The Hollow Between the Floorboards

The house on Strada Mântuleasa had never felt like mine, even though I’d lived there since Grandpa died and left it to Dad. Built in 1927, it was a hulking mass of yellowed brick and sagging eaves, with a courtyard where the weeds grew thick and the cobblestones were slick with moss. Dad said the previous owners were a family of railroad magnates and their servants, but the records went up in smoke during the war, so we only had rumors to go on.

Last Tuesday, I went to bed around midnight, the way I always did. My room was on the second floor, at the end of a narrow hallway lined with faded wallpaper. I’d just pulled the duvet up to my chin when I noticed the window was cracked open, letting in the damp smell of the garden. I got up to close it, and as I reached for the latch, I felt it again—that prickling at the back of my neck, the sense of someone’s gaze sliding over my skin. I turned, but the room was empty. I shut the window, locked it, and practically dove back under the covers.

I laughed at myself, as I always did, and plugged in my earbuds, letting the white noise of a podcast drown out the creaks and sighs of the old house. I drifted off to the sound of a man talking about the history of the Paris Metro.

I had the dream again. I was standing at the mouth of a long, dark hallway, the floorboards groaning beneath my bare feet. At the far end, something waited—a shape just barely darker than the shadows, tall and thin, with arms that hung too long. I couldn’t see its face, but I knew it was smiling. I tried to move, but my legs were frozen. The shape took a step forward, and the floorboards creaked. Then another step. Another.

I woke with a jolt, my heart hammering, my eyes wide and fixed on the corner of the room where the wall met the ceiling. But this time, something was different. The corner wasn’t dark. There was a faint, sickly light there, like the glow of a firefly, pulsing slowly. And as I watched, it began to move.

The light traced a path along the ceiling, leaving a trail of faint phosphorescence, like a snail’s slime made of moonlight. It descended the wall, inch by inch, until it was at the floor, near the baseboard. And then it stopped.

I held my breath, waiting. The light flickered, and I heard it—a soft, rhythmic tapping, coming from *underneath* the floorboards. Tap. Tap. Tap. It was the sound of a fingernail, or a knuckle, rapping against the wood from below.

I wanted to scream, but my throat was closed. The tapping grew louder, more insistent. I threw off the covers and scrambled to the light switch, my fingers fumbling in the dark. When the light flooded the room, the tapping stopped. The glowing trail was gone. The corner was just a corner.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat against the headboard, knees drawn up, watching the floor. But when dawn finally broke, I told myself it was just a stress dream, a trick of the dark. I got up, went to work, and came home that evening as if nothing had happened.

A week passed. I started sleeping with a lamp on, but the dreams continued—always the same corridor, always the same waiting shape. And every morning, I would wake at 3:33 AM, staring at the same corner, my heart racing.

Then, last night, I decided to fight back. I set up a voice recorder on my nightstand, aimed at the corner, and placed a small mirror on the wall to catch any movement. I went to bed convinced I’d capture whatever was causing my sleepless nights.

I fell asleep, and the dream came. But this time, it was different. The corridor was longer, the darkness thicker. The shape was closer, almost within arm’s reach. I could smell something like damp earth and old copper. The shape tilted its head, and I saw a flash of white teeth, too many of them.

I woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright. The room was dark. The mirror was cracked, a spiderweb fracture running from the center. The voice recorder was on the floor, its red light blinking. I grabbed it, my hands shaking, and played the recording.

For the first hour, there was only the soft sound of my breathing. Then, at the 3:33 mark, the recording devolved into a high-pitched whine, like feedback. And beneath that, I heard a voice—not mine, not any I recognized. It was low and raspy, speaking in a language I didn’t understand. Then it said, in perfect Romanian: ‘I see you.’

I threw the recorder across the room. My chest was heaving. I looked at the corner. The light was back, pulsing gently, and the tapping began again, slow and rhythmic. This time, I didn’t wait. I flew out of bed, ran down the stairs, and out into the rain-soaked street, not even bothering to put on shoes.

I called my father from a neighbor’s house. He sounded groggy, confused. I told him about the dream, the light, the tapping. He was silent for a long moment. Then, in a voice I’d never heard him use, he said: ‘We never found out who built that house. But I remember something your grandfather once told me, when you were just a baby. He said that sometimes, the house remembers the people who lived there long before us. And sometimes, they don’t want to leave.’

I didn’t go back that night. I slept at the neighbor’s, on a lumpy couch, and when I returned in the morning, the house was eerily quiet. The mirror was still cracked, the recorder still on the floor. But the corner looked ordinary. I thought maybe it was over.

That was yesterday. Tonight, I’m back in my room. I’ve locked the window, turned on every light. But as I sit here, listening to the house settle, I can feel it again—the weight of a gaze, pressing on the back of my neck. And I know, as surely as I know my own name, that when I close my eyes tonight, the corridor will be waiting. And this time, the shape won’t just stand there. It will come for me.

I just hope I wake up to tell someone.