The Frosted Glass

My father has been a groundskeeper at Blackwood Manor, a sprawling, decaying estate turned assisted living facility, for twenty years. When I turned nineteen, he got me a job on the night shift. It seemed harmless enough—there were only six residents, all of them in the advanced stages of dementia or other afflictions that left them bedridden. The pay was decent, and I needed the money.

From the moment I first stepped into the manor, I felt a wrongness in the air. The walls seemed to breathe, and the air was thick with the smell of old wood and something else, something metallic and faintly sweet. My father warned me about the ‘quirks’ of the place: doors that creaked on their own, light fixtures that flickered, and the occasional cold draft. He laughed it off, blaming it on the building’s age. But I knew better—something was off.

My first few weeks were uneventful, aside from the usual unease. But one night, while making my rounds, I heard a low, guttural groan emanating from the west wing. Assuming it was one of the residents, I hurried down the corridor. All of them were asleep, their breaths shallow and even. I chalked it up to a night tremor and decided to make some tea in the kitchen.

In the kitchen, as I waited for the kettle to boil, a sound came from the window—a steady, deliberate tap, tap, tap. I froze. I glanced outside, but the pane was fogged with condensation, and the grounds were empty. There was no way anyone could be out there without tripping the motion sensors. The tapping continued, more insistent, and I found myself drawn to the glass despite my better judgment. As I leaned close, I saw a faint outline of a hand on the outside, fingers splayed, the skin pale and withered. It dragged across the glass, leaving a trail of condensation, then vanished.

I stumbled backward, dropping my mug, which shattered on the floor. I called my father, but he just laughed, saying it was just a stray branch. But the next morning, I noticed a handprint on the outside of the window—etched into the frost, as if it had been pressed there for a long, cold time.

The incidents soon escalated. Doors would slam shut behind me when no one was near. The footfalls of an unseen walker would echo down the hallways, only to stop abruptly when I turned. One night, I found a resident—Mrs. Abernathy, a sweet, frail woman—sitting upright in her bed, staring at the wall, her mouth moving as if reciting something. When I asked if she was okay, she turned her head and said, ‘He doesn’t like the dark. He hides in the light.’ I shuddered, but she soon drifted back to sleep.

I tried to rationalize it. The elderly, with their failing minds, could be unpredictable. The building was old, full of drafts and settling noises. But the tapping on the glass became a nightly ritual. I began to dread the kitchen, the one room where I had to go to make my rounds’ tea. I started wearing headphones, but the sound seemed to penetrate the music, a rhythmic pulse that set my teeth on edge.

One evening, I resolved to confront it. I stood by the window, my hand on the latch, feeling the cold radiating from the glass. The tapping grew faster, louder, until it became a frantic drumming. Summoning all my courage, I flung the window open. A gust of icy wind rushed in, extinguishing the fluorescent light above me. In the utter blackness, I felt a breath on my neck—cold and rank, like the inside of a tomb. A voice, barely a whisper, hissed in my ear, ‘You let me out.’

I slammed the window shut, my heart pounding. I spun around, but the corridor was empty. I fled to the nursing station, where I spent the rest of the night huddled under a fluorescent light, refusing to move. I never went back to that kitchen. I told my father I quit the next morning.

I haven’t set foot in Blackwood Manor since. But sometimes, when the night is cold and the windows are frosted, I see a hand press against the glass from outside, and I know that I’m the one who let it in.