this time. I walked to the intercom, pressed the button, and said, ‘Hello?’ No response. A third, insistent buzz. I looked at the camera feed—a grainy image of the lobby—but the screen showed nothing but the empty tiled floor. Then a fourth buzz, and this time, I heard a voice through the speaker, tinny and distorted: ‘Let me in. It’s cold outside.’ I froze. It sounded like my own voice, but wrong, stretched out, as if someone was trying to impersonate me. I ran to the door and peered through the peephole. The hallway was empty, the elevator door was shut, and the red light above the intercom blinked off. I called my roommates, but they were at the library. I didn’t leave my room until they got back.

That night, we sat in the living room, all four of us, huddled under blankets. Theo suggested we sage the place. Jens thought about calling a priest. Mara, ever the skeptic, pointed out that we needed a logical explanation. But then the intercom buzzed again—four times, rapid. I hadn’t touched it. I felt a presence, something patient and aware, watching us from behind the walls. The lights flickered, and a wave of cold swept through the room. We heard footsteps in the hallway, but when we swung the door open, it was empty, and the hallway lights flickered in unison, as if something was passing through them.

The next morning, we found that the entire apartment had been rearranged. Furniture was shifted inches, books were stacked upside down, and the refrigerator door was ajar, its contents spilled onto the floor. On the kitchen table, in the condensation of my glass of water, someone had drawn a circle with a line through it—the symbol for ‘no entry.’ And written in the dust on the window: ‘You are not alone.’ My hands trembled as I wiped it away. We called the management office, but the maintenance guy found nothing amiss. He said, ‘This unit has a history, though. The previous tenant moved out before the lease was up. Never said why.’ He left, and we stood there in silence.

That evening, as the sun set, the four of us decided to stay together in the living room, determined to get through the night. We locked the doors, closed the blinds, and sat in the glow of a single lamp. At midnight, we heard a faint knock at the door, soft, almost polite. We didn’t move. Then the intercom buzzed—once, twice, three times. And then a fourth. And from the speaker, a voice, now familiar and awful, said, ‘You can’t ignore me forever.’ The lamp flickered, and the shadows in the corners grew darker, deeper, as if something was pulling the light away. We huddled closer, and I reached for my phone to call the police, but the screen showed a single message: ‘I’m already here.’ The footsteps started again, this time right outside the living room, pacing back and forth. We heard a low, guttural laughter, and then the footsteps faded, moving toward the bedrooms. One by one, the bedroom doors creaked open, spilling darkness into the hall.

We left that night, never to return. We crashed at a friend’s apartment, and the next day we broke our lease, citing safety concerns. The management didn’t argue; they just handed us the paperwork. As we packed our things, I felt a cold breath on my neck, and I knew it was telling me that this was just the beginning, that a new place wouldn’t save us. We moved to different corners of the city, but the nightmares followed. I still hear that voice sometimes, calling my name, always at night. And every time I enter a new apartment, I check the intercom, expecting it to buzz—four times, always four times—and I know I’ll never be truly alone again.