The Ironclad Tenant

In the fall of 2014, I found a ground-floor apartment in the once-thriving mill district of Meridian Falls, a town that had seen better days. The building was a former boarding house for factory workers, now converted into cheap rentals. The rent was absurdly low, and the place had character: high ceilings, original oak trim, and a claw-foot tub that looked like it could tell tales. I signed the lease without a second thought.

My first week was uneventful. I unpacked boxes, hung a few pictures, and settled in. But soon, I noticed small anomalies. A faucet would be left dripping when I knew I’d turned it off. A book I placed on the nightstand would appear on the kitchen counter. My keys, always on the hook by the door, would end up in the bathroom sink. I laughed it off as my own absent-mindedness, even when I found my favorite coffee mug in the oven, a place I never put it.

One night, I was jolted awake by the shrill ring of the landline in the kitchen. The phone in my bedroom was silent, and the caller ID showed ‘UNKNOWN’. I stumbled to the kitchen, heart pounding. When I picked up, there was only static, then a voice, low and gravelly, said my full name. I dropped the phone, and the line went dead. The next morning, I checked the caller ID log: it was blank.

I tried to rationalize it. Maybe a prank from a neighbor. But then the pictures began to change. I had hung a framed photograph of my parents in the hallway. One morning, it was upside down. I corrected it, and the next day, it was back. This happened repeatedly, and the photo itself seemed to age, the smiles in the picture growing more strained.

I started to hear things at night. Footsteps in the attic above, even though I was on the top floor. Whispers that seemed to come from inside the walls. And the bathtub, that beautiful claw-foot tub, would fill with water on its own, the tap turning slowly, water dark and murky.

Desperate for answers, I asked the elderly neighbor downstairs, Mrs. Kowalski, about the building’s history. She told me that in the 1920s, a Swedish immigrant named Erik Lundqvist lived in my apartment. He was a foreman at the mill, a stern man who was found dead in the bath, drowned in his own tub. The official report said suicide, but there were rumors that he had been murdered over a gambling debt. His ghost supposedly still roamed, seeking revenge on anyone who occupied his home.

I laughed nervously, but that night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I drew a bath, hoping to relax, but as the water ran, it turned a reddish-brown, and a sickly sweet smell filled the air. I jumped out, and when I looked into the water, I saw a face staring back at me – a pale, gaunt face with hollow eyes, just for a second before it dissolved.

Panic set in. I ran out of the apartment, but the door wouldn’t open. I turned the knob, pulled, but it was as if something was holding it shut. Then I heard a sound from the bathroom: the drain gurgling, and a voice, clearer now, saying, ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

I finally managed to force the door open and fled to my car. I drove to a motel on the outskirts of town. The next morning, I returned with a friend to get my things. The apartment was the same as I left it, but the photograph of my parents was now face down on the floor, shattered, and there was a note on the kitchen table in old-fashioned handwriting: ‘The lease is never over.’

I never went back. I relinquished the lease, despite the penalty. I still have nightmares about that face in the water. Sometimes, I’ll see a glimpse of it in my bathroom mirror, and I hear that voice, always in the back of my mind: ‘You shouldn’t have come.’ I moved to a different city, but I know that some leases bind more than just rent. Some bind your soul.

Now, years later, I still get an occasional phone call from that apartment. The caller ID shows ‘UNKNOWN’, and when I answer, there’s a low, gravelly voice that says my name. And then the line goes dead. I think that part of me is still trapped there, in that ironclad tub, waiting for the next tenant.