The Green Tile Bathroom

After the factory shut down, the town of Millbrook withered like a dying vine. I moved back to care for my grandmother, whose mind was slowly untethering from the present. Her house, a Victorian relic, stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, its porch sagging like a tired smile. I took the upstairs bedroom, the one with the bathroom that had never been updated. The tiles were a sickly green, the color of pond scum, and the faucet dripped a steady arrhythmia that kept time with my own anxious heartbeat.

I was a night auditor at a motel six miles out of town, and my shift ran from eleven to seven. I’d come home as the sun crested the hills, sleep till noon, then tend to Gram. She’d been having episodes—talking to empty chairs, forgetting my name, once accusing me of hiding her teeth in the garden gnome. The doctor said it was just old age, but I knew better. There was something wrong with that house.

One afternoon, after a particularly restless sleep, I woke to the sound of the bathroom faucet, but it wasn’t dripping. It was running full blast. I stumbled in and turned it off, my reflection haggard in the cracked mirror. That’s when I noticed the tile. The third tile from the left above the tub was slightly raised. I pressed it, and it clicked open like a tiny door. Inside was a hole. A deep, dark hole that exhaled a cold breath that smelled of wet ash.

That night, I dreamed of a voice that wasn’t mine. It whispered from the hole, calling me by a name I’d never heard—’Ellery’. It promised to show me the truth about the house, about Gram, about why my father had left when I was a baby. I woke with a start, my hand pressed against the wall where the tile was. The tile was warm.

I started keeping a journal. Every day, I’d write down the strange occurrences: the kitchen knives rearranged in the drawer, the smell of mothballs in my bedroom, the sound of a child running across the floor above when I knew I was alone. Gram got worse. She’d sit in the parlor, staring at a sewn-up slit in the wallpaper, and mutter, ‘he’s still down there.’ When I asked who, she’d just smile, her gums like wet pink fruit.

Three weeks in, I found a diary in the attic. It belonged to a girl named Mary, dated 1954. She wrote about a ‘green room’ and a man who lived in the walls. ‘He comes at night, when the house is quiet, and he asks me to open the tile. He says it’s the only door to his world. I’ve never opened it. But last night, I saw his eye. It was green, like the tile, and it blinked at me from the hole.’ The last entry was unfinished: ‘He’s behind me now—’

I should have left. But I couldn’t. Not with Gram. I told myself it was stress, that I was projecting my fears onto a bathroom tile. But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard it. A creak, then a shuffle, then a soft voice from the bathroom: ‘Ellery, come see what I’ve done.’

I didn’t want to go. But my legs moved on their own. I found the bathroom door ajar, the light flickering. The tile was open, and the hole had grown. It was no longer a dark pocket—it was a corridor, lined with the same green tile, receding into a black that seemed to pulse. And at the threshold, partially obscured, was a figure. It wore a suit that, even in the dim light, I could see was speckled with mold. It had no face, just a smooth, porcelain white oval. And it held a toy train, the ones from the forties, and it was winding it with a long, crooked finger.

I screamed. I slammed the tile shut and backed away, but not before I heard a slithering sound, like a snake on glass. The next morning, I told my supervisor I was quitting. I packed our things, planning to take Gram to the motel. But when I went to her room, she was gone. The window was open, the curtains billowing. On the floor, written in lipstick, were the words: ‘HE TOOK ME TO THE GREEN PLACE.’

I searched the house, and my hand went to the bathroom. The tile was open again. And there, in the entrance to the corridor, was a pair of her eyeglasses, the lenses cracked. I knelt, pressing my ear to the hole. From far inside, I heard the chugging of a toy train, and my grandmother’s voice, but it was young, giggling, and it said, ‘Ellery, we’ve been waiting for you. The green is so pretty here.’

The tile snapped shut on my fingers. I pulled back, and the pain was sharp, but it was nothing compared to the cold that crept up my arm, like a million needles. I looked at my hand—the fingers were turning gray, and small, glistening spores had begun to bloom on my knuckles. I ran out of the house, but I didn’t get far. The sun was setting, and the streetlights flickered on, casting long shadows. And as I reached the end of the driveway, I saw it—the house, from the outside, was glowing faintly green, and in every window, there were faces pressed against the glass, stretching like taffy, but they were all Gram’s.

I’ve been at the motel now for three nights. I haven’t slept. My hand has turned a dark, mottled gray, and I’ve started to hear the train at all hours, coming from the vents. The doctor says it’s necrosis, that I might lose the hand. But I know better. It’s spreading. And tonight, as I write this, the bathroom in this motel room—the one with the white, pristine tiles—has just started to drip. And in the corner of my vision, I swear I see a faint green glimmer, like a tongue of a lost bathroom, waiting to welcome me home.