The Hollow Below

The day I learned about the Harlow family, the floorboards in 3B began to creak in rhythm with my heartbeat. My landlord, Mr. Pettigrew, had a way of delivering terrible news with a wet, wheezing laugh, as if the universe’s cruelty was a private joke he couldn’t resist sharing. ‘Oh, they didn’t move out, love,’ he said, his eyes darting to the ceiling. ‘They’re still there. Well, what’s left of them.’ He told me about Thomas Harlow, a man whose temper was as infamous as the constant fights. The neighbors had called the police so many times that the officers knew the address by heart. One night, after a bout of drinking, Thomas came home and found Eleanor, his wife, waiting with a suitcase. They argued, and the argument escalated to violence. He beat her, then shot her, then turned the gun on himself. The police found them in their bedroom, still holding hands, as if even death couldn’t sever their twisted bond.

After that revelation, the presence in my apartment—3A—became unbearable. It started as a cold spot near the bathroom door, then a faint whispering I could never quite catch. But the true horror began when I decided to investigate the apartment below, now empty and locked. I found the landlord’s spare key hidden under a loose brick in the garden. One evening, I crept down the creaking stairs and unlocked 3B. The air hit me like a wall of decay and something metallic—iron, maybe. The apartment was exactly as the police had left it: overturned chairs, a broken lamp, and a large, dark stain on the bedroom carpet that no amount of cleaning could erase. I stood there, my heart pounding, when I heard a sound behind me. It was the soft, rhythmic creak of a rocking chair, coming from the nursery. I spun around, but the room was empty except for a small, child-sized rocking chair that moved on its own, slowly back and forth, as if a ghostly child were sitting in it.

I wanted to flee, but my legs wouldn’t move. Then the whispers began, clearer than before. They weren’t words but a low, guttural hum, like a lullaby sung backward. The air grew thick, and I felt a pressure on my shoulders, as if someone was trying to push me to my knees. I managed to stumble out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me. But as I ran up the stairs, I heard the door open again, and the sound of slow, heavy footsteps following me. I turned, but there was nothing there. I reached my door and fumbled with the lock, feeling a cold breath on the back of my neck. I threw myself inside and locked it, but the cold breath lingered, and a voice, soft and cruel, whispered in my ear: ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak and groan of the old building felt like a message. I tried to reason with myself: it was just my imagination, a guilty conscience for breaking in. But then the real terror began. The next evening, as I was making tea, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it to find no one, but on the floor lay a small, tarnished locket. Inside was a faded photograph of Eleanor, smiling, but in the background, barely visible, was a man with hollow eyes—a face I recognized as the one that had been pressed against my window the night before. I screamed and slammed the door, but the knocking continued, growing more frantic, until it became the sound of fists pounding on wood, then nails scraping, then a low, mournful wail that seemed to come from inside my apartment.

I called Mr. Pettigrew, begging him to let me break my lease, but he just laughed and said, ‘Oh, they don’t let go easy.’ Desperate, I decided to seek help from a local medium, an old woman named Mrs. Kettle who lived on the edge of town. She took one look at me and shook her head. ‘You’ve brought something with you,’ she said. ‘Something that’s attached itself to your very shadow.’ She gave me a small bag of salt and told me to spread it around my apartment, and to burn black candles at midnight. I did as she said, but the presence only grew stronger. One night, I woke to find the salt lines disturbed, forming the shape of a handprint on my floor. And in the corner of my bedroom, I saw a dark figure, crouched like an animal, its eyes glowing red.

I knew I had to leave, but my car wouldn’t start. The battery was dead, even though it was new. I tried to call a taxi, but my phone’s battery drained in seconds. The landline was dead, and the door to my apartment wouldn’t budge, as if something outside was holding it shut. I was trapped. Then I heard a sound from below—a slow, dragging noise, like someone pulling a heavy body across the floor. The ceiling began to thump, in a pattern that I recognized as a heartbeat. And the whispers returned, but this time they were words, growing clearer: ‘You took his place. You took his place. You must finish what he started.’

In a fit of desperation, I grabbed a hammer and pounded on the floor, shouting, ‘I’m not him! I’m not him!’ But my hammering only made the ceiling in the apartment below crack and splinter, revealing a gaping hole. I peered through and saw a room bathed in sickly green light, and in the center, a woman rocking a cradle, humming the same backward lullaby. She looked up at me, and her face was a mask of bruises, her eyes full of ancient malice. She smiled and pointed at me, and I felt a sharp pain in my chest, as if a knife had been twisted. I staggered back, clutching my heart, and in that moment, I understood. The ghost of Thomas Harlow had been waiting for someone to take his place—to be the new ‘husband’ in this eternal cycle of abuse and murder. And by entering that apartment, I had marked myself as his successor.

Now I sit in my apartment, typing this story, but I know it won’t be for long. The presence is no longer just a presence; it’s a physical weight that presses down on me, making it hard to breathe. The wailing has stopped, replaced by a silence that is far more terrifying. In the mirror, I see a face that is not my own—a man with a bloodied shirt, his eyes empty and mad. He is waiting for me to do what he did. I feel his hands on mine, guiding me toward the kitchen drawer where the knives are. But I will not let him win. I have one last option: I will go down to the basement and set this godforsaken building ablaze, burning away the horror. And if I fail, then I hope this story reaches someone who will understand that the true haunting is not of spirits, but of the violence that we inherit, the cycles we cannot break, and the hollow places we create in ourselves to survive. But the flames are already inside me, and it’s only a matter of time before they consume everything.