The Hollow Chorus

It started as a minor nuisance in the old apartment on Bleeker Street. The bathroom, a cramped, windowless box with a cracked tile floor and a shower curtain that always seemed to billow inward, even when the window was shut and the fan was off. My roommate, Jenna, and I had grown accustomed to it—the occasional rustle of the curtain, the faint impression of a hand pressing against the plastic from the inside. We blamed it on drafts, on the building’s ancient plumbing, on our own overactive imaginations.

But then, after my semester abroad, I returned alone and my brother, Mark, offered to help me carry my luggage up the three flights of stairs. The apartment was dusty and quiet, and after hauling the last of my bags to my bedroom, Mark asked to use the bathroom. I pointed him down the hall, and he disappeared behind that yellowed curtain.

A few minutes later, he emerged, his face drained of color. ‘You have some seriously talkative neighbors,’ he said, pulling at the collar of his shirt. ‘They were talking in there, right behind the wall. Like a whole conversation, but I couldn’t make out any words.’ I told him there was no apartment on that side—just a brick wall facing an alley. He shook his head, adamant. ‘I heard them. Clearly. And they stopped the moment I flushed.’ We laughed it off, but I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

That night, alone in the apartment, I took a long, hot shower to decompress. The water hammered against the tub, steam fogging the mirror. I had my eyes closed, humming a tune, when I heard it—a chorus of whispers, layered and overlapping, seeping through the tile like mold. They were not distinct words, but a low, rhythmic murmur, almost like a chant. I froze, my hand hovering over the shampoo. The shower curtain shuddered, and I saw a faint bulge pressing through, inches from my shoulder. I yelped, slapped the curtain, and it snapped back. The whispers continued, growing louder, until I slammed off the water and fled, dripping cold and trembling onto the bathmat.

Jenna returned the next morning, and I told her everything. She laughed nervously, but I could see she was unnerved. She suggested we record it, to prove to ourselves it was just pipes or the neighbors’ TV. That evening, we placed a voice recorder on the vanity and turned on the shower. We waited, holding our breath. The water ran, and we heard nothing but the hiss of the spray. Then, as Jenna moved to leave, the recorder crackled. We played it back: beneath the water noise was a chorus of gutteral, inhuman groans, swelling and receding like a tide. Jenna dropped the recorder, backing away. ‘We have to call someone,’ she whispered.

But calling only made things worse. The landlord sent a plumber, who found no leaks, no drafts, nothing. The building’s history was unearthed from a neighbor: our building was once a mortuary in the 1920s, and the basement, now sealed off, was used for what they euphemistically called ‘preparation’—where bodies were kept before burial. The bathroom was directly above that space. The whispers, we realized, were the backlog of the dead, their final prayers and regrets seeping through the floorboards, trying to find a living voice to latch onto.

That night, I woke to the sound of the shower running. I crept to the bathroom and saw the curtain swaying, the silhouette of a head and shoulders against the plastic. I yanked it open—nothing but steam. But the mirror was fogged with a single word written in the condensation: ‘JOIN.’ And from the drain, I heard the chorus again, clearer this time, and there, for a heartbeat, I saw a face pressed against the shower floor, staring up at me with hollow, weeping eyes.

We moved out at the end of the month, but some things follow you. Now, in my new bathroom, I still hear whispers when the water is running—not words, but a soft, patient chorus. And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, my own reflection seems to be standing just a second too slow, as if something is trying to catch up from behind my eyes.